Zion on the Mississippi: The Settlement of the Saxon Lutherans in Missouri 1839-1841

by Walter O. Forster

This is a history of the Lutherans who came from Germany, settled in Missouri, and founded what later became the Missouri Synod. I read it to try to better understand the origins of LCMS polity. I got the book from interlibrary loan.

Basically, what they had in Germany was not so much Lutheranism as Stephanism; they followed a pastor named Martin Stephan. Once settled in America, they began to realize that Stephan was a womanizer, they exiled him, and then they had to figure out who they were without their charismatic leader.

These notes are from my jottings on note cards, and I had to return the book, so they are somewhat scattered, but here goes:

They came from Saxony, a region of east Germany that includes Leipzig and Dresden. In November 1838, they traveled from Dresden to Breman, to New Orleans, to St. Louis. One of the five ships that left was lost at sea.

Aufklärung (their term for the Enlightenment): In religion, it led to rationalis, disbelief in miracles, higher criticism.

German nationalism meant a national religion was needed. In 1817, the 300th anniversary of the Reformation, the Prussian Union of Churches was formed by decree from King Frederick Wilhelm III. The Stephanites were still pretty rationalistic. Delitzsch was one of them (20), though he didn’t emigrate.

Walther was at the University of Leipzig. His professors were Rationalistic. It was impossible for orthodox pastors to be appointed to a church in Saxony by the liberal consistory. (26)

Stephan was born in 1777 and was an orphan. He was taught the linen-weaving trade. There was a Bohemian church, St. John’s in Dresden, which had special rules and was allowed to call their own pastor. They called Stephan in 1810, though he wasn’t qualified for any other position in the state church. He was a competant but not brilliant orator. (34)

Stephan took over a pietistic small group (a “collegium philobiblicum”) from a fanatic named Kuhn. “His system was morbid… Anyone who did not arrive at his convictions through a period of trial similar in intensity to his own was unconverted and unawakened. The spirit not utterly crushed in a protracted battle with an overstimulated conscience was irrevocably damned. Peace of mind was to be attained only after the bitterest of struggles. [The followers of Kuhn] erred, inasmuch as they made a Savior of repentance, fear, and alarm.” (38)

Walther gave up even normal rest and nourishment as “sinful distractions.” Ascetic zeal.

Stephan attracted “the young and unstable.” Of all pastors who emigrated with Stephan, only one was older than 35. (52)

In Dresden, Stephan arranged night walks, meetings around impromptu campfires (sometimes overnight), and walked through the woods with a single female companion (his servant Louise Gunther). (68) He was accused of “improper advances” (72). The nocturnal meetings (“conventicles” – secret religious meetings) were prohibited by a judge (91).

Stephan was like TR or LBJ – ready to act. When they began meeting to discuss emigrating, they wrote a detailed constitution at only their second meeting. An episcopal polity was assumed. (Re: polity, see also Mundinger’s “Goverment in the Missouri Synod”)

He took a stroll with another family’s servant, didn’t arrive at the night meeting until 5am??! (100-101). Very suspicious. The people wanted a “sign” (99) that they should emigrate, and it came (104) when MS was ousted.

Their plans for emigration: Organize a church with a bishop and nine deacons. Ecclesiastical, hierarchical structure. They were unsure about settling in Missouri because of the slave trade and the “prevailing lynching law.” (127) They also considered Cincinnati.

They had an Emigration Code. They planned a “semi-autonomous theocratic community.” (134) Powerful clergy and wealthy class. MS would be “the primate” (“the first divine”), Bishop.

Excommunication from the church would mean banishment from the colony. They’d have an eight-hour work day. Strictly censored press. Municipal rec centers. (136)

Some young girls ran away from family to join the emigration. (152) Much fo the group was poor. For some, that was their motive for leaving, not their religious views. (156)

The ships: The Copernicus, the Johann Georg, the Amalia (which sank), the Olbers, the Republik.

The Stephanites exchanged a liberal government that prescribed liturgy for freedom. But this was “enjoyed also by others,” who expressed opinions and criticism openly. They were “an earlier phase of the Aufklärung.” (243+)

They had “travelling regulations,” including that few were allowed to approach MS without express permission! (280)

A lawyer named Marbach threatened to bring division between ecclesiastical and secular power, but MS stopped him. (283) MS brought “spiritual and emotional lashings” (284) to Marbach when he had recently lost a child while on the voyage to America. He confined Mrs. Marbach to her home.

Stephan’s investiture, making him their Bishop, calls him “the last, unshakable pillar on the ruins of the now devestated Lutheran Church in Germany.” (288) The people pledged obedience to him in all spiritual and temporal matters (292). Walther signed this investiture; he was not independent of MS as some have claimed (303).

MS “was holding his episcopal court and living in style” while the other 600 were “miserably fed and probably even more miserably housed.” (330) He declared that no one could accept work “which bound him for more than a single day” (325) – so they were forced to be day laborers.

So the Saxons were attacked in the press for accepting low wages, putting them on the defensive. (348) In 1839, they moved to settle in Perry County.

On May 5, 1839, a sermon by Pastor Lober convicted two women to confess improper relations with Stephan (392). Then more came forward, in a 19th century version of the “Me Too” movement. A series of adulteries or failed seductions was exposed.

MS was away in Perry City, and everyone (Walther, etc.) agreed he should be removed. They sent an emissary to Perry, not to deal with MS but to win over the colonists who were with him.

Their financial problems were also listed as a reason for his removal (398). Though he wasn’t solely responsible, he became a scapegoat. “Everyone else had been grossly deceived, he alone was the hoary profligate and trickster.”

Walther went to Perry City and undermined MS, telling people to ignore his instructions re: construction of houses. When MS was kicked out, they performed a humiliating public search of his home. They sent him across the river, where he rented a room from a farmer. He had about $1100.

Polity: Pastors ruled as the “ministerium,” but now laymen demanded (439) formal division of authority between secular and ecclesial. “The project of building a theocratic Zion was doomed.” (446)

“Gesellschaft” - a rationally developed social community.

Others said the Saxons went to church so much that they’d surely starve. (449)

Once people settled, they could look at recent events more analytically. They saw the hierarchical system as doomed. Walther said their relation to MS was one of idolatry, and emigrating had been like children leaving their old, sick parents (515, in an 1841 letter).

March 1841: The people were in misery and depression, wanting to return to Germany. At a group meeting, Marbach said there “was no church among them.” Walther came forward soon after with a series of proposals, heavily influenced by Carl Vehse’s protest. He made Vehse’s ideas less extreme and was able to defend them theologically.

Carl Vehse: Dresden archivist. In 1839, he proposed changing the Gesellschaft structure. Break up the common treasury (the “Credit Fund”), pay back some creditors and investors. Or else they’d never be able to pay any.

Even impoverished, they had land set aside and were planning a school (a “Gymnasium”?).

Vehse wrote 6 theses on the office of the ministry in August 1839 (462). His 100 page protest asserted the priesthood of all believers. “The office of the ministry is no more than a public service.” Emphasized the rights of the congregation, repudiated the hierarchical system as “papistic.” Said congregations can “create the office of the ministry” at will, apart from an ordained pastor.

The clergy response continued the practice of “blame Stephan.” (468) “For the sake of peace they would give up the episcopal form of polity.”

Lots of sniping at Vehse, who “gave up in disgust and returned to Germany” in December, 1839 (470). Sailing back on the Johann Georg, he wrote, “Die Stephansche Auswanderung” (The Stephanite Emigration), published in 1840.

Walther: A body of Christians could organize at any time to constitute a church. If so, they have the right to call a pastor.

April 1841, at the log cabin college at Altenburg, there was a formal discussion of the moderate (Walther) and radical (Marbach) positions. “The Altenburg Debate” (523+)

They emerged from 2+ years of chaos with a lucid, Scriptural solution and a workable church polity (with thanks for Vehse). Walther became their leader from this point.

The day after the debate, Walther left for St. Louis to accept a call, taking the place of his brother Otto Hermann Walther, who had died in January.

After the chaos, flourishing. The haters left (Marbach, whose wife never wanted to come anyway, and who lost 5 kids here!). In 1847, they formed The Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. By 1947 (100 years later), they covered all the states and some other countries. Wanted a less provincial name, but ironically adoped one even more provincial, Missouri Synod. Yet reflective of their origin story. Not a German preservation society; formed in America.