LCMS WORLD RELIEF AND HUMAN CARE – Press Release – 10/14/09

Unless they know German, members of the country’s second largest Lutheran church body could find few – if any – opportunities to read the words of their early church fathers. But a St. Louis, Mo., ministry leader fills that historical void with his comprehensive new tome, presenting many first-ever English translations of writings by the first five Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) presidents.

In At Home in the House of My Fathers: Presidential Sermons, Essays, Letters, and Addresses from the Missouri Synod’s Great Era of Unity and Growth (Lutheran Legacy Press, 826 pages, $19.95), Rev. Matthew C. Harrison presents a clear, historical view of the Synod’s first century from the pens of the church’s German-born presidents. The diverse collection opens with C.F.W. Walther’s first presidential address to the new Synod in 1848 and spans a period that includes the Civil War, the Great Depression, a presidential assassination, and unprecedented technological advances.

In the book preface, Harrison says that "the profound lack" of significant documentation from the Synod’s early years led many of his fellow LCMS members (who number some 2.4 million) to wrongly assume that their church fathers said nothing worthwhile, lived in less complicated times, and were "impervious to foibles and weaknesses we so often behold today in our church and in ourselves."

But the next 800-plus pages reveal the first presidents – Walther, Friedrich Wyneken, H.C. Schwan, Franz Pieper, and Friedrich Pfotenhauer – as men Harrison calls "thoroughly human." Three church presidents suffered at times from depression, writing about how church leadership challenges and concerns take a toll on both physical and mental health.

"They struggled along with the church with theological discord, the limits of churchly freedom in questions of worship, questions of church fellowship, church structure, hard-nosed and flippant clergy, and with congregations hard on pastors and pastors hard on congregations," writes Harrison, a former parish pastor in Iowa and Indiana who now serves as executive director of LCMS World Relief and Human Care in St. Louis.

The book also offers theological reflections to situations that remain surprisingly contemporary, addressing "Encouragement for Lonely Preachers and Teachers" (Pfotenhauer) and "The Offense of Divisions in the Church" (Pieper).

Founded by German immigrants, the LCMS used the German language during most of its first century. Nearly all significant documents from the church’s formative years "appeared in a language no longer accessible to the vast majority of pastors and people of the Missouri Synod," said Harrison, who began translating the church fathers’ words to help him "remain theologically grounded" amid his administrative duties with LCMS World Relief and Human Care, the Synod’s international mercy ministry that reaches out to people in need in 70 countries.

His hope, Harrison says, is that the book offers fellow Lutherans refreshment and encouragement "to work for the spread of the Gospel and the life of the church today, here and now."

Harrison is also the author of Christ Have Mercy: How to Put Your Faith in Action and editor of The Lonely Way: Selected Essays and Letters by Herman Sasse, both published by Concordia Publishing House.

For more information, visit www.lutheranlegacy.org or www.lcms.org/worldrelief.

If you have questions or would like more information about this press release, call LCMS World Relief and Human Care, 800-248-1930, ext. 1380 or e-mail lcms.worldrelief@lcms.org.