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February 2, 2024 55 mins

In this episode, translator Michael Holmen takes us through J. W. F. Höfling's How the Lutheran Church is Constituted (Grundsätze evangelisch-lutherischer Kirchenverfassung).

In his book Höfling describes how the Lutheran church should be constituted according to the principles given in the Lutheran Confessions and in Martin Luther's writings. Höfling sees the teachings of church and ministry in the Lutheran church as being very different from what the Roman Catholic church teaches. In the wake of the 1848 revolutions, he is also concerned about the loss of the sovereigns as the Summepiskopat of the churches in Germany. He offers his advice for how the churches should work towards structuring themselves in the wake of these new conditions.

This third edition of his work has extensive endnotes, which are often more like excurses, where he elaborates on what he has said in previous editions and responds to objections from opponents.

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  • About the Host
    • Benjamin Phelps is a 2014 graduate from Martin Luther College with a Bachelor of Arts with a German emphasis. From there went on to graduate from Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary in 2018.
      Ben loves all things history and enjoys traveling. A descendant of over a dozen Lutheran pastors, Ben has an interest in his family roots, especially 19th-century Lutheranism, and has written several papers and journal articles on the topic. His 2018 thesis on Wyneken won the John Harrison Ness award and the Abdel Ross Wentz prize. He is also the recipient of two awards of commendation from the Concordia Historical Institute.
      Ben is currently a doctoral student in historical theology through Concordia Seminary's reduced residency program in St. Louis.
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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:37):
Welcome back to the LutheranHistory podcast where we cover
500 years and over 500 years ofLutheran history. Today's guest
is Michael Holman. I'll let himintroduce himself and tell us a
bit what we're going to talkabout today. Michael, thank you
for joining us.
You're welcome. Happy to behere. My name is Michael Holman

(00:59):
and I am a pastor in theMissouri Synod at St. Paul
Lutheran Church in Fairmont. Iwasn't always a member of the
Missouri Synod. I grew up in theELS in Albert Lea Minnesota, and
went to Bethany Lutheran Collegein Mankato. And a couple years

(01:24):
after that, I actually startedseminary at Bethany Lutheran
Theological Seminary in Mankato.
At the time, though, the ELS wasgoing through their debate over
the office of the ministry. Andthat was not quite settled. But
just before I started at theseminary, they passed a

(01:47):
resolution. And I don't think wewant to get into all the reasons
why I ended up deciding to leaveBethany Lutheran Theological
Seminary, but I did leave and goto the go to the seminary in
Fort Wayne, Indiana, graduatedin 2010. And then I was a pastor

(02:08):
in northeast Iowa for the last12 and a half years and just
have been Fairmont, Minnesotafor about six months. But the
the stuff that Heflin talksabout in his book are stuff that
I've been thinking about for 20years.

(02:33):
So for you, if there's apersonal reason why you would
want to study this, this, thistopic, of course, maybe applies
to to broader reasons. So, youknow, there are some
contemporary issues perhaps asthe cause of it, but this is
historical podcast. So we'lllook at the history of this book
and its content. But thank youfor sharing kind of why you were

(02:54):
why you were really attracted tothis topic. So the topic is your
translation of the book by JayW. F. piffling. I guess I should
have pronounced the first halfin German if I was going to do
the second half. Johann WilhelmFriedrich who flings book how
the Lutheran church isconstituted. That's your
translation of his title. So youtranslated this book. We've done

(03:17):
a couple translation interviewsbefore. So our audience might,
you know, we don't know whatkind of questions we're going to
ask. But first of all, let's getinto a little biographical
information on piffling. Whatcan you tell us about him? Where
were you? And maybe yourearliest impressions and how
that changed? Yeah,so I always say halfling. And my
German pronunciations not verygood. So I apologize for for

(03:41):
anybody listening. But halflingwas a was a professor at
earlington. He is one of theearlier professors maybe people
have heard of the Erling inschool. It was a it was a
seminary in Germany that hadsome interesting professors for

(04:01):
quite a number of years, andHeflin was, was a very able
Professor interested in stuffthat is still relevant today. So
he was interested in liturgical,he has a, I believe it's a two
volume work on baptism andconfirmation. And he didn't he

(04:24):
he, in a way is maybe cut shortas far as his life is concerned
because he died fairly young. Hewas only let's see is only 51
When he died, so perhaps wouldhave produced more works but and
then of course, the book that Itranslated as is known as a as

(04:48):
an quite an accomplishment aswell.
Yeah, well, so can you tell us abit about your earlier
impressions? of him and how didyou kind of approach this topic?
Yeah, well, you know, there isthat is a bit autobiographical
as well. So the way that the waythat it was always presented

(05:16):
this ministry issue, which wascontroverted was there was kind
of a spectrum. So you could puthalfling on, on one side of the
spectrum and layup on the otherside of the spectrum. And
Walther supposedly is in themiddle. And so, I, when I went

(05:40):
to Fort Wayne seminary, Iactually had to give a I had to
do an interview there in orderto be accepted at that seminary.
And one of the seminaryprofessors asked, you know,
about the Office of the ministryknew that I'd come from that.
And so I gave that kind ofanswer of, well, halfling was

(06:01):
was, was too much this way, andlayup was too much the other
way. And Walter was just right.
Of course, I hadn't readhalfling or layup. And the
professor, I'll never forget it.
The professor basically said,you don't know what you're
talking about, which is true. Ididn't know what I was talking

(06:22):
about. And hadn't read it. Sowith my impressions, you know,
early impressions of heckling iskind of that he was a boogey
man, you know, somebody that youwanted to avoid. Outside the
pale and, and there's, there's ahistory behind that, too. You

(06:44):
know, Walther didn't agree withHeflin, and so on. So he doesn't
have that good of a reputation.
And I suppose the reason why Iwasn't became interested in
translating the book is, I wasdoing some work on this issue.
And I was trying to find outwhat what was wrong with him.

(07:07):
And so I would poke around andI'd read and it was, you know,
as hard going translating, andthen you always think, well,
maybe I'm missing something,because there's someplace else
in the book. And so that, thatwas why I decided to translate
the book.

(07:28):
Yeah, so I guess to recap, I'mnot too familiar with him at
all. So as most of primarily ouraudiences or North American
Lutherans is primarily is heviewed through the filter of
maybe what Walter had to sayabout him and that's pretty much
it. Is that your perception onthat? Or is there a bit more?

(07:49):
I would say that, you know,this, the the discussion of
Heflin goes up to the presentday. So, like Kurt Marquardt
talks about him in his book onon ministry, you know, there,
he's still kind of occupies thatposition of being an extremist,

(08:09):
I suppose. And I can maybe talkabout, like, why, you know, what
is the issue behind it? Youknow, why? Why does halfling
have? What's halflings view ascompared to these others and why
he's thought to be notacceptable. And the the way that

(08:33):
most people usually talk aboutHeflin is that he kind of, well,
the the word that gets used allthe time is he's a
functionalist. And so hesupposedly takes the office of
the ministry and just says it'sa bunch of functions. And then
we can kind of arrange it and gofrom there. And so it's kind of

(08:58):
like he abstracts, thesefunctions of preaching the
gospel, administering thesacraments, and then there's no,
you know, it's all up to thechurch, for however the church
might ever want to want toarrange that. So, that was why I
kind of thought, you know, justfrom what other people would
talk about him. I always Ithought he might be some kind of

(09:22):
a rationalist or something likethat, you know, that abstracts,
abstract certain things and thenwants to rearrange it. And
again, that was really what Iwas looking for, when I was, was
trying to find from him thissuppose that thing that he does,
and he never, he never reallydid it. He will talk about the

(09:45):
Office of the ministry. Not in afunctionalist way, but he does
say that everybody has theoffice of the ministry. So all
Christians by virtue of theirbaptism, they have the office of
the ministry and that would makehim similar to Walther, you
know, Walther, after the afterthe crisis with, with Bishop

(10:09):
Stefan and such. And his studyof Luther, he came to believe
that the Office of the ministryhas, is been given to the
priesthood of all believers. Andthis then is conferred to the
public minister and to thepastor to carry it out. And then

(10:34):
Laya see is a division reallybetween the priesthood of all
believers and pastors and theyreally don't have any, anything
to do with one another. So,Heflin and Walther are similar
in the way that they will bothemphasize the way that they will

(10:58):
both emphasize how thepriesthood of all believers has
been entrusted with these thingsby Jesus, the preaching of the
Gospel, the Administering of thesacraments, and really both of
them are getting it from Luther.
And the halfling book has, hastons of the book that halfling

(11:18):
wrote has tons of quotationsfrom Luther. And that's, that's
really where where it came from.
The difference between halflingand Walther is that Walther will
say that the Office of theminister the the product, arm to
order firearms is the, what hesays in his thesis. So the

(11:42):
preaching office or the pastoraloffice, he equates those two
things. And so for Walther,there is a pastoral office that
goes back to New Testamenttimes, that we are bound to
keep, until until Christ comesagain. Whereas for Heflin, that

(12:09):
the way things were in apostolictimes is not as set he sees the
pastoral office as, as ahistorical development, and
especially a Lutheran view ofthe pastoral office, that this

(12:31):
is something that especiallycame into prominence and
clearness, at the time of theReformation where, where, where
it became well understood that,that the preaching of the gospel
in the Administering of thesacraments is what, what we have
been given. And so, at apostolictimes, halfling sees you know,

(12:57):
there's there's lots ofdifferent offices, and it isn't
clear, and it's only over thecourse of time, that that, that
the pastoral offices, somethingdistinct, really develops, and
especially a kind of monarchicalunderstanding of the pastoral
office, where there's one pastorin one congregation in a certain

(13:22):
geographical location. The NewTestament documents just don't
seem to indicate that, you know,in Corinth, for example, there
they are to take turns in theway that they in the way that
they speak. So. And he makessome other exegetical arguments

(13:43):
along those along those lines,too. But that would be the that
would be the big difference isthat Walther sees a pastoral
office as something that isrequired by God that's in the
New Testament and is bound to bekept until Christ comes again.

(14:04):
Where as halfling still sees Godinvolved. I think this is
another one of the ways thatHeflin is often misunderstood,
is that it's kind of like Godgives the functions to the
church, and then the churchfigures it out all by itself,
without God. And that'sdefinitely not halflings view

(14:26):
that that things happen in a ina God ordained and God directed
way for the organization of thechurch, the way that the the way
that different offices arise andso on and so forth.
Yeah, so we'll get more intosome of his main arguments and a

(14:48):
little bit, but I also aminterested in the context and
now that was the bigger broadercontext kind of on the spectrum
as you said, but now let's get alittle more immediately to
piffling and his Uh, kind of theoccasion for writing might be
the way to put it. So what, whatcaused him what prompted him
what made him say I'm gonna sitdown and write write this book.

(15:10):
He explicitly says in the bookthat the reason why he, he wrote
it and by the way, it startedout as an article in the
Zeitschrift the Erling andZeitschrift and then it got
expanded, got published byitself after that, and then he
expanded it with endnotes, buthe wrote that original article,

(15:32):
because he was concerned aboutwhat he calls PUC ism. But I
think we are more familiar withas the Oxford movement out of
England. And that's I thinkthat's, that's really important
and often overlooked when itcomes to heckling is what you
mentioned, the context that he'swriting in. So 1848, there are

(15:55):
democratic revolts, revolutionsthroughout Europe, these
rumblings of democracy. It thisis this is a ways after the
French Revolution, but you know,after the French Revolution,
there's a conservative turn inEurope, the age of Metternich.

(16:16):
And then 1848, you know, enoughtime has passed, and they're
beginning to have democraticrevolutions. And it appears that
the old synthesis between thechurch and, and the states are
breaking down, or the church andthe prince. So even all the way
back to Luthers time. Somepeople are familiar with the way

(16:40):
that the Reformers made theprinces, the emergency bishops,
the knock bishop, and that isbreaking down. And in some, some
locations, it's at least fromwhat I gathered from the
translation, in some locations,it seems as though some princes

(17:03):
had already given up these rolesthat they had played for, you
know, 300 years as, as kind ofGuardians and protectors of the
church and so on and so forth.
And so in this turmoil, there, Ithink there are very different
ideas about how to safeguard thefuture of the church, and when

(17:26):
one of those ideas is that thereal meat and substance of the
Christian Church, as well asauthority, should be vested in
the in the clergy, that theclergy shouldn't become these
kinds of leaders. And that isthe that is the thing that

(17:47):
halfling is very much against,he sees that as a betrayal, of
Lutheran understanding of whatthe ministry is about. So he
wants, he wants to maintain thethe teaching of the Lutheran
confession that for example, weare able, each Christian is able

(18:13):
to judge their shepherds. Sowe're not reliant upon the
pastor for telling us everythingthat we're to believe, but we
can actually judge our pastorsand whether they're being
faithful to the Word of God ornot, that members of the
congregation are able to managetheir affairs and carry out
church discipline. So it's notjust the pastor who has the

(18:38):
keys, it's not just the pastorwho can excommunicate on his own
but the, that the Christiancongregation together is able to
is able to excommunicate so thepolitics at the time, are, I
think, more important to what'sgoing on than I think is often

(19:00):
realized, where you have a kindof you have a conservatism in
politics, that can gettranslated over into how things
should be thought should be donein the church, that it should
be, you know, more monarchicalor, and not democratic. I know.
I know, especially that was athat was a thing that Wilhelm

(19:26):
Laya complained about with withWalters teaching is that he said
this is an end grab out to grab.
I was Walthers chief opponenthere in America, and they said
this is going to be a mob. Themob is going to run the church
and they were afraid of theywere afraid of chaos. So Heflin

(19:50):
is, is does not want a pastorsto be kind of monarchs for the
church. and but then on theother hand, too, he is quite
conservative or evenaristocratic and his
understanding of the church, hedoes not want the church run by
just the democratic mob. Andthis is one thing that's

(20:14):
different about Europe to where,you know, in America, we have,
you know, we freely associateourselves with, with a
congregation or a church body.
In Europe, you know, these,there is no such thing, if
you're, if you're a citizen,you're a member of the state,
and you're a member of thechurch. And halfling just hated
the idea of unbelievers who arevoters, being able to determine

(20:38):
how things should take place inthe church. So he has some, I
think they're interesting ideas,even for our context in America
to even still today about how tomake sure that the discipline
the decisions that are made inthe church are done in a, in a
responsible Christian way, bycompetence by competent people,

(21:03):
and not just, you know, not justthrown up for a vote. So he
suggests, for example, thatthere should be a kind of
governing board in the, in thecongregations and it's from
those, that representativesshould be chosen for any kind of
representation representationhigher up in the church and for

(21:25):
any conventions, and that sortof thing. So truly, he would be,
I would say, some kind of amoderate, you know, he doesn't
want the he doesn't want themob. But he also doesn't want
the, the way that the Christianchurch is operates and turned
into some kind of some kind ofmonarchy.

(21:53):
Yeah, and I think it's importantto remember to is the context of
this is kind of the era ofconfessional. Lutheranism is
kind of the main in many areas,least the main field of thought
there's what you do with aLutheran confessions is you talk
about this, and I think part ofthe degree is what of the debate

(22:14):
is what role do the confessionshave in this and he says, as I
was reading your translation,right up in the introduction, he
says, I definitely want to dothis. But there was also an
aspect in, you know, talkingabout the two other main figures
of Walther and layup, you know,what do you do with the
confessions? And Dr. That's,that's part of his context, too,

(22:35):
is he's, he's speaking within aLutheran dialogue. And he's
being aware of that as he'sprogressing. So not only are
there the very important thingsyou just mentioned, of the
political, religious,surrounding current events and
such, but also what's going onwithin the church. And he's
navigating through all of that.
Yeah, and I'm glad youmentioned, as we often do, on

(22:58):
this podcast, when we're talkingabout the Lutheran Church in
Europe, especially Germany, wehave to make sure everyone is
aware of it is very differentfrom the way development was
organized here in America. Andin a way, it's that transition
of those immigrants who cameover, they had to actually sit
down and rethink, well, what isthe church? We can't just take

(23:19):
our prince Bishop with us, youknow, we have to reconsider
this, there was a Walthergrandfather's issue. But on a
similar way, it's thoserevolutions of 1848 and other
revolutions around that time,that caused even the Lutherans
in Germany to kind of asked thesame question. So in a way,
there's, there's a differencebetween the two continents, but

(23:40):
a huge parallel. And,you know, I, this occurred to me
afterwards, you know, it was, Ithink, a lot of times that
historical component is left outof the way that people think
about these issues and the waythat I thought about them
anyway, it's kind of like, Ihave to figure out these things

(24:01):
in the abstract. When history isreally such an important
component. Because it wasn't,you know, when what at the time
of Luther, you know, Luther doesthese, these tremendous writings
in the in the late late 1510s,early 1520s, where they're,
they're tremendous, if you thinkabout it, because the way that

(24:27):
Christians had operated forhundreds and hundreds of years
is that the is that the Pope isthe Vicar of Christ and the
church is run by councils and soit's all it's all this kind of
this this structure of wealready got our judges in place

(24:48):
and these are the Pope and thecouncil's and for Pope for for
Luther. To reject that is anamazing thing. and it is very
much tied up in how youunderstand church. And also then
the ministry, you know, the, theCatholic system, they definitely

(25:09):
have a system, the Catholicsystem and it works. It's in a
sense, it's, it's consistentwith itself. And so Luther had
to do this tremendous work of,of coming to grips with what is
the church? And what is theministry, and not just in a
Catholic sense, but then he alsoneeded to figure out how are we

(25:30):
going to do church now inGermany, when we don't have
bishops, who, who organize allthese things. And so, they, they
worked it out with the prince,and they set the, you know, they
set up the structure, and itworked well enough, and they had
consistories, and the churchwent on and, and things went
pretty well, in Europe for quitesome time. And so people aren't

(25:53):
really thinking about theseissues of church and ministry
all that much, between the timeof the between the time of the
Reformation, and 1848, or atleast they're not thinking, you
know, any kind of new thoughts,or going back to the, this kind
of seminal thoughts that thatLuther was was dealing with,

(26:15):
instead, the work was kind oflike, this is why we do it. And
this is the justification thatwe have. And so in that in, you
know, with 1848, in the, in the1800s, when the old structures
are breaking up, these becomeliving and important issues
again, and you have all kinds ofexperiments taking place to you

(26:37):
know, I mean, Bishop Stefancoming over to America, I mean,
that'd be, that'd be quite agrand experiment, he wanted to
create, you know, the Zion onthe Mississippi, and, and so on,
and so forth. So you have the,that it becomes a topic that can
be discussed again, and I wishthere would be a little bit more

(26:58):
of that kind of freeness. Also,today, instead of like, this is
the right answer. And you shouldaccept it. Because that's what
that's what, you know, yourSenate or whatever has to say, I
think, I think these are worthy,worthy issues that should be

(27:18):
explored. And, you know, it hasconnections with politics and,
and all kinds of things. So themid 1800s, that's when that's
when these issues could beworked on again and discovered
again, and and Walther does ithalfling? Does it layup does it?

(27:41):
They're all they're all workingwith these issues, trying to
figure out what is what isfaithful to the Scriptures? How
best should we understand thesethings?
Yeah, that was very helpful. AndI think, is a History podcast, I
always like just talking abouthistory in and of itself, how it

(28:01):
works and how valuable it is.
And I should, you know, I didn'thave to bribe you to get into
that. You've seen the value ofhistory. And yeah, and over
time, you it seems like you'vegrown to appreciate that. The
context, I think, is the bigthing that provides. Yeah, but
you know, what is? That's why welook at certain eras in history,
because they are different. AndI think when you have those

(28:23):
moments of crisis or conflict,and you must noted part of the
two main eras and Lutheranhistory, the Reformation,
obviously, and now the 19century, 1800s, both political
and just immigration, causing alot of changes. And at least
from my, my perspective, in gradschool, the Reformation doesn't
just get the lion's share of theattention. It gets like 90%. If

(28:46):
you're talking about historicaltheology, you know, 20th century
stuff is still relevant, butthat's considered contemporary
issues, you know, and so ifyou're going to talk history,
let's talk talk reformation. Andit's obviously very important
and still probably moreimportant than the 1800s. But
still a lot happened. More so inthat time period than maybe

(29:06):
others for somesubjects. And, you know, another
thing about the 1800s, too, isthat when you think about when
you think about our, you know,confessional Lutherans, we are
conservative people. So there isan issue, there's a conservative

(29:27):
impulse. And that's prominent,prominent in the 1800s too, so
you know, a kind of throne andaltar sort of mentality where we
exalt you know, we exalt the,the king and then you know that
we'd have something similar alsoin the church. That's, that's in
the air and there's thisreaction against the kind of

(29:51):
individualism of the of theEnlightenment and you know,
another movement that would be aI'm going on at the same time to
would be the ultra Montanusposition in Rome, where, you
know, we need the Pope to settlethese things. And so the first
Vatican Council, decrees thatthe Pope is infallible, this

(30:15):
kind of this kind of a, I don'tknow, authoritarian way of, of
solving problems, you might say,in order to avoid the chaos. I
think I think that that has itseffect in, in how you understand
that how the church should berun to.

(30:42):
Yeah. And again, not to get intocontemporary issues, but it
doesn't take much to see howthat applies today. And you
mentioned politics, you know, onone hand, you maybe have the
super subjectivity of, you know,deconstruction, where, you know,
how does everything personallyaffect you? And that kind of
shapes reality or truth? Youknow, how individualistic Are
you going to get in the church?
Or the flip side? You know, the,how do you react to that? And do

(31:05):
you just kind of centralize allpower and authority to maintain
some things that need to bepreserved? Yeah, there's, if you
dig deep enough, you can see oh,wow, this, this has a lot to say
for today.
And that was something that waspretty fun about, I, one of my
favorite parts of the book,translating the book was, were

(31:28):
the Luther quotations. And he's,he's so fresh, you know. And so,
you know, every, every Christianmust judge for himself. And, you
know, if there's a, if there's apastor who is not doing what
he's supposed to be doing, thenthe congregation can remove him.

(31:52):
There's a title here, there's, Iforget the exact title. But
there's this long title thatLuther has a treatise that's
named by it that basically says,Can Christians remove their
teachers when they are not doingright? And yes, they can't.
So yeah, so hopefully, we likehim. Just, you know, in another

(32:15):
self effect, he was doinghistorical theology to do
contemporary theology. I'm notsaying about his conclusions,
but I like him just for the factthat he took that historic
approach. That's, that'shelpful. So I think you've
alluded to him, you made a lotof them, but reference to them.
But let's just get right intowhat what are his main points if

(32:36):
you can summarize those simplyand clearly for people, you
don't want to give the wholebook away? Because you want
people to buy and read it?
Right.
But we'd be here for a longtime. Yeah, to do that.
So that's the benefit of havinglimited time, we can't get
through the whole thing. Butwhat are some of the main
points?
So there's the controversialpoint, which I have already

(33:01):
alluded to, and that's hisunderstanding of the ministry.
But really, this is a work thatis what is indicated in the
title that these are theprinciples that are involved for
how the the Lutheran church isconstituted. So it's not just
the ministry that he talksabout, that became the most

(33:22):
controversial thing. But hetalks about how the Lutheran
Lutheran Church understands the,the the church, what is the
church? It's, I think somepeople might be put off by the
term he uses a lot, and that isProtestant. So he really does.

(33:46):
Contrast, there's a Catholic wayof understanding these things.
And there's a Protestant way tounderstand these things. And a
lot of us Lutherans don't liketo be lumped in with with the
rest of the with the rest of theProtestants and I can, I can
appreciate that. But if youthink about the the issues that
are involved, as far as how youunderstand church, there really

(34:09):
are kind of two alternatives.
Either the church is this isthis structure that has the pope
at its head and the bishopsunderneath him, and you need to
be connected somehow to thestructure, or the church is made
up of believers in Christ. And,you know, a seven year old,

(34:32):
knows what the church is thatit's all those who hear the
voice of the voice of the goodshepherd. And so he talks about
what is the church? He talksabout? How, what, what church
offices, that's the term helikes to use for what we

(34:54):
consider what we usually callthe pastoral office. For us, how
those should be recognized ashaving been given gifts and
examined and ordained, and howthe church should carry out
discipline. And he gives ideasfor how the congregation should

(35:21):
be how the congregation shouldbe structured. It is and towards
the end, and this is probablywhere it's, it's not as relevant
for American readers, he has alot to say about what's going on
with the bishops and how thebishop should handle the turmoil

(35:41):
that has taken place with the orexcuse me, not the bishops, the
princess, the with the how theprince is as the kind of supreme
Bishop how they should handlethe political turmoil that's
taken place. And so, yeah, it'sa it is a it is a work that is

(36:02):
is, you know, contained itselfconsistent. And it does make
this work different than forexample, like Walthers theses,
these are this is not a this isnot a collection of theses that
are then defended. This is moreof an organic understanding of,

(36:23):
of what is the church? What isthe ministry? And how should
things be? How should things beorganized in the churches? Yeah,
so, I guess now, as we mightwant to bring up kind of

(36:43):
wrapping up this discussion ofthe document, I'll get more into
your process. And ain't thatlast things you want to say
about the importance of thisspoken in translation about
benefit for reading it today? Ithink we've talked alluded to
it, but get get right to thepoint. Why is it important? Why
do from it? Yeah,I think I think I think it's

(37:05):
important, I would guess I'vealready brought this up a bit.
But I think it bears repeatingthat I think halfling has been
misused in secondary literature,where he's, instead of, instead
of taking him at his own words,and with his own conceptions of

(37:25):
things, people, for example,just label him as a
functionalist. And, and nobodywants to be that. And so he's
beyond the pale. And so let's,you know, let's, let's dismiss
him. And, you know, he doesn'twant to be a functionalist, he,
he, himself says that he doesn'twant the office understood as

(37:50):
just some collection of somecollection of functions. And
there's just there's a ton ofscholarship that has been done.
That, that he occupies that areaof the of the spectrum, and that
he, you know, it's that's justthe, it's the priesthood of all

(38:14):
believers, and the office of theministry is all confused in him.
So they say, and we don't wantto do that. And that's just not
what he says. I think anybodywho, anybody who reads what he
says, with an open mind is goingto see that that's not what he
says. And that might not meanthat people agree with

(38:38):
everything that he has to say,but I don't I don't think it's
accurate. And then plus, I thinkhe, I think that he brings a lot
of clarity to or at least that'swhat he did for me. You know,
I've mentioned that this is alittle autobiographical. And I
was kind of baffled by theseissues, all the way through

(39:02):
seminary, and even as a pastorof for for many years, and
translating this book has reallyhelped me to understand what
these things are, and get a geta firmer, firmer grasp of the
real issues instead of justdealing with names. There's I

(39:26):
think there's a lot of dealingwith names in in this
controverted area.
What we found frequently on thispodcast is this theme of you
need to summarize history.
Right? You can't realisticallyget every seminary student every

(39:49):
confirmation student to read allof Luthers works, right? You
have to summarize the points.
And that's that's there's kindof an ethical or aspect to it is
the historian you have to reallybe careful to correctly
accurately reflect the author'snot just the words, but even the

(40:10):
tensions, intentions and thecontext at times as well. And I
don't think there are too many,too many unethical Lutheran
Church historians, you know, Idon't think too many are trying
to miss misinformed studentsjust to make a point. I hope
not. But I think what oftenhappens and says, you summarize,

(40:32):
there's always the risk ofoversimplifying or miss
simplifying if that's a word.
And so it's one of the thingsthat you have personally
discovered as you went throughthis process, but it's also a
good reminder for all of us aswe, as we deal with history, if
it's something important, thatyou care about enough to get
worked up about, well maybe diginto the primary sources and see
for yourself, and that'sprobably the best way to

(40:53):
approach a lot of these things.
Well said, Yeah, well, I've saidit before. So if people are
faithfully listening to thispodcast are gonna say, Oh, here
he goes again. But I think thatpoint might be a main one to to
take away from all of theseprojects. So you talked a bit
about responses, at leastperceptions, anything about kind

(41:16):
of the immediate response andthe historic context that you
can say about how peopleresponded to his work?
Yes, it did not go. So. A lot ofpeople were appreciative. He
mentions this in the he mentionsthis in the the forwards to

(41:38):
subsequent editions that a lotof people are appreciative of,
of the work that he did andagreed with him. There were a
few people who disagreed withhim layup was an ongoing
discussion in ongoing discussionwith him, I guess, layup calls

(42:00):
Heflin his chief opponent to hisviews. There's another guy named
Munch Meyer, who writes, writesarticles against halfling and
Heflin defends them. So there isa there is an exchange. That
exchange doesn't go on for tooterribly long, though, because I

(42:20):
believe the third edition, thecopyright for the third edition,
I think, is 15 or 1853. But Ithink he concludes the
manuscript in 1852. But then hedies in 1853. He dies in April
of 1853. So that you know thatthat discussion didn't continue

(42:42):
on. And then, you know, inAmerica to Walther, by the way
really independently discovers alot of the same stuff that
Heflin talks about in his book,you know, in the struggles after
removing Bishop Stefan and so onand so forth in his reading, his
his reading and Luther, heindependently learns and his

(43:07):
teaching a lot of the samestuff. And I think in America,
he was the he was the prominenttheologian and so he really, he
was the one that was studied. Idon't think halfling is heavily
studied all that much. But thereis and this is how I got on the

(43:28):
topic, actually in a way was,there is in the Wisconsin Synod.
Kaler jpk, there was familiarwith halfling and approves,
approves of his writing, andthen also perhaps Scholler, to
read his read his originalarticle in the Zeitschrift. And

(43:52):
that perhaps affected hisunderstanding of of the ministry
as well, but those would maybebe a little bit more
controversial. The the WisconsinSenate, in their official
statement actually says wereject Heflin. So those might be
fighting words, but I'm not youknow, I think there could be

(44:16):
something to investigate there.
Yeah, well, that's that'sanother question. I like to ask
our guests, you know, what couldyou do with this work? And
that's maybe one topic to seecontinental American responses
and of course, a lot ofWisconsin listeners to and maybe
that would be a topic to lookinto. Yeah, another area and I

(44:37):
guess I this might be a researcharea for me honestly, you know,
when Walter and Winnick and bothtraveled to Germany, and I
noticed your dates he died in in53. So he he was around for
there late 1851, early 1852. Andthat was basically church and
ministry debate with with Leahand other reasons too, but that

(44:58):
was really the primary thinggoing to that same area of
northern Bavaria, and I've readthrough that report, but I
forgot. Do you know do theyvisit if link or is that an area
for further investigation?
Yes, they do. Yeah. And it's inhouse of my father's that was
put out. It's translated andYeah, he does talk about going

(45:19):
to Erling and, and, and has agood discussion. They're very,
they're very, you know, verycordial and it's a good
discussion that he has with theprofessor's there. But he
complains that they hold toHeflin and, and they they just
weren't able to come to ameeting of the minds.

(45:41):
Yeah, I think that trip largelyis considered not to have been a
success. For the purpose that Ithink it kind of it gets spun
off as oh, what we did, we did alot of talking. But yeah,
ultimately, obviously, the layupgroup as well. There was a
parting of ways. Yeah. Well,interesting. Thanks for sharing
that little tidbit, I willcertainly have to do a bit more

(46:04):
research and that if I continuemy studies the way I think they
will be going. So yeah, thanksfor some of the response to
that. And the broader historicalcontext, some of these
characters might seem a littlemore isolated, you dig a little
bit? Well, they're not isolatedat all. They're really connected
to the broader era and contextand are interactive with that.
So now, let's shift gears now isin our final couple of minutes

(46:27):
here on the podcast today. Canyou tell us about the actual
work that you did of researchingthis, but also translating it?
What was your process like whatwas that experience like?
Well, it I guess it started itstarted with a friend. So I

(46:50):
mentioned that I was ratherbaffled by this whole area. And,
and then I discovered anotherauthor that I foolishly rejected
without ever having read him andthat was JP Kaler. And that was
many years ago. And so I read JPKeeler for many years and got

(47:10):
interested in the Protestantsand, and then, you know, there
was, so I had a friend thatassigned me a paper for, he
wanted me to, to talk about theWisconsin Synod position on
ministry, and given my given myhistory, and leaving the ELS and
so on and so forth. It was I wasin a way content with being

(47:37):
baffled by all these things, andnot and not, and not having firm
conclusions, because then youcan get along with everybody.
And, but he, he assigned me thispaper, so I had to I did
research, and I and I did I readthe primary sources when it
comes to the Wisconsin Senateposition to I read the word

(48:00):
Tulsans. And, you know, wasintrigued, interested, and so on
and so forth. And so, wheneveryou it's very common whenever
you are looking at the whiskwhat what people say about the
Wisconsin Center position isthat it's halfling ITE, and that

(48:22):
comes up somewhat frequently.
And so I that was where Istarted to poke around and
Heflin and I finished a projectand I had a I had a great friend
who sadly died. Earlier thisyear, he was a Protestant
pastor. And I'd worked on sometranslations with him. And so
after I'd finished someprojects, I told him, You know,

(48:45):
I'd like to work on this book,and he helped me out and he
agreed to do what he had donewith some other stuff where I
would translate stuff and thenhe'd go over it and find all my
mistakes. So that's what wethat's what we did with with
Heflin, we started in June of2020. And I'm not an expert at

(49:08):
German. And so it's a laborioustask. And we worked on it for
three years. And I have to alsoadmit that I got an awful lot of
help from Google Translate. And,and I know I would have gotten
things wrong that GoogleTranslate helped me catch if I

(49:31):
didn't if I wouldn't have usedit as extensively as I did. So
that was that was how it cameabout. Once the book was done. I
did offer the manuscript toNorthwestern publishing house
and Concordia. Neither of themwere interested in publishing

(49:52):
it, I don't think they you know,it's I'm not sure if it will
ever be a hot seller, you know,so That was a so that's when I
said, Okay, I'll publish itmyself through Amazon, which I
had done with a previous book.
That was the project that Ifinished up in 2020, I'd
published another book by aProtestant pastor Paul Hensel,

(50:17):
on hardening in the church. Andso I was familiar with, with how
you had to format that, all thatsort of stuff in order to in
order to get it out.
Right, well, I think, most 21stcentury German translators
unless they're 100%, confidentand fluent might might confess
Google Translate had somethingto do with the process. You're

(50:39):
honest enough to say that I'vedefinitely used it too for not
obviously booking stuff. Butother other projects. Yeah.
Very, very, very interesting inthat in that process. So final
question. And I guess it can goone of two ways. You've already
alluded to some areas wheremaybe a further research could
be done. Anything else you thinkcould be done with this topic,
this this resource for furtherresearch? Or, also, are you

(51:03):
planning on doing anything elsein historical theology?
Yeah, there is actually a kindof fun thing that I'm hoping to
do someday is I'd like to get tothe library in Mequon. And look
at the Zeitschrift where thiswere halflings original article
was printed, because supposedly,there are markings by the hand

(51:30):
of John Schaller. I learnedabout that from a jewel plus a
jewel plus he did a series ofarticles on Heflin. And so he
tracked that down and I'vereally liked Look at that. And I
do I do personally believe thatthere is a there is a strong

(51:52):
connection between halfling andespecially JP Kaler and John
Schaller. So, John Schaller isoften neglected as far as as far
as his contribution especiallyto church and ministry actually,
it's usually August peepers, theone that gets all the gets all
the acclaim. But John shoulderis the is the first of the

(52:16):
Wauwatosa uns to writeexplicitly on ministry. He has
an essay on the origins of theNew Testament ministry. And I
think it's a brilliant essay.
I'm very intriguing, and I wouldsay is perhaps even an advance
or an advance of heckling, butor maybe more presented more
succinctly lively and stuff likethat. So I think there's

(52:42):
definitely worthwhile things to,to look at, as far as the
Wisconsin Senate's connection toHeflin, which which undoubtedly,
came from JP Kaler.

(53:03):
Yeah, that'd be veryinteresting. Again, see the
further connections andapplications you know, what,
what influence was there? Ormaybe not, right? Yeah, that's
always good. To get into thearchives, like you said, you can
see the actual, I was gonna say,Oh, you might be able to find
the document on archive orGoogle Books. But if you're
looking for someone's personalnotes, that's when you do the

(53:23):
fun in person research. At leastit's fun for me.
I would, I'd really like to seethe stuff that he underlines,
and, you know, I'm not sure if Icould decipher if he makes any
comments, but I'd really like tosee what, what impressed him
about about that article. Yeah.
Personally, I have to be carefulwhich books I lend out, because
sometimes they may write somesnarky comments and other people

(53:46):
to read. So yeah, yeah. Well,we'll maybe we'll get lucky and
get something spicy andinteresting for for historians
in the comments. So. All right.
Well, we're about at the end ofour time today. So thank you,
Pastor Holman for your time.
It's been a good time talkingwith you. Yeah.
Likewise,
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