Preface to the 2006 Edition

PREFACE TO THE 2006 EDITION

It was by God’s gracious providence that Dr. C. F. W. Walther and the Saxons of Perry County, Missouri, found likeminded Lutheran pastors and their flocks in other states who had migrated to America from other places in Germany for the cause of God’s truth and who, like them, were  genuinely concerned about guarding their confessional, Scriptural position particularly among German immigrants.  The Franconians in Michigan were among these brethren, strangers in a strange land, suspect among their neighbors because of their foreign tongue, and yet all speaking the same thing, “perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment” (I Corinthians 1:10). Therefore, with the Godpleasing resolve to “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3), they founded the Missouri Synod in 1847 as an advisory body and service organization with aims and purposes not unlike those of our own  Concordia Lutheran Conference.  However, with German as the “official language” of the synod for at least the first fifty years of its existence and, for practical purposes, well into the twentieth century, the “voice” of our orthodox fathers often spoke in an unknown tongue as far as most second-generation Lutherans were concerned; and the dogmatical writings of Francis Pieper, Adolf Hoenecke and others were, for many years, truly accessible only to those with a working knowledge of German.  Graebner himself alluded to this in the preface to his Outlines of Doctrinal Theology, stating that his outlines were not originally intended for publication but had been prepared in English and mimeographed for the students of Concordia Seminary, where, according to a footnote, “the leading course of lectures on Dogmatic Theology…is delivered in German and Latin.”

Francis Pieper’s three-volume work, Christliche Dogmatik, for example, was published over a period of seven years –in order of appearance according to relative importance of their doctrinal content, the second volume in 1917, the third in 1920, and the first in 1924– all quite understandably written in German, Pieper’s mother tongue.  Not only for the sake of their ethnic heritage, but also for the practical purpose of being able to familiarize themselves with the elements of Christian doctrine as taught by their “fathers” (Pieper, Hoenecke, and Luther himself in his Sämmtlichen Schriften), students of theology were expected to be well-trained and fluent in German before they matriculated into the seminary.  Moreover, in not a few congregations, particularly in the middle west, pastors were expected to be able to preach in German, to teach their catechumens in German, and (in the minds of some) to witness to their orthodoxy and “confessionalism” by their use of the German language.  Sadly, to many, this reticence to make a deliberate (and practical) shift to the vernacular of the American people, particularly after seventy-five years as an American church body, said more about the provincial attitude of the Missouri Synod than of its confessional character.  Only first in 1934 did Dr. J. T. Mueller publish in English his epitome or condensation of Pieper’s Christliche Dogmatik. Professor Walter Albrecht mimeographed his own translation of Pieper for his students at Concordia Seminary in Springfield in the late thirties.  But the official English version of Pieper’s Dogmatics did not appear until 1950 in celebration of the synod’s Centennial Anniversary.

How forward-looking, then was Dr. A. L. Graebner, a second-generation German-Lutheran dogmatician, to have produced first for his own students and then permitted to be published already at the turn of the century his Outlines of Doctrinal Theology as a handy reference volume for English speaking pastors and laymen alike.  This time-honored treasure of our orthodox Lutheran heritage has been long out of print; and, with real interest in the doctrines of Holy Writ being at an all-time low since the demonstrable establishment of heterodoxy in the Missouri Synod over the past fifty years, it is no wonder that it has not been reprinted until now.  It is no secret that publishers print what is profitable to their “bottom line;” and books of solid doctrinal content with sedes doctrinae quoted from the King James Version of Scripture are hardly expected to be best-sellers or even money-makers.  The Concordia Lutheran Conference and Scriptural Publications is fully aware of marketing realities in its re-publication of Dr. Graebner’s cherished book; but it offers it herewith to the glory of God and in witness of His grace to our fellowship in over fifty years of unity based solely upon “the foundation of the apostles and prophets” (Ephesians 2:19-20), the only source and norm of Christian doctrine and practice.

April, 2006           David T. Mensing, Editor