Missing Letters to Lutheran Pastors, Hermann Sasse

By Lutheran News Inc

Missing Letters to Lutheran Pastors, Hermann Sasse letters and articles by Hermann Sasse, not included in the several volumes of Herman Sasse's Letters to Lutheran Pastors already published by the "official" church press. He is regarded by many as the greatest Lutheran theologian of the 20th Century. Missing Letters will

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lutheran News Inc
• Release date: Nov 23, 2015
• ISBN: 9780983240990

Book preview

MISSING LETTERS TO LUTHERAN PASTORS

Edited by

Herman J. Otten

Foreword by

Jacob Ehrhard

Lutheran News, Inc.

New Haven, Missouri

MISSING LETTERS TO LUTHERAN PASTORS

Copyright (c) 2015 Lutheran News, Inc. All Rights Reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form, except for quotations in reviews, articles, and speeches, without permisison from the publisher

Library of Congress Card

Lutheran News, Inc.

684 Luther Lane

New Haven, MO 63068

Published 2014

Printed in the United States of America

Lightning Source, Inc., La Vergne, TN

epub ISBN 13: 978-0-9832409-9-0

Comments

Of great interest was Herman Sasse’s letter of April 18th, 1960 found on pages 19 to 21. In that letter he discusses the Herman Otten case in which the St. Louis seminary agreed to show cause why student Otten should not be certified. Sasse writes, Everybody knows that some of your professors have publicly taught things not reconcilable with the Lutheran Confessions. It was obvious from Sasse’s comments that had he been on the Board of Appeals the vote would have been 6-5 that the seminary had not shown cause, even as it would have been 7-5 had this reviewer been on that Board.

Of interest in that same letter was Sasse’s comment about one of the professors at the sem of whom he wrote, as I am convinced is certainly concerned about the whole case. Sasse did identity this professor as he closed the letter. It was Martin Franzmann, this writer’s most esteemed professor.

On page 43 Sasse again brought to the attention of his readers the ancient struggle in Rome, who has the final authority, pope or councils? At Vatican II it was the pope. The council had voted to discuss a document drawn up by conservatives on two sources of Revelation and on inerrancy and inspiration. It was the schema, the pope withdrew it from discussion.

On pages 71-73 Sasse discusses what he thinks are shortcomings in the Brief Statement. A very interesting read, he would have agreed with those from the WELS, their president, a Franzmann brother, and faculty back in the early 60’s when this young pastor accompanied Prs. Romoser, Mackenzie, Kretzmann, Burgdorf, and Dr. Becker to discuss church and ministry at the WELS seminary in Thiensville.

–Pastor Walter Otten

This essay makes use of Herman Sasse’s monumental book Was Heißt Lutherisch (What Does It Mean to Be Lutheran) to assess the status of confessional Lutheranism within the LCMS. Sasse’s analysis of the unique identity of the Lutheran Church as the confessional church par excellance serves as a timely reminder that Lutheranism, alone among the denominations of Christendom, defines itself solely by its doctrine - that which we believe, teach and confess. Unlike all the others, for whom polity, liturgy, institutional identity, magnitude or antiquity are decisive, Lutheranism must be defined by the faithful confession of the pure doctrine of the Word of God, no matter what the cost of that faithful confession may be, institutionally or personally. The content of Sasse’s book is presented in summary. The relevance of Sasse’s words to the contemporary circumstances of the LCMS, whose self-styled Confessionals have been all too willing to sacrifice theological integrity for institutional control, is nothing less than remarkable. Herman Sasse embodied Lutheranism’s fearless commitment to the Truth and was content to pay its cost, scorning the world’s recognition and fame, to offer the good confession.

–Pastor Laurence White

Our Savior Lutheran Church

Houston, Texas

While at the seminary, many teachers formed me confessionally: Preus, Scaer, Marquart, Weinrich, Wenthe. While out of the seminary, no teacher so continues hewing me confessionally as Herman Sasse. I was present in the study of President Harrison (back at Westgate, Iowa, in the early‘90s) a number of times as he was working on the Sasse translations of The Lonely Way, never knowing what comfort these words would give me in these past 14 years of shepherding on the lonely way.

May our Lord continue to raise up confessional teachers to guide the Church Catholic along the straight, narrow, and often, lonely way.

–Pastor Michael C. Brockman

Associate Pastor for Hispanic Outreach

Grace Lutheran Church, Wichita, Kansas

Lutherans Commemorating Sasse’s 100th Birthday

Sasse said CN editor should be thanked not condemned

Christian News, June 26, 1995

Left to right: Dr. David Scaer, Dr. Hermann Sasse, Professor Kurt Marquart. This previously unpublished photo was taken by the editor of Christian News in 1959 at the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s convention in San Francisco when Marquart, Scaer, and the editor took Sasse out for lunch. After the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod’s Council of Presidents repudiated Christian News in 1969, Sasse wrote: Somebody should rise and publicly thank Herman Otten for his brave fight. We all were not sometimes fully agreed with him. He has made blunders. But why was it left to a young pastor to speak where others should have spoken? Sasse is regarded throughout the Lutheran world as one of the greatest Lutheran theologians of the twentieth century. LCMS President Jack Preus subscribed to Christian News for Dr. Sasse.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to Luke Otten for arranging the publication of this volume and to Naomi Finck and Natalie Hoerstkamp for type-setting and Alvin Schmidt for helpful suggestions.

Sasse at the LCMS’s 1959 Convention

A Theological Convocation in San Francisco prior to the 1959 Convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod where Dr. Hermann Sasse made a presentation. How many of the famous Lutheran theologians and leaders in the photo below can you identify? Dr. Alfred Fuerbringer, president of Concordia Seminary, St. Louis is at the lower left. Dr. Jackayya from India is at the podium. Drs. Noack, Hoopmann, and Sasse from Australia are at the inside of the table to the right. Professor Kurt Marquart is the young kid on the block in the rear with the clerical collar. Some others on the photo are Lutheran theologians and leaders from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, Brazil, and England. Some of them are Dr. Martin Franzmann, Dr. Herman Harms, Professor Elmer Moeller, Dr. Theodore Nickel, Dr. Arthur Nitz, Dr. George Pierce, Dr. Herbert Boumann, Dr. Roland Wiederaenders, Dr. Paul Zimmermann, Dr. George Beto, Dr. William Danker, Professor Julian Anderson, Dr. Oscar Naumann, Rev. Herbert Schmidt, Professor Frederic Blume, and Dr. Thomas Coates.

[Arrows pointing to Kurt Marquart (L) and Hermann Sasse (R)]

The following statement is taken from the June 22, 1959 Convention Bulletin of the 1959 San Francisco Convention of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. It should be noted that Dr. Sasse at the LCMS’s 1959 Convention strongly supported the adoption of the controversial Resolution No. 9 which reaffirmed the Brief Statement of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Although Dr. Sasse’s church was a member of the LWF, Dr. Sasse opposed membership in the LWF. The editor of Christian News spoke with Dr. Sasse at the 1959 convention.

The following statement is taken from the June 22, 1959 Convention Bulletin of the 1959 San Francisco Convention of the LCMS:

Dr. Hermann Sasse, professor of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church’s seminary in Adelaide, Australia, made a 90-minute presentation at the Friday evening session of the convention on Lutheran ecumenicity. "The Missouri Synod is one of the last fortresses of Lutheranism," he said. After characterizing true ecumenicity as the quest for the true Church, the noted church historian pointed out that in free America, the quest for the Church became the quest for unity. He said that in America the ecumenical movement has stemmed from two sources: the federation program of Reformed Protestantism, and the plans for organic unity as espoused by the Anglican tradition and implemented by the Lambeth Conference. Both alternatives fail, the German-Australian theologian said, because they reject the sovereignty of the Scriptures and its emphasis on salvation by faith alone, and, in the case of the Reformed tradition, devaluate the Sacraments. He warned that "we must not be Pharisees in approaching these problems ... we must not despair. We know our duty. We have to go back to Scripture and the Confessions of the fathers. We have missed opportunities, and have not worked as hard as we should have... Inside the Lutheran World Federation or outside, we must work, not as enemies, not in hostility, but as those who seek and ask for the truth of God, and ask that such efforts be blessed. Many lonely theologians of the world are looking at us. May God bless all endeavors to rediscover the Lutheran Biblical doctrine of the Church ... the way of the Church is the way of the Cross." Dr. Sasse, whose church body is a member of the LWF and not in fellowship with the Missouri Synod, also participated in the theological conference which preceded the convention.

—Christian News, September 25, 1995

Dr. Hermann Sasse to Herman Otten, 1959

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD

PREFACE

Seeking Advice from Sasse

A Specification of Doctrinal Issues

Sasse Offers to Help Otten – Shares Concerns

Australian Theses of Agreement

A Cover Up

St. Louis Seminary Still Selling Sasse’s Letter

Sasse’s Concern for St. Louis Seminary

Even the Best of Conservatives Hesitate to Testify Vs. Colleagues

Lutherans Forgetting Their Heritage

Conversations with Rome

The Church Dies from Apostasy, Not Martyrdom

ALC Lutherans Clash on Inerrancy of the Bible

Sasse – Schiotz – Inerrancy Articles

Response to Schiotz Address – Sasse Affirms Inerrancy

Sasse – Schiotz Inerrancy

Sasse Seeks Meeting with Otten

Concordia Seminary, Springfield Honors Sasse with D.D

Sasse Responds to Unauthorized Publication

Withdrawn Sasse Essay Still for Sale at St. Louis Seminary

Holy Church or Holy Writ?

Goebel Style Propaganda in Church

Concentrate on Ecumenical Issue

Brief Statement on Creation

Need for a 20th Century Formula of Concord

Sasse, Scharlemann and Inerrancy

A Word of Warning

Missouri’s Decision on ALC Fellowship

The Sacrament of the Altar

Abortion Statement

Sola Scriptura

JAO Preus

The Bible and Luther David Hedegard Festschrift

A Public Thanks to Richard Jungkuntz

St. Louis Seminary Journal Attacks Inerrancy of Bible

Focus on the Lutherans

Reply to Lutherans Down Under

The WELS – Holy Communion – Tom Hardt

Congratulations on 80th Birthday

Praying for Justice for Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven and Otten

The Great Ecumenical Creed

Hermann Sasse: Sacra Scriptura

A Tale of Two Books

Hermann Sasse and the LCMS – Inerrancy of Holy Scripture

Losing a Fatherly Friend

We Shall Miss Him

A Pastor Dies

A Tribute to Dr. Sasse

God Took Him

Official Lutheran Publications in U.S. Ignore Sasse’s Death

In Memoriam – Dr. Hermann Sasse

The Doctrine of Baptism

Sasse Symposium – Conference of the Decade

The Gospel Dies with the Supper

A Lutheran Tragedy at Christmas: Hermann Sasse Recollects

Bethany Reformation Lectures

What Does It Mean to Be Lutheran?

The Lonely Way

Sasse’s Voice

Hermann Sasse Rejected Absolute Scriptural Inerrancy

"Here We Stand"

Logia – Bonhoeffer – Sasse

The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President Explains Why Hermann Sasse is An Important Voice to Hear Today

The Brief Statement and Inerrancy – In Defense of Sasse

Harrison and the LCMS Need a Living Sasse

Christian News Told the Truth – Barmen Declaration, Barth, and Sasse

INDEX

Foreword

I was first introduced to Hermann Sasse as an undergraduate student at Concordia University—River Forest, Illinois. Along with C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and Gene Edward Veith’s The Spirituality of the Cross, Sasse’s Here We Stand was a gateway to a depth of Christian thinking I had not experienced before. Sasse’s historical survey of the Reformation reveals him to be a masterful Church historian. It’s not just that he knows names and dates and places and events. He narrates Church history. And he does so in such a way that we Lutherans are not on the outside looking in, but are caught up in the story. For Sasse, the Lutheran Church did not originate in 1530 with the presentation of the Augsburg Confession, or in 1517 with the nailing of Luther’s Ninety-five Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany. It begins with Christ sending out a handful of men to be His witnesses to Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

In these letters, Sasse again shows himself to be the exceptional Church historian. Of great importance for the Christian of 2015 is his statement on abortion. The question of life from conception to birth is not a problem that the Church began to wrestle with after Roe v. Wade in 1973. Sasse brings us to the early Church and weaves our story with theirs, showing how the Christian Church of the first centuries distinguished itself from the world and the pagan religions by its concern for the life of pre-born children. This was not a philosophical idea for the early Church, but one grounded in the revelation of the Holy Scripture, and that God Himself was incarnate as a fetus in the womb of a virgin mother.

For Sasse, to be Lutheran is to have a distinctly Lutheran confession. In a letter to Herman Otten, Sasse writes, What you need, or rather what we all need, is that Holy Scripture and the confessions of our Church are regained as the living truth which our time needs (Personal letter dated 1 December, 1968). It is not enough to have the Scriptures, but we must also agree as to what the Scriptures say. Unity is found in confession, and for Sasse, that unity is expressed in the seventh article of the Augsburg Confession: For the true unity of the Church it is enough to agree about the doctrine of the Gospel and the administration of the Sacraments (Augsburg Confession, VII. 2). Time and again he returns to this simple, yet profound, confession of what the Church is and where it can be found.

This confession is what guided Sasse in his work in the Ecumenical Movement. The earlier union movements in Germany between the Lutheran and Reformed Churches provided a backdrop for the early to mid-twentieth century effort to unite the various Christian Church bodies under one umbrella. The movement, however, was bound to fail because of its reliance on uniting in works of service while minimizing the doctrinal differences of the Churches’ confessions. Doctrine divides, service unites, was the watchword of the Ecumenical Movement, but the satis est of the Church’s unity, the sufficiency of true ecumenism of the seventh article of the Augsburg Confession, is found precisely in agreement concerning the doctrine of the Gospel and the Sacraments. Lacking this agreement, there can never be true, churchly unity.

Much of this present volume deals with what the sainted Dr. Ronald Feuerhahn calls a lacuna in Sasse’s teaching, namely his view of Holy Scripture. "On the Doctrine De Scriptura Sacra—Sasse’s fourteenth letter to Lutheran pastors—presents a learned and in-depth treatment of the pure fountain and source of God’s truth," the Holy Scriptures. However, with respect to the teaching of the inspiration of Scriptures, Sasse wobbles. He confesses the inspiration of Scripture, but allows that only the theological portions of Holy Scripture are inspired. Matters treating of historical data or pertaining to a particular ancient world view could and did contain errors and even contradictions, though he maintained that such errors were minor in nature.

Shortly after the circulation of this letter, which was written in 1950, Sasse changed his mind. That he changed his opinion is interesting enough, but the way in which it changed has more to say to the Church today. It was not until he came to Australia and found himself in the middle of the fellowship discussions between two Lutheran Churches, that his views on Scripture became more aligned with the traditional Lutheran view. By theological conversation and a common agreement, the Theses on Scripture and Inspiration, which were integral to the merger of the two Lutheran Church bodies of Australia. When asked about his former view of inspiration, Sasse pointed not to his own private view, but to the common agreement of his Church. The lesson of Sasse’s biography is that not every theological error (and what theologian is without his own theological lacuna) is indicative of systemic heresy. Furthermore, the solution to what Francis Pieper calls a felicitous inconsistency, is also found in the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren in the Church (Smalcald Articles, III.IV).

But even though his views on Holy Scripture and its inspiration changed, his Letter 14 continued to be circulated and published without his permission. Several of his private letters to Herman Otten reveal his displeasure that he continued to be appealed to by those who would attack the inspiration and authority of the Holy Scriptures. A detailed history and examination of the saga of Sasse’s view of Holy Scriptures can be found in the Concordia Seminary Monograph Series: Scripture and the Church: Selected Essays of Hermann Sasse, edited by Jeffrey J. Kloha and Ronald R. Feuerhahn. The personal letters in this present volume serve to round out the story.

Given the extended controversy over his view of Holy Scripture, some Lutherans may be skeptical of his writings. But perhaps a word from one of my own teachers, Professor Kurt Marquart, himself a student of Dr. Sasse as a young pastor in Australia, might offer a critique and solution to Sasse’s Scripture problem:

Nevertheless, it is true that a certain ambiguity haunted Sasse’s writings on this subject. If a grateful pupil be permitted to conjecture about a venerable and learned master’s oversight, I would say that Sasse never succeeded in applying his deeply incarnational, Chalcedonian theology of the cross to Holy Scripture with the same consistency with which he had applied it to the sacraments and to the Church. The theology of the cross demands that the mysteries of God acting under earthly masks—including, therefore, Holy Scripture—be taken not at their apparent face value, in terms of human phenomena, but at their real face value, as given by God in His Word. Theology, also bibliology, must be done from above, that is, in reliance on God’s authority alone, without substantive admixtures from below, that is, from the wisdom and philosophy of the world (Theological Observer: ‘A Tale of Two Books’, Concordia Theological Quarterly, July-October 1986).

Sasse provided his own solution to the Scripture problem, even if he never quite saw it clearly for himself. The Christian faith revealed in Holy Scripture is a faith of God coming to man, clothed in humility, masking His glory. Reason alone can never find the Son of God under the flesh of Jesus. It can never find God’s goodness hidden under suffering and the cross. It can never see Baptism as something other than plain water. It can never conclude that the true body and blood of Jesus are present in the bread and wine. Reason only sees things according to their outward appearance. But not so with the things of God. God does not see as man sees, because a man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks into the heart (1 Samuel 16:7b). In the heart is where faith resides, and it is only through faith that we can see, contrary to our own reason and strength, that the words of Holy Scripture are truly the words of the Holy Spirit.

Jacob W Ehrhard, Pastor

Trinity Lutheran Church

New Haven, MO

PREFACE

Hermann Otto Erich Sasse was born in Germany on July 17, 1895, the eldest of five children. He died on August 8, 1976. Sasse entered the German army in 1916. He was awarded the Iron Cross, Second class, the second highest honor in the German military at that time. Only six out of 150 of the men Sargent Sasse brought into the Battle of Passchendaele survived. He was ordained in St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Berlin, on June 13, 1920. He served as a pastor for fourteen years. A large double parish at St. Nicolai had some 10,000 member. Sasse retained a pastoral heart, a love for people, even after he became a world famous theologian. He was a true Seelsorger, a carer of souls who visited people.

In 1924 he married Charlotte Naumann. A year later he went to Hartford Theological Seminary in the U.S. on a Master of Sacred Theology program. His doctoral supervisors at the University of Berlin were Adolf von Harnack, Karl Holl, Reinhold Seeberg, and Julius Kaftan. Later Sasse participated in the anti-Nazi cause.

The first meeting of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President John Behnken with Sasse was at the Sasse home in Erlangen, Germany, in November 1945. Behnken asked Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, to invite Sasse to lecture at the seminary. Professor Ronald Feuerhahn writes in Hermann Sasse - A Man for Our Times: "Professor F.E. Mayer was a member of the small committee of the faculty which sought to block the invitation. The reasons offered by the faculty are not merely interesting; they also may indicate something about the changing theological climate of the Missouri Synod which is very instructive for today. In the end he (Sasse) was invited and arrived on 5 June 1948.

Once in St. Louis, discomfort with Sasse’s opinions continued. His ‘pessimistic’ view of things in the German Churches, noted in the faculty concerns, stood in sharp contrast to the optimism of the St. Louis theologians. It is perhaps significant that on this visit Sasse was given more time for lectures for the Wisconsin Synod and the American Lutheran Church than for his hosts (p. 19, Herman Sasse - A Man of Our Times).

In 1933 Sasse was called to the chair of Church history and symbolics at Erlangen University in Germany. In 1949 he moved to Australia, serving on the faculty of Immanuel Theological Seminary in North Adelaide. Feuerhahn concludes his essay by quoting Richard Jungkuntz: "But there are Lutherans in America, as there are in Europe and Australia, who today thank God that from Hermann Sasse they have learned – in a better way than they knew before – ‘was heist Lutherisch’: what it means to be Lutheran" (p. 29, Herman Sasse - A Man of Our Times).

The back cover of Hermann Sasse: A Man for Our Times?, published by Concordia Academic Press in 1998, has these testimonials:

Here is a fascinating review of 20th century international Lutheranism as dramatically personified in the Germanic jeremiad of one of its most controversial and influential participants, Hermann Sasse...

--William H. Lazareth, Bishop Emeritus

Metropolitan New York Synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

Hermann Sasse, through his writings, continues to influence confessional Lutheranism around the world...

--Ralph May, President,

The Lutheran Church-Canada

It is evident that Hermann Sasse is indeed a theologian and a man for our time. The theological issues that he dealt with continue to be the issues that the Lutheran Church is wrestling with....

--Roger D. Pittelko, President Emeritus

The English District, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

No Narrow Minded Lutheran

When Encounter, a youth magazine in Australia, published Sasse’s article The Sacrament of the Altar in 1970, it commented: Dr. Sasse is not a narrow-minded Lutheran — one who knows and understands only one point of view . . . He has been studying sacramental theology and the history of the sacraments for about 40 years in close connection with theologians of various Churches, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican, Reformed and Presbyterians, among them the greatest experts of these Churches.

This book has several articles on Sasse’s death. Although the official publications of the major Lutheran Church bodies in the U.S. and their seminaries virtually remained silent at the time, Dr. Carl McIntire, president of the International Council of Churches and editor of the Christian Beacon, reported Sasse’s death and highly commended Sasse and his long battle for the truth of God’s Word. Sasse and McIntire had exchanged letters. Dr. David Hedegard, a Lutheran theologian from Sweden, who was a vice-president of the International Council of Churches, was close to Sasse. A Festschrift honoring Hedegard includes a chapter by Sasse titled Luther and the Bible.

Otten first met Hedegard in the 1950s when Hedegard was teaching at Faith Seminary in Philadelphia. When Hedegard was a guest in the Otten home in New Haven, Missouri, Otten introduced him to William Beck, translator of An American Translation of the Bible. The two soon found they both supported Luther’s principles of translation. While Sasse and Hedegard took issue with the Reformed theology of McIntire and others in the ICCC, both sided with the ICCC in its battle with the World Council of Churches. Hedegard served as a reporter for Christian News at a WCC Assembly. ICCC leaders placed a copy of Otten’s Baal or God in the registration packet of each one of the more than 1,000 delegates coming from many nations at the ICCC Congress in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1965. There Otten met with Lutheran theologians such as Hedegard and Uuras Saarnivaara. They sided with Sasse’s position. Otten also promoted Sasse’s scriptural and Lutheran position at ICCC congresses and executive committee meetings in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Florida, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, Berlin, Germany, and Santiago, Chile, where he was invited to speak. While Sasse’s position was not appreciated by the WCC, the National Council of Churches, and Lutheran World Federation, it was championed by the ICCC.

The Old American Lutheran Church (ALC)

Sasse recognized some sixty years ago that there were still some confessional Lutheran theologians in the American Lutheran Church. He spoke at some of their seminaries, including Wartburg and Capital. At the time Otten preached in an American Lutheran Church (ALC) congregation when he worked for a farmer whose wife had graduated from the ALC’s Capital University in Ohio, which still had some confessional Lutheran professors. Lutheran Hour speaker, Walter Maier, also recognized that the ALC had truly Lutheran professors such as Herman Preus, Leupold and Reu, who walked in the footsteps of Charles Porterfield Krauth, author of the Conservative Reformation and Its Theology, published by Augsburg and then reprinted by the LCMS’s Concordia Publishing House (CPH). Dr. Lawrence Rast, now president of Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, is the editor of the latest printing of Krauth’s book.

Sasse took sharp issue with Dialog: Lutheran Journal of Theology, published in the U.S., which listed as editors and contributors many of the world’s leading Lutheran theologians. Carl Braaten, an editor of Christian Dogmatics, published by Fortress Press, was one of the first editors of Dialog.

When Sasse left the liberal Lutheran Church in Germany and went to Australia, the move from Germany to Australia came at great financial sacrifice. He left a well-paying position and assurance of a good pension for a small Church body, which could only pay a small salary and a $300 a year pension. Sasse wrote to Otten when he retired that he had to cancel his subscription to all publications except Christian News because of his financial situation. Concordia Seminary, Springfield, Illinois, President Jacob Preus first subscribed to Christian News for Sasse urging Sasse to read CN (then Lutheran News) to keep up with what was happening in Lutheranism.

Otten and Marquart Meet Sasse in 1959

Kurt Marquart and Herman Otten met Sasse in 1959 at the LCMS’s convention in San Francisco, where, thanks to LCMS president John W. Behnken, Sasse was the convention essayist.

Marquart, Otten, David Scaer, Kenneth Fisher, and Walter Otten went to the 1959 convention to inform LCMS leaders that there were professors at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, who denied the inerrancy of the Bible, promoted the destructive notions of Biblical higher criticism, were open to evolution, and denied direct messianic prophecy. Marquart and Otten also met with other overseas theologians who attended the 1959 convention, including Australian Lutheran Church leaders. Behnken later asked Otten to come to his home office in St. Louis. There he showed Otten a call he had from an Australian Church for Otten. Behnken asked Otten to withdraw what he had reported about the theology of several St. Louis seminary professors, declare all professors were orthodox to get certified by the seminary, and then accept the call to Australia. While Otten was not adverse to going to Australia, he said it would not be honest to say all the St. Louis professors were orthodox Lutheran theologians. Since the St. Louis seminary still insisted Otten had not told the truth about the seminary, Behnken could not give Otten the call.

Letters from Sasse in this volume show that Sasse was willing to plead with Behnken for Otten’s certification. Otten had sent Sasse documentation of the Seminary vs. Otten case, which Otten and Marquart had prepared while Marquart was serving as a pastor in Weatherford, Texas. It included A Specification of Doctrinal Issues in this volume (pp. 2-9).

When the Seminary vs. Otten case was heard by the LCMS’s convention’s elected Board of Appeals, (five attorneys and six pastor-theologians), Marquart, Otten’s lead counsel, could not submit letters from Sasse since it would not be possible for the seminary’s attorneys to examine Sasse. The Board of Appeals traveled five times to St. Louis to hear the case. Professors and students testified under oath, and documents were submitted. A court reporter took down every word. The 1,050 page transcript is at the Concordia Historical Institute.

Letters from Sasse show that he remained a strong supporter of Otten and Christian News until his death. When Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri, won its case with the LCMS after being expelled from the LCMS for calling Otten to be its pastor, Sasse rejoiced that a congregation won over the bureaucracy. Sasse wrote that Christian News was about the only publication regularly reporting the truth about what was going on in Lutheranism. He hoped CN would receive the necessary support to continue.

Sola Scriptura (Cover and masthead, pp. 124-126)

This volume includes a previously unpublished essay which Sasse had sent to Sola Scriptura for publication. Sasse was an editorial representative of Sola Scriptura. This theological journal was published by Lutheran News a non-profit organization at Trinity Lutheran Church, New Haven, Missouri. Some of the others listed on the masthead were such Christian News subscribers as Robert Preus, John Warwick Montgomery, Robert Hoerber, Alvin Wagner, Laurence Faulstick, Walter Lammerts, William Oesch, Neelak Tjernagel, Glen Peglau, David Hedegard, Eugene Klug, Vernon Harley, J. Val Andreae, Reuben Redal, John Baur, Bjarne Teigen, Marcus Lang, Waldo Werning, Kent Spaulding, Paul Schnelle, Walter Dissen, Roy Guess, Arnold Jonas, Harry Marks, Oswald Skov, Dan and Jean Simpson, Eugene Kaufield, Carl Baase, Siegbert Becker, Bruce Adams, Marku Sarela, Richard Hanneberg, Elmer Reimnitz, Alvin Schmidt, and other U.S. and overseas readers of Christian News interested in an international Lutheran theological publication which promoted uniting true Lutherans around the world.

A Current Formula of Concord

This present volume includes letters from Sasse commenting on the LCMS’s Brief Statement and the inerrancy of Scripture. When Marquart and Otten were roommates at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, they promoted a 20th Century Formula of Concord which would reaffirm the ancient creeds of Christendom, the Book of Concord of 1580 and also speak to such current issues as evolution, abortion, historical criticism, the nature of truth, homosexuality, the ordination of women, etc. Christian News later recommended that such confessional Lutheran theologians as Sasse, Wilhelm Oesch, Robert Preus, Marquart, Siegbert Becker, Henry Koch and others work on such a statement. It should cover more than the LCMS’s Brief Statement.

Letters and articles in this volume show that Sasse’s view on the inerrancy of the Bible changed through the years. Kurt Marquart in 1988 wrote in A Tale of Two Books in this volume: Nevertheless, it is true that a certain ambiguity haunted Sasse’s writing on this subject. If a grateful pupil were permitted to conjecture about a venerable and learned master’s oversight, I would say that Sasse never succeeded in applying his deeply incarnational, Chalcedonian theology of the cross to Holy Scripture with the same consistency with which he had applied it to the sacraments and to the Church. Where, after all, is the theologian who has no ‘blind spot’?

Matthew Harrison, Sasse and Christian News

Matthew Harrison, President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, wrote this year in the preface to Volume III - Letters to Lutheran Pastors, 1957-1969: "WITH THIS THIRD VOLUME of Hermann Sasse’s Letters to Lutheran Pastors, an effort of nearly a quarter century comes to a close. There is, to be sure, much more of Sasse to translate and publish, and others have and are taking up the challenge. What a journey this has been for me! With two volumes of The Lonely Way and with three volumes of Letters to Lutheran Pastors, we have now put into print some 2,500 pages of Sasse" (xi).

Harrison wrote to Christian News on October 30, 1990 from Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Indiana: "Dear Rev. Otten, Some few months ago an archive was established at Walther Memorial Library to collect the letters and papers of Hermann Sasse. I am writing you to ask whether you might be willing to help us in this regard. I know several significant letters which were published in Christian News. Would you be willing to copy the correspondence you exchanged with Sasse and send these copies to us? Whatever you may send to us will be filed in the archive. Thank you for your kind consideration, Matthew Harrison, Res. Asst. P.S. We can cover the cost."

CN replied: "Enclosed is my Sasse file. Please copy what you want and return to me. You will find more material in Christian News and the Christian News Encyclopedia, check Index. God’s blessings, Herman Otten."

The letters and articles in the Sasse file in CN’s research center sent to Harrison are in this volume on Missing Letters to Lutheran Pastors. Hardly any of it is in the 2,500 pages of the books published by CPH and edited by Matthew Harrison. It is simply not politically correct in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod to recognize that such confessional Lutheran theologians as Hermann Sasse and Kurt Marquart, supported the work of Christian News, insisted that Otten won his case with Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and that the seminary and the LCMS bureaucracy broke the by-laws of the LCMS when they refused to recognize the ruling of the LCMS’s Commission on Appeals.

Why This Volume

Those who today are regularly reading Christian News, as the Australians Hermann Sasse and Kurt Marquart did, know that today Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has departed further from the text of the Bible than it did when Marquart and Otten first informed Sasse in 1959 about what was going on at the St. Louis seminary and elsewhere in the LCMS. At that time the seminary never would have invited a pro-lesbian, universalist, non-Trinitarian theologian like Dr. Daisy Machado from Union Theological Seminary, New York, to lecture at the St. Louis seminary on how to do mission work. The seminary never would have invited the long line of liberals who support the pro-abortion, pro-homosexual, and pro-evolution position of their denomination to lecture on how to preach. The seminary would never have accepted money from the pro-theistic evolution American Association for the Advancement of Science. The AAAS only funds those who do not insist on a six day and young earth creation. The seminary would never have recommended as its alumni book of the year a book by pro-evolutionist Bishop John Polkinghorne.

The seminary’s theological journal would never have published articles by pro-evolutionist Matthew Becker and editorials