45930 Divine Call CTCR final - The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

congregation whether they had any objections to this man becoming their
pastor. 32
It must be remembered, of course, that our situation in the twenty-first
century is not identical with that of the sixteenth century (e.g., government
officials are not involved in the process). Moreover, the examples taken from
the written constitutions express the ideals of the church leaders, not necessarily
everyday practice. Also remarkable is the fact that many ecclesiastical
constitutions do not provide any specific directions for the procedure.
C. F. W. WALTHER AND THE LUTHERAN
CHURCH—MISSOURI SYNOD
Because of the circumstances surrounding the founding of The Lutheran
Church—Missouri Synod, C. F. W. Walther wrote extensively on the
topic of the call. The origins of the Synod’s position on church and ministry
can be traced to a debate at Altenburg, Missouri. Church and ministry continued
to be topics of debate in contacts with J. A. A. Grabau and J. K. W.
Loehe. Since Walther was responsible for the Missouri Synod’s foundation
and organization, he found it necessary to address the topic frequently
over the years. 33
Obtaining a Pastor
A key work for this discussion of the theology and practice of the
divine call is Walther’s The Proper Form of an Evangelical Lutheran Local Congregation
Independent of the State (referred to briefly as Rechte Gestalt) in
which he applied the theology of his work on Church and Ministry (Kirche
und Amt) to the congregation. 34 Walther wrote the former work to address
the question of how a congregation should order itself in a country that
32
Sehling, 377-80.
33
The best known of Walther’s writings on this subject is The Voice of Our Church on the
Question of Church and Ministry (Die Stimme unserer Kirche in der Frage von Kirche und Amt). It
contains nine theses on the church and ten on the pastoral office. Walther presented these
theses and the outline of a book to the synodical convention in 1851, which discussed and
approved them. From this followed Walther’s best-known book on the subject, Kirche und
Amt, in 1852. In his later work The Proper Form of an Evangelical Lutheran Local Congregation
Independent of the State (Die Rechte Gestalt einer vom Staat unabhängigen Evangelisch-
Lutherischen Ortsgemeinde [St. Louis: Aug. Wiebusch u. Sohn, 1963]) Walther applied the theology
of the earlier book to the practical life of the congregation.
34
For an analysis of Rechte Gestalt, see Norman E. Nagel, “The Divine Call in Die Rechte
Gestalt of C. F. W. Walther, Concordia Theological Quarterly 59 (July 1995): 161-90.
17