Strangers to Sisters - Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary Library: Essays

are sitting, like ourselves, theoretically on Scripture, but
practically, as we no longer do, squarely on the fathers. 60
In short, the very things that made the Norwegian Hermeneutic the vital force in
the confessional Lutheran struggles of the 19 th century - a pious devotional study of
Scripture and a zealous defense of the truth in the face of error - were set aside. When
one examines the Madison Settlement one is amazed that the successors of Koren, Preus,
and Ottesen could be so far from the spirit of their predecessors, men who had zealously
defended even minor points of doctrine with Spirit-given tenacity. Even Koren, in his
final years, was troubled by this trend among the newer generation of pastors, teachers
and young people. In a 1904 address speech at Luther College, Koren warns the young
people assembled,
All too often the Christian faith is conceived as being a
theory, a doctrinal system which, if one accepts it as being
correct, then he is a Christian, a believer. The true Christian
faith is not just something that one memorizes. It is not a
theory. It is the most practical thing in the world. It is in
itself a practice and where it is present there it moves a
person in a definite direction – namely, to God. It rules a
person and, as the Word of God says, it is active in love…
Now it is unfortunately true that counterfeit faith is very
common an external acceptance without the heart…Such
faith accomplishes nothing…It is the Word that we must
cling to…
At this point I am thinking of the great neglect among our
Norwegian people, namely, their infrequent use of the
Word of God…God’s Word alone can teach us the
difference between the true and the false confession of
faith. 61
Similarly he warns the Synod in his last presidential address in 1909,
60 August Pieper, “Forward to Volume 10 of the Quartalschrift” in The Wauwatosa Theology: Volume I
Editor Curtis Jahn (Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House, 1997), 113-114.
61 U.V. Koren, “Speech at Luther College May 1 1904,” Translation by C.M Gullerud. Journal of Theology
31, no.1 (March 1991), 2.
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