Recent items are always added at or near the top and were written by the Director of the ACP Center.
2008
Director on the program for the December 1-2, 2008, New England Chapter retreat of the Society for the Holy Trinity, Ender's Island, CT.
I will be up for an hour and a half on Monday evening and an hour and a half on Tuesday mornng. You do not need to be a member to attend (I am not). For details contact Chapter Dean Robert McGurn. http://www.societyholytrinity.org/
Director to speak at January 21-23, 2009, Fort Wayne seminary symposium
I have agreed to make a presentation on "A Pilgrimage Not Taken: Arthur Carl Piepkorn" at the 32nd Annual Symposium on the Lutheran Confessions, which will be held at Concordia Seminary in Fort Wayne, January 21-23, 2009.
The theme of the Symposium is "A Last Look at Critical Times: Missouri from the 1950s to the 1970s."
My topic title was assigned and refers to the fact that Piepkorn's death prevented him from facing some of the decisions his colleagues faced. Instead, I will show how his discovery in 1928 of the sacramental character of the Lutheran started him on a course (or "pilgrimage," if you wish) from which he never departed.
Paul Robert Sauer will make a presentation on "Out of Step or Ahead of His Times: Berthold von Schenk . Sauer is the pastor of von Schenk's church in the Bronx and Associate Editor of the Lutheran Forum.
I have also been invited to be present for the symposium on exegetical theology, which begins on January 20.
The list of speakers and the schedule for the two symposia are at
http://www.ctsfw.edu/events/symposia/index.php
http://www.ctsfw.edu/events/symposia/schedule.php
Piepkorn fans may wish to eat some of their meals together, and perhaps get together sometime when the schedule allows. If you will attend either symposium and want to be included, please let me know as soon as you can, so I can make arrangements.
Joyful anticipation vs. weary resignation
In the fall of 1936, Arthur Carl Piepkorn wrote "Missionary Miseries By One Who Had Them" about his experiences as missionary-at-large in Chisholm, Minnesota, from 1933-36. Although he never published the document, at one point he wrote: "If this screed is ever published, I fear it will be misunderstood." So he clearly knew that it might be published some day.
The document was published with an introduction and notes by me in the Una Sancta/Fall issue of Lutheran Forum/Forum Letter package. This fascinating account alone is worth the modest price of a subscription to Lutheran Forum. If you are a Piepkorn fan, you must not miss it. Here are some of the details:
In April of 1933, after completing a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and most of a post-doctoral fellowship in Iraq and Palestine, Piepkorn applied for an assignment to "foreign missions or some domestic appointment."
In early August when he was in London, he learned that he had been assigned as missionary-at-large in Chisholm, canceled a short vacation that he had planned, and left the next day for the U.S. He was installed on August 27th. The powers that be in the Missouri Synod must have thought he was "safe" there.
Chisholm is located on the Mesabi Iron Range, 75 miles northwest of Duluth and five miles north of Hibbing (Bob Dylan was born in Duluth and grew up in Hibbing.) Unemployment was 24.9% in 1932 and may have been double or triple that in this mining town on the Mesabi Iron Range, which had shrunk from about eight and a half to six thousand during the preceding decade. The worst years of the Depression lay yet ahead.
The church building of Grace Church had no basement, was heated by a wood stove in the nave and was apparently covered with black painted sheets of metal, a construction material I recall seeing when I was a child (see the only photo I have, in the Photos page of this website). He had it moved back to partially hide the walls from passersby.
Piepkorn's parish was 900 square miles. In addition to serving Grace Lutheran Church in Chisholm, he served four preaching stations and several Civilian Conservation Corps camps (he joined the Army reserves to have easier access to the latter).
The temperature dropped as low as 54 degrees below zero absolute while Piepkorn was there. He had breakdowns of various kinds with his second hand 1930 Ford up to 26 miles from the nearest town, usually in the winter. Once he had to trundle a flaccid tire 11 miles. Another time his car tipped over in a blinding snowstorm four miles from the nearest telephone.
He arrived in debt and had to pay his own office expenses, postage, advertising, etc., and still owed more than $1000.00 when he wrote this document. He wore a Roman collar as street garb because it was inexpensive and practical, and because the Methodist minister in town did and his congregation expected him to look as professional as the Methodist minister.
His congregation in Chisholm increased by nine-fold during the three years. Part way through his tenure the per communicant giving average of his congregation was higher than the Minnesota District average.
For a number of months in the summer of 1936, bachelor mission pastors did not receive their salary because the Home Mission Board did not have the funds. He had met Miriam Soedergren, who worked as a nurse in southern Minnesota, and they wanted to marry, but he could not afford to on his meager salary.
He closes the document by saying he is not complaining but, like St. Paul, is endeavoring "in whatsoever condition I am therewith to be content.... As long as my Lord wants me to remain in [Chisholm], I am content to remain. If it is His will that I should not marry, I am content, and I anticipate that I shall be as successful in living chastely in the future as I have been in the past.... And in all these things I am not wearily resigned, but I shall accept the indications of His will with joyful anticipation."
Shortly after he wrote this "screed," he received a call to work once again for the Lutheran Laymen's League and the Lutheran Hour, at a salary nearly three times his salary in Chisholm. He accepted and he and Miriam were united in Holy Matrimony four months later on St. Stepen's Day.
The outdoor scences for North Country (staring Charlieze Theron) were filmed in Eveleth, ten miles east of Chisholm and give a good idea of what the region looks like on bleak winter days.
A personal connection: Piepkorn often attended circuit meetings at my home congregation in the more propserous lake country town of Grand Rapids, 35 miles west of Chisholm. I experienced 56 degrees below absolute and walked to school once when it was 40 below, absolute. The pastor of my home congregation often invited Piepkorn for meals, and the congregation gave mission offerings to Grace Church at least twice while he was there. The pastor's wife liked to brag that she had been born in the same delivery room as Judy Garland (I was born in the same small hospital but don't know if the same delivery room was still in use.) Garland first performed on a stage in Grand Rapids, but was gone before Piepkorn arrived in Chisholm and was not famous yet. See the Pipekorn Anecdotes page for some anecdotes from the son of that pastor. Frederick von Heusen, the first pastor I have a memory of, was a very good friend of Piepkorn and served my congregation before and after WWII, and as an Army chaplain in the Pacific during the War.
If you do not subscribe to the The Lutheran Forum/Forum Letter package or have let your subscription lapse, now is a good time to subscribe or resubscribe at alpb.org or by calling Donna at 607-746-7511. The editors of both publications are members of the ELCA; the associate editors are both members of the LCMS.
June 2008:
Piepkorn's stand on the Tiber
In 2008, John Damm, one of Piepkorn's colleagues from 1966-73, told the Center Director that once when Piepkorn and he were discussing the topic of conversion to Roman Catholicism, Piepkorn said: "I will march to the gate of Rome and stand and plant my banner" in opposition to such conversions.
This quotation is thoroughly consistent with everything the Center Director has found in Piepkorn's personal and professional writings or heard him say.
Attack on Piepkorn
A Center correspondent alerted me to an unsigned article entitled "PIEPKORN--NO CONFESSIONAL LUTHERAN" on page 3 of the April 28, 2008, issue of a newspaper that will not be named here.
The article, which was apparently authored by the editor of that newspaper, asserts that "After [Walter A.] Maier died, Piepkorn drifted toward the left. He no longer insisted on the inerrancy of the Bible, the historicity of the Genesis account of creation, and the immortality of the soul. He rejected the scriptural doctrine of creation."
To prove Piepkorn's liberalism, the article refers to a book review that Piepkorn wrote. The book review proves nothing of the kind, and the reference to it is a classic example of how this newspaper distorts the truth.
In truth, Piepkorn held the Confessional position on all of those teachings. What he opposed was binding consciences with extra-Confessional interpretations of the Sacred Scripture. The interpretations may be correct. That was not the issue. The issue was making them binding on consciences in a church in which pastors and teachers are bound by oath to the Sacred Scriptures as interpreted by the Lutheran Confessions.
As soon as I get copyright permission from CPH to reprint the full book review, I plan to send out a response to this article in the Center Newsletter, or in a separate email. I will also post the response on the Center website.
Reviews of Volume 2
Richard O. Johnson, Forum Letter, January 2008.
George Tavard, AA (+2007), Catholic Historical Review, early 2008.
Ralph Klein (a colleague of Piepkorn's), Currents in Theology and Missions, early 2008.
Both Tavard and Klein sent copies of their reviews to me before they were published allowing me to correct mistakes in them.
Edward H. Schroeder posted a two part, 5,400 word review of Volume 2 on Crossings.org (Thursday Theology, November 22 and 29). Unfortunately, Ed did not avail himself of my offer to read through his review before it was posted, and makes numerous misstatements of Piepkorn's theology and attributes positions to him that he did not hold.
Ed did the same in a paragraph about Piepkorn in Ed's review of Paul Zimmerman's A Seminary in Crisis (Thursday Theology, September 6 and 13) which he sent to me in September. I alerted Ed to the errors, but no correction was made.
Since Piepkorn can no longer defend himself, I interspersed comments in Ed's review of Volume 2 and sent it to Ed for his review. He replied using a phrase that he says Piepkorn often used when he was challenged by his colleagues: "You may be right." In May I sent the review with my interspersed comments to Crossings.org, asking them to post it so their readers could evaluate it for themselves. I resent the review to the President of Crossings on June 25. I had to write to contact him again before he finally replied, denying my request. He says that Ed is the one in charge though Ed says "the Kids" are. I will be sending out the reviews with my reponses in a Center newsletter soon.
April 2008:
A letter to the editor in the Christmass/Winter issue of Lutheran Forum refers to the phrase "Where orthodoxy is optional, sooner or later orthodoxy will be proscribed" as "Neuhaus' law." A letter to the editor by the Center Director in the Easter/Spring issue quotes the following statement by Arthur Carl Piepkorn from 1937: "Church history reveals a...formula for the penetration of unbelief, repeated...in modern Protestantism with disheartening uniformity: First the demand for toleration, then the deamand for equal rights, finally the use of the ecclesiastical machinery for the disenfranchisement and suppression of the dissident orthodox minority." ("The Contribution of the Lutheran Church to American Protestantism," Augustana Quarterly, October 1937). Richard John Neuhaus, who was a student of Piepkorn, has since told the director that he does not know the origin of the formula but recalls that Augustine says something very much like it against the Donatists.
Richard O. Johnson reviewed Volume 2 in the January Forum Letter. Ralph Klein's appeared in Currents in Theology and Missions. and the Catholic Historcial Review They should appear some time in Pro Ecclesia, the Lutheran Quarterly, the Concordia Journal, Condordia Theological Quarterly, Dialog and First Things.
The Perpetua and Felicitas, Martyrs 2008 Newsletter went out on March 7. It is much shorter than the last one, All Saints Day, 2007.
CONTENTS
1. Website now easier to navigate
2. Piepkorn on the Sacred Ministry and the Church (Presentation made by the Director)
3. “The Beloved, Legendary Piepkorn,” by George Lindbeck
4. Edward H. Schroeder on Arthur Carl Piepkorn - Expanded
5. Update on Volume 2 of the Selected Writings of Arthur Carl Piepkorn.
>Price increase (from $21.95 to $22.00)
>How to do a computerized search of Volume 2
>Description and ordering information on the Website
>Seminarians and other students’ special
>Latest libraries to order it
>Use with lay people
>Required text at Concordia University Bronxville
>Bookstores that carry it
>Book reviews by Tavard, Klein and Schroeder
>“What Others Are Saying” about Volume 2
6. Donate a Copy of Volume 2
7. Progress Report on Volumes 3 and 4
8. Needed: A copy of the Concordia Triglotta
"The Beloved, Legenday Piepkorn" and the Book Reviews and "What Others Are Saying" are all available on this website. Item 4. will be added at some point.
There are now multiple ways to navigate this website (see on the "Welcome" page and at the top and bottom of all pages). Many pages have been added or added to. One of the new pages is "Patron of the Arts."
Volume 2 is being used in at least one Lutheran seminary course, and as a required text in a Lutheran University.
A NEW Page, "The Beloved, Legendary Piepkorn" has been added to this website. It contains the comments that George Lindbeck, Robert L. Wilken, and David Lotz, made about Blessed Arthur Carl Piepkorn on the 25th Anniversary of his death.
Also on that page is "Arthur Carl Piepkorn, a Saint?", which contains comments by those three scholars and and Richard John Neuhaus about Father Piepkorn's saintly character. If you did not know Piepkorn personally, reading this page is a must.
If you own the book, please post a REVIEW on Search Google Books and/or on WorldCat.org.
Photos of the Director are now posted on "The Director and Mt. Whitney" page.
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2007
A number of new anecdotes have been added to the "Piepkorn Anecdotes" page, with more to come as time permits.
On December 2-3, 2007, the Director made a presentation on Piepkorn at the New England Chapter Retreat of the Society for the Holy Trinity. The presenation was supposed to be for only two hours, but so many came (most not members) just to hear the presentation that the schedule was cleared and the Director was up for five hours. He was invited to come back and said he would, but a date was not set. Check with Dean Jack Whritenour.
"The beloved, legendary Piepkorn" page was added in 10/07. "Was Piepkorn a Saint?" is on the last half of it.
Volume 2 of the Selected Writings of Arthur Carl Piepkorn was published in June 2007. See the Welcome page, and "The Selected Writings of Piepkorn" page for details.
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2006
Early on Palm/Passion Sunday evening, April 9, 2006, the Rev. John G. Schettenhelm of Orange, CT, stopped to turn into the driveway to his home on his 1989 Harley Davidson and was hit from behind by a car. He was pronounced dead at the hospital. He is survived by his wife Rachael and their 13 year old twin sons, Adam and Luke. More than 35 Missouri Synod pastors, plus clergy from other churches attended the packed Holy Communion service, held at Holy Cross Lutheran in Trumbull to accomodate more people. John supported the Arthur Carl Piepkorn Center by loaning and donating copies of Una Sancta that he owned and in other ways. May he rest in peace and may light eternal shine upon him!
Rachael has since donated all of John's Una Sanctas and copies of the Concordia Theological Monthlly to the Center. Thanks to Rachael!
On February 13-14, 2006, I made a five hour Power Point presentation on Piepkorn and his theology to the New York City Metropolitan Chapter of the Society of the Holy Trinity (S.T.S.)at the Ignatius retreat House in Manhasset, Long Island.
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2005
"Arthur Carl Piepkorn, Prophet?" Piepkorn did not claim to be a prophet since, as he obviousl enjoyed saying, he "was not the seventh son of a seventh son." This article looks at an article he published in 1937 that, if not prophetic, was remarkably prescient of the problems facing the Church today. To cite just one example: In referring to what he calls "the collapse of conservatism" he says the formula is:
"First the demand for toleration, then the demand for equal rights, finally the use of the eccclesiastical machinery for the disfranchisement and suppression of the dissident orthodox minority." 1650 words.
Thanks to Carl Anton for the donation of a complete set of the American edition of Luther's Works! Piepkorn usually cited the Weimar edition and did much of his writing before the American edition came out. This set will enable me to provide cross references to the American edition.
Links to Piepkorn writings have now been posted
on the "Links to Downloadable/Printable Files" page to the following:
"Christ Today: His Presence in the Sacraments," Lutheran World, 1963. Also in The Church, 1993.
The Conduct of the Service, revised 1965 edition
The Survival of the Historic Vestments in the Lutheran Church after 1555 second edition, 1958.
"The Gospel and All Its Articles" was printed in the Fall 2005 issue of Lutheran Forum. Ronald Bagnall should be commended for his efforts to convert its Chicago Style Manual footnotes to the LF style. I am receiving a lot of positive reactions to the article on a MS blog and by email. I will email a slightly revised 9-11-05 version (done after the earlier version was at the printers) to anyone who requests it from me at xxpseckerxx@xsnet.net (remove the x's). I will also post this version on this website at some point. More below.
Did you know that Piepkorn recommended an informal worship service for what we would call "seekers"? It was a separate service, not the regular service, with Holy Communion, for members. More on this is on the "Worship" page.
"The Gospel and All Its Articles" is in the Fall 2005 issue of Lutheran Forum. One peer reviewer calls it "a watershed article" that contains "a very, very important discovery." A Missouri Synod District President calls it "a great bombshell." A retired LSTC professor calls it a "fine article" and recommends people read it. A scond calls it a "very compelling essay." A third says it is "good" article. A Lutheran University professor of note calls it a "nice article."
"The Third Temptation" -- St. Matthew 4:8-11
This remarkably relevant sermon from 1968 on ecumenics was printed in Lutheran Forum, 39 (Easter/Spring 2005), pp. 9-11. Digitized by Philip and Karna Secker. Errata: P. 10, Col. A, 10th line from the bottom should read: "The temptation lies in absolutizing ...." In the 11th line of Col. B "face" should, of course, be "fact."
An article about Piepkorn's understanding of surd evil (tsunamis, earthquakes, hurricanes, etc.) was printed in the March 2005 issue of the Forum Letter. (There is a "dam" typo in the article--sorry!) The article is posted in its original form on the "Printable Files" page. See also the Tsunamis and Surd Evil page. For Lutheran Forum/Forum Letter subscription information click on "Lutheran Forum" below. If you call Donna at ALPB she may let you begin your subscription two issues back so you can get earlier articles about Piepkorn.
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2004
A draft of this article that was shared with key participants in the July 2004 Missouri Synod Convention may have played a role in the most important action taken by that Convention: namely, defeating a motion from the floor to require District Presidents to enforce doctrinal statements adopted by Synodical Conventions. By doing that the Convention in effect reversed notorious Resolutions 3-01 and 3-09 of the 1973 New Orleans Convention. The former made "A Statement of Biblical and Confessional Principles" binding on consciences. The latter declared the faculty majority guilty of teaching "false doctrines not to be tolerated in the Church of God" for not teaching in accord with A Statement.
After the 1973 Convention Piepkorn said that the Synod he had known was "dead" and "gone forever." Thirty-one years later, by the grace of God, the 2004 Convention took a step back in the direction of evangelical catholicity!
I have posted three new articles on the Center Website. Two are by me and are on the Printable Files page (one on who may distribute the Body and Blood in Holy Communion, and one on surd evil). The third posting is a 155 word meditational "gem" by Piepkorn. It is posted on the "Piepkorn Sermons" page.
A new page on "Law and Gospel" has been added. At this point the only item on the page is a marvelous statement about the Gospel that Piepkorn made in an unpublished essay in October 1960. It is eminently usable in a Bible Class, Adult Instruction Class, or even (with a few edits) in a sermon, or just for meditation. I am working on an article on Piepkorn's understanding of Law, Gospel, and Justifiction.
The "Lost 'Legal Brief'" is not by Piepkorn, but by his son-in-law, Richard Hoffmann. See details on the page by that name.
If you know the whereabouts of the Piepkorn/Halter triptych, please click on The Lost Triptych below.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: There is a serious omission in "Arthur Carl Piepkorn, Confessor" (Lutheran Forum, Fall 2004). By haplography, on page 35 I omitted the words in red font in the following quotation:
"Pres[ident Jacob A. O.] Preus himself has written, Saving faith does not come from or rest upon convincing evidence for the inerrancy of the Bible. Faith in the Gospel is not a by-product or a derivative from a prior view of the Bible. Lutherans believe the Bible because we believe the Gospel; it is not Lutheran to say we believe the Gospel because we believe the Bible. (Lutheran Witness, Jan. 28, 1973. p. 29.)
Also an associate editor of Lutheran Forum made substantive changes in the article without my knowledge. For example, "Symbols" was changed to "doctrinal statements," despite the fact that the distinction between the two is a major theme of the article. Material that was in endnotes and was not appropriate for the text was also put into the text in an obtrusive way. For a complete errata or to download a copy of the 7200 word, 16 page original final draft, or a copy showing all of the changes Lutheran Forum made in the original, go to the "Publications Errata" page. The happlography referred to above has been corrected in the original MS, which can also be downloaded from the Center Publications page.
The October 2004 issue of Lutheran Forum contains:
"Arthur Carl Piepkorn, Confessor" (see below for a description of its content)
The first complete printing of Piepkorn's Personal Confession of Faith (part was omitted by the printer's haplography in the 1973 Faithful to Our Calling)
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