Loehe and the Ministerium of Pennsylvania: Wilelm Loehe's Reception Among Contemporaries in the Eastern United States‪.‬

From the village of Neuendettelsau, Germany, Wilhelm loehe sent missionaries and financial support to Lutheran churches, seminaries, and schools in the Midwest. His support of North American missions was vital to the formation of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and the Iowa Synod. These efforts, begun over 150 years ago, continue to bear fruit in both the Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America today. What about Loehe's impact among nineteenth-century Lutherans who lived in the eastern United States? The usual story presented in our textbooks is that Luther-anism on the eastern seaboard had already become so Americanized that it tell short of the confessional standards of the later immigrants who were shaped by the Old Lutheran and Neo-Lutheran movements in Europe. (1) Nevertheless, there is evidence to show that contemporaries in the Ministerium of Pennsylvania, North Americas oldest Lutheran Synod, knew and used Loehe's writings during his lifetime. If Lutherans in the East found a good resource in Loehe. then perhaps his missionary and liturgical theology resonated with an even greater American audience than is often acknowledged. This article examines Loehe's reception among members of the Ministerium of Pennsylvania to show that many Lutherans in the eastern United States found him 10 be a natural contemporary partner in their efforts to spread the gospel and build up the church.