The Pastor by Wilhelm Loehe (review)

Loehe (1808–1872) was a Bavarian Lutheran pastor whose missional activity brought renewal to the church in Germany. Through the mission seminary he established at Neuendettelsau, he also helped found Lutheran churches in North America, Brazil, Australia, East Africa, and other places. He helped start the Iowa Synod (1854–1930) and its institutions, as well as the Missouri Synod seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana. This volume is not primarily a theology of ministry but instead a handbook for pastoral vocation and behavior. It is composed of two books. The first, published in 1852, deals with the “personal affairs of a pastor” (3) while the second, published in 1857, covering homiletics, catechetics, liturgics, and pastoral care, is based on lectures given at the mission seminary. Some of the work is dated, advising rural pastors about how to handle the “glebe,” the plot of land assigned for the pastor to farm, or directives for pastors’ wives, advocating that the Pfarrerin should have a “quiet walk of life, which transfigures her house and makes it into a pleasant cottage of peace” since after all such behavior “will make a deep impression even on those who do not believe the words of their pastor” (133). But, human behavior has not drastically changed since Loehe’s time; so, most of the book continues to be relevant. Reading between the lines, these two booklets are indirectly autobiographical, an outgrowth of Loehe’s reflection on his own fruitful experience as a pastor.

Loehe advocates that pastors have a sound general education since “he who has to give daily must have a rich source from which he can draw. If not he will sink into a torturous painful poverty . . .” (6). Candidates for ministry should be examined with regard to their confessional loyalty, ability to teach, and their moral purity, with the first and last criteria as important as the second (13). If parishioners prove testy, or even offensive, then they need to be loved even more (39ff). New pastors are directed not to be too chummy with parishioners at first (41) and even veteran pastors should be circumspect in their behavior. Pastors are duty-bound to view everyone they meet as a “candidate for eternal life” (42). Pastors should maintain an active devotional life reading the Scriptures and devotional books. But pastors should not neglect hobbies either (74ff). Pastors ought to foster collegiality and friendship with other pastors and their families (98ff).

Loehe’s second booklet acknowledges the preached word as on a continuum with the same word found in the Scriptures, God’s powerful word which “creates life” (204). Loehe directs preachers to study the appointed texts in the original languages (225) and, sounding quite contemporary, says their sermons should not be so long that congregations lose interest (230). Loehe believes that the Sacrament of the Altar actually offers a higher encounter with God’s grace than the sermon (272). Hence, pastoral care must attend to preparing people to receive the Lord’s Supper.

Throughout Loehe draws not only on Scripture but also on Gregory the Great’s Pastoral Rule, and numerous voices from the ancient church, Pietism, and Orthodoxy. Against the trends that had developed in the LCMS, Loehe opposed a “repristinating” theology that solely idealized seventeenth-century Lutheran Orthodoxy. The Bible is not exhausted by the Book of Concord (in spite of the fact that the latter is true to Scripture) (152ff).

In an era when pastors struggle to find their distinctive voice and all too often look to the secular world of CEOs, therapists, or entertainers to guide them, Loehe merits attention. He offers a view of ministry grounded not in the charisma of the preacher but in the office that the minister holds.