The Confessional Lutheran Revival & the Emigrations

In 1817 the king of Prussia ordered his Lutheran and Reformed subjects into a single united church. Many Lutherans complied; some would not, holding that a confession of faith is not something a state can merge. These Old Lutherans were fined, had their services broken up and their pastors imprisoned — and rather than conform, whole congregations emigrated. Some went to South Australia in 1838 under Pastor August Kavel. A Saxon company sailed for Missouri the same year and had to depose its own leader for immorality within months of landing. Out of that chastened remnant, under the young pastor C. F. W. Walther, came the Missouri Synod of 1847. A church that made subscription to the Lutheran confessions the condition of fellowship, and built its own schools, seminaries and German-language press to keep them. In Germany the same instinct produced a scholarly renewal at Erlangen, and at Neuendettelsau, Wilhelm Lohe's training of pastors and deaconesses for emigrant congregations overseas.