Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther

Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther (born Oct. 25, 1811, Langenchursdorf, Saxony [Germany]—died May 7, 1887, St. Louis, Mo., U.S.) was a Lutheran theologian whose conservative views played an important role in the early development of the Missouri Synod of American Lutheranism.

Educated at the University of Leipzig, Walther was ordained in 1837. In 1839 he followed Martin Stephan and a group of Saxons (Germans) to Missouri, where he combined a pastorate in Perry county with teaching in a Lutheran log-cabin seminary. After Stephan’s banishment for adultery, Walther led the group and became president of the synod founded in 1847, serving until 1850 and again from 1864 to 1878. In addition, he headed Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, where he also taught theology (1850–87). The periodical Der Lutheraner (“The Lutheran”), which he founded in 1844, rallied many Midwestern Lutherans who held conservative views. His other writings grew out of controversies with other Lutheran groups over the doctrines of election and predestination, the church, and law and gospel. In his high regard for biblical literalism, the confessional statements of the Reformation, and the scholastic theology of post-Reformation Germany, he believed he represented classic Lutheranism. The conservative Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, which includes about one-third of American Lutherans, views him as the spiritual father of their denomination.