Pastor Loehe died on 2 January 1872 at age 63. Following the traditional custom of the church of regarding what the world calls the date of death as the date of birth to eternity and commemorating its great models on those dates, our beloved synod commemorates him to-day.
I don't have a single profound thing to say about him. But as soon as I get caught up with Robert Barnes, he's next on my list. From what I can tell, I just gotta like this guy.
For one thing, his wife died after six years of marriage and he had four kids to raise by himself. I get that. Same thing happened to me after four years of marriage and two kids.
But that's not all. Like me, he was a convert. He was real taken with our Confessions, and like people like that tend to be, was real taken with Lutheran liturgy, especially the mass, and making it central to parish life. Check. This also seems to have run him afoul of church leaders. Check. He had a real concern to get this message out, not just get a message out, get this message out. Check. To the extent that some saw him as a little too rough, too combative, and too conservative. Check. Yet he also had a concrete concern for physical as well as spiritual needs, not always found along with "conservatives". Check. He was Bavarian. Check -- hell, I'm not even German of any kind however I grew up in Minnesota and ended up at a university sponsored by a Benedictine abbey founded out of Abtei Metten in Bavaria with money from King Ludwig himself, with German still commonly heard at the time I was there. Judas at chapter, even my blog is Bavarian blau und weiss.
So maybe down the line I'll have something profound to say about him, but at this point I just gotta like the guy and it encourages me to find people like him behind our beloved synod and makes me feel at home.
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