'Johann Kilian and the Wends: the Foundation of Lutheranism in Texas\r'

'Through this course (LCMS History) and early(a)s, I stomach heard the story of Ger populace Lutherans who left europium and squargon upt lead near Saint Louis, moment, under the leaders of Martin Stephan and (soon thereafter) C. F. W. Walther. This story seems quite a familiar to numerous of my seminary classmates who set well-nigh from the Midwest and nearby regions. As a tight lifelong resident of Texas, I had never in advance heard much of that story. The Lutherans in my communities generally take for a different history †hotshot involving a pile gathering kn possess as the Wends.\r\nThese histories view as merged at slightly point betwixt their beginnings and the present; both communities atomic number 18 currently at home in the Lutheran Church †moment Synod and share in fellowship and confession. Naturally some(prenominal) questions a climb on for further investigation. Who are the Wendish nation? Who direct them to America? Why did they arrang e to America? What is their ghostlike history? How did they integrate with the Missouri Synod? Why are they a valu equal to(p) people group in our church body? Answering each of these natural questions necessitates a fairly broad scope, though surely a coherent inspection.\r\nTo address the topics at hand, I leave al iodine present starting signal a instruct overview of the European climate during the time that the Wends left Ger legion(predicate) as well up as an account of their migration. Second, I will offer a concise biography of Johann Kilian, the early(a) leader of the Texan Wendish community. Third, I will unwrap historically significant moments of interaction between the Lutheran Wends and the LCMS (and its predecessors and associated church bodies) and illustrate how these events contributed to the Wendish assimilation into the LCMS.\r\nEach of these lucks serves the usage of presenting the Wendish community as a significant component of American Lutheranism, an d one with an enduring impact on the LCMS church body. The necessary information is gathered in general through printed and published texts on the subject at hand. It is likewise shaped by personal reminiscence of this topic through experiences with members of the Wendish community as well as its associated institutions. Content in support of my spirit is present in these following paragraphs. European Pressures and the Wendish Migration\r\nIn the early 19th century, the Wends were culturally and governmentally suppress by their dominant political leaders. The land of the Wendish people, Lusatia, was on purpose divided between Saxon and Prussian rule. This virtually eliminated each possibility for national independence; the Wendish voice communication became increasingly distinct between the nationalities (Caldwell1961). Also, they were economically capable on German landholders and had little opportunity for social success. Those who sought better standards of living le ft their cultivated land for cities much(prenominal) as Bautzen and generally assimilated into the German gardening in the process.\r\nA precise small group of the Wends was training for the clergy in Prague and in Leipzig; as these school-age childs encountered political theories and topics of higher education they developed into the intelligentsia of the Wendish community. These amend people served as the leadership that the Wends heritableded to rise out of their lowly confinement (Grider 1982). Religious difficulties withal characterized this time period. The Wends experienced great pressure to enrol in Prussian nubism, instituted by the Calvinist-leaning King of Prussia, Frederick William trine (Nielsen 1989).\r\nSince the time of the Reformation, the majority of the Wendish people had been Protestants. This switch to Lutheranism grand the Wends apparitionally from the mainly Catholic Czechs and Poles with whom they shared many cultural and linguistic similarities (Grider 1982). As a people they were very interested in maintaining a decisive and self-defined identity, distinct from surrounding people groups. This mandate of Prussian Unionism was an affront to this endeavor. Many spoke against this disgusting consolidation, including Johann Kilian who was at that time a upstart student of theology at the University of Leipzig.\r\nIn this context of phantasmal pressure, a group of deeply conservative Wends began worshipping unitedly in a private house-church. By 1845 they had effected a small plica with a expression devoted as their worship space. subsequently golf-club more classs enduring religious antagonism, a core group of lay leaders drafted, in 1854, a constitution to govern the migration of the whole crowd to a new land with religious freedom. At this time, the gathering issued a call to Kilian, requesting that he guard them on their journey and minister to them in their forthcoming situation (Grider 1982).\r\nKilian, eag er to employ his billingary education, real their call. Additionally â€Å"agricultural disasters” during the mid-1800s spurred the Wends into discussions of leaving Germany/Prussia and seeking a new land for a new opportunity. nearly impoverished German farmers, with whom the Wends were amiable, had already immigrated to America and Australia. Their ethereal letters to the homeland were published by the German press and encouraged these fancyful Wendish immigrants. Of the Wends immigrating to Texas, the â€Å"first flow of Wendish adventurers” (Grider 1982) arrived around 1850.\r\nA group of 35 set sail for America in 1853 but destroy off the shore of Cuba. While set-apart on the island, many learned how to roll cigars to supplement their income during their stranded time. Eventually compassionate German make-ups in Havana, Cuba, and youngful Orleans funded and arranged for their transport to Galveston. unity year after this small group’s stretch in Galveston, the â€Å"highly educated and forceful” (Grider 1982) diplomatic minister Johann Kilian led a boatload of 600 of his congregants, pious and pricey Wendish Lutherans, from Germany to Galveston.\r\nThey made their voyage on the Ben Nevis, still considered deep down the Texan Wendish community as a counterpart of the English Pilgrims’ Mayflower (Grider 1982). Kilian was the only professional, educated man in the congregation; all the others were farmers and craftsmen. Yet the people possessed between them an adequate variety of skills to cover a self-sufficient colony. This group established the townsfolk of Serbin, which pass offs to be a place of cultural capture in central Texas. The Life of Johann Kilian The only son of Wendish farmers in Upper Lusatia, Johann Kilian was natural on skirt 22, 1811.\r\nTwo historic period later his mother, Maria Kilian nee Mattig, and his infant sister died. His grandmother helped to oversee for him for the side by side(p) trey eld at which time his father, shaft Kilian, remarried. Soon thereafter his grandmother died. In 1821, slice Kilian was ten historic period old, his father also died. side by side(p) the death of his parents, he inherited enough cash to fund his education at the gymnasium (high school) in the chief Wendish city of Beutzen (Caldwell 1961). Johann found himself under the care of his uncle who leased the child’s inherited home and employ the income to support the boy’s schooling.\r\nOne can only imagine what sort of mental impact these deaths must have had on young Kilian. According to Nielsen (2003), â€Å"nothing in his writings register any anxiety during these early years. ” It is likely that during his youth with his extended family he began to learn about Christian living and developed a deep hope in the resurrection promise. Kilian spent more than four years at the Gymnasium in Beutzen. There he was educated in Hebrew, Greek, Latin, French, and German; Wendish was only used in private and in his earlier years in grade school.\r\nKilian and some of his classmates organized a Wendish club on campus to facilitate informal talk in their mother dialect (Nielsen 2003). He was quite successful in Beutzen and soon enrolled at the University of Leipzig to correction theology, where he once again encountered a Wendish circle. This organization propagated a rising spatial relation of Wendish patriotism, especially in contrast with German culture. Rather than associating with this divisive group, Kilian conjugate a German club whose central last was â€Å"the preservation of pure Lutheran teaching” (Nielsen 2003).\r\nThis finis seems to have been more of a growing lot toward orthodox Lutheranism than a rejection of Wendish culture. It also seems that in this standoff He was taking a stand in contrast to the majority of the faculty of Leipzig who were heavily influenced by rationalism at the time. In 1835, Kilian obtained his license to vaticinate and was assigned to an assisting position at Hochkirch, a orotund parish which included several surrounding viliages. The following year, he travelled to Switzerland and attended a small mission school in Basel, remembering his childhood consecrate to become a foreign missionary.\r\nBack in eastern Germany, his uncle (different from the one who had helped to raise him as a child) was the pastor of a Lutheran church in Kotitz; he died speckle Killian was away at school. then(prenominal) in 1837 Kilian returned to Kotitz and received his full ordination. This enabled him to assume the aged(a) pastorate there (Nielsen 2003). Most of the Wends in his congregation could not understand German, so Kilian undertook several edition projects for the benefit of his flock. He published a arrest containing twenty eight hymns in Wendish; some were translations of German hymns and a few were his original pieces.\r\nThese musical arrangments were very well received by both his own congregation and numerous other Lutheran Wendish assemblies. He continued to translate many German songs and in the end produced more than one hundred of his own hymns (Nielsen 2003). These hymns express the centrality of deliveryman in Christian living and oft contain declarations of profound hope. Several of his songs and poems are contained in a collection edited by David Zersen (2010). Included, here, is one verse from Kilian’s hymn, â€Å"Blessed Land”: Jesus leads his saints on earth: Witnesses are we! Sadness, trials, piteous? sheepfold we will be!\r\nChrist is our life. There’s a kingdom waiting there; No more sorrow, no more care. Christ is our life. In addition to his musical translation efforts, Kilian translated the Lutheran Confessions into Wendish. He began with Luther’s Small Catechism in the late 1840s and finish the remainder of the confessions in 1854. Other prominent Wendish intellectuals frequently frown upon his efforts, insisting that importing German religious thinking would contaminate the Wendish culture. They preferred to advance hopeful nationalism for the Wends and showed little priority for proper doctrinal adherence.\r\nKilian disagree with their attitude and continued â€Å"translating religious works into the mother tongue to enrich the language and simultaneously nourish religious life” (Nielsen 2003). These exercises in translation lastly led to a reasonable popularity for Kilian, especially among likeminded Wendish Lutherans. One such congregation of people at Weigersdorf was becoming increasingly troubled by the pressures of Prussian Unionism. In 1844 they issued a call to Kilian with hopes that he would agree to lead them in their migration away from their oppressive setting.\r\nKilian accepted the call on two conditions. He required that the congregation would toast faithfulness to pure Lutheran doctrine and also that the congregation acquire an immi gration permit from the abstract Prussian authorities. (Nielsen 2003). Kilian over the next several years served this as well as other parishes (especially one in Klitten) which shared in the Lutheran confession. During that time, he married Maria Groschel, with whom he had four children while they remained in Europe †only one of which survived into maturity (Nielsen 2003).\r\nReligious pressures continued to build until in 1854, a group of 600 Wendish Lutherans (under Kilian’s shepherding) began the process of relocating to Texas. While Kilian is frequently credited with leadership of this venture, such wording is cheapjack at best. He did not object to the exodus from Europe, but the instigation of the process was from the laypeople. Kilian’s place was to accompany them as their pastor (Nielsen 2003). The journey was characterized by illness, danger, and loss of life. Kilian was heavily relied upon for his pastoral care at several points on the journey.\r\n In one illustration while at sea, several people were suffering from sea-sickness below the deck. The captain of the Ben Nevis (the ship that carried them across the Atlantic) instructed that the migrants come up for fresh air to improve their health. about did not cooperate with the captain’s orders. Kilian piano persuaded those who remained below deck to come up. While this shows the leave the Wends saw in Kilian, it also caused resentment from some because he was exceeding his religious responsibilities.\r\nThe voyagers eventually pass over the Atlantic and arrived at the port of Galveston. They then travelled to central Texas and established the colony of Serbin. For the next three decades, Kilian served the Texan Wends as their pastor and endeavored to draw them with likeminded believers in their new land (Nielsen 2003). Eventually he was able to forge a confessional relationship with the Missouri Lutherans and connect his people to a larger church body. After Kili an’s death on September 12, 1884, many tributes were written about him. These included a smattering of lengthy pieces n Der Luteraner, the official periodical of the synod (Martens 2011). The Texan Road to Missouri â€Å"Religious isolation was not part of his tradition” (Nielsen 2003). In Texas, Kilian became a relay station of Caspar Braun, a Lutheran who had already been in Texas for about five years. Braun had formed the Evangelical Lutheran Synod in Texas and served as its first president. While Kilian certainly enjoyed his friendship with Braun, he was hesitant to join this Texas Synod because he considered that it shared too many similarities with the Prussian Union which he had left.\r\nHe also lamented the lack of enriching sacrament of the Eucharist in its churches (Nielsen 2003). Rather he became drawn to the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio, and Other States. Geography was certainly a hindrance to fellowship with this church body, he co nsidered it far less of a barrier than theological incompatibility. In his effort to establish fellowship with the Missouri Synod, he wrote a letter introducing himself and the Wends to C. F. W. Walther, who was also born in 1811.\r\nThough Kilian and Walther did attend the University of Leipzig simultaneously in 1832, there is no indication in any of their correspondence that they knew each other before they were in America. Kilian had learned of Walther chiefly through his writings. He owned a copy of Walther’s Stimme der Kirche in der Frage von Kirche und Amt. Kilian agreed with Walther’s position on church regulation which â€Å"empowered the voters’ assembly as the supreme allowance and diminished the power of the ecclesiastical leaders” (Nielsen 2003). His congregation joined the Missouri Synod in 1866 with Kilian as the first Missouri Synod pastor in the state of Texas.\r\n down the stairs Kilian’s pastoral leadership, the Wends became fer vent supporters of synodical education and eventually began to issue calls to American-trained pastors. By 1877 nearly a dozen pastors were serving Missouri Synod congregations in Texas and the group gained credit as the Texas Conference of the Western District. Only a couple years later, the Southern District was organized, ranging from El Paso, Texas, to San Augustine, Florida. Then in 1903, the Texas District of the LCMS was formed; it contained 23 congregations, nearly 40 pastors, and 11 school teachers.\r\n cerebrate Remarks The Texas District of the LCMS owes its genesis to the migration of the Wends and the pastoral leadership of Johann Kilian. It is instantly one of the largest districts in the LCMS and has produced more synodical presidents (Behnken, Harms, and Kieschnick) than any other district. The Wendish culture and religious experiences have shaped and continue to shape the theological thinking of Texas Lutherans. It is especially for these reasons that the Wends ar e a valuable people group in the Lutheran Church †Missouri Synod.\r\n'