One dogma but many dogmatics. . .

Missouri has struggled over the years with an official dogmatics text.  Walther had his own standard work, Johann Wilhelm Baier’s Compendium Theologiae Positivae which he used as the basic dogmatics to prepare pastors for the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.  In fact, CFW Walther edited Baier’s Compendium and annotated it with excerpts from Luther and orthodox Lutheran theologians.  It did not last, of course.  Eventually Franz Pieper's three volumes (in English, anyway) became the standard and lasted for generations.  As John Stephenson reminds us, nobody in Missouri ever sets out to displace the old works but merely to supplement the text in use.  Eventually, the supplement becomes the standard.  So it was that Missouri decided at some point that Pieper needed a supplement.  After a few starts and stops, two different paths emerged.  One was a couple of volumes of essays with somewhat an official stamp on it that began under Robert Preus and ended up being Ralph Bohlmann's project.  In the end, it has almost been forgotten or rendered somewhat irrelevant.  It may become more used than what it has but it was late in coming and largely unwelcome when it arrived.  Preus took it upon himself to produce his own version of a dogmatics and called it the Confessional Lutheran Dogmatics Series.  These were not essays but real books -- though somewhat shorter than some might have expected.  In the end, no single series or collection has come to replace Pieper though nearly everyone thinks he could use some help.  Some have found it an affront to Pieper to even think of adding to what he offered while others honor the name without perusing the pages of the actual work all that much (especially in seminary!).  

Curiously, Lutheran history is rather replete with dogmatics volumes -- at least from its earlier period.  These were not short volumes or mere essays collected but long and tedious and somber tomes.  Every university had its own dogmatician and every dogmatician worth his salt had his own dogmatics.  We found a way to live with various dogmatics and differing ways of expressing a pretty united faith.  Now, we fear putting any official label on any dogmatics except the old ones that need supplements and are honored in principle if not in actual usage.  So we are back at where we began.  We have all kinds of books used in seminary and by pastors as doctrinal texts and even more essays.  What we are afraid of doing is owning up to this diversity.  Pieper has become the icon of our Synod and we honor the icon even though we look at others a bit more fondly and as somewhat more useful.  How odd we are!  In our early years we produced more dogmatics than most pastors could even find time to read and they were long and heavy works.  Now we seem to do dogmatic theology more by anecdote than by text.

I must admit that Lutherans are seldom at home in systematics and prefer to be Biblical theologians rather than dogmaticians but it is an image not quite supported by fact.  In reality, we are dogmaticians and have  had, at least in the past, a rather great affection for producing dogmatic texts -- until more recent times.  The trend is toward more practical works like Lutheranism 101 and its siblings.  It seems that we do not quite have the same stomach for heavy theological works or by the big names of the past (going all the way back to Gerhard and Chemnitz).  I wonder why?  In the end, we will need to figure this one out.  Walther's old offering is seldom read no matter how well it is esteemed (though translations coming out now may change that a bit).  Pieper is like your grandmother's china -- valued on the shelf but seldom used for a meal.  The enterprise begun in 1983 that took some 34 years to complete was received with not much more than a yawn.  The Confessional series is well esteemed but still incomplete and a little uneven (as might be expected).  Gerhard is being translated but he has a lot yet to go.  Everyone from Chemnitz to Krauth and Schmid have their place.  The end result of this little meandering thought it that we have a lot and still little that stands out and stands up to fill in the places of the mighty efforts of old.