Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken

Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken
Born	May 13, 1810 (Verden on the Aller)
Deceased	May 4, 1876 (San Francisco)
Holiday	May 4th ( Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod )

Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken (born May 13, 1810 in Verden an der Aller , Kingdom of Westphalia , † May 4, 1876 in San Francisco ) was a missionary and pastor in the United States of America . He also served as the second President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod for 14 years . He was also the first president of Concordia Theological Seminary, which he co-founded.

Life

Early years and education

Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken was born on May 13, 1810 as the son of pastor Heinrich Christoph Wyneken (1766-1815) and Anne Catherine Louise Wyneken, née Meyer, in Verden an der Aller in what was then the Kingdom of Westphalia (later Kingdom of Hanover ).

The University of Halle in 1836

Friedrich Wyneken was baptized by his father on May 22nd, 1810 in the Andreas Church in Verden . Heinrich Wyneken died five years later, leaving behind eleven children and his widow. Friedrich attended the grammar school in Verden. At the age of 17 he enrolled at the University of Göttingen , but soon moved to the University of Halle . None of these institutions was known for the dogmatic Lutheran orthodoxy that Wyneken later advocated; rather, they held strongly rationalist positions. In Halle Wyneken became a student of August Tholuck , a gifted linguist who believed in personal religious experiences .

After graduating, Wyneken worked as a private teacher in Lesum (now a district of Bremen ) in the house of the consistorial councilor Georg von Hanffstengel, himself an "awakened" pastor. During this time, Wyneken was more influenced by the revival movement led by Tholuck. He was ordained on May 8, 1837 in Stade together with his fellow student EW Wolff. The two soon secured a free passage to America with an "awakened" captain, Tönjes Stürje, and the blessing of the Stade Biblical and Mission Society.

Emigration to America

Early in 1838 Wyneken sailed across the Atlantic and reached Baltimore . He noted that in the following year, 5,000 Germans a week reached the comparatively nearby port of Philadelphia alone , most of them fleeing from economic difficulties, war and political oppression in the various German states . This immigration would continue until the American Civil War . Wyneken worked in Baltimore, helping the sick Pastor Johann Heaesbaert and a mixed congregation of Lutherans and Reformed Moravians for about a year .

Then, when his mentor recovered, the Pennsylvania Lutheran ministry dispatched Wyneken west to serve the many Protestant German farmers who had moved to Ohio , Indiana, and Michigan . In Pittsburgh he met CF Schmidt, the editor of the Lutheran Church Newspaper, who was to become his friend and supporter, but he continued his evangelization westward. In Putnam and Allen Counties, Ohio, Wyneken found Lutherans who had not heard a sermon in years. So he baptized many children and decided to tell his fellow ministers in Germany of the urgent need for their service in the New World. In any case, he first served the Germans in Fort Wayne and the nearby settlement of Friedheim, Preble Township (Indiana) , in northwest Adams County , whose pastor, Jesse Hoover, had died in May 1838. Then he made Fort Wayne, a shipping and canal city, his base, and traveled north between the scattered settlements on Michigan Road as well as into central Indiana and western Ohio.

He joined the Synod of the West (despite doubts about its economic situation) and asked the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod of the United States of America for more church staff , especially for the frustrating missionary exploration work, than the scattered German Protestants wanted to establish their own congregations. While the General Synod had no resources at its disposal, this did not apply to the many mission societies in Germany. As early as 1840, the Bremen (Mission) Society for Protestant Germans sent two mission pastors to America; she sent five more in 1842.

On August 31, 1841, Wyneken married Sophia Marie Wilhelmine Buuch (1824-1891), the daughter of the first settler in Friedheim. In the same year, the Stader Missionsgesellschaft sent G. Jensen to take on Wyneken's pastoral duties at the Evangelical Lutheran St. Pauls Church in Fort Wayne , while he and his wife returned to Germany for medical treatment for a throat disease.

"Emergency call"

In February 1843, during this stay in Germany, Wyneken published an "emergency call" on the severe shortage of pastors among German Lutherans in the American Midwest, which was distributed in Germany by Wilhelm Löhe . This text with the title "The Noth of the German Lutherans in North America" ​​made Wilhelm Sihler and ten other young theologians sent there. Wyneken's appeal, together with his personal contacts and correspondence with Wilhelm Löhe and mission societies in Hanover , Bremen , Erlangen , Breslau , Leipzig and Berlin within the following year, in which he received medical treatment and raised his first child, brought many German clergy and theology students (22 of them trained by Löhe himself) to emigrate to America. The call was heeded in many places and, in retrospect, was considered a milestone in church history.

His description of the untenable spiritual conditions for Lutheran emigrants in the USA was very vivid. At the same time he emphasized the responsibility of German Lutherans for their American brothers and sisters in faith. He also pointed out the global context, namely that in an age of worldwide migratory movements, developments within American Lutheranism would ultimately also have an impact on German Lutheranism. Wyneken's international perspective, which was previously rare, found many supporters and can be seen as the starting point of a development that ultimately led to the establishment of organizations such as the International Lutheran Council or the Lutheran World Federation . While today mutual international support of Lutheran churches on financial or personal channels is common, or at least there is widespread interest in the faring of Lutherans in other countries, before Wyneken's appeal, participation in the faring of other congregations, especially in Germany, which was split up before the establishment of the empire, ended at the respective one Land border, if it existed at all.

When Wyneken returned to America in May 1843 with Adolf Biewend, who soon accepted a call from a congregation near Washington, DC , Löhe and Johann Friedrich Wucherer were working in Germany to send missionaries to North America by reading the “Church communications from and about North America ”. In 1845 Wyneken became a delegate of the Synod of the West at the General Synod.

In September 1845 Wyneken, two of his former students, Sihler, and most of the eleven people sent by Löhe to America attended a meeting in Cleveland . There they decided to separate from the Ohio Synod because of doctrinal disputes and to seek the establishment of a new Lutheran Synod. Wyneken preached at the meeting and gave good advice to those who answered his call. He followed a call from a Baltimore ward, which he served for five years.

Preses of the Missouri Synod

More meetings followed; Finally, the young people who were trained on Wyneken's "emergency call" from Löhe and sent to America to look after Lutheran emigrants founded the German Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Missouri, Ohio and other states together with Saxon emigrants led by Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther , from which the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod arose, of which Walther became President and, immediately afterwards, in 1850, Wyneken himself, who had worked with him. Walther had also founded the Concordia Seminary in St. Louis . Wyneken lived in this city for four years.

One hundred years after Henry Melchior Mühlenberg, who also came from the Electorate of Braunschweig-Lüneburg , brought the pastors and congregations of colonial America together, Wyneken, together with Carl Ferdinand Wilhelm Walther, gathered the scattered German Protestants in confessional Lutheran congregations and forged them into a closely connected church family .

Under Wyneken's leadership, the main focus of the work was on the integration of German immigrants, for example by providing them with opportunities to settle in the vicinity of other Germans, by building churches and church schools, and training pastors and teachers. Through personal visits to every congregation, participation in most synodal and district assemblies, advice to pastors and congregations, and the settlement of disputes, he was able to bring together a diverse synod of self-confident congregations, pastors and teachers into a strong, denominational church. An attempt was made to meet the needs of German immigrants by sending parish candidates to them as visitors. Later attempts were made to use lay people as distributors and dealers of religious books, and parish priests were encouraged to explore new areas. They should also look after settlements in which German Lutherans previously had to get along without their own pastor. Clergymen were handpicked by Walther and Wyneken for special tasks. Riding pastors were trained to look after settlements in certain areas. Wyneken held his office for 14 years until he had to resign in 1864 for health reasons; a long time from which the high appreciation for his work can be seen. In 1897 the synod parishes had 685,000 members.

Old age and death

When Wyneken's health deteriorated, he moved to Cleveland and helped his son, who was also a pastor, for a decade. Then he went to California , where his daughter lived, and he hoped the climate would benefit his health. Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken died in San Francisco on May 4, 1876. His son-in-law, Pastor Bühler, preached at the emotionally charged funeral service. Wyneken's body was taken east and several funerals were held in St. Louis and Fort Wayne before he was finally buried in Cleveland.

Wyneken's missionary experience and method, as well as his mission plan, influenced the American Lutheran mission for many years. It was called the "thunder after lightning". His memorial day on the Missouri Synod calendar is May 4th.

While viewed as a "tireless" church worker, he himself admitted that he was "terribly melancholy ".

family

Some of the older members of the Wyneken family and relatives were minor government representatives in the Duchy of Bremen-Verden when it was under Swedish control. The Wyneken family had a long Lutheran tradition before Friedrich went to America. Heinrich Wyneken's father, grandfather and a brother were pastors in Hanover . Two elder brothers of Friedrich Wyneken also became pastors. A noteworthy number of distant relatives and people by marriage were also Lutheran clergymen, for example Superintendent Justus Ruperti (1833–1899), Friedrich's nephew.

Other relatives of Wyneken went through military careers in the Electorate of Hanover and the Kingdom of Hanover . Friedrich Wyneken's maternal grandfather was stationed in Verden as Rittmeister . Wyneken's second cousin Christian Wynecken (1783-1853) fought in the Royal German Legion in Spain and in the Battle of Waterloo ; later he became lieutenant general in the Hanoverian army and led a German contingent in the First Schleswig-Holstein War . Much later, a third cousin, Hans Kannengiesser (1880–1970), would fight in the Battle of Gallipoli and later become lieutenant general.

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b c} Robert E. Smith: "Wyneken as Missionary" Let Christ be Christ . Huntington Beach, CA: Daniel Harmelink, Tentatio Press, 1999. 321-340
2. ↑ ^{a b} Big-Hearted Friedrich Konrad Dietrich Wyneken on Christianity.com
3. ↑ Norman J. Threinen: FCD Wyneken: Motivator for the Mission in Concordia Theological Quartlerly vol 60, no.1 , 1996
4. ↑ Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken: The Noth of the German Lutherans in North America , Theodor Bläsing, Erlangen 1843, available under "The + Noth + of the + German + Lutherans + in + North America% 27" & source = bl & ots = CveAjtFYyK & sig = NKkXtHM0bLRbVc & vc2K0inXE = 0ahUKEwiDxJPNisDMAhXpI8AKHQszAbgQ6AEIHDAA # v = onepage & q =% 22The% 20Noth% 20der% 20German% 20Lutherans% 20in% 20Northamerica '% 22 & f = false
5. ↑ Friedrich Conrad Dietrich Wyneken on Lutheranhistory.org ( Memento from April 17, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
6. ↑ Dr. Christoph Barnbrock: Friedrich Wyneken: Lutheran Church worldwide think in terms of Independent Evangelical Lutheran Church : Lutheran Church , 41st year, 5/2010 H 1381
7. ↑ Christian Hochstetter: The History of the Evangelical Lutheran Missouri Synod in North America, and its teaching struggles . Dresden: Heinrich J. Naumannm, 1885. 116.
8. ^ I Trust When Dark My Road: A Lutheran View of Depression - free download of the PDF book
9. ↑ ^{a b c d} Wyneken Family History on Wordpress.com

Web links

• Concordia Historical Institute
• Solace and Revival Sermon ( Memento August 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) by Pastor FCD Wyneken
• Graebner, August Lawrence. Half a Century of Sound Lutherianism in America: A Brief Sketch of the History of the Missouri Synod. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1893.
• Johann Christoph Wilhelm Lindemann: Friedrich Konrad Dietrich Wyneken. An Evangelist Among the Lutherans of North America

literature

• Christoph Barnbrock: Unequal partners. FCD Wyneken (1810–1876) and CFW Walther (1811–1887) in their own way . In: Lutheran Theology and Church 4/2011
• Gustav Hageman: Friedrich Konrad Dietrich Wyneken: Pioneer Missionary of the Nineteenth Century . Men and Missions Series. St. Louis: Concordia, 1926.
• Karl Ernst Hermann Krause :  Wyneken, Friedrich . In: Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (ADB). Volume 44, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1898, pp. 400-403.
• Rudolph Rehmer: The Impact of Wyneken's Notruf . In: Missionary to America: The History of Lutheran Outreach to Americans . Essays and Reports of the Lutheran Historical Conference 15. St. Louis: Lutheran Historical Conference, 1992.
• Wilhelm Rothert : General Hannoversche Biography , Volume 2: In the Old Kingdom of Hanover 1814–1866 ; Hanover: Sponholtz, 1914, pp. 505-513
• Edward John Saleska: Friedrich Conrad Dieterich Wyneken 1810–1876 . STM thesis. St. Louis: Concordia Seminary, 1946.
• Robert E. Smith: Wyneken as Missionary . In: Daniel Harmelink (Ed.): Let Christ be Christ . Huntington Beach, CA: Tentatio Press, 1999. pp. 321-340. [1]
• Norman J. Threinen: Wyneken and 19th Century German Lutheranism: An Attempt to Mobilize Confessional Lutherans in Germany in Behalf of Lutherans in North America . In: Missionary to America: The History of Lutheran Outreach to Americans . Essays and Reports of the Lutheran Historical Conference 15. St. Louis: Lutheran Historical Conference, 1992.
• Norman J. Threinen: FCD Wyneken: Motivator for the Mission . In: Concordia Theological Quarterly 60 (1996) Nos. 1-2.