76 Christian Critics

Carl Manthey-Zorn was born in Sterup, Schleswig, Germany in 1846. He was a graduate of the Leipzig Mission Institute in 1870 and served as a missionary of the Leipzig Mission to India (1871-1876). He left the Leipzig Mission after theological differences (the church survived) and came to America, where he served as a pastor in Sheboygan, Wisconsin (1876-1881), and in Cleveland, Ohio at Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, the second oldest Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in Ohio (1881-1911).

He was a prolific writer and it appears he wrote and preached in German. I picked up an English translation titled Questions on Christian Topics answered from the Word of God, for ten cents at a yard sale. He had some interesting things to say about trade unions, insurance companies, capitalism, fraternal lodges, churches that hold bazaars, charging interest, as well as fellowshipping and praying with “unorthodox” Christians.

I mention this author here only because of the current controversies surrounding “The Passion of the Christ” and the wide spread use of The Purpose Driven Life by many different denominations. Many Christians, conservative and liberal, Catholic and Protestant, are critical of this movie and Warren‘s book, claiming they are misleading or unbiblical, or pro-Catholic or anti-semitic, or insert tradition or advocate Marian worship, or in the case of the Warren book, uses bad translations (i.e., not the King James Version).

Manthey-Zorn was a Lutheran--Missouri Synod, although I don’t know if it was called that in 1913 (I‘m not a pre-natal Lutheran). He describes in his book churches that are “unorthodox,”--those that teach false doctrines. These are, in Zorn’s catalog of failures, The Roman Catholic Church, The Greek Catholic Church, and all branches of the Reformed Church (Episcopal, Presbyterian, Congregationalist, Methodist and Baptist by his count). In his criticism of other Lutherans, he often detects creeping Calvinism.

Among Lutherans, he calls the state churches of Germany, “sad.” Listing the American synods of that time, he says The General Synod was a mess because it used the word “contained” in declaring the Word of God in the Holy Scriptures; The United Synod of the South was tolerating false doctrines; The General Council opened her pulpits to preachers of unorthodox sects; The Ohio Synod assumed a Lutheran coloring by declaring harmony with the Missouri Synod, but weakened its position by saying God has met us half-way, and where can you find that in the Bible; The Iowa Synod was sticking with Ohio and thus teaching that faith in Christ is not solely and entirely due to the grace of God; The Buffalo Synod was leaning toward popery and ordination to the ministry, and was so far afield it almost wasn‘t worth discussing.

For Manthey-Zorn, finding an orthodox, true believing church was like herding cats, as it is for many of Gibson’s and Warren’s critics.