In this episode, translator Michael Holmen takes us through J. W. F. Höfling's How the Lutheran Church is Constituted (Grundsätze evangelisch-lutherischer Kirchenverfassung).
In his book Höfling describes how the Lutheran church should be constituted according to the principles given in the Lutheran Confessions and in Martin Luther's writings. Höfling sees the teachings of church and ministry in the Lutheran church as being very different from what the Roman Catholic church teaches. In the wake of the 1848 revolutions, he is also concerned about the loss of the sovereigns as the Summepiskopat of the churches in Germany. He offers his advice for how the churches should work towards structuring themselves in the wake of these new conditions.
This third edition of his work has extensive endnotes, which are often more like excurses, where he elaborates on what he has said in previous editions and responds to objections from opponents.
In this episode, translator Michael Holmen takes us through J. W. F. Höfling's How the Lutheran Church is Constituted (Grundsätze evangelisch-lutherischer Kirchenverfassung).
In his book Höfling describes how the Lutheran church should be constituted according to the principles given in the Lutheran Confessions and in Martin Luther's writings. Höfling sees the teachings of church and ministry in the Lutheran church as being very different from what the Roman Catholic church teaches. In the wake of the 1848 revolutions, he is also concerned about the loss of the sovereigns as the Summepiskopat of the churches in Germany. He offers his advice for how the churches should work towards structuring themselves in the wake of these new conditions.
This third edition of his work has extensive endnotes, which are often more like excurses, where he elaborates on what he has said in previous editions and responds to objections from opponents.
Welcome back to the Lutheran History podcast where we cover 500 years and over 500 years of Lutheran history. Today's guest is Michael Holman. I'll let him introduce himself and tell us a bit what we're going to talk about today. Michael, thank you for joining us. You're welcome. Happy to be here. My name is Michael Holman and I am a pastor in the Missouri Synod at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Fairmont. I wasn't always a member of the Missouri Synod. I grew up in the ELS in Albert Lea Minnesota, and went to Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato. And a couple years after that, I actually started seminary at Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary in Mankato. At the time, though, the ELS was going through their debate over the office of the ministry. And that was not quite settled. But just before I started at the seminary, they passed a resolution. And I don't think we want to get into all the reasons why I ended up deciding to leave Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary, but I did leave and go to the go to the seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, graduated in 2010. And then I was a pastor in northeast Iowa for the last 12 and a half years and just have been Fairmont, Minnesota for about six months. But the the stuff that Heflin talks about in his book are stuff that I've been thinking about for 20 years. So for you, if there's a personal reason why you would want to study this, this, this topic, of course, maybe applies to to broader reasons. So, you know, there are some contemporary issues perhaps as the cause of it, but this is historical podcast. So we'll look at the history of this book and its content. But thank you for sharing kind of why you were why you were really attracted to this topic. So the topic is your translation of the book by Jay W. F. piffling. I guess I should have pronounced the first half in German if I was going to do the second half. Johann Wilhelm Friedrich who flings book how the Lutheran church is constituted. That's your translation of his title. So you translated this book. We've done a couple translation interviews before. So our audience might, you know, we don't know what kind of questions we're going to ask. But first of all, let's get into a little biographical information on piffling. What can you tell us about him? Where were you? And maybe your earliest impressions and how that changed? Yeah, so I always say halfling. And my German pronunciations not very good. So I apologize for for anybody listening. But halfling was a was a professor at earlington. He is one of the earlier professors maybe people have heard of the Erling in school. It was a it was a seminary in Germany that had some interesting professors for quite a number of years, and Heflin was, was a very able Professor interested in stuff that is still relevant today. So he was interested in liturgical, he has a, I believe it's a two volume work on baptism and confirmation. And he didn't he he, in a way is maybe cut short as far as his life is concerned because he died fairly young. He was only let's see is only 51 When he died, so perhaps would have produced more works but and then of course, the book that I translated as is known as a as an quite an accomplishment as well. Yeah, well, so can you tell us a bit about your earlier impressions? of him and how did you kind of approach this topic? Yeah, well, you know, there is that is a bit autobiographical as well. So the way that the way that it was always presented this ministry issue, which was controverted was there was kind of a spectrum. So you could put halfling on, on one side of the spectrum and layup on the other side of the spectrum. And Walther supposedly is in the middle. And so, I, when I went to Fort Wayne seminary, I actually had to give a I had to do an interview there in order to be accepted at that seminary. And one of the seminary professors asked, you know, about the Office of the ministry knew that I'd come from that. And so I gave that kind of answer of, well, halfling was was, was too much this way, and layup was too much the other way. And Walter was just right. Of course, I hadn't read halfling or layup. And the professor, I'll never forget it. The professor basically said, you don't know what you're talking about, which is true. I didn't know what I was talking about. And hadn't read it. So with my impressions, you know, early impressions of heckling is kind of that he was a boogey man, you know, somebody that you wanted to avoid. Outside the pale and, and there's, there's a history behind that, too. You know, Walther didn't agree with Heflin, and so on. So he doesn't have that good of a reputation. And I suppose the reason why I wasn't became interested in translating the book is, I was doing some work on this issue. And I was trying to find out what what was wrong with him. And so I would poke around and I'd read and it was, you know, as hard going translating, and then you always think, well, maybe I'm missing something, because there's someplace else in the book. And so that, that was why I decided to translate the book. Yeah, so I guess to recap, I'm not too familiar with him at all. So as most of primarily our audiences or North American Lutherans is primarily is he viewed through the filter of maybe what Walter had to say about him and that's pretty much it. Is that your perception on that? Or is there a bit more? I would say that, you know, this, the the discussion of Heflin goes up to the present day. So, like Kurt Marquardt talks about him in his book on on ministry, you know, there, he's still kind of occupies that position of being an extremist, I suppose. And I can maybe talk about, like, why, you know, what is the issue behind it? You know, why? Why does halfling have? What's halflings view as compared to these others and why he's thought to be not acceptable. And the the way that most people usually talk about Heflin is that he kind of, well, the the word that gets used all the time is he's a functionalist. And so he supposedly takes the office of the ministry and just says it's a bunch of functions. And then we can kind of arrange it and go from there. And so it's kind of like he abstracts, these functions of preaching the gospel, administering the sacraments, and then there's no, you know, it's all up to the church, for however the church might ever want to want to arrange that. So, that was why I kind of thought, you know, just from what other people would talk about him. I always I thought he might be some kind of a rationalist or something like that, you know, that abstracts, abstract certain things and then wants to rearrange it. And again, that was really what I was looking for, when I was, was trying to find from him this suppose that thing that he does, and he never, he never really did it. He will talk about the Office of the ministry. Not in a functionalist way, but he does say that everybody has the office of the ministry. So all Christians by virtue of their baptism, they have the office of the ministry and that would make him similar to Walther, you know, Walther, after the after the crisis with, with Bishop Stefan and such. And his study of Luther, he came to believe that the Office of the ministry has, is been given to the priesthood of all believers. And this then is conferred to the public minister and to the pastor to carry it out. And then Laya see is a division really between the priesthood of all believers and pastors and they really don't have any, anything to do with one another. So, Heflin and Walther are similar in the way that they will both emphasize the way that they will both emphasize how the priesthood of all believers has been entrusted with these things by Jesus, the preaching of the Gospel, the Administering of the sacraments, and really both of them are getting it from Luther. And the halfling book has, has tons of the book that halfling wrote has tons of quotations from Luther. And that's, that's really where where it came from. The difference between halfling and Walther is that Walther will say that the Office of the minister the the product, arm to order firearms is the, what he says in his thesis. So the preaching office or the pastoral office, he equates those two things. And so for Walther, there is a pastoral office that goes back to New Testament times, that we are bound to keep, until until Christ comes again. Whereas for Heflin, that the way things were in apostolic times is not as set he sees the pastoral office as, as a historical development, and especially a Lutheran view of the pastoral office, that this is something that especially came into prominence and clearness, at the time of the Reformation where, where, where it became well understood that, that the preaching of the gospel in the Administering of the sacraments is what, what we have been given. And so, at apostolic times, halfling sees you know, there's there's lots of different offices, and it isn't clear, and it's only over the course of time, that that, that the pastoral offices, something distinct, really develops, and especially a kind of monarchical understanding of the pastoral office, where there's one pastor in one congregation in a certain geographical location. The New Testament documents just don't seem to indicate that, you know, in Corinth, for example, there they are to take turns in the way that they in the way that they speak. So. And he makes some other exegetical arguments along those along those lines, too. But that would be the that would be the big difference is that Walther sees a pastoral office as something that is required by God that's in the New Testament and is bound to be kept until Christ comes again. Where as halfling still sees God involved. I think this is another one of the ways that Heflin is often misunderstood, is that it's kind of like God gives the functions to the church, and then the church figures it out all by itself, without God. And that's definitely not halflings view that that things happen in a in a God ordained and God directed way for the organization of the church, the way that the the way that different offices arise and so on and so forth. Yeah, so we'll get more into some of his main arguments and a little bit, but I also am interested in the context and now that was the bigger broader context kind of on the spectrum as you said, but now let's get a little more immediately to piffling and his Uh, kind of the occasion for writing might be the way to put it. So what, what caused him what prompted him what made him say I'm gonna sit down and write write this book. He explicitly says in the book that the reason why he, he wrote it and by the way, it started out as an article in the Zeitschrift the Erling and Zeitschrift and then it got expanded, got published by itself after that, and then he expanded it with endnotes, but he wrote that original article, because he was concerned about what he calls PUC ism. But I think we are more familiar with as the Oxford movement out of England. And that's I think that's, that's really important and often overlooked when it comes to heckling is what you mentioned, the context that he's writing in. So 1848, there are democratic revolts, revolutions throughout Europe, these rumblings of democracy. It this is this is a ways after the French Revolution, but you know, after the French Revolution, there's a conservative turn in Europe, the age of Metternich. And then 1848, you know, enough time has passed, and they're beginning to have democratic revolutions. And it appears that the old synthesis between the church and, and the states are breaking down, or the church and the prince. So even all the way back to Luthers time. Some people are familiar with the way that the Reformers made the princes, the emergency bishops, the knock bishop, and that is breaking down. And in some, some locations, it's at least from what I gathered from the translation, in some locations, it seems as though some princes had already given up these roles that they had played for, you know, 300 years as, as kind of Guardians and protectors of the church and so on and so forth. And so in this turmoil, there, I think there are very different ideas about how to safeguard the future of the church, and when one of those ideas is that the real meat and substance of the Christian Church, as well as authority, should be vested in the in the clergy, that the clergy shouldn't become these kinds of leaders. And that is the that is the thing that halfling is very much against, he sees that as a betrayal, of Lutheran understanding of what the ministry is about. So he wants, he wants to maintain the the teaching of the Lutheran confession that for example, we are able, each Christian is able to judge their shepherds. So we're not reliant upon the pastor for telling us everything that we're to believe, but we can actually judge our pastors and whether they're being faithful to the Word of God or not, that members of the congregation are able to manage their affairs and carry out church discipline. So it's not just the pastor who has the keys, it's not just the pastor who can excommunicate on his own but the, that the Christian congregation together is able to is able to excommunicate so the politics at the time, are, I think, more important to what's going on than I think is often realized, where you have a kind of you have a conservatism in politics, that can get translated over into how things should be thought should be done in the church, that it should be, you know, more monarchical or, and not democratic. I know. I know, especially that was a that was a thing that Wilhelm Laya complained about with with Walters teaching is that he said this is an end grab out to grab. I was Walthers chief opponent here in America, and they said this is going to be a mob. The mob is going to run the church and they were afraid of they were afraid of chaos. So Heflin is, is does not want a pastors to be kind of monarchs for the church. and but then on the other hand, too, he is quite conservative or even aristocratic and his understanding of the church, he does not want the church run by just the democratic mob. And this is one thing that's different about Europe to where, you know, in America, we have, you know, we freely associate ourselves with, with a congregation or a church body. In Europe, you know, these, there is no such thing, if you're, if you're a citizen, you're a member of the state, and you're a member of the church. And halfling just hated the idea of unbelievers who are voters, being able to determine how things should take place in the church. So he has some, I think they're interesting ideas, even for our context in America to even still today about how to make sure that the discipline the decisions that are made in the church are done in a, in a responsible Christian way, by competence by competent people, and not just, you know, not just thrown up for a vote. So he suggests, for example, that there should be a kind of governing board in the, in the congregations and it's from those, that representatives should be chosen for any kind of representation representation higher up in the church and for any conventions, and that sort of thing. So truly, he would be, I would say, some kind of a moderate, you know, he doesn't want the he doesn't want the mob. But he also doesn't want the, the way that the Christian church is operates and turned into some kind of some kind of monarchy. Yeah, and I think it's important to remember to is the context of this is kind of the era of confessional. Lutheranism is kind of the main in many areas, least the main field of thought there's what you do with a Lutheran confessions is you talk about this, and I think part of the degree is what of the debate is what role do the confessions have in this and he says, as I was reading your translation, right up in the introduction, he says, I definitely want to do this. But there was also an aspect in, you know, talking about the two other main figures of Walther and layup, you know, what do you do with the confessions? And Dr. That's, that's part of his context, too, is he's, he's speaking within a Lutheran dialogue. And he's being aware of that as he's progressing. So not only are there the very important things you just mentioned, of the political, religious, surrounding current events and such, but also what's going on within the church. And he's navigating through all of that. Yeah, and I'm glad you mentioned, as we often do, on this podcast, when we're talking about the Lutheran Church in Europe, especially Germany, we have to make sure everyone is aware of it is very different from the way development was organized here in America. And in a way, it's that transition of those immigrants who came over, they had to actually sit down and rethink, well, what is the church? We can't just take our prince Bishop with us, you know, we have to reconsider this, there was a Walther grandfather's issue. But on a similar way, it's those revolutions of 1848 and other revolutions around that time, that caused even the Lutherans in Germany to kind of asked the same question. So in a way, there's, there's a difference between the two continents, but a huge parallel. And, you know, I, this occurred to me afterwards, you know, it was, I think, a lot of times that historical component is left out of the way that people think about these issues and the way that I thought about them anyway, it's kind of like, I have to figure out these things in the abstract. When history is really such an important component. Because it wasn't, you know, when what at the time of Luther, you know, Luther does these, these tremendous writings in the in the late late 1510s, early 1520s, where they're, they're tremendous, if you think about it, because the way that Christians had operated for hundreds and hundreds of years is that the is that the Pope is the Vicar of Christ and the church is run by councils and so it's all it's all this kind of this this structure of we already got our judges in place and these are the Pope and the council's and for Pope for for Luther. To reject that is an amazing thing. and it is very much tied up in how you understand church. And also then the ministry, you know, the, the Catholic system, they definitely have a system, the Catholic system and it works. It's in a sense, it's, it's consistent with itself. And so Luther had to do this tremendous work of, of coming to grips with what is the church? And what is the ministry, and not just in a Catholic sense, but then he also needed to figure out how are we going to do church now in Germany, when we don't have bishops, who, who organize all these things. And so, they, they worked it out with the prince, and they set the, you know, they set up the structure, and it worked well enough, and they had consistories, and the church went on and, and things went pretty well, in Europe for quite some time. And so people aren't really thinking about these issues of church and ministry all that much, between the time of the between the time of the Reformation, and 1848, or at least they're not thinking, you know, any kind of new thoughts, or going back to the, this kind of seminal thoughts that that Luther was was dealing with, instead, the work was kind of like, this is why we do it. And this is the justification that we have. And so in that in, you know, with 1848, in the, in the 1800s, when the old structures are breaking up, these become living and important issues again, and you have all kinds of experiments taking place to you know, I mean, Bishop Stefan coming over to America, I mean, that'd be, that'd be quite a grand experiment, he wanted to create, you know, the Zion on the Mississippi, and, and so on, and so forth. So you have the, that it becomes a topic that can be discussed again, and I wish there would be a little bit more of that kind of freeness. Also, today, instead of like, this is the right answer. And you should accept it. Because that's what that's what, you know, your Senate or whatever has to say, I think, I think these are worthy, worthy issues that should be explored. And, you know, it has connections with politics and, and all kinds of things. So the mid 1800s, that's when that's when these issues could be worked on again and discovered again, and and Walther does it halfling? Does it layup does it? They're all they're all working with these issues, trying to figure out what is what is faithful to the Scriptures? How best should we understand these things? Yeah, that was very helpful. And I think, is a History podcast, I always like just talking about history in and of itself, how it works and how valuable it is. And I should, you know, I didn't have to bribe you to get into that. You've seen the value of history. And yeah, and over time, you it seems like you've grown to appreciate that. The context, I think, is the big thing that provides. Yeah, but you know, what is? That's why we look at certain eras in history, because they are different. And I think when you have those moments of crisis or conflict, and you must noted part of the two main eras and Lutheran history, the Reformation, obviously, and now the 19 century, 1800s, both political and just immigration, causing a lot of changes. And at least from my, my perspective, in grad school, the Reformation doesn't just get the lion's share of the attention. It gets like 90%. If you're talking about historical theology, you know, 20th century stuff is still relevant, but that's considered contemporary issues, you know, and so if you're going to talk history, let's talk talk reformation. And it's obviously very important and still probably more important than the 1800s. But still a lot happened. More so in that time period than maybe others for some subjects. And, you know, another thing about the 1800s, too, is that when you think about when you think about our, you know, confessional Lutherans, we are conservative people. So there is an issue, there's a conservative impulse. And that's prominent, prominent in the 1800s too, so you know, a kind of throne and altar sort of mentality where we exalt you know, we exalt the, the king and then you know that we'd have something similar also in the church. That's, that's in the air and there's this reaction against the kind of individualism of the of the Enlightenment and you know, another movement that would be a I'm going on at the same time to would be the ultra Montanus position in Rome, where, you know, we need the Pope to settle these things. And so the first Vatican Council, decrees that the Pope is infallible, this kind of this kind of a, I don't know, authoritarian way of, of solving problems, you might say, in order to avoid the chaos. I think I think that that has its effect in, in how you understand that how the church should be run to. Yeah. And again, not to get into contemporary issues, but it doesn't take much to see how that applies today. And you mentioned politics, you know, on one hand, you maybe have the super subjectivity of, you know, deconstruction, where, you know, how does everything personally affect you? And that kind of shapes reality or truth? You know, how individualistic Are you going to get in the church? Or the flip side? You know, the, how do you react to that? And do you just kind of centralize all power and authority to maintain some things that need to be preserved? Yeah, there's, if you dig deep enough, you can see oh, wow, this, this has a lot to say for today. And that was something that was pretty fun about, I, one of my favorite parts of the book, translating the book was, were the Luther quotations. And he's, he's so fresh, you know. And so, you know, every, every Christian must judge for himself. And, you know, if there's a, if there's a pastor who is not doing what he's supposed to be doing, then the congregation can remove him. There's a title here, there's, I forget the exact title. But there's this long title that Luther has a treatise that's named by it that basically says, Can Christians remove their teachers when they are not doing right? And yes, they can't. So yeah, so hopefully, we like him. Just, you know, in another self effect, he was doing historical theology to do contemporary theology. I'm not saying about his conclusions, but I like him just for the fact that he took that historic approach. That's, that's helpful. So I think you've alluded to him, you made a lot of them, but reference to them. But let's just get right into what what are his main points if you can summarize those simply and clearly for people, you don't want to give the whole book away? Because you want people to buy and read it? Right. But we'd be here for a long time. Yeah, to do that. So that's the benefit of having limited time, we can't get through the whole thing. But what are some of the main points? So there's the controversial point, which I have already alluded to, and that's his understanding of the ministry. But really, this is a work that is what is indicated in the title that these are the principles that are involved for how the the Lutheran church is constituted. So it's not just the ministry that he talks about, that became the most controversial thing. But he talks about how the Lutheran Lutheran Church understands the, the the church, what is the church? It's, I think some people might be put off by the term he uses a lot, and that is Protestant. So he really does. Contrast, there's a Catholic way of understanding these things. And there's a Protestant way to understand these things. And a lot of us Lutherans don't like to be lumped in with with the rest of the with the rest of the Protestants and I can, I can appreciate that. But if you think about the the issues that are involved, as far as how you understand church, there really are kind of two alternatives. Either the church is this is this structure that has the pope at its head and the bishops underneath him, and you need to be connected somehow to the structure, or the church is made up of believers in Christ. And, you know, a seven year old, knows what the church is that it's all those who hear the voice of the voice of the good shepherd. And so he talks about what is the church? He talks about? How, what, what church offices, that's the term he likes to use for what we consider what we usually call the pastoral office. For us, how those should be recognized as having been given gifts and examined and ordained, and how the church should carry out discipline. And he gives ideas for how the congregation should be how the congregation should be structured. It is and towards the end, and this is probably where it's, it's not as relevant for American readers, he has a lot to say about what's going on with the bishops and how the bishop should handle the turmoil that has taken place with the or excuse me, not the bishops, the princess, the with the how the prince is as the kind of supreme Bishop how they should handle the political turmoil that's taken place. And so, yeah, it's a it is a it is a work that is is, you know, contained itself consistent. And it does make this work different than for example, like Walthers theses, these are this is not a this is not a collection of theses that are then defended. This is more of an organic understanding of, of what is the church? What is the ministry? And how should things be? How should things be organized in the churches? Yeah, so, I guess now, as we might want to bring up kind of wrapping up this discussion of the document, I'll get more into your process. And ain't that last things you want to say about the importance of this spoken in translation about benefit for reading it today? I think we've talked alluded to it, but get get right to the point. Why is it important? Why do from it? Yeah, I think I think I think it's important, I would guess I've already brought this up a bit. But I think it bears repeating that I think halfling has been misused in secondary literature, where he's, instead of, instead of taking him at his own words, and with his own conceptions of things, people, for example, just label him as a functionalist. And, and nobody wants to be that. And so he's beyond the pale. And so let's, you know, let's, let's dismiss him. And, you know, he doesn't want to be a functionalist, he, he, himself says that he doesn't want the office understood as just some collection of some collection of functions. And there's just there's a ton of scholarship that has been done. That, that he occupies that area of the of the spectrum, and that he, you know, it's that's just the, it's the priesthood of all believers, and the office of the ministry is all confused in him. So they say, and we don't want to do that. And that's just not what he says. I think anybody who, anybody who reads what he says, with an open mind is going to see that that's not what he says. And that might not mean that people agree with everything that he has to say, but I don't I don't think it's accurate. And then plus, I think he, I think that he brings a lot of clarity to or at least that's what he did for me. You know, I've mentioned that this is a little autobiographical. And I was kind of baffled by these issues, all the way through seminary, and even as a pastor of for for many years, and translating this book has really helped me to understand what these things are, and get a get a firmer, firmer grasp of the real issues instead of just dealing with names. There's I think there's a lot of dealing with names in in this controverted area. What we found frequently on this podcast is this theme of you need to summarize history. Right? You can't realistically get every seminary student every confirmation student to read all of Luthers works, right? You have to summarize the points. And that's that's there's kind of an ethical or aspect to it is the historian you have to really be careful to correctly accurately reflect the author's not just the words, but even the tensions, intentions and the context at times as well. And I don't think there are too many, too many unethical Lutheran Church historians, you know, I don't think too many are trying to miss misinformed students just to make a point. I hope not. But I think what often happens and says, you summarize, there's always the risk of oversimplifying or miss simplifying if that's a word. And so it's one of the things that you have personally discovered as you went through this process, but it's also a good reminder for all of us as we, as we deal with history, if it's something important, that you care about enough to get worked up about, well maybe dig into the primary sources and see for yourself, and that's probably the best way to approach a lot of these things. Well said, Yeah, well, I've said it before. So if people are faithfully listening to this podcast are gonna say, Oh, here he goes again. But I think that point might be a main one to to take away from all of these projects. So you talked a bit about responses, at least perceptions, anything about kind of the immediate response and the historic context that you can say about how people responded to his work? Yes, it did not go. So. A lot of people were appreciative. He mentions this in the he mentions this in the the forwards to subsequent editions that a lot of people are appreciative of, of the work that he did and agreed with him. There were a few people who disagreed with him layup was an ongoing discussion in ongoing discussion with him, I guess, layup calls Heflin his chief opponent to his views. There's another guy named Munch Meyer, who writes, writes articles against halfling and Heflin defends them. So there is a there is an exchange. That exchange doesn't go on for too terribly long, though, because I believe the third edition, the copyright for the third edition, I think, is 15 or 1853. But I think he concludes the manuscript in 1852. But then he dies in 1853. He dies in April of 1853. So that you know that that discussion didn't continue on. And then, you know, in America to Walther, by the way really independently discovers a lot of the same stuff that Heflin talks about in his book, you know, in the struggles after removing Bishop Stefan and so on and so forth in his reading, his his reading and Luther, he independently learns and his teaching a lot of the same stuff. And I think in America, he was the he was the prominent theologian and so he really, he was the one that was studied. I don't think halfling is heavily studied all that much. But there is and this is how I got on the topic, actually in a way was, there is in the Wisconsin Synod. Kaler jpk, there was familiar with halfling and approves, approves of his writing, and then also perhaps Scholler, to read his read his original article in the Zeitschrift. And that perhaps affected his understanding of of the ministry as well, but those would maybe be a little bit more controversial. The the Wisconsin Senate, in their official statement actually says we reject Heflin. So those might be fighting words, but I'm not you know, I think there could be something to investigate there. Yeah, well, that's that's another question. I like to ask our guests, you know, what could you do with this work? And that's maybe one topic to see continental American responses and of course, a lot of Wisconsin listeners to and maybe that would be a topic to look into. Yeah, another area and I guess I this might be a research area for me honestly, you know, when Walter and Winnick and both traveled to Germany, and I noticed your dates he died in in 53. So he he was around for there late 1851, early 1852. And that was basically church and ministry debate with with Leah and other reasons too, but that was really the primary thing going to that same area of northern Bavaria, and I've read through that report, but I forgot. Do you know do they visit if link or is that an area for further investigation? Yes, they do. Yeah. And it's in house of my father's that was put out. It's translated and Yeah, he does talk about going to Erling and, and, and has a good discussion. They're very, they're very, you know, very cordial and it's a good discussion that he has with the professor's there. But he complains that they hold to Heflin and, and they they just weren't able to come to a meeting of the minds. Yeah, I think that trip largely is considered not to have been a success. For the purpose that I think it kind of it gets spun off as oh, what we did, we did a lot of talking. But yeah, ultimately, obviously, the layup group as well. There was a parting of ways. Yeah. Well, interesting. Thanks for sharing that little tidbit, I will certainly have to do a bit more research and that if I continue my studies the way I think they will be going. So yeah, thanks for some of the response to that. And the broader historical context, some of these characters might seem a little more isolated, you dig a little bit? Well, they're not isolated at all. They're really connected to the broader era and context and are interactive with that. So now, let's shift gears now is in our final couple of minutes here on the podcast today. Can you tell us about the actual work that you did of researching this, but also translating it? What was your process like what was that experience like? Well, it I guess it started it started with a friend. So I mentioned that I was rather baffled by this whole area. And, and then I discovered another author that I foolishly rejected without ever having read him and that was JP Kaler. And that was many years ago. And so I read JP Keeler for many years and got interested in the Protestants and, and then, you know, there was, so I had a friend that assigned me a paper for, he wanted me to, to talk about the Wisconsin Synod position on ministry, and given my given my history, and leaving the ELS and so on and so forth. It was I was in a way content with being baffled by all these things, and not and not, and not having firm conclusions, because then you can get along with everybody. And, but he, he assigned me this paper, so I had to I did research, and I and I did I read the primary sources when it comes to the Wisconsin Senate position to I read the word Tulsans. And, you know, was intrigued, interested, and so on and so forth. And so, whenever you it's very common whenever you are looking at the whisk what what people say about the Wisconsin Center position is that it's halfling ITE, and that comes up somewhat frequently. And so I that was where I started to poke around and Heflin and I finished a project and I had a I had a great friend who sadly died. Earlier this year, he was a Protestant pastor. And I'd worked on some translations with him. And so after I'd finished some projects, I told him, You know, I'd like to work on this book, and he helped me out and he agreed to do what he had done with some other stuff where I would translate stuff and then he'd go over it and find all my mistakes. So that's what we that's what we did with with Heflin, we started in June of 2020. And I'm not an expert at German. And so it's a laborious task. And we worked on it for three years. And I have to also admit that I got an awful lot of help from Google Translate. And, and I know I would have gotten things wrong that Google Translate helped me catch if I didn't if I wouldn't have used it as extensively as I did. So that was that was how it came about. Once the book was done. I did offer the manuscript to Northwestern publishing house and Concordia. Neither of them were interested in publishing it, I don't think they you know, it's I'm not sure if it will ever be a hot seller, you know, so That was a so that's when I said, Okay, I'll publish it myself through Amazon, which I had done with a previous book. That was the project that I finished up in 2020, I'd published another book by a Protestant pastor Paul Hensel, on hardening in the church. And so I was familiar with, with how you had to format that, all that sort of stuff in order to in order to get it out. Right, well, I think, most 21st century German translators unless they're 100%, confident and fluent might might confess Google Translate had something to do with the process. You're honest enough to say that I've definitely used it too for not obviously booking stuff. But other other projects. Yeah. Very, very, very interesting in that in that process. So final question. And I guess it can go one of two ways. You've already alluded to some areas where maybe a further research could be done. Anything else you think could be done with this topic, this this resource for further research? Or, also, are you planning on doing anything else in historical theology? Yeah, there is actually a kind of fun thing that I'm hoping to do someday is I'd like to get to the library in Mequon. And look at the Zeitschrift where this were halflings original article was printed, because supposedly, there are markings by the hand of John Schaller. I learned about that from a jewel plus a jewel plus he did a series of articles on Heflin. And so he tracked that down and I've really liked Look at that. And I do I do personally believe that there is a there is a strong connection between halfling and especially JP Kaler and John Schaller. So, John Schaller is often neglected as far as as far as his contribution especially to church and ministry actually, it's usually August peepers, the one that gets all the gets all the acclaim. But John shoulder is the is the first of the Wauwatosa uns to write explicitly on ministry. He has an essay on the origins of the New Testament ministry. And I think it's a brilliant essay. I'm very intriguing, and I would say is perhaps even an advance or an advance of heckling, but or maybe more presented more succinctly lively and stuff like that. So I think there's definitely worthwhile things to, to look at, as far as the Wisconsin Senate's connection to Heflin, which which undoubtedly, came from JP Kaler. Yeah, that'd be very interesting. Again, see the further connections and applications you know, what, what influence was there? Or maybe not, right? Yeah, that's always good. To get into the archives, like you said, you can see the actual, I was gonna say, Oh, you might be able to find the document on archive or Google Books. But if you're looking for someone's personal notes, that's when you do the fun in person research. At least it's fun for me. I would, I'd really like to see the stuff that he underlines, and, you know, I'm not sure if I could decipher if he makes any comments, but I'd really like to see what, what impressed him about about that article. Yeah. Personally, I have to be careful which books I lend out, because sometimes they may write some snarky comments and other people to read. So yeah, yeah. Well, we'll maybe we'll get lucky and get something spicy and interesting for for historians in the comments. So. All right. Well, we're about at the end of our time today. So thank you, Pastor Holman for your time. It's been a good time talking with you. Yeah. Likewise,