Recommendations

VOLUME 2 RECOMMENDATIONS

Updated 3/08 This information is also in the file WHAT OTHERS ARE SAYING ABOUT THE BOOK

“Putting second things first, I immediately read the book [after receiving it in the mail]. When I was in [Piepkorn’s] classes at the Sem and listened to his chapel addresses, of course, I also knew that he was a major and enormously gifted theologian. Actually, however, it was not until I read your book that I could fully appreciate the tremendous depth of his knowledge, as well as its truly ecumenical spread. What a tremendous gift he was to our church in particular, Christianity in general! Just look at his small piece on the filioque controversy between East and West. What brilliance, authoritative command of its history, and yet flexibility!”
  —Paul L. Maier, Professor of Ancient History, Western Michigan University.

“Thank you very much for all your work in compiling and editing these writings. They are an important legacy for the church that is being well preserved.”
  —Gerhard H. Bode, Professor of Historical Theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis

“I am enjoying revisiting Fr. Piepkorn’s clarity and incisiveness once more….once I got through Phil’s excellent and thorough introduction…which was equally clear! Great work!” 
  —Burton Everist, ELCA pastor in Iowa.

“I have two offices, one at church and one at home. After receiving the book, I ordered a second copy so I could have one handy in both offices.”
  —Albert Buelow, LCMS pastor in Odebolt, IA.

“A great book…. This is an excellent book about the Lutheran Symbols and how they help us to interpret Scripture in fine Lutheran tradition…. I loved what I read [about it], so I ordered a copy… it is great. Would be a great resource to recommend to Lutheran lay people….”
  —Matthew Bowers, a LCMS layman in Hamel, IL.

“Thank you for the labor of love on your part. Dr. Piepkorn’s teaching, spirit and style are much needed among us these days.”
  —Curtis Rohland, pastor of Messiah Lutheran Church (ELCA), Washburn, WI.

“You have done a great service to the Church in getting these writings out.”
  —William Weedon, LCMS pastor, Hamel, IL.


  “Can’t wait for the next volume. Very impressive.” 
  —Richard Skov, Retired LCMS pastor in Connecticut. 8/07


  “I read volume 1 in two days. I couldn’t put it down. Can’t wait to receive volume 3.” 
  —Jack Whritenour, an ELCA pastor in Shelton, CT.

Excerpts from reviews: 
  “A man of encyclopedic knowledge, Piepkorn read the Lutheran Confessions in their original German and Latin for about an hour a day for at least ten years and could quote extensive portions of it from memory…. The editor is to be congratulated and encouraged in his mission to bring together these precious essays for a new generation.” 
  —Ralph Klein, Professor of OT Theology, Luther School of Theology at Chicago. Currents in Theology and Missions, review scheduled for early 2008.

“[This] volume should be of special interest to Catholic readers. Piepkorn was well acquainted with Catholic history and theology, and a very effective and friendly participant in the official Lutheran-Catholic Conversations in America, from their initiation (he attended the planning meeting, in 1965) to his death. His knowledge of Patristic thought and of medieval church history was deep and extensive. His concern for exact, and often minute, historical details could be astonishing.”
  —George Tavard, A.A.(+2007) , Catholic Historical Review, review scheduled for early 2008.

“ACP was one of the superstars ‘given’ to the LCMS in the 20th century. Others of similar stellar status from that era were Richard Caemmerer, Jaroslav Pelikan, Frederick Danker, Robert Bertram, Richard Luecke. ACP’s gifts shone through the many facets that had been polished on the gemstone that he was. Ph.D. at age 24–in Assyriology! Commandant at the U. S. Army Chaplain School.
  “Pioneer in Lutheran liturgical renewal. Member of the group that organized the US Lutheran-Roman Catholic dialogue–and participant therein until his death–where even the Roman superstars admitted that ACP could out-quote them (from memory, in Latin) when RC documents from antiquity were needed for discussion. 
  “Closer to home in Missouri, ACP was THE expert in the Lutheran Confessions (in their original languages, of course)–expert also in the subsequent generations of theologians, now designated Lutheran Orthodoxy (all of that in Latin or German too). At the seminary (and from other venues in the LCMS) when you needed to know whether something was ‘kosher’ according to the Confessions, it was automatic, ‘Ask Arthur Carl.’” 
  –Edward H. Schroeder, Professor emeritus, Concordia Seminary St. Louis, Seminex, Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Cofounder of Crossings.org. 
  ***Note that Schroeder was Piepkorn’s colleague only from September 1971-December 1973 and during a year as a visiting professor, regrets that he never sat down face to face to talk with Piepkorn about critical issues, and had not read “many” of the articles on the Confessions in The Sacred Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions, prior to its publication. As a result he makes a number of factual errors about Piepkorn’s life and misunderstands Piepkorn on many points in his review of the book (and also in paragraph 2.3 of his review of Paul Zimmerman’s A Seminary in Crisis (Thursday Theology #482-83.) I will be posting a list of these factual errors and misunderstandings in the future, including them in a newsletter, and making them available by email attachment. At the same time Schroeder explicitly confirms that Piepkorn represented a third position in the systematics department on the topic of confessional subscription and hermeneutics in the early 70s between “the superorthodox” on the one hand, and Bertram and Schroeder on the other hand. Schroeder claims that Herbert Bouman, Erwin Lueker and Andrew Weyermann held the same positon as Bertram and Schroeder. Schroeder was in a position to know, but this claim bears further research, especially with regard to Bouman and Lueker.

See also the “The Beloved, Legendary Piepkorn” page on http://www.Piepkorn.info, which contains the comments of George Lindbeck, Robert L. Wilken, Richard John Neuhaus, David Lotz about Piepkorn, including this comment by Lindbeck:

“Some Lutherans took their role as catholic reformers very seriously and were at times better informed than at least some of their Roman Catholic counterparts about aspects of Catholic teaching. This could be embarrassing when someone like Arthur Carl Piepkorn, whose reading and memory were prodigious, would outquote Denziger (in Latin) against a powerhouse such as John Courtney Murray when both of them were on the North American dialogue before their untimely deaths.”
  —George A. Lindbeck, Pitkin Professor of Historical Theology at Yale and colleague of Arthur Carl Piepkorn on the Lutheran–Roman Catholic Dialogue in the United States since its inception in 1965. Journal of Ecumenical Studies, 41:3-4 (2004).