Neo-Lutheranism was a 19th-century revival movement withinLutheranism which began with thePietist-drivenErweckung, orAwakening, and developed in reaction againsttheological rationalism andpietism.[1]
The movement followed theOld Lutheran movement and focused on a reassertion of the identity of Lutherans as a distinct group within the broader community ofChristians, with a renewed focus on theLutheran Confessions as a key source of Lutheran doctrine. Associated with these changes was anEvangelical-Catholic renewed focus on traditional doctrine and liturgy, which paralleled the growth ofAnglo-Catholicism in England.[2] It was sometimes even called "GermanPuseyism".[3] In theCatholic Church in Germany, neo-Lutheranism was paralleled byJohann Adam Möhler. The chief literary organ of the neo-Lutheranism wasEvangelische Kirchenzeitung, edited byErnst Wilhelm Hengstenberg.
Neo-Lutheranism developed as a reaction against thePrussian Union of Churches[4] in a similar manner to the development ofTractarianism against the British government's decision to reduce the number ofIrish bishoprics. The term has been defined different ways to distinguish it from the Old Lutherans movement, which was a schism in areas where a church union was enforced.
A distinction developed in neo-Lutheranism whereby one side held to repristination theology, which attempted to restorehistorical Lutheranism, while the other held to the theology of theErlangen School coming out of theUniversity at Erlangen. The repristination theology group was represented byErnst Wilhelm Hengstenberg,Carl Paul Caspari,Gisle Johnson,Friedrich Adolf Philippi,C. F. W. Walther, and others.[4] Repristination theology is more similar to laterConfessional Lutheranism. In contrast, confessionalism to the Erlangen School was not to be static, but dynamic. The Erlangen School tried to combineReformation theology with new learning and includedFranz Hermann Reinhold von Frank,Theodosius Harnack,Franz Delitzsch,Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann,Karl Friedrich August Kahnis,Christoph Ernst Luthardt, andGottfried Thomasius.[4]
Neo-Lutheranism is sometimes limited only to the theology and activity represented byTheodor Friedrich Dethlof Kliefoth,August Friedrich Christian Vilmar,Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe,August Friedrich Otto Münchmeyer, andFriedrich Julius Stahl, who had particularlyhighecclesiology. They were against the idea of theinvisible church, strongly contending that the church was an outward, visible institution of salvation.
They emphasised the ordained ministry instituted by Christ and the significance of thesacraments over the Word asMeans of Grace. However, unlike the Erlangen School, this type of neo-Lutheranism did not have a lasting influence on Lutheran theology. Properly speaking,High Church Lutheranism began in Germany much later, with the creation of theHochkirchliche Vereinigung Augsburgischen Bekenntnisses in 1918, inspired by 95 thesesStimuli et Clavi of 1917, exactly 100 years afterClaus Harms' 95 theses.
Neo-Lutheranism is distinct from the term "neo-Protestantism", which is an exclusively liberal theology represented, for example, byAdolf von Harnack and his followers.
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