Luther Alexander Gotwald, D.D. (January 31, 1833 – September 15, 1900) was an American Confessional Lutheran theologian and professor of Christian theology at the Wittenberg Theological Seminary in Springfield, Ohio. He was tried for heresy by the board of directors at the Wittenberg College in Springfield on April 4 and 5, 1893, which highlighted many key issues that American Lutherans still debate today. Gotwald died in 1900 in Springfield.
Family
Gotwald was born in York Springs, Adams County, Pennsylvania, on January 31, 1833, the fifth child of seven brothers and five sisters. His parents were Lutheran minister Daniel Gotwald and his wife, Susannah (Krone) Gotwald, both natives of Pennsylvania and of German ancestry.
The elder Gotwald was a prominent minister of the Lutheran church and reportedly was "one of the most able and eloquent Lutheran ministers of his time". Daniel Gotwald was born in Manchester Township, York County, Pennsylvania, on December 16, 1793. Daniel's German immigrant parents were Andrew and Mary Magdalene Gottwald. Daniel was christened January 26, 1794, in Quickel's Church, Conewago Township, Pennsylvania. Daniel and Susannah were married on July 22, 1819, in York, Pennsylvania, by John George Schmucker, the then 48-year-old pastor of Christ Lutheran Church of York, and the father of famous Lutheran theologian and educator, Samuel Simon Schmucker.Rev. John George Schmucker, 48 years of age, was pastor of Christ Lutheran Church, York. He had not yet received his D. D. degree. His twenty-year-old son Simon had served temporarily as teacher at the York Academy having studied theology at home with his father and then having gone off to Princeton for formal theological training. The elder Schmucker was born in Michelstadt, Germany, of pious parents who emigrated to America in 1785. He studied theology under Lutheran pastors of his day and was admitted as a member of the Pennsylvania Synod in 1794. About this time, John Schmucker was an advocate of the proposed General Synod, a federation of Lutheran synods in America which came into being in 1820. J-2: pp. 682-684; W-4: pp. 9, 13, 16f. Daniel lived in York, where he worked as a carpenter, until the birth of his third child. In time, Daniel came to see himself as a very sinful man who was in great peril of "eternal death".
Daniel began preaching on his own, drawing surprisingly large crowds. However, Rev. John George Schmucher approached Daniel and convinced him that he needed a formal education in Lutheranism. For a year and a half, Daniel walked every week through the very thick Penn's Woods to York to recite to the elder Schmucker. However, in time, this manner of instruction only whetted his taste for an even better education in the Lutheran ministry, so he sold his home and moved his family to Gettysburg to begin his full and regular course of theological study in the Lutheran Theological Seminary there as preparation for his work in the ministry. He studied there for two and a half years under the seminary's founder,. Samuel Simon Schmucker, who later said Daniel was "one of the most diligent and successful students that the Seminary ever had."Luther A. Gotwald, An Autobiography, p.22. In 1826 Samuel Simon Schmucker organized the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg and was its first professor. Since Daniel Gottwald entered the ministry in 1830, having studied two and one half years at Gettysburg, this places him among the first students to graduate from that school. Born on February 28, 1799, Schmucker, the son of the pastor who married Daniel Gotwald and Sussanah Krone, had received his theological training at Princeton Seminary, a Presbyterian school. Six years younger than Daniel Gottwald, this young professor, was, at this point in his life, the best educated Lutheran in America, and when compared to others of his day, was a conservative Lutheran, seeking to establish a seminary when as lately as eight years earlier (1818) the Pennsylvania Ministerium had named a committee of his father, Conrad Jaeger and H. A. Muhlenberg to plan a Union Seminary with the reformed branch of Protestantism. Schmucker also had served a pastorate in Shenandoah County, Virginia. Read A. R. Wentz's Pioneer in Christian Unity–Samuel Simon Schmucker for a sympathetic approach to the enigmatic personality known as S. S. Schmucker. W-4, B-1: p. 106. Daniel Gotwald was among the first to graduate from Gettysburg Seminary.
Daniel had two pastorates, one in Adams County and one in Centre County, Pennsylvania. His pastorate in Centre County served sixteen churches, one being over away, which required him to be on the road much of the time.Prepared Under the Editorial Supervision of Dr. Benjamin F. Prince, President Clark County Historical Society, A Standard History of Springfield and Clark County, Ohio: An Authentic Narrative of the Past, with Particular Attention to the Modern Era in the Commercial, Industrial, Educational, Civic and Social Development, Volume II, published by the American Historical Society, Chicago and New York, 1922, p.358. Daniel ardently supported the abolition of slavery in his ministry. Moreover, he fervently espoused the cause of temperance, which caused some to accuse him of being a "Methodist". Luther Gotwald gives this further description of his father's imposing physical characteristics, which undoubtedly served him well in his ministry:
Luther's father always preached in German, never in English. Luther Gotwald reported, in his own autobiography, as to his father's German language preaching that "As an orator and preacher he possessed great power. His voice was one of remarkable compass and sweetness. His thoughts logical and good, his imagination fine, his gestures graceful and wonderfully expressive, and his manner all earnestness, pathos, fire; his own soul all alive with the truth he was uttering, and his auditors held spell bound and weeping under his moving exaltations of truth and his powerful appeals."Luther A. Gotwald, An Autobiography, p.25. The elder Gotwald had a fiery temper, which his son, Luther said often caused his father great embarrassment and remorse. However, Luther went on to give this amusing account of the effect of his father's equally fiery eloquence in the pulpit, albeit in German.
Luther's mother, Susannah Krone Gotwald, was a devout lady who taught her children her own deep piety and her own stern virtues. His mother could not read English, but read her German bible every day.Luther Alexander Gotwald, Jr., The Gotwald Trial Revisited, Davidsville, Pennsylvania, 1992, p.78. The first Luther Alexander Gotwald, Jr. (son of Luther and Mary) died young. So, the next Luther Alexander Gotwald was their grandson, which is why the author is "Jr." and not "III". The identifying term "Gotwald heresy trial book" is used, instead of "Rev. Gotwald", to avoid confusion between the two Reverend Gotwalds. There is more than one version of this book. The version held by the Wittenberg University Library. is the one referred to as the "Gotwald heresy trial book". She often went with her husband on his ministerial travels, but she always made her home in her native Pennsylvania. Luther Alexander Gotwald had seven brothers and five sisters.Biography of Rev. Luther Alexander Gotwald, D.D. Portrait and Biographical Album of Greene and Clark Counties, Ohio, Chapman Bros., Chicago. Copyright 1890, pps. 505 & 506 p.505 p.506 They were Eliza Ana, born March 5. 1820; George Andrew, born May 6, 1821; Sarah Anna, born November 13. 1822; George Andrew, born July 22, 1824; Leah, born January 1, 1826; Daniel Isaac, born November 21, 1827; Susan Caroline, born in 1830; Mary Catherine, born February 10. 1835; Washington Van Buren, born November 10, 1836; Jacob Henry, born October 6, 1838; and William Henry Harrison, born September 2, 1841. Four of their children died in childhood. George died at Liverpool, Pennsylvania, at the age of two, Sarah Anna died at Liverpool at the age of eleven months, Leah died June 7, 1826, at Liverpool at the age of six months, and Mary Catherine died at Aaronsburg on May 20, 1842, at the age of seven.
Luther's father died on March 11, 1843, in Aaronsburg at the age of 49, after an illness of some three months. He was buried in the Evangelical Lutheran Church yard at Aaronsburg. Daniel Gotwald's death left his wife of twenty-five years, Susannah, with their eight surviving children to bring up and with meager financial means to do it. He left her with only a modest home and a few acres of land.
Luther's older sister, Eliza, married Jacob Scherer of Aaronsburg in May 1845, when Luther was eleven years old. Scherer became the second Lutheran minister in the state of Illinois. He was born in Botetourt County, Virginia. He graduated from Pennsylvania College in 1841 as the valedictorian of his class and two years later from Gettysburg Seminary. He served his first pastorate at Indianapolis, Indiana, from 1843 until 1845. Scherer then had ministries at Wabash County, Illinois, at Olney, Illinois, and at Shelbyville, Illinois. He, with six other ministers, organized the Lutheran Synod of South West Virginia on September 20, 1841, at St. John's Church, Wythe County, Virginia. Scherer died near Shelbyville, Illinois, on October 15, 1851, while Luther was living as a guest in his home shortly before he left for Springfield, Ohio, to begin his studies at Wittenberg College. Eliza remarried a man with the same name as her later first husband, Jacob Scherer. He was actually a distant relative of her first husband. Perhaps predictably, there was no way this second husband could come up to her first one in Luther's estimation. To begin with, he was a farmer and not a clergyman. Luther describes him as "a kind husband, but a man of little culture and no energy."Gotwald Autobiography, p. 20. Eliza died in Hillsboro, Illinois, at the age of 41 on September 25, 1855. Luther said of her, "Eliza was a noble Christian women, a dutiful daughter, a kind sister, an affectionate wife, a loving mother, and a patient and self-denying Christian, willing to suffer the loss of all things."
Luther's brother George Andrew was a practicing physician in Slaterford, Pennsylvania. However, Luther still considered him to be the black sheep of the family. He reports that "For many years he was no Christian." But then, Luther continues with great relief that "when forty one years of age, he professed to give his heart to God, and has ever since lived a consistent Christian life." Luther attributes this great miracle to his "pious mother", who prayed every day for forty years for that conversion and her son's resultant salvation. George was married to Lizzie Rolinsen, of New Harmony, Posey County, Indiana, whom Luther pronounced to be "an excellent Christian woman".Gotwald Autobiography, p. 21.
Strangely, Luther does not seem to have known much about his older brother, Daniel Isaac Gotwald. He was a printer who died in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1849 when he was 21. Luther says of him that "He was, I think, noble and upright in all his deportment, respectful and happy in his disposition, and a genial favorite among all who knew him. At the time of his death, several of the Cincinnati papers spoke very favorably of him." Luther admits that he does not even know whether Daniel Isaac was a Christian but continued that "Fervently do I hope that he was, for it is a dreadful thought that any of those we love, and especially one so dear as a Brother, should be called unprepared, from time into eternity, there to suffer forever for the misdeeds of this life."Gotwald Autobiography, p. 23.