Luther Alexander Gotwald - Heresy Trial

Heresy Trial

Rev. Gotwald was tried for heresy by the Board of Trustees at Wittenberg College in Springfield, Ohio on April 4 and April 5, 1893. In his book The Gotwald Trial Revisited, Rev. Luther A. Gotwald, Jr. tells the story of this trial in detail of why and how the author’s famous ancestor was tried for heresy on a charge of “false teachings”. This charge was brought by three members of the First Lutheran Church of Dayton, Ohio, who were members of the Wittenberg Board of Trustees. These board members alleged that his teachings espoused the doctrine of the “General Council” denomination of the Lutheran Church.

The author states that “As unusual as it is for a theological professor to have such charges preferred against him, what is even more unusual is the fact that the two competing denominations were making overtures toward closer cooperation with hopes of their eventual merger.” According to A History of Wittenberg College, "the 'trial' of Professor L. A. Gotwald at Wittenberg, in 1893, arose from fear that the liberal traditions of the college were threatened by a rising 'exclusive and conservative spirit' symbolized by Gotwald." As the Gotwald heresy trial book put it, "The 1890s were times when Lutheran were choosing between two identities -- Lutherans who were adapting their teachings and practices to Protestant America following the lead of Dr. Samuel Simon Schmucker; and those who sought their role as maintaining the understandings of the Lutheranism of the Sixteenth Century Reformer Martin Luther. Both sides maintained they were true." Professor Gotwald was defended at this trial by Judge Joseph W. Adair of Noble County, Indiana. At the conclusion of the trial, it is telling that even the prosecutors joined in the unanimous vote for his acquittal.

The charges that Professor Gotwald was not teaching correct Lutheran theology swirled around quite some time before formal charges were brought to the Wittenberg Board of Trustees. It undoubtedly owed much of its genesis to Rev. Gotwald's ministry in Dayton in which he became embroiled in many stormy debates about church doctrine with some other church leaders. It reached the point that his health gave out and he had to resign his ministry and spend a period of time away from the ministry to recover. It was no coincidence that his most vocal critics and accusers came from Dayton. Perhaps most damaging in the leadup to the trial were articles in the Lutheran Evangelist that named "Luther Gotwald as a teacher not fit to teach in a General Synod Seminary".

A minority of the Wittenberg Board of Directors, consisting of Rev. Ernest E. Baker, Alexander Gebhart and Joseph R. Gebhart, sent a minority report to the Miami Synod Convention, which was held in Springfield, Ohio on October 5 through October 7 of 1892, requesting that it investigate whether Prof. Gotwald "gloried in the idea that the logical interpretation of the would lead to the doctrinal basis of the General Council (i.e., unorthodox and, at the time, actively competing Lutheranism)." The Board of Directors, after lengthy debate, pointedly supported all their facaulty of their seminary.

Further, a majority of the Wittenberg Board of Directors had little heart to hear the heresy charges against Prof. Gotwald. In fact, the Wittenberg Board of Directors as well as the Miami Synod Convention passed up the chance to act on these heresy charges against Prof. Gotwald, brought by this minority of the Wittenberg Board of Directors. Some Wittenberg Theological Seminary faculty members even tried to talk the accusers out of their intention to take action against Rev. Gotwald.

Even so, these accusations motivated Prof. Gotwald to assure the Wittenberg Board of Directors in writing on October 31, 1892, that he had "never contemplated a change in the doctrinal basis of the General Synod". His assurance included a list of the theological positions he accepted and those he rejected. He requested the opportunity to go before the board and make this assurance in person. However, at this point, the president of the board saw no need, after their lengthy discussion at their regular meeting, to call a special meeting to deal with what it seemed to consider frivolous accusations.

The Gotwald heresy trial book states that "the three rebuffed accusers from Dayton were determined all the more to bring the matter to the Wittenberg Board of Directors for final resolution in a formal heresy trial in the Spring of 1893." Thus, these detractors continued to argue that while Prof. Gotwald started with orthodox Lutheran doctrine, his interpretation of that doctrine and his teaching, based on his logical extension of that doctrine, ended up in unorthodox beliefs and teachings. The persons who formally brought charges against Rev. Gotwald before the Directors of Wittenberg College were, of course, his arch detractors, Ernest E. Baker, Alexander Gebhart and Joseph R. Gebhart. They based their charges on what they said he had said to them personally, what he had said at various Lutheran functions and even what had been written about him in his biography in a Lutheran publication as to what he believed himself and as to what he intended to teach his students. The Gotwald heresy trail book says that Professor of English and Latin, Charles Lewis Ehrenfeld, was also heavily involved behind the scenes in the drafting of charges against Professor Gotwald. Professor Ehrenfeld had recently survived a student request to the Wittenberg Board of Director that he be dismissed, but still had resigned from Wittenberg as a result.

The charges, as initially filed, were that "The said Luther A. Gotwald, D.D. is DISQUALIFIED to be a Professor of Theology in Wittenberg College." They included a list of seven charges, all of which probably may be summed in the charge that he was not teaching "the type of Lutheranism that dictated the establishment of Wittenberg College, that animated its founders in undertaking it, and in whose interests the original trust was created." Under Board rules, the filing of these formal charges required Board President John Luther Zimmerman to call a special Board meeting to hear evidence regarding those accusations. He called that meeting to begin at 2:00 P.M. on April 4, 1893 in the Wittenberg Recitation Hall, in the College Building on the Wittenberg campus. The accusing board members persuaded a reluctant board member, Rev. E.D. Smith, to serve as the initial prosecutor. Judge Joseph W. Adair and Pastor G.M. Grau, D.D., represented the defense.

At the outset of the trial, the defense moved that the charges be made more specific. The Board required the prosecution to do so. There was much heated argument over what those specifics should be. When the Board finally adopted the amended charges to be tried, "the accusers refused to bring the amended charges claiming that the altered charges were not their charges." The original prosecutor, Rev. E.D. Smith, also declined to continue, since the amended charges were not those that he had agreed to prosecute. Board member Rev. M.J. Firey, D.D., reluctantly agreed to continue the prosecution of the case against Prof. Gotwald on the amended charges.

Rev. Firey had little luck in prosecuting the case, since the original accusers all steadfastly refused to participate in any way and, unlike in a regular court of law, he had no way to force their testimony. All the rest of the testimony he called at the trial from fellow faculty members and even a student was basically supportive of Prof. Gotwald. With no help from the instigators of the charges, M.J. Firey could not make his case. The trial ended abruptly in acquittal, before Prof. Gotwald had a chance to put on the bulk of his defense – apparently to his great disappointment. Twenty five court members voted to acquit, including prosecutors Rev. M.J. Firey and Rev E.D. Smith. His three accusers, Ernest E. Baker, Alexander Gebhart, and Joseph R. Gebhart abstained from the vote. If it is not crystal clear what this trial was all about, it is because what were clearly the vague and generalized charges against Rev. Gotwald never did come into focus, since his accusers refused to participate in the process of bringing them into focus. For instance, the prosecution was asked at the trial to define the word "fundamental" in its charges, which it could not or would not do. Nevertheless, Wittenberg later published and distributed Prof. Gotwald's unpresented defense to these unclear charges.

Still, his accusers later stated in The Lutheran Evangelist that the proceeding against Prof. Gotwald had been a "mock trial." They even threatened to appeal the outcome to the Ohio Supreme Court, but they never did and, of course, legally, they never could appeal the outcome of a church trial to a secular court.

Following the trial and at least in partial response to the publicity attending it, the General Synod at Canton and the General Counsel of Fort Wayne, Indiana made large steps in resolving the differences between them. The General Synod and the General Council joined into the United Lutheran Church in America on November 15, 1918 in New York City. John L. Zimmerman, who presided at the Gotwald trial, was elected to its Executive Board.

Even so, as is true with virtually all major denominations, the debate between the conservative and liberal persuasions of the Lutheran Church continues today. As the Gotwald heresy trial book puts it, in "the Twenty-first Century, in the wake of the ecumenical movement, Lutherans are again being challenged to identify their reasons for being and knowing their true identity. Readers will find many of the same issues which dominated the trial of Luther Gotwald are still with us today, making it a good reason for becoming acquainted with its issues and how they were dealt with."