Walter A. Maier - Public Speaker

Public Speaker

Discontinuation of the Lutheran Hour merely caused W.A.M. to redouble speaking efforts. He still had access to KFUO for local broadcasting; several times he was invited to speak on The Lutheran Hour of Faith and Fellowship, a Detroit-based program which broadcast on a seven station network in Michigan and Indiana; he could reach the public through Messenger editorials; and he taught scores of young seminarians Semitic languages and culture, and how to apply this knowledge to a better understanding of Scripture. But Maier could also reach vast audiences through public speaking. From the time that W.A.M. received the coveted Billings prize, he had received acclaim for remarkable gifts as a public speaker.

In 1917, whilst attending Harvard, young Maier’s addresses at Clinton, Massachusetts garnered glowing reviews from the local newspaper. By 1920, Executive Secretary Maier was addressing audiences numbering in the thousands. In 1925, he was keynote speaker before an audience of 10,000 for the Lutheran Day Festival at Ocean Grove, New Jersey. On Sunday, June 23, 1929, some 70,000 people attending the quadricentennial celebration of Luther’s Catechism listened attentively to the event’s featured speaker, Walter A. Maier. From this time onward, the eloquent Semitics Professor was destined to speak before audiences numbering in the tens of thousands.

Soon after the Lutheran Hour went off the air, Maier presented one of his most significant essays, “The Jeffersonian Ideals of Religious Liberty,” before the Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. For this highly publicized conference on church-state relationships, W.A.M. was to share the rostrum with such notables as President Herbert Hoover and Rear Admiral Richard E. Byrd. Maier’s presentation was given a standing ovation, made headlines across the nation the next morning, and was later published.

Later in 1930, Maier was challenged by the Chicago Chapter of the American Association for the Advancement of Atheism to a debate with the renowned atheist, Clarence Darrow. The matter reached the newspapers, igniting strong sentiments from both Atheists and Christians. Clarence Darrow issued a statement to the Associated Press: “I never issued any challenge of this nature and no one has been authorized to issue such a challenge on my behalf.” Despite further entreaty from the challenging institution, Darrow declined to enter the fray, much to the disappointment of Maier.

During this period, Maier accepted speaking engagements nearly every weekend. Time magazine featured articles on his “Seven Fatal Follies” and “Back to Luther!” addresses at Ocean Grove (July 27, 1931 and Sept. 4, 1933 respectively). In the fall of 1932, he and Michigan Governor Wilbur M. Brucker addressed 11,000 at the Motor City’s State Fair Coliseum to honor the bicentennial of George Washington’s birth. Maier spoke before 16,000 at Olympia Stadium in Detroit in 1933, over 25,000 at Belle Isle in 1934. When the Lutheran Hour resumed in 1935, Maier continued to speak before capacity crowds, deeming the message more important than his own well-being.

Maier became a chief spokesman for the vigorous reassertion of classic Christianity. A superb orator, with the educational background to support his positions, Maier possessed the ability to communicate traditional Christianity in an untraditional manner, (as one magazine writer quipped, “the soapbox delivery of a Harvard script”). His version of traditional Christianity was pure Protestant orthodoxy based on Scripture and mediated through the Lutheran confessional traditions. In 1948, when Eleanor Roosevelt labeled him as a "fanatic fundamentalist," he replied with a sermon entitled, "You, Too, Should be a Fundamentalist!" (Roosevelt later retracted her charge and apologized to W.A.M.)