Walther Movie Review

In honor of the 125th anniversary of C.F.W. Walther’s death, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, has released a 4 DVD collection. This collection includes the 2011 movie, “Walther,” commentaries from historians, the 1938 Walther movie, “Call of the Cross,” and the reflections of past and present presidents from the seminaries and of the synod itself.
Historically, “Walther” was pretty solid. I did have a question about the movie’s opening scene however. There is no date given for the opening scene, but the next scene opens in 1836. How could Walther have been at one of these conventicles, if he was working as a tutor in Kahla, 181 kilometers east? Walther was a student at the University of Leipzig and then a pastor at Bräunsdorf. Both cities are some distance from Dresden, the home of Martin Stephan. Thus, close personal communication as depicted in the opening scene is exaggerated.
Also, some of the hymns sung by the Saxon immigrants were off-base. In the movie, we hear “Silent Night,” “Joy to the World” and “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” I doubt that Walther and his congregation aboard the ship would have sung hymns written by an Independent, Non-Comformist English Clergyman, or an exiled English Roman Catholic. Walther makes that clear in his Theological Opinion of 1883, in which he states: “The singing of such hymns would make the rich Lutheran Church into a beggar that is forced to beg from a miserable sect.” Where are the Lutheran hymns? Where is “From Heaven Above to Earth I Come” By Martin Luther? How about “I stand before Thy Manger Here” or “All My Heart Again Rejoices” by Paul Gerhardt? For a group of conscientious Lutherans fleeing from the “devastated” landeskirche of Germany, these hymns seem a little out of place.
Perhaps a bit more historical context should have been given in order to understand the time in which Walther lived. “Walther” makes us look at the Saxons as Americans, caught up in the idea of religious freedom. No, the Saxons were German Lutherans that were willing to obey and stay within the landeskirche as long as they were free to preach the Gospel. But when the Saxons came, they did not allow their group to “follow its conscience.” They came, not for the freedom of religion, but for the freedom to remain a pure and unadulterated community. The Stephenites were virtually a cult. This is why Stephan was invested as Bishop and given as virtually total control over every facet of the community. A decent reading of Stephan’s Investiture reveals the fanaticism of many of the Stephanites.
Cinematically, the Walther movie was a B movie. The acting wasn’t impressive and the documentary-style interviews made the movie choppy. The plot was sluggish. But how can it be otherwise, when the climax of the story is the Altenberg Debates? To me, it seems that the producers tried too hard to make it historically accurate, and, as a result, the plot suffered.
A better alternative would have been to make a History Channel style documentary of Walther. Have clips of the historians speaking, and then cut to pictures of prominent people and places with good narration. Have a few action scenes, but not very many. I say this because the historians are the shining stars of this 4 DVD collection. They are interesting and they put Walther in his proper context. All in all, I think Concordia Seminary should have saved its money and merely updated the 1938 version of Call of the Cross.