Georg Albert Schieferdecker and the Altenburg Church Schism
by Aubrey Atkins
One would imagine that a simple first-person perspective written by a German-American immigrant and pastor in 1864 would be exactly that — simple. And yet, Rev. G. A. Schieferdecker’s History of the first German Lutheran settlement in Altenburg, Perry County, Missouri (with special emphasis on its ecclesiastic movements) illuminates one of the many (and dangerous) ways German-Americans settling Missouri could go drastically wrong. In the earlier days of settlement when town populations were unstable, a community vehemently divided is the exact opposite of what you’d want. And yet, that’s exactly what the residents of Altenburg, Perry County received.
History of the first German Lutheran settlement in Altenburg, Perry County, Missouri, was published in German by the Wartburg Seminary in Iowa in 1865. This book is essentially a history of the settlement of Perry County by Saxon Lutherans. Like most Germans who immigrated to Missouri, the Saxon-Lutheran migration was a direct result of political, economic, and religious instability born out of the Napoleonic Wars.
This object also gives a first-person account of one of Perry County’s most hectic (but rarely mentioned) moments. This book is amazing not only because of the value of a first-person perspective but because it gives voice to the potential risks of German immigration to Missouri and the larger national landscape.
This object is riddled with controversy, as the preface page above heavily alludes to:
“We not only wanted [the children of the Immanuel congregation] to know the history of their forefathers but to awaken and foster in them strong faith in and obedience to our God and Savior, Jesus Christ…We also wanted our children to know about the unfortunate church schism, which took place 7 years ago, not to perpetuate that rift or injure our opponents but through an accurate recounting of the facts to refute the reprimands laid on us from many sides that we had deviated from the pure and simple scriptural tenets of our evangelical-Lutheran faith and subsequently that the schism, which we regretted most deeply, was our fault and explain the unfortunate schism to refute claims it was the congregation’s fault.”
(An entire translation can be found on the object website linked here)
So, who was G.A. Schieferdecker and what was his involvement in Altenburg’s scandalous church schism?
While the history of Schieferdecker is a bit convoluted because of his many roles in the Lutheran body, Schieferdecker was deeply engrained in the Perry County Saxon-Lutheran community at the time of the church schism. Serving as both the pastor for Altenburg’s Trinity Lutheran Church and the President of the Western District of the Synod, our distinguished author was clearly well-respected in the community.
Despite Schieferdecker’s experience and renown with the Perry County population, he found himself helpless against one primary foe: chiliasm.
During the Spring of 1856, the Missouri Synod (of which the Altenburg congregation was a member) passed a resolution condemning all forms of “chiliasm” — now better known as millennialism. This is the hotly-debated Biblical take that Jews will be converted to Christianity before Judgement Day and that Christ will return to Earth in the current millennia. Both Pastor Gruber, the oldest minister at the synod during this time, and Schieferdecker refused to endorse this resolution (though Schieferdecker claims in his book that this was not done in support of chiliasm).
While this moral disagreement may not seem that serious to you or me, this was not the case for the conservative-style Saxon-Lutherans in question. Both sides of the debate viewed the other as denying the accurate word of the Bible. As intermediaries between their congregations and God, accusations of improperly conveying His will were unacceptable, giving neither side of the chiliasm debate room to compromise or back down.
What followed this divide was a truly dramatic series of events: there were heated debates on the topic, slanderous writings about Pastors Gruber and Schieferdecker in local newspapers, and even charges of heresy were levied. Despite his best efforts, our object’s narrator was stripped of his membership in both the Missouri Synod and the Trinity church. In response, Reverend Schieferdecker gathered the one-third of the congregation still willing to follow him and founded a new church in Altenburg called Immanuel, which became a member of the Iowa Synod.
Why establish the Immanuel church in Altenburg rather than move to a neighboring town in Perry County? Put simply, the benefits likely did not outweigh the costs.
In spite of the tensions between the Immanuel church and its original congregation (aka a large portion of Altenburg), relocating for German-American immigrants in Missouri during this time was a daunting and risky task. They would have had to leave almost everyone and everything they knew for a likely unfamiliar settlement, cutting off emotional and economic lifelines. Further, founding an entirely new settlement would have been virtually unthinkable for any group of German-American immigrants. This kind of task required a multitude of resources, time, and people the Immanuel congregation likely did not have access to. It would not be dramatic to reason that without these resources, the Immanuel congregation would have reaped fatal consequences.
As a county that prides itself on its Saxon-Lutheran heritage and takes great effort to preserve that history, one would imagine that it would be a breeze to find mention of G.A. Schieferdecker and the 1856 church schism on Perry County’s historical sites. And yet, my academic sleuthing has only yielded two other sources that even mention the chiliasm divide, one quite recently and the other not even published in Missouri.
This lack of information is surprising and I cannot help but wonder if the story about this church schism has intentionally been repressed by the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the Perry County Historical Society, and other archival sources.
Doing so would protect the image of Perry County and its tourist attractions. It would also preserve the image of Altenburg’s main congregation, the Trinity Lutheran church. Given the heated nature of Schieferdecker’s split from the Trinity Lutheran Church, the repression of this history out of spite is also something to consider.
On the other hand, like the large majority of Germans who came to Missouri, the Saxon-Lutherans who settled in Perry County in 1838 did so with the intention of fostering a community of nurturing relationships and deep roots built on family and church. As such, an event like the 1856 church schism would have been both emotionally devasting and embarrassing for virtually any recently established German-American settlement in Missouri. Not only did the schism contradict the values Perry County’s towns were founded on, but it would have threatened the stability of Altenburg’s already low population. Perhaps this embarrassment, rather than spite or preservation of Perry County’s image for tourists, is why Schieferdecker’s book is so poorly corroborated.
Whatever the reason, it goes to show how easily history integral to the stories of German settlement in Missouri can be lost. It raises questions of how many scandalous tales detailing the trails of German-American settlement in Missouri lay deeply buried, waiting for a lucky academic to once again unearth them.
If an event like Altenburg’s church schism, painstakingly documented and published from a first-person perspective, has been virtually glazed over, then maybe nothing is safe. Only time — and some curious Oktoberfest in the Midwest students — will tell.
