Neo-Lutheranism

Neo-Lutheranism was a 19th-century revival movement within Lutheranism which began with the Pietist driven Erweckung, or Awakening, and developed in reaction against theological rationalism and pietism. This movement followed the Old Lutheran movement and focused on a reassertion of the identity of Lutherans as a distinct group within the broader community of Christians, with a renewed focus on the Lutheran Confessions as a key source of Lutheran doctrine. Associated with these changes was a renewed focus on traditional doctrine and liturgy, which paralleled the growth of Anglo-Catholicism in England. It was sometimes even called "German Puseyism". In the Roman Catholic Church in Germany, neo-Lutheranism was paralleled by Johann Adam Möhler. The chief literary organ of the neo-Lutheranism was Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, edited by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg.

Neo-Lutheranism was a reaction against the Prussian Union like Tractarianism against the British Government's decision to reduce the number of Irish bishoprics. A divide developed in neo-Lutheranism whereby one side held to repristination theology which tried to restore historical Lutheranism while the other held to the theology of the Erlangen School. The repristination theology group was represented by Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg, Carl Paul Caspari, Gustav Adolf Theodor Felix Hönecke, Friedrich Adolf Philippi, and C.F.W. Walther. Repristination theology is the mother of later Confessional Lutheranism. Confessionalism to the Erlangen School was not to be static, but dynamic. The Erlangen School tried to combine Reformation theology with the new learning. The Erlangen School included Franz Hermann Reinhold von Frank, Theodosius Harnack, Franz Delitzsch, Johann Christian Konrad von Hofmann, Karl Friedrich August Kahnis, Christoph Ernst Luthardt and Gottfried Thomasius.

...
Wikipedia