Wilhelm Löhe

Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe
Photograph of Wilhelm Loehe
Born	(1808-02-21)February 21, 1808 Fürth, Middle Franconia
Died	January 2, 1872(1872-01-02) (aged 63) Neuendettelsau, Bavaria
Nationality	German
Education	University of Erlangen
Religion	Lutheran
Ordained	1831

Johann Konrad Wilhelm Löhe (21 February 1808 – 2 January 1872) (often rendered 'Loehe') was a pastor of the Lutheran Church, Neo-Lutheran writer, and is often regarded as being a founder of the deaconess movement in Lutheranism and a founding sponsor of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS). From the small town of Neuendettelsau, he sent pastors to North America, Australia, New Guinea, Brazil, and the Ukraine. His work for a clear confessional basis within the Bavarian church sometimes led to conflict with the ecclesiastical bureaucracy. His chief concern was that a parish find its life in the eucharist, and from that source evangelism and social ministries would flow. Many Lutheran congregations in Michigan, Ohio, and Iowa were either founded or influenced by missionaries sent by Löhe. He is commemorated by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and the LCMS on 2 January.

Löhe was born on 21 February 1808 in the town of Fürth in present-day Middle Franconia. The son of a shopkeeper, his father died in 1816 and he seemed to have had a very lonely childhood. He received his basic education from C. L. Roth’s gymnasium in Nuremberg and was admitted to theological study at the University of Erlangen in 1826. He was heavily influenced by the Reformed professors of theology Christian Krafft and Thomas von Kempen. Ultimately, he was introduced to the Lutheran Confessions and became a Lutheran under the teaching of David Hollaz. In 1828 he spent a term at the University of Berlin, attracted not so much by the lectures of the professors as by the sermons of the famous preachers. Löhe graduated from the Erlangen in 1830, but waited until 1831 before receiving a pastoral assignment to Kirchenlamitz in Upper Franconia (Northeastern Bavaria).