The Hardening: Faith-life and the Wauwatosa Theology

 

The Wauwatosa extolled by the WELS, contra what Wauwatosa themselves held dear.

' "Historical Thinking" was a trademark of Koehler's theology especially. "Faith-life," mentioned here by Hensel, is not what would be recognized as "Wauwatosan" today by anyone outside the Protes'tant Conference. Perhaps it was the Protes'tant controversy itself that made this aspect of the Wauwatosans' work fade into the background for the Wisconsin Synod. The nature of faith-life - the Christian life, justification and sanctification, Law and Gospel, etc. - was divisive. The Wauwatosans' work in this field was, at least to some extent, repudiated within the synod. Wisconsin synod commentators on the "Wauwatosa Theology" usually point to exegetical sensitivity as its main accomplishment. This stands in contrast to what Hensel posits here." ' The Hardening, pg. 348.