Lutheran Sunday School, 1820 to 1860, and Its Impact Upon Contemporary Lutheranism in Central Pennsylvania*

*Excerpts from a presentation by the Rev. John K. Burk, pastor of St. John's Lutheran Church, Fairfield, PA, given at the 1996 Annual Meeting. This is being published in two parts; the second, with bibliography, will appear in the Winter issue.

As a first-year seminarian at Gettysburg Seminary, I was assigned to St. Peter's Lutheran Church on North George Street in York, PA for what was then called "field education." I observed that Sunday School, although technically presided over by the pastor, church council, and Christian Education committee, had a life of its own, and traditions which went back at least into the nineteenth century. The pastor did not teach any of the classes. All classes were taught by lay persons, from the nursery up to and including the many adult classes offered. Only once in my year with St. Peter's was the Pastor asked to serve as resource person to give an introduction to the arcane mysteries of the book of Revelation. He came once.

The Sunday School took its own offering and maintained its own checkbook. It supported missionary activity, local social ministry activity, and had a social life all its own, too. Some of the people, who came to Sunday School regularly, did not stay for worship. I later learned from other fellow seminarians, and as a pastor, from fellow pastors, that my experience at St. Peter's was not unique at all.

It is my belief that the Sunday School has been such a dominant force in Central Pennsylvania Lutheranism because it is primarily a lay institution. From its very beginnings, it has existed apart from, though usually attached to, the Lutheran parish. It is a lay movement, which ultimately takes its legitimacy from the basic Reformation doctrine which Lutherans call "the universal priesthood of believers."

It is also the thesis of this paper that Samuel Simon Schmucker, the first president of Gettysburg Seminary, endorsed and blessed Sunday Schools and saw them as both beneficial to Lutheranism as a church in their own right, and also saw Sunday Schools as a vehicle for local evangelism. Schmucker also had as a goal bringing the Lutheran church into the mainstream of what we now call mainline Protestantism in America. He wanted the Lutheran church, which he rightly saw and understood as becoming an English speaking denomination, to obtain its rightful place in American life so that it might be a positive influence on the morality of the society in which it found itself. The Sunday School movement was both a manifestation of this drive in Schmucker and an adjunct to it.

The earliest evidence of a Sunday School or "Sabbath School" movement in Lutheranism point not to England as many suppose, but to Germany. Pastor Phillip Jacob Spener, father of Lutheran pietism, instituted "Kinderlehre" about the year 1666. Kinderlehre were "held on Sunday, immediately after the morning service, and were for old and young, but especially intended for the confirmed youth, and consisted in a brief opening service with singing, Scripture reading and prayer, followed by the examination in the Catechism, and the texts of Scripture illustrating the several parts."

Although these were not catechetical classes per se, many members of the class would have already been confirmed, and Luther's Catechism was the central object of study. Spener was concerned about the piety of these young people, and wanted more for them than mere intellectual assent to memorized doctrines of the church. These Kinderlehre were conducted by the pastor who developed their curriculum based on the catechism and on Holy Scripture. German speaking Lutheran Christians, therefore, brought with them from Europe a tradition of a kind of Christian education, connected to Sunday, their day of worship, but yet separate from the worship service itself. It should be remembered that universal literacy was far from having been achieved until well into the twentieth century. Therefore the form of instruction depended heavily upon intense memorization.

Lutherans, since the time of the Reformation, have had a somewhat ambivalent attitude toward the clergy in which too much authority had been invested. Having been victimized by a Roman Catholic hierarchy, which insisted on its own right to determine doctrine, and which devalued the role of Holy Scripture when doctrinal issues were being argued, Luther encouraged all the baptized to become educated.

He especially advocated radical things including the education and training in literacy of young girls and women. "An outcome of the Lutheran Reformation was the emphasis placed upon the religious education of the laity. With the opening of the bible for the use of the people and with the emphasis upon individual religious experience as opposed to the authority of the Church, the need for education became apparent. This emphasis upon the education of the laity has been inherited by the present-day Lutheran church."

In England, in the late 1700's, Robert Raikes, a layman, started Sunday "Schools," which sought to engage youths on their free day in meaningful learning. These early schools taught literacy, basic math and other academic subjects, but also taught the Bible. Raikes was applauded almost universally, and his schools, and his success, was imitated on both sides of the Atlantic.

The port cities of Philadelphia, New York and Boston were the first cities in America to boast Sunday Schools. "On July 11, 1791, this association was known by the name of The Society for the Institution and Support of First Day or Sunday Schools in the City of Philadelphia and the districts of Southwark and Northern Liberties."

From the outset, these schools used public meeting places, including churches, but were not initially associated with denominations. Only after public schools began to be established in the first twenty years of the nineteenth century in America did the Sunday Schools stop teaching academic subjects.

At this point in time, the early 1820's, there were many Sunday Schools affiliated with Lutheran churches in Central Pennsylvania. German speaking Lutherans, who had come to America and settled in Pennsylvania, had tried since the mid-1700's to establish Lutheran parochial schools as adjuncts to their churches. It should be noted that some of the earliest pastors of Lutheran churches came over from Europe as teachers, and taught in schools during the week, and then, because there was no one else to do so, preached on Sunday. Shortage of both trained Lutheran clergy and trained parochial school teachers was pronounced.

However, by the time these Pennsylvania German immigrants had become third or fourth generation Americans in the 1820's, the language of worship and the language of their home was becoming largely English. Language was one of the most significant factors which impacted the development of the Sunday Schools of Central Pennsylvania Lutheranism. Each church had to decide how and when it would make the transition from German language to English. The Sunday School movement, which was growing rapidly among their neighbors, was perceived by Lutheran leadership, especially in the newly founded seminary at Gettysburg, as a means of both inculcating Christian values and beliefs, and also as a tool for evangelism.

Samuel Simon Schmucker was a strong, and very powerful advocate for the Sunday School, or as he called them, "Sabbath Schools." He wrote a discourse in 1830 which was presented before the Gettysburg Sunday School, which at that time was an interdenominational phenomenon in the town of Gettysburg, where Schmucker taught and lived.

Schmucker's endorsement of the Sunday School movement had widespread effect. He was one of the chief spokespersons for Lutheranism in America, if not the major voice. He stood at a unique juncture of history as well. The War of 1812 fought only a little more than a decade prior was still fresh in people's minds. After all, Washington, D.C. had been burned by the British in Schmucker's veritable backyard. Europe, as his speech reveals, was generally perceived as the Old World with all its decadence and corruption. America was a new experiment, a second chance, so to speak, for humanity. European traditions, and even the old World religions especially Roman Catholicism, were perceived as instruments of an oppressive system, which blessed tyranny. Schmucker saw Sabbath Schools as allies in the fight against the "fruits" of the Old World, which still blemished the newborn and innocent republic, the United States.

The Sabbath School was, according to Schmucker, a blessing to both this fledgling democracy, the United States, and to the church; to the state because it inculcated values which would help democracy thrive, virtues such as righteousness, peace, and and self-control; and to the church because many of the unbaptized and the unchurched would be brought to faith.

"No matter how poor or how vicious the parents, the child is admitted to full participation of all the blessing of gospel light; the book of God, and other holy books, are brought home to parents, perhaps to bless them with eternal life." (Schmucker)

Back to Top