Charles Porterfield Krauth

1823-1883. Lutheran theologian and editor. Born in Martinsburg, Virginia, he studied at Gettysburg College and Seminary, was ordained into the Lutheran ministry in 1842, and served congregations in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania as a member of the Evangelical Lutheran General Synod. In 1861 he became editor of the Lutheran and Missionary; in 1864 he was elected professor at Mt. Airy Lutheran Seminary in Philadelphia and, after 1868, served also as professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. He was the leading spirit in the establishment of the General Council (1867), a federation of Lutheran synods opposed to “American Lutheranism,” which sought to compromise Lutheranism with Puritanism. He authored “Fundamental Articles of Faith and Church Polity,” adopted in the meeting preliminary to the founding of the General Council in Reading, Pennsylvania, in 1866. His “Theses on Altar and Pulpit Fellowship” reiterated the stand he advocated in the Akron and Galesburg Rules, “Lutheran altars for Lutherans only; Lutheran pulpits for Lutherans only.” He was editor of The Lutheran and The Lutheran Church Review. His most important work is The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology (1871).

See A. Spaeth, Dr. Charles Porterfield Krauth (2 vols., 1909).