Tonight we remember a man whose impact on American Lutheranism is both profound, and deeply under-appreciated. Johann Konrad Wilhelm Loehe lived in nineteenth-century Germany, serving as pastor in a Bavarian town called Neuendettelsau. Although he never visited the United States, he had a deep impact on the growth of orthodox Lutheranism here by training men who were sent as missionary pastors here (as well as to Brazil and Australia). Some of these pastors became the founding fathers of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. He financed a teachers college in Saginaw, Michigan, as well as a seminary in Fort Wayne, Indiana, which today is called Concordia Theological Seminary, a school I’m proud to call my alma mater. Loehe was also deeply dedicated to works of mercy,…