Charles William Schaeffer

Last updated May 07, 2022

Charles William Schaeffer (born in Hagerstown, Maryland, 5 May 1813; died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 15 March 1896) was a Lutheran clergyman and theologian of the United States.

Biography

His parents were Frederick Solomon Schaeffer (1790-1815) and Catherine Elizabeth Schaeffer.^[1] His father was a Lutheran clergyman, as were his uncles David Frederick Schaeffer, Frederick Christian Schaeffer and Charles Frederick Schaeffer, and his grandfather Frederick David Schaeffer. He grew up in the home of his grandfather and that of stepfather Benjamin Keller.^[1] He attended Germantown Academy,^[1] and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1832, and at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1835, licensed to preach in 1835, and ordained in 1836.

Immediately after being ordained, he took charge of a parish in Montgomery County, which he served until 1841. He was pastor at Harrisburg, in 1841-49, and at Germantown, in 1849-75, when he was retired as pastor emeritus. In 1864, when the theological seminary was established in Philadelphia, he was elected professor of ecclesiastical history, which post he had since held.

He held high office in the councils of his church, and had been one of the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania since 1859, receiving from it the degree of DD in 1879. That of LL.D. was given him in 1887 by Thiel College, Greenville. Schaeffer was long one of the leaders of the conservative and confessional party in the Lutheran Church. He took an active part in the establishment of the theological seminary at Philadelphia in 1864, and in the organization of the general council in 1867. He was specially versed in American Lutheran history and the historical and doctrinal development of the Lutheran Church in the United States.

The C. W. Schaeffer Combined Secondary and Primary School was a Philadelphia public school in Germantown built in 1876 and named in his honor.

Writings

He wrote numerous articles for church papers and theological reviews. He was for several years co-editor of the Lutheran Home Journal in Philadelphia, and the Philadelphian, Lutheran and Missionary. After 1879 he was editor-in-chief of The Foreign Missionary in Philadelphia, and after 1886 he was one of the editors of the Lutheran Church Review. He published:

W. J. Mann, Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism, translated from the German (Philadelphia, 1855)
Early History of the Lutheran Church in America (1857)
Golden Treasury for the Children of God, translated from the German (1860)
Family Prayer, for Morning and Evening, and the Festivals of the Church Year
Halle Reports, translated from the German (Reading, 1882)
Church Book (1891)

Family

He married Elizabeth Ashmead in 1837. They had four children.^[1]

Notes

1 2 3 4 Genzmer, George Harvey (1935). "Schaeffer, Charles William". Dictionary of American Biography . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

Related Research Articles

Samuel Simon Schmucker was a German-American Lutheran pastor and theologian. He was integral to the founding of the Lutheran church body known as the General Synod, as well as the oldest continuously operating Lutheran seminary and college in North America.

Charles Porterfield Krauth was a pastor, theologian and educator in the Lutheran branch of Christianity. He is a leading figure in the revival of the Lutheran Confessions connected to Neo-Lutheranism in the United States.

Israel Acrelius was a noted Swedish Lutheran missionary and priest.

The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia (LTSP), also known as the Philadelphia Seminary, was one of eight theological seminaries associated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in North America. It is located on Germantown Avenue in the Mount Airy neighborhood of northwestern Philadelphia. Founded in 1864, it has its roots in the Pennsylvania Ministerium established in 1748 in Philadelphia by Henry Melchior Muhlenberg.

John Christian Frederick Heyer was the first missionary sent abroad by Lutherans in the United States. He founded the Guntur Mission in Andhra Pradesh, India. "Father Heyer" is commemorated as a missionary in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on November 7, along with Bartholomaeus Ziegenbalg and Ludwig Ingwer Nommensen.

Benjamin Kurtz was a German-American Lutheran pastor and theologian. He was part of the revivalist movement of the Lutheran Church in the 19th century, ran the Lutheran faith-based newspaper Lutheran Observer, founded the Lutheran faith-based Missionary Institute in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and assisted in the founding of the Gettysburg Seminary.

Frederick David Schaeffer was a German-American Lutheran clergyman.

David Frederick Schaeffer was a Lutheran clergyman of the United States.

Frederick Christian Schaeffer was a Lutheran clergyman of the United States.

Charles Frederick Schaeffer was a Lutheran clergyman of the United States.

Justus Christian Henry Helmuth was a German-American Lutheran clergyman.

Frederick Rinehart Anspach was an American Lutheran clergyman, author and editor.

Edward Frederick Moldenke was a Lutheran theologian and missionary who worked in Prussia and the United States.

Philip Frederick Mayer was a United States Lutheran clergyman.

Gottlob Frederick Krotel was a Lutheran clergyman of the United States.

Cortlandt Van Rensselaer was a Presbyterian clergyman from the United States.

The Lutheran Home in Germantown, now Silver Springs – Martin Luther School, began in 1859 as an orphanage for children that was originally located in the Mt. Airy, Philadelphia. This institution was a continuation of the work of Rev. William A. Passavant but was founded and managed by Elizabeth Fry Ashmead Schaeffer, who received a single dollar from Passavant and began the mission. The Lutheran Home in Germantown later moved to the Silver Springs property in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, where it continues as a residential treatment facility for children and school for elementary students and middle schoolers.

Elizabeth Fry Ashmead Schaeffer, was the founder of the Lutheran Home at Germantown for Orphans and an active leader of many ministries of the Lutheran Church in Philadelphia. She was the wife of Rev. Charles William Schaeffer and mother of four children.

St. Michael's Evangelical Lutheran Church is a historic church building in the Mount Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia, just north of the Germantown neighborhood. The congregation was founded sometime before 1728 and three successive church buildings have occupied the same location since that time. The church was closed in 2016.

Reverend Charles William Nassau D.D., was a Presbyterian minister and the fourth president of Lafayette College serving from 1849–1850.

References

This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain : Wilson, J. G.; Fiske, J., eds. (1900). "Schaeffer, Frederick David" . Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography . New York: D. Appleton.
"Dr Schaeffer Dead". The Philadelphia Inquirer. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. March 16, 1896. p. 1.

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.

[dab-1] 1 2 3 4 Genzmer, George Harvey (1935). "Schaeffer, Charles William". Dictionary of American Biography . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.

[1]