History
The magazine was founded in 1881 under the editorial leadership of Dr. Matthias Loy, a leading theologian and professor at Capital University. [1] Loy was a defender of confessional Lutheranism and played a significant role in conducting theological discourse in the Ohio Synod. [2] He also served as president of Capital University and the Evangelical Lutheran Joint Synod of Ohio. After its first publication, the Ohio Synod acquired Columbus Theological Magazine and placed it under synodical authority. [3] [4]
The publication started as a polemical journal focusing on the debate on the topic of predestination between the Ohio Synod and the Missouri Synod. In Vol. 1, "Loy ridiculed the Missouri attempt to reconcile its "new doctrine" with the explication of predestination in the Formula of Concord." [5] As the first journal written entirely in the English language joining the debate, it quickly became the primary voice for the Ohio Synod's side in the Predestination Controversy. In response, the Missouri Synod began publishing the English periodicals "St. Louis Theological Monthly" (1881) and "Lutheran Witness" (1882). [6] The first publication of Columbus Theological Magazine was a factor in leading the Missouri Synod to conclude that Loy had broken fellowship with them. [7] In Vol. 2 the debate shifted to the topics of degrees of resistance to grace and conversion, which both sides admitted was at the heart of the controversy. [8]
Over time the magazine evolved into a general theological magazine which addressed other issues relating to Scripture, theology, culture, higher education and history. Loy's "Introduction to Volume II" states,
We have the firm conviction that a periodical faithful in all respects to the symbolical books of the Ev. Lutheran Church, setting forth the old doctrines of the Reformation, endeavoring to make English readers acquainted with the treasures of learning and thought contained in old German and Latin folios, exhibiting the solidity and symmetry of the theological edifice erected by our fathers in an age less hurried and more thorough than the present, is what the Church has long since needed and now needs in the English language. This our periodical was meant in some measure to supply. Theology in all its departments— exegetical, historical, systematic, and practical—comes within its scope. Believing that such a journal can render an important service to the great Church of the Augsburg Confession, whose history and doctrines and claims are comparatively but little known to English readers, we regard it as worthy of some sacrifices to sustain it and secure for it a proper constituency. [9]
