Reading Krauth
If you’d like to read the Rev. Prof. Charles Porterfield Krauth’s classic The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology (1872), you have a few options. The hardback and paperback versions are available in many places: Amazon, CPH, or on used book sites (like Thriftbooks). But it is expensive and it is a large tome to carry about. If you’d like to read it free on your phone or on Kindle, here are some practical tips.
Be aware that if you download the Kindle version from Amazon (which is linked from CPH) for $8.95, it is not a clean version. It was scanned in by OCR software, and there are formatting issues that make this version basically unreadable. Also note that it is implied at the CPH website that this edition includes the introduction by the Rev. Dr. Lawrence Rast. It does not. CPH does offer an ebook option for $38.99 that seems to be the 2007 edition with the Rast introduction. Since I don’t want to pay this much for it (at least there seems to be no shipping charges on the download… wink), I can’t vouch for it. But that is a lot of money for an ebook - especially when it has long since lapsed into the public domain and can be had free of charge.
The older edition (without the Rast intro) is the one that is in the public domain, which means you can get it free in PDF form (which is a facsimile edition and not the Kindle adaptation - but you can read PDFs on your phone or other Kindle device).
You can download the PDF online - such as from here: https://www.lutheranlibrary.org/465-krauth-conservative-reformation/ and clicking on PDF.
The problem is that the size is about 75 MB - which is too large to download into Kindle directly or email it to Kindle. You may be fine with downloading the PDF and reading it on your computer or downloading it to your device and locating it through files. But if you want it in your Kindle library, there are a couple of hoops to jump through. And you may find a better way to do this, but for what it’s worth, this is what I just did today:
I downloaded the PDF to my laptop.
I then found a PDF compression program online here: https://www.pdf2go.com/compress-pdf. There are other options. If you subscribe to Adobe, you can also use it. I like the one that I used, not only because it was free, but also because it compressed the file to just under 50 MB - which is the limit for Kindle. So the next step for me was to email the compressed file to myself.
I use Gmail, which has a 30 MB limit on attachments. So to get around this, I used Google Drive, and emailed it to myself. If you use something other than Gmail, you may have a similar way to attach and email large files.
I opened up my Gmail on my iPhone, and opened the PDF (this is the compressed file that is about 47 MB). I noticed no degradation in the readability of the text. I was able to click on the “forward” icon (the box with the up-arrow), and clicked on the Kindle app.
It took a while, but Kindle successfully received the PDF into my library, where it now exists like any other Kindle book.
Krauth’s writing style is pure 19th century. It is flowery, and at times falls into hagiography. But that’s okay. We are surrounded by the kind of dull and stultified lowest-common-denominator writing that is encouraged by social media, and we are also inundated with negativity and cynicism. So what’s a little florid triumphalism between friends?
Krauth was committed to authentic confessional and liturgical Lutheran doctrine and practice, and his masterwork has aged like fine wine.
As in Krauth’s day and age, we find ourselves at odds with, and attacked by, everyone: not only Rome and Geneva, but also within American Lutheranism (just as the LCMS and other so-called Old Lutherans found themselves in Krauth’s day). And today, we are also targeted by the Woke Left, Non-denominationalism, Pentecostalism, and Atheism - and even by compromisers within our own synod: anti-liturgicals, moderates on “gender” ideology and the role of women, and even a few radical voices that lurk about our synod like the proverbial creepy guy in an overcoat stalking the playground. And even among the conservative faction, there are those that downplay our confessions, mock our commitment to the truth as being in a “purity cult,” and those who pit being “missional” (often with a heavy dose of corporate leadership hocus-pocus stirred in) against our own historical willingness to hold our confession - in doctrine and in practice - at all costs.
This final paragraph from the first chapter is a fit example of the kind of gold that you’ll find in this text. And with the New Year upon us, it might be a good time to bear down and read this 830 page tour de force:
And shall we despond, draw back, and give our names to the reproach of generations to come, because the burden of the hour seems to us heavy? God, in His mercy, forbid! If all others are ready to yield to despondency, and abandon the struggle, we, children of the Reformation, dare not. That struggle has taught two lessons, which must never be forgotten. One is, that the true and the good must be secured at any price. They are beyond all price. We dare not compute their cost. They are the soil of our being, and the whole world is as dust in the balance against them. No matter what is to be paid for them, we must not hesitate to lay down their redemption price. The other grand lesson is, that their price is never paid in vain. What we give can never be lost, unless we give too little. If we give all, we shall have all. All shall come back. Our purses shall be in the mouths of our sacks. We shall have both the corn and the money. But if we are niggard, we lose all - lose what we meant to buy, lose what we have given. If we maintain the pure Word inflexibly at every cost, over and against the arrogance of Rome and of the weak pretentiousness of Rationalism, we shall conquer both through the Word; but to compromise on a single point, is to lose all, and to be lost.
And like unto Marley warning Scrooge about the chains he forged in life, we should be aware that Professor Krauth’s writings went unheeded in his own General Synod, which today, is part of the ELCA.
Let us take up Krauth’s encouraging words, and both read and heed them.