Pastors Julius Rechner, Christian Austricht lead a rebellion against Lutheran institutions in South Australia
Strait Gate church (at right), founded by Gustav Julius Rechner. On the left, the Immanuel Lutheran church of Light Pass, Tanunda.
Rebel pastors in the August Kavel mould, Gustav Julius Rechner and Christian Auricht became central pillars of South Australia’s Immanuel Lutheran synod for 40 years without a shred of institutional theological training between them.
In 1861, Auricht had ordained Rechner – an unorthodox move condemned by Lutheran pastors all over Australia and in Germany. Rechner had come to South Australia at age 19 to enable the migration of his whole Silesian family of pious Old Lutherans, originally from Leignitz (near Klemzig). His father, a textile worker, had supported Rechner’s education, including boarding at Petersdorf to train as a teacher under Cantor Katthein, who instilled his great devotion to music.
When the family moved to Neukirch that didn’t have an Old Lutheran congregation, Rechner’s father conducted weekly devotions to avoid the state church.
Rechner brought this sense of confessional independence to South Australia. In 1849, Rechner joined Pastor August Kavel’s Old Lutheran congregation at Langmeil in the Barossa Valley and embraced chiliasm (or end-of-the world-belief), the point of difference that caused a rift with the other Old Lutheran German congregation in the Barossa Valley, belonging to Pastor Daniel Fritsche.
In 1850, energetic Rechner became the teacher and cantor, providing all church music, at Light Pass school. After Kavel died in 1860, new Light Pass pastor Wilhelm Staudenmayer criticised Kavel’s requirement for members to tell their experience with sin and grace.
Amid rising discontent with Staudenmayer, Rechner resigned from the school in 1860 and became secretary for George Fife Angas in Angaston. A strong core of Kavel’s people, instilled with religious freedom in their homeland, distrusted pastors trained in institutions based on state churches. They argued with Staudenmayer who, besides confessional issues, was a Wuerttembergian of a different cultural background.
Twenty-five families separated from Light Pass congregation, selecting Rechner as their pastor. They built a church almost identical to Immanuel Lutheran church, across the road, and called it Zur engen Pforte (Strait Gate) after Matthew 7:14. Staudenmeyer continued at the Light Pass Immanuel church (and at Gnadenfrei and Ebenezer St John’s church) until 1865.
Rechner’s Old Lutherans wanted to train their own pastors, as Pastor Fritsche did at Lobethal. Christian Auricht, who studied under pastors Fritsche and Kavel, was ordained by Kavel in 1858 and approved by the Reschner’s congregation as his successor. Auricht ordained Rechner in approval of the Light Pass Old Lutherans’ choice.
In 1862, just before Fritsche’s death, Rechner and Auricht ironed out differences on chiliasm to reunite with Bethany-Lobethal synod and combine for mission work in the remote north.
Rechner became the Immanuel Synod president in 1874 and forged a union with a Victorian Lutheran Synod, headed by Hermann Herlitz from Basel seminary. This caused another rift between the two South Australian Old Lutheran synods. Ten years later, Rechner disagreed with interdenominational training at Basel and the Immanuel Synod started to recruit from Neuendettelsau mission seminary in Bavaria.
Georg Friedrich Leidig, founder of what is now Adelaide’s Immanuel College at Point Pass in 1890, succeeded Rechner and Auricht as president of the Immanuel Synod. Leidig, who completed studies at Neuendettelsau, was ordained by Rechner at Light Pass in 1891
