Piepkorn, Arthur C.

Biography

Arthur Carl Piepkorn, 1907-73, was born June 21, 1907 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He married Miriam Agatha Sodergren, 1904-78, in 1936 and they had four daughters, Mary Catharine, b. 1937, Faith Elisabeth, b. 1939, Felicity Ann, b. 1942, and Angela Dorothea, b. 1944.

Dr. Piepkorn received degrees from Concordia College, Milwaukee, 1925, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, 1928, and a Ph.D. with a specialization in Babylonian archeology from the University of Chicago, 1932. He was ordained in 1930 by the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod serving pastorates in St. Louis, Chisholm, MN, and Cleveland. 1940-51, he served as a U.S. Army chaplain, and was the senior chaplain of the U.S. Occupational Forces in Germany, 1945.

In 1951, he joined the faculty at Concordia Seminary as Professor of Systematic Theology. Piepkorn joined with the faculty majority in signing protests to controversial resolutions passed in the early 1970s by the Missouri Synod at their New Orleans Convention. He was subsequently promoted to a non-teaching administrative position and offered "honorable retirement" at age 65. Piepkorn resigned instead, and with other faculty members who split from Concordia, became part of the Christ Seminary - Seminex, the seminary in exile. He suffered a fatal heart attack December 13, 1973.

Dr. Piepkorn was a prolific preacher, lecturer, researcher, and author. His largest undertaking was Profiles in Belief: The Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada which he had begun about 1965 and was working on at the time of his death. This had been commissioned by Concordia Publishing House to update F.E. Mayer's 1961 The Religious Bodies of America . Dr. Piepkorn had worked on that publication and is listed as an author as well. Profiles in Belief was completed and edited by John H. Tietjen, then posthumously published in four volumes by Harper and Row in 1977. ( Note : The biographical information is taken from the Guide to the Piepkorn Papers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Archives, Chicago. See the full Guide in Box 20, File Folder 21b.)

Dr. Piepkorn's method for researching and gathering the information to be included in Profiles was first to contact all the bodies listed in the 1961 Religious Bodies, send them copy from the book, and ask for updates or corrections. He also searched for and contacted bodies not listed in the 1961 book asking for information on their organizations and beliefs. He used informants all over the U.S. and Canada, usually Lutheran pastors serving churches in a town or area to help him locate and get information on still more bodies. There were also two major researchers who assisted in gathering information. From the late 1960s, he was assisted by James V. Geisendorfer, and in the 1970s by J. Gordon Melton. Melton and Geisendorfer later co-authored A Directory of Religious Bodies in the United States, 1977. Dr. Melton, directing the Institute for the Study of American Religion since 1969, has deposited his extensive research materials, known as the American Religions Collection, to the Special Collections Department the University of California, Santa Barbara Library. He has continued to research and publish in Dr. Piepkorn's tradition, notably The Encyclopedia of American Religions .

Dr. Piepkorn included leaders and/or members of all the bodies he researched in formulating and interpreting their history, beliefs, organization, and practices. The Collection includes extensive correspondence between Piepkorn and individuals within each of the bodies. He would send them an introductory letter explaining the project, and if he had a written piece, he would include it and ask for their feedback, updates, or corrections. The Collection is built from this interaction between Piepkorn and members of the bodies he was researching. As much as possible, he let the people speak their beliefs with a minimum of his external interpretation.

In the Foreword to Vol. 1 of Profiles in Belief, Martin E. Marty writes: "Arthur Carl Piepkorn was a confessional Lutheran, but he does not use the confessional stance as a means of ranking the value of beliefs. Instead, that stance turned out to be the means of assuring readers that the author knew the importance of beliefs, knew what it was to confess a faith, was aware of the intellectual power that can reside in a religious tradition." (Pg. xii) Harry McSorley continues in the Introduction: "... facts, figures and insights concerning comparative theology and ecclesiology that regularly amazed those who knew Piepkorn were not odd tidbits stored up in a pedantic section of this first-rate scholar's mind. They, and thousands more, were all part of a grand design that is finally beginning to emerge with the appearance of this first volume of Profiles in Belief, an unprecedented encyclopedic treatment by one man of the religious bodies of the United States and Canada. ... [M]any of us wish we could have what we do not have - Piepkorn's own preface and introduction. Only there would we be able to learn definitively of Piepkorn's objectives, intentions and methodological assumptions and techniques. (Pg. xv) ... I take it as beyond dispute that Piepkorn has pursued his study 'in fidelity to truth and with a spirit of good will.' (Pg. xvi)" John H. Tietjen ends his Editor's Preface: "As Arthur Carl Piepkorn himself would have concluded, pax et gaudium ." (Pg. xiv)

From the guide to the Arthur C. Piepkorn Research Collection for "Profiles in Belief", the Religious Bodies of the United States and Canada, 1926-1977, (Bulk 1966-1973), (The Graduate Theological Union. Library.)