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| The laity understand this classic passage from 1530, but the Olde Synodical Conference will have none of it. |
Luther observed about dogs -
“The dog is the most faithful of animals and would be much esteemed were it not so common. Our Lord God has made His greatest gifts the commonest.”
He said something similar about justification by faith. People would sigh during his sermons when he brought it the subject. One Facebook friend said, "Do you write about anything else?"
Meanwhile the denizens of the American Lutheran Publicity Bureau Online Forum endlessly post about who was right or wrong in the fracture of the ELCA, etc.
Everyone there is an orthodox Lutheran - and confessional too! I do not bother to post - something about casting pearls, Shakespeare I think. When I brought up and posted the actual statistics about Lutheran seminary costs, including the LCMS, Missouri's DP Behnke asked, "Are those real figures?" He is always on the Net, always posting, but does not know his own seminary costs?
Looking over nine (9) pages of posts about just one article in the Lutheran Forum journal, I wondered what would develop if they devoted as much time to Biblical studies and reading Luther.
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| Mention this commentary - commended by the Book of Concord - and move on. Nothing to see here - just the demolition of their dogma. |
A reader mentioned and linked a Lutheran congregation. I looked over the information to see the denomination (often carefully hidden) and the staff. Found it - LCMS. Isn't one pastor a big Church Growth salesman? I mentioned that in an email, then went back to Google the question. Yes, there he was listed as praising the eternal verities of Waldo Werning at a Church Growth press website.
False teachers are like weeds, opportunists that take over the fertile soil and grab the sun's energy to supplant and choke out the good plants. Springdale was blessed with monsoon rains several times this summer. As a result I saw Fireweed reach 8 feet before I identified it and cut it down - using rose clippers. I walk Sassy twice a day, so we view the progress of flowers and weeds around the neighborhood. Even the cracks in the sidewalks are sprouting bushy gardens of weeds.
False doctrine is weedlike because it can purchase territory in the barest and driest soil - like the parched domains of the CLC (sic). But it is also weedlike in its abundant growth when conditions are beneficial.
ELCA has presented endless opportunities for the Pharisaical sects to pray, "Thank God we are not like them. We do not ordain women (yet). We do not ordain homosexuals (openly). We do not teach ELCA's doctrine (unless someone compares our Dreck with theirs)."
The Olde Synodical Conference has nurtured faithful members for generations, many of them raised on justification by faith, either the KJV catechism or Gausewitz. They have also sheltered refugees from the craziness of a disintegration of ELCA and its earlier apostate parts. After all the Braaten Jenson fiasco was sold as a last attempt to provide "Confessional Lutheran doctrine" and Braaten still wears the label and visage of a martyr.
The Missouri Synod! - what better place to nurture Pentecostalism, Pietistic cell groups, and the furtive but hyper-active UOJ. I know, have met, or have heard many of the current MDivs and wonder about their goals. If their IQs were as large as their waistbands, they would realize that the only thing they persecute and demolish is justification by faith.
In spite of their self-serving protests, they can work with ELCA, Thrivent, and Planned Parenthood. Everything is right just fine, as they say in the South, unless someone detects justification by faith. Then the Odd Couple - Webber and Buchholz - fire for effect and elimination the opposition - so they think.
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| Trailing Arbutus |
Webber, still working on his first graduate degree, and Buchholz - infused with the Holy Spirit's infallibility - will travel to the ends of the earth to wipe out the residual doctrine of earlier days. They remind me of the novice gardener who spent days trying to get rid of a pesky vine in his yard, only to find out later that he had the rare and hard to cultivate trailing arbutus on his property.
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| "Jon, you only have 11 more districts to go and WELS will be pacified." "Thanks, Jay. You can be my gunny sarge. Glad you left Kovo in Russia." |