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| "I believe in the Chief Article of Christianity." One of these statues is a bit different. |
Otten picked up on the Flo link, so I went to Flo's Facebook page and spent some time arguing for justification by faith. No one can harmonize the doctrine of Paul and Luther with the dogma of Halle University. Flo did not even try. He simply repeated the UOJ talking points and cute classroom quips learned in school.
Justification by faith is Biblical and well known among all scholars of all nations. UOJ is rationalistic and anti-Christian, largely hid from the members of Missouri, WELS, the Little Sect on the Prairie, and the almost-dead Church of the Lutheran Confession (sic).
Although Missouri leaders follow the false doctrine of Stephan-Walther-Pieper, a large swath of Missouri pastors disdain UOJ and teach justification by faith. Robert Preus clearly taught UOJ in his earlier career, when Church Growth was blossoming at Ft. Wayne - with his approval. But Preus' last book, Justification and Rome, repudiated UOJ in the clearest possible terms, not only in his quotations of orthodox Lutherans, but also in his own words.
Walther was not a Biblical scholar. I recently read that he did not know the Biblical languages well. He only had a bachelor's degree from Leipzig, where most of the faculty were rationalistic and considered believers to be mystics or Pietists. Walther's father was a rationalist, too. Walther followed his brother's lead and lined up with one dictatorial Pietist, Candidate Kuehn, and then another, Pastor Martin Stephan, after Kuehn died. When Stephan was tried for immorality with young women and put under house arrest, with police officers stationed in his house, the Pietist leader decided to decamp to America. The young clergy helped organize the mass migration and the older clergy stayed home.
Missouri likes to skip over the years between landing in New Orleans and forming the synod years later. Walther did not want a history written and almost nothing was done to cross him until Zion on the Mississippi was published, a doctoral dissertation of considerable detail and frankness.
Missouri was very much a blend of Pietism and Lutheran Orthodoxy, much like the Augustana Synod and the other groups that came over. Each one struggled with its Lutheran identity and became more Lutheran and less Pietistic and Unionistic. However, Pietism is a cancer that eats away at the Confessional and Biblical nature of Luther, the Book of Concord, and the post-Concord greats like Gerhard.
In contrast, Luther and Melanchthon were primarily Biblical scholars who taught by explaining the Scriptures directly, not by stating a thesis and citing a Biblical passage - for example in Missouri today, everyone on earth is forgiven without and before faith, Rom 4:25 - raised for our justification! That malapropism is found in the 1932 Brief Confession of the LCMS, now engraved in marble in the ossified hearts of Missouri Synod Walther fans.
Walther fans do not deal with the historical context of CFW's errors and his covering for Stephan's blatant adultery. Walther had no problem following a leader who took his mistress on the ship with him and parked her in the next cabin, near his eldest son! And the Great Walther signed Stephan's call to be bishop-for-life in New Orleans. So much to hide from the laity.
Walther's Pietism is denied. His poor education in rationalism and Pietism is overlooked. Instead, they make Walther the Rosetta Stone of theology, explaining all points and translating every possible obscure reference for us. Needless to say, the most frantic UOJ fan has a discussion blog called Reclaiming Walther. A newer, stinkier version is called Steadfast Lutherans, where posts on justification by faith are removed and this little blog cannot even be mentioned.
The bloated senior editor of Steadfast refers to those supporting justification by faith as "morons." So Luther and the Concordists are morons? How mature. And his junior editor covered up for the notorious sex offender Darwin Schauer when Matt Harrison demanded the threads be erased. Call it company culture. They covered up for Martin Stephan's obvious crimes - he installed a young mistress in his parsonage in Dresden, and re-installed her when Mrs. Stephan kicked her out. The Missouri founders did not see Stephan's syphilis or notice that he was always walking in the woods with young women in the middle of the night. The young women, including Walther's niece, were hanging around Stephan in St. Louis. The neighbors got very suspicious, and soon they were in Perryville, Missouri.
The Steadfast Lutherans were silenced (almost) and decimated by WELS, but Mark and Avoid Jeske's Change or Die! Conference is just fine with Mark the Mortician Schroeder. WELS has forged new bonds with ELCA that will never be broken. Dost thou not see how Pietism has triumphed in the LCMS, WELS, and ELS? They agree in doctrine with ELCA - Walther's dream - the entire world is forgiven without faith. They rejoice in their teaching to sin more that grace may abound.
But now - let's focus on the truth of the Scriptures. These may be familiar. I only do this to get people back into Luther and the Confessions, to see which Lutherans are faithful to the Word of God.
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| Ft. Wayne quip - "You are not a Christian. You are a Faithian." What does Luther say? |
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| Jay Webber and Steve Flo - can you read this plain English from your seminary president? |
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| Steadfast Pietists - repent. |
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| Imputation means counted. Please read Romans 4:24, then 4:25. |
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| Imputed, counted, reckoned - all from the same Greek word. Can the UOJ fanatics sit down and read the Greek New Testament? I think not. |
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| UOJists in WELS never noticed DP Werner reliving Stephan or Valleskey promoting Church Growth with equal ardor. |
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| Walther has the last word, as always, quoted by the Little Sect on the Prairie, Jay Webber's tiny group. Walther was definitely a Halle Pietist and - via Seminex - a founder of ELCA. |