Readers often remind me how the Missouri Synod imagines all Lutheran discussions to be centered in Holy Mother LCMS, its history, its dogma, and its leaders past and present.
Otten's friend Bill Bischoff used to teach that way, the old game of "When Did Missouri go wrong?"
St. Francis Pieper died and everything went downhill, Bischoff imagined. But the real cause was the UOJ fanatics getting their universal forgiveness without faith into the Brief Confession in 1932 and making it the ultimate statement from that time on, a feat acknowledged with humility by the ELS, WELS, and the micro-mini sects breaking off from Holy Mother.
When I published the new list of videos against UOJ - linked here - I expected another spasm of outrage from SpenerQuest.
But no! Silence reigned on LutherQuest (sic) even as the UOJists continued to squabble like prisoners locked in a cell, missing their Mad Dog wine, feeling the withdrawal pains.
This silence is an important step in the failure of UOJ to convince people. The three stages of persuasion are:
- Total agreement, aka preaching to the choir. Most blogs stick with this, because everyone with a keyboard has an opinion and few want to expose the extent of their Lutheran illiteracy.
- Angry opposition. This anger erupts only when something of substance has been discussed, so the furor is a good sign but not quite a complete a confession.
- Total silence. Level Three does not mean that they do not read or react to the post, message, or book. Silence is the most powerful reaction of all, and it means the threat to their works-righteousness is terrifying them. My old dog Precious used to sass every dog as we walked along in Phoenix. She enjoyed getting them to bark in response. When we passed one yard, the dog's low warning growl was so deep and menacing that Precious lowered her head and crept by the tall privacy fence. A neighbor warned us away from the yard a few days later. SpenerQuest is scared now, quivering in their easy chairs.
The advocates of Universal Forgiveness and Salvation cannot win by holding up their Pieper and Walther--forget Stephan, in fact, never mention him again--against the Word of God. Most laity have enough knowledge of the Word to refute and condemn UOJ>