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| WELS kicked this congregation out - St. John in Milwaukee - but stole the property and its endowment many years later - under the leadership of SP Mark Schroeder. |
What could be more full of meaning?--for the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.
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When Martin Luther's name is mentioned today, it is always in this context -
- He really taught forgiveness without faith, according to those fanatics.
- He was not an evangelist, according to McGavran, a sociologist.
- He needs several more enormous volumes of biographical treatment.
- He was either too Catholic or not Catholic enough.
Luther's writings are seldom read by anyone today, because we now realize that the spiritual gurus needed are either bred at Fuller Seminary or the Vatican. That is no hyperbole. The latest prescription starts with a demographic study by a meretricious marketing expert or a citation from an obscure desert father.
Luther believed in the sermon. He never treated the pastoral office as one of management, as mismanagers of today do, but always as the Preaching Office - the Predigtamt.
The purpose of the Church is to preach and to teach the Gospel through the exposition of the Biblical texts. The only other task of the pastor is to take the Gospel with him as he visits members and non-members.
Some fall prey to the fallacy of emphasis. They note the regular observance of Holy Communion during the Reformation, but make that their main point. But Luther started with the sermon, indispensable and central - justification by faith. The sacrament is subordinate to the sermon and naturally follows from the sermon.
Sermons Prove the Nature of the Visible Church
The sermons of today are a dried withered hand, grasping the copy and paste functions of the computer, to paraphrase Walther.
WELS and Missouri teach their brain-bleached seminary students that the best sermons come from Fuller, Willow Creek, Mars Hill, and the New Age Movement - as exemplified by Thrivent board member Mark Jeske.
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| Roman Catholic archbishop R. Weakland, embezzler, and his priests gave a series of lectures at Wisconsin Lutheran College - WELS. WLC sold Marvin Schwan indulgences and got a spiffed up campus in return. |
WELS and LCMS graduates cannot preach justification by faith because they only know about works-salvation from their professors and their idols. If anything, they are quick to denounce justification by faith and to expel anyone who conscientiously teaches it. Their reaction forms along the lines established by their hero worship. They copy the zombies of Fuller or the pederasts of the Vatican, two different forms of entertainment seeker services today.
In answer to some worthwhile objections - yes, there are justification by faith preachers in both synods. And there are many faithful pastors in both sects. However, the synodical leadership, funding, and higher education functions are all surrendered to apostasy. Many are Fullerites, others are Vaticowards (too skeered to leave).
Luther cautioned that one cannot stay in the same stall in false teachers, that the person handling pitch will blacken his own hands.
People think, "We need a better Synod President." How well did that work with Mark Schroeder, Pope John the Malefactor, and Matt Harrison?
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| ELCA and the United Nations dominate the Thrivent agenda. Money talks - justification by faith walks. |
The congregations need faithful sermons. Change will come from the prow of the ship - the pulpit - not from the mess-hall where the SPs fatten themselves on Thrivent grants.