The Wisconsin Synod denies the efficacy of the Word...consistently, ruthlessly, to the point of excommunicating anyone who says the Word alone is efficacious.
KJV 1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this cause also thank we God without ceasing, because, when ye received the word of God which ye heard of us, ye received it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which effectually worketh also in you that believe.
Several programs of self-destruction would be stopped in a moment if the sect followed what the Scriptures and the Confessions teach:
- There would be no dispute about the Moment of Consecration because everyone would realize that the Word effects the Real Presence. Claiming that "no one knows the moment" is worse than Calvinism.
- The Church Growth Movement would be repudiated and rejected, not for its utter failure in WELS, but for his repugnant doctrine.
- No one would be confused about ordination and the ministry. They would realize that the true Church brings Christ to people exclusively through the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace.
Schroeder would have to admit to this basic error in WELS for the document to have any meaning at all. Otherwise he is proposing an extreme make-over for a patient with terminal cancer. False doctrine is a cancer that must be cut out or treated with the harshest medicine.
KJV 2 Timothy 2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. 17 And their word will eat as doth a canker [cancer]: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus.
