Right Head: "I can stay right here with my pension plan and beer buddies. All I need to do is bow to the latest Church Growth fads. Gotta remember. We were a CG church. Then we were Courageous. Then Purpose-Driven. Now we are Missional. Listen to the iPod - I am a winner. I am the best. Accept no negatives. Wait. When were we Willow Creek Association?
Officially never. That's the ticket."
The Lutheran Church (and I do mean all branches, from ELCA to the micro-mini groups) became a two-headed calf because it lost its fidelity to the Confessions. Some would say, "The Scriptures first." I agree with Schmucker that the creeds go first, then the adherence to the Scriptures.
Satan attacks where we are weak. No one is going to get far by attacking the Scriptures directly. That is why the LCMS apostates fared so badly in the battles around Seminex. The Church of Rome tried to argue from the Scriptures during the Reformation, as Chemnitz observed. They were clobbered in every debate, so they began to attack the clarity, sufficiency, and efficacy of the Scriptures. Everything is so hazy that we need an interpreter - the Pope himself.
Wauwatosa (WELS) is another papacy. They pretend to argue from Scripture but they really mean - starting from our view of everything. They even say, "In our circles (one circle), this means..." Bow and scrape to the WELS prelate.
Satan knows that people fall into hero worship rather easily. Once that is established, the synod cannot back away. Thus Walther must be correct about everything he ever wrote. Pieper was chosen by Walther, so he must be infallible too.
The ELS and WELS are too clever to fall back upon older thinkers, who are too Lutheran. They make idols out of recent leaders. No one dares question an idol set up by Holy Mother Synod.
Instead of teaching the Book of Concord thoroughly, all the synods use the 1580 Confessions as a rabbit's foot. WELS has even officially repudiated the Book of Concord in one of its execrable sets of books, either Our Great Heritage (sic), or their Wauwatosa set. Pope John the Malefactor, the malignant menace of Little Sect on the Prairie, is obedient to WELS, so any pretense of confessional integrity in the ELS is a belly-laugh. The ELS saying is, "They drink beer in Milwaukee. Moldstad burps in Mankato."
ELCA had a pretty understanding of doctrine, if we go back to the glory days of the General Council. The first thing to do was not the Scriptures, but the Confessions. When the three parts of the Muhlenberg tradition (General Synod - boo hiss; General Council - hoorah; United Synod of the South) united to form the ULCA in 1917, the confessionals compromised to bring the groups together again. The attack against inerrancy began after that. Armies often knock off the pesky trouble-spots first, for training and protecting the flanks. A weak confessional base will not defend the Scriptures.
Look at what has happened in the old Synodical Conference (ELS-WELS-LCMS). No one blanched when their pastors and professors-to-be began earning degrees at Fuller Seminary, Notre Dame, and other Roman schools. No one trembled when Church Growth programs with obvious false doctrine sprouted at all the schools and synods. The clergy wanted to fight about trivia, not doctrine. The clergy wanted political battles to back their friends and feather their nests, not doctrinal war where they might have to take up the cross daily.
The biggest trend in all the Lutheran synods in the last 30 years has been the return to union with the Reformed, in every way possible. The ELS has entertainment worship and CG pronouncements. WELS is so bad that no one can deny how Fuller-centric it is. WELS has a jump on Missouri in women's ordination, cell groups, entertainment evangelism, open communion, poor finances, and looming catastrophe.
The response to apostasy of the Reformed model has been to join Rome or Eastern Orthodoxy. Every time I loook at the Missouri conservative blogs, I see an infatuation with infant communion (EO), robes (EO, Rome, and La Cage), Mariolotry (EO, Rome), and the Patristic Fathers (EO, Rome).
Lutherans no longer know what it means to be Lutheran.
***
A. Nony Mouse has left a new comment on your post "Why Is the Lutheran Church a Two-Headed Calf?":
Lutherans no longer know what it means to be Lutheran.
if (sic) you're the best example of what a lutheran (sic) is, i (sic) want no part in it.
***
GJ - Please use the shift key when appropriate. The true Church is invisible.
***
A. Nony Mouse has left a new comment on your post "Why Is the Lutheran Church a Two-Headed Calf?":
You wrote:
"WELS has even officially repudiated the Book of Concord in one of its execrable sets of books, either Our Great Heritage (sic), or their Wauwatosa set."
"There you again," as Ronald Reagan used to say. How can you make such a charge without any proof? It shouldn't surprise me, though. You haven't changed.
***
GJ - I cannot do all your homework for you, Rev. Mouse. You are lazy. The essay title is something like "Are We Bound by the Book of Concord?" The answer is clearly "NO!" The essay is probably in Our Great Heritage (sic). It may be in Wauwatosa. I had all six volumes but there was a paper recycling drive, so I donated them.
I agree with the author who said, "It does not matter what your subscription to the Confessions is. It matters what you believe, teach, and confess. Is it the whole truth?"
