Self-Perpetuating Synod Worship

L P Cruz has left a new comment on your post "Not Dead Orthodoxy, but Synod-Worship To Blame":

Pr. GJ.

Thank you and spot on for saying the most obvious which no one in Lutheran blog is saying..

Unfortunately, Walther instigated the biggest problem of all - worship of the synod

Absolutely correct, I come to this observation too by reading some blogs and how they quote their dead teachers - my point is that they do not argue or quote by what Scripture says or by what the BOC witnesses, instead they argue/quote by what Walther said.

They have no more capacity to be self-critical. That is when fanaticism I am afraid comes in.

LPC

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GJ - Each Lutheran sect perpetuates its own worship. Walther began it. He gloried in the success of the Missouri Synod, which another group began. The Loehe missionaries were written out of LCMS history.

Amercan sect self-adoration must seem odd to Lutherans in other countries. As Jack Preus observed in his Chemnitz biography, European countries accept the Book of Concord while American Lutherans have an issue with the Lutheran Confessions. So each sect is the judge of its own worthiness.

There are certain unspoken rules about discussions in each sect. The main one is the defense of Holy Mother Sect. Holy Mother is spotless, incapable of error, always moving forward in a glorious way, even when gross errors and criminal activity take place. Roman Catholics call it the indefectibility of the Church. Lutherans call it synod history.

QED - the message is always a comparison between sects. "What does your synod teach?" It might be better to say, "What does your sect teach today?" The supposedly non-fellowshiping Missouri, Little Norwegian, and Shrinking Wisconsin sects are jubilantly working with ELCA at all levels, from the congregation (via Thrivent) to the national (via Thrivent). True, national is a silly term when dealing with 1-4 state sects.

Changing the rules of discussion will always create cries of pain. The apostate leaders do not want to discuss the ruling norm of Scripture. They are allergic to and ignorant of the ruled norm of the Confessions. Simply raising those issues is an act of theological suicide.

Knowing they must press themselves close to the bosom of Holy Mother Sect, many clergy are establishing little conventicles where they can obsess over insignifant matters. Watch these turn into fractures and little groups sinuflecting to Rome.

The power of Rome's evil is chiefly derived from its attraction to so many different types.

Some of you are saying, "Now, wait. How can these little lobbyists for this and that turn to Rome when they are obsessing about matters Lutherans and dead leaders known only to Lutherans having the same DNA strands?"

Aha. The answer is simple. Their devotion has been turned to a veneration of Holy Mother Sect. All they need is a Richard J. Neuhaus figure to say, "We love our dear Mother Church too, but the real Church behind these little groups is Infernal Rome, I mean, Eternal Rome. Return to your True Mother." And they will go to Rome because they started the final stage of the great Apostasy when they made the synod their idol.

Here is another LCMS pastor who went to Rome.

Richard J. Neuhaus was invited to give this Come Back to Rome talk at Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne (aka The Fort) where about half the clergy in the room nodded in agreement. There was no uproar. People still defend The Fort as a great place for Lutheran studies.