I had a long, enjoyable talk with a layman tonight. He phoned and asked about getting copies of Thy Strong Word. He confirmed what I thought - the pastors are not going to get rid of this false doctrine. He has made many attempts to discuss the topic with Lutheran ministers.
I am hopeful because I see pockets of laity here and there, eager to know the Lutheran Confessions and the Scriptures. They are addressing the cancer of UOJ. The clergy duck and run. The Word will defeat this if the Word is studied and applied.
I stunned him by reading verbatim a statement supporting the Two Jays - objective justification and subjective justification - from a non-Lutheran, Pietistic dogma book. Date: 1866.
Has anyone noticed that all the UOJ catechisms stop at Walther? They may claim others (Lutherans like Calov and Gerhard) taught it before, but they have no sources. The real sources are non-Lutheran, from the 19th century Pietists.
As I mentioned on the phone, the non-Lutheran Protestants of today left this nonsense behind them. The Pietistic Lutherans absorbed it and made it their own, in the name of the Chief Article of the Christian Faith. Apart from the Synodical Conference clergy, few in Christendom believe or teach UOJ today. That by itself is not an argument, but it should make people wonder how a few Midwestern hicks discovered something no one else had ever taught before.
To summarize the Bible, Luther, the Book of Concord, Chemnitz, and others:
1. Christ died for the sins of the world. That is the treasure of the Gospel.
2. The Holy Spirit distributes this treasure through the Word and Sacraments. Otherwise it lies in one heap and is useless, as Luther said.
3. Justification means justification by faith. When people hear the Gospel, they trust the Word and receive this treasure.
4. No one taught otherwise in the Lutheran Church. Walther and the other Pietists adopted UOJ from the Pietists and made it their own distinctive false doctrine. The Wisconsin Synod, ELS, CLCs, and LCR aped Walther. ELDONA is awaiting word from the Archbishop of Constantinople.
5. The Muhlenberg tradition and the Augustana Synod did not teach UOJ. Augustana was Pietistic but rejected the extreme Norwegian views on justification. One Norwegian statement became part of the WELSian Kokomo Statements (if memory serves).
6. All the Lutheran groups have to be seen through the filter of Pietism, because that was the dominating theme of the era they were in, whether it was Muhlenberg's or Walther's or Hoenecke from Halle U.
