Freddy Finkelstein has left a new comment on your post "CEO Delivers Another One-Two Punch to Satan, Spell...":
I don't mean to add to what appears to be growing despair, but there are some facts that need to be faced. One of them is a loosening of Fellowship terminology that has been coming from Milwaukee over the past few years. Although I am not an avid reader of WLQ (as I am of ELS-LSQ and CLC-JOT, since they are free and online), every now and then I will borrow a copy of WLQ from my pastor, to see what's going on. Overall, I must say, I am quite pleased with the quality of our theologians. Some disappointments, however, include what appears to be a broadening permissivity in WLQ toward expressions of Fellowship with those of heterodox confession. This has resulted in distinctions such as “Christian Fellowship” and “Church Fellowship.”
Reading with cow eyes, I have understood these distinctions as merely descriptive of the relative imperfection with which Fellowship principles may be carried out between individuals, as opposed to when organizations are directly involved. In other words, I have understood them not as separate prescriptive principles, but as descriptive of how the single principal of Biblical Fellowship (unit concept) may at times be carried out as a practical matter in distinct contexts. Given that this may have been the intention at first, I am no longer under the impression that these terms are being treated merely as descriptive, but rather that they are being regarded as prescriptive -- as separate principles. I'm not the only one who has noticed this, either. Theologians of the LCMS have picked up on it too, and have commented on it in public. In a recent interview with Dr. Martin Noland (LCMS) on Issues, Etc., for example, he pointed out this very thing. Here is the link: http://www.issuesetc.org/podcast/Show121121508H1.mp3 -- fast-forward to minute 37:00, and begin listening there (actually, I thought the whole interview was quite interesting).
I've also heard additional terms like “Confessional Fellowship” thrown in the mix, along with distinctions like “Christian Brother” versus “Confessional Brother.” Under classic and orthodox Lutheran teaching, all of those with faith do indeed share Unity in the “Brotherhood of the Saints“ -- the Una Sancta. But this Unity, which is a product of our faith in Christ's promises, is invisible. Recognizing an individual as a “Christian Brother,” however, moves one to the realm of the Visible Church, and the Biblical criteria for such recognition is not a measure of that individual's faith (since faith is invisible to us), nor is it appreciation for orthodox aspects of an openly heterodox confession, but agreement in all matters of doctrine and practice. With all of the imperfections that we must admit exist in such agreement, recognizing individuals of openly heterodox confession as “Christian Brothers” has never been considered consistent with the Biblical doctrine of Fellowship, nor has organizational association with them -- until recently, it seems. Do a search on WELS Q&A for “Confessional Brother” and “Christian Brother,” for example, and you'll be surprised how these terms are being used, now.
The fact is, for Church Growth to make any headway over the past two/three decades, whether officially or unofficially, a loosening of application in Fellowship standards has had to occur. While the laity has slept, while the laity has trusted the Ministerium to keep pure our doctrine and practice, it seems that the job hasn't been getting done (then again, in all charity, maybe the attacks have grown so withering that those doing the job have lost ground). There simply is no way that individual laymen, pastors and theologians, or entire congregations, could otherwise enter into open association with the heterodox the way that CG Church Changers are doing today (and I am thinking especially of the association between St. Mark's DePere and WCA, at the moment). Whether WELS is changing it's position on Fellowship, or whether the clarity of that teaching has been muddied as Church Changers and other restless Lutherans throw challenges at it (and exploit opportunities produced from the resulting lack clarity and lack of decisive and consistent application), it seems evident that our terminology is catching up with the reality of our practice. Whether intentional or not, with all of the new categories of fellowship represented by this new terminology, the seeming result is a framework for recognizing “levels of fellowship” of some sort.
So, is this the reason for the “deafening silence” we hear coming from Synodical leadership? There may well be other explanations, but lack of clarity will always result in lack of grounds for action, and thus lack of decisiveness – and lack of decisive action against CG and the Church Changers seems to have been the problem all along.
I've heard it said, “Fellowship is the immune system of the Church.” It appears we in the WELS are currently suffering from immune deficiency. This is a definite problem.
Freddy Finkelstein
***
GJ - Paul Tiefel, CLC cousin of James Tiefel, was always anxious to prove that anti-Lutherans were good tonic for Lutherans (not that he knew what Lutheran doctrine was). His clownish side-kick David Koenig always praised Roman Catholic and Reformed missions, so the CLC sent Koenig back into the world missionary field. Lutherans seem to be the only denomination to spend millions of dollars to promote another denomination's doctrine. How dumb is that?
Here are some funny Koenig stories. That is why you are reading this blog, for the inside stuff. Koenig was always doing research with WELS CG guys to prove I was wrong. He was in touch with Larry Olson and David Valleskey. I knew that because Koenig loved to write ugly, hateful letters filled with scrawled writing and weirdness. He said in one letter that he checked with Valleskey and Valleskey admitted he did attend Fuller Seminary, a fact the seminary president denied more than three times, and not just in front of a charcoal fire. So I published that fact and named my source. So then Koenig was furious with me that Valleskey was furious with him for telling the truth. That is Church Growth in a nutshell.
In Columbus, Ohio, the WELS Church Growth gurus (Paul Kuske, Floyd Luther Stolzenburg) insisted among the laity that criticism of false doctrine was "Christian-bashing." Since the bashing term was modified from the lingo of homosexual activists, it seemed especially irksome.
Valleskey told Guy Purdue that his famous Figs from Thistles--or was it Spoiling the Egyptians?--article was written against "that legalist Greg Jackson." Oddly, Valleskey went out of his way to flatter me by name in the WLQ article. Naturally, I smelled a skunk. Echoes of Romans 16: "By smooth talk and flattery they deceive the minds of naive people" (NIV, so the WELS pastors can follow it).
I cannot comment on the quality of the WLQ articles. I thought of the tabloid as kindling once they let Valleskey claim that the Reformed "downplay the Means of Grace." Their Hebrew teacher-football coach-dogmatician Brug solemnly declared that there is nothing in the New Testament against women's ordination. So why shouldn't women consecrate the elements of Holy Communion?
One WELS pastor said correctly that many WELS pastors know their Biblical languages quite well, but they are hopeless when it comes to theology.
