This episode of Issues Etc (audio linked) asked for $300,000 from congregations to continue their world-wide ministry. Holy moly, I am blogging for free and they are soliciting a small fortune to support the doctrinal foundation of ELCA and the Church Growth Movement.
Pastor Rolf Preus and Pope John the Malefactor (Little Sect on the Prairie) agreed about everyone forgiven without faith, without the Means of Grace, but Pope John kicked out Rolf anyway, by threatening Rolf's congregation.
Rolf has been stuck on Universal Objective Justification for a long time. In this interview, Todd Wilken scattered rose petals before this ambiguous and misleading presentatation of false doctrine.
Rolf danced around the central tenet of UOJ, which is found in the Brief Confession of the LCMS - that God has declared the entire world free of sin. Although Rolf kept insisting that message is found in the New Testament, he did not identify a single verse where God said, in effect, "I don't care if you have never heard the Gospel or never believed the Gospel, you are all forgiven anyway. Faith in My Promises is irrelevant."
Someone who separates grace from the Means of Grace is an Enthusiast.
In a startling display of doctrinal ineptitude, Wilken and Preus tried to associate Calvin's limited Atonement opinion (Christ dying only for the elect) with justification by faith.
Neither pastor conceded that Lenski wrote consistently against their UOJ opinion, that Rolf's dad repudiated UOJ in his final book, Justification and Rome.
UOJ is from Pietism, from Reformed doctrine. Clearly, Walther borrowed UOJ from his Pietistic circle. Double justification was in print in America before Walther landed in Perry County. Norwegian Pietism was quite comfortable with this new, oddball twist on justification.
The dishonesty of this conversation shows a studied indifference to scholarship. Unfortunately, graduates of The Surrendered Fort are full of themselves, because the faculty teaches them that they are the greatest. (Ditto - Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Louis; The Sausage Factory, Mequon; The Little Schoolhouse on the Prairie, Mankato; and The Beehive, Eau Claire). Wilken and Preus imagine there are two sides to the issue: UOJ and Calvinism.
A Lutheran layman recently made this point, and a Jew in my class said almost the same thing - there is no scholarship among Protestants today.
---
rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Issues Etc Needs $300K a Year To Help Teach Univer...":
Many years ago, I had objective justification explained to me this way by a vicar from the Sausage Factory, "we are all saved, but unbelievers forfeit their salvation". Make sense to those who accept UOJ, I guess.
***
GJ - I removed the Issues, Etc. icon from the blog. Wilken's poor grasp of Christian doctrine is additional evidence of the state of Lutheran apostasy.
---
L P has left a new comment on your post "Issues Etc Needs $300K a Year To Help Teach Univer...":
This is the reason I am not able anymore to be a supporter though they were instrumental in my becoming Lutheran. I used to send support and listen, now I just listen.
This has made me sad. Because as I listened, they are talking about 2 justifications, one without faith, the other through faith. This is logically inconsistent. Either you are justified without faith or justified through it.
They get into this conundrum because they collapse Atonement with Justification.
Calvinists collapse the two also but arrive at another conclusion.
Amazing, these Lutherans are doing the same - collapsing Atonement with Justification.
LPC
