By Larry Beane
Here is an example of what I believe is in store for any church body that pursues a dumbed-down theological track for pastors - especially one that limits personal exposure of candidates to faculty and seminary colleagues, and/or rushes candidates through a truncated academic program based on a delusional and hysterical argument of a "clergy shortage."
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GJ - WELS calls it Staph Ministry, and it is spreading fast. Martin Luther College is their "College of Ministry," so every student is a minister. All the women are ministers. They graduate as ministers and the male teachers are ordained.
Not to worry. The Staph Ministers are guided by Lawrence Otto Olson, who studied at Trinity in Deerfield and Fuller Seminary. His limited publications are cries of exultation for the triumph of Church Growth in WELS and Missouri, with various comments mocking the efficacy of the Word.
Larry, thou hast conquered.
3 comments:
First, someone needs to teach Larry how to turn on the PC.
Male teachers are not ordained. They are welcomed as individual members of their districts, but as teachers. They are not pastors, nor do any of us claim to be so.
Ordination is not a sacrament and neither is it required for a man to be called into the one office Christ instituted, the Office of Public Ministry or Pastoral Office.
The doctrine of the Public Ministry in the WELS and ELS state that men and women receive divine calls into the Public Ministry. You teach that the office of Public Ministry is not the Pastoral Office which Christ commands that only a man is to be called into. The fact that you place divine calls for women to hold your Public Ministry positions is a declaration that Christ has called that woman into the Public Ministry Office that you created by human right. ELS (WELS) Public Ministry of the Word doctrine, "It is by human right that the church separates a limited portion of the office to one individual." You've taken a subset of responsibilities from the (1) one office Christ instituted, Pastoral Office, given them to women and men and restricted them from the other responsibilities Christ commanded of that office (preaching the Word purely and administering the Sacraments rightly), and yet continue to call the restricted office divine. Christ commanded that in the one office He instituted no one is above or below another in the office. Yet by your restrictions and declaration that the new office is divine you have done just that. You have usurped Christ's authority and declared that the new office is divine and as such women and men are called by Christ into it. You have become even further Roman Catholic (Antichrist-ian) in your activity of creating divine offices by human right.
Christ allowed offices to be created to assist the Pastoral Office but they are then no longer the one office Christ instituted and as such are not divine and a divine call should not be issued for them. Luther was clear on this in his The Private Mass and the Consecration of Priests, “For we must believe and be sure of this, that baptism does not belong to us but to Christ, that the gospel does not belong to us but to Christ, that the office of preaching does not belong to us but to Christ, that the sacrament (of the Lord’s Supper) does not belong to us but to Christ, that the keys, or forgiveness and retention of sins, do not belong to us but to Christ. In summary, the offices and sacraments do not belong to us but to Christ, for he has ordained all this and left it behind as a legacy in the church to be exercised and used to the end of the world; and he does not lie or deceive us. Therefore, we cannot make anything else out of it but must act according to his command and hold to it. However, if we alter it or improve on it, then it is invalid and Christ is no longer present, nor is his ordinance.”
"…THE OFFICE OF PREACHING DOES NOT BELONG TO US BUT TO CHRIST, … THEREFORE, WE CANNOT MAKE ANYTHING ELSE OUT OF IT BUT MUST ACT ACCORDING TO HIS COMMAND AND HOLD TO IT. HOWEVER, IF WE ALTER IT OR IMPROVE ON IT, THEN IT IS INVALID AND CHRIST IS NO LONGER PRESENT, NOR IS HIS ORDINANCE."
Note also that Luther's comments include the Gospel which if men change and alter it it is then invalid and Christ is no longer present. With the doctrine of Universal Objective Justification you have altered Christ's Gospel and created a man made gospel from reason. Christ is not present in your UOJ doctrine nor is he present in the hearts of those who hold to it. You've destroyed the one thing needful and are reaping the rewards for destroying the Holy Spirit's faith in the hearts of those you teach. No wonder you must turn to the law in order to provoke actions that true Christians do out of faith.
In Christ,
Brett Meyer
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