WELS - Stop Lying about Kokomo

LutherRocks has left a new comment on your post "Joe Krohn's Free Blog":

One more thing...

http://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/site.pl?1518&cuTopic_topicID=45&cuItem_itemID=2835

Click on it or copy and paste.

Someone else needs to do some homework.

Joe Krohn



Q: What is the WELS teaching on objective justification? My friend and I have had a discussion, and he pointed me to the Kokomo articles, or theses, as an example of what WELS teaches. Being just a layman I was wondering if I should use these to teach others who may have the same question, as he did for me.
A: The teaching of objective justification is that God the Father declared the sins of the whole world forgiven because Christ had paid for all sin. To benefit from that payment and that declaration it is necessary that a person be brought to faith in Christ as his Savior (subjective justification) (2 Corinthians 5:18-21).

The so-called Kokomo Statements should not be taken as representative of WELS teaching. Much that has been put out and circulated about the Kokomo Statements has been a misrepresentation of the WELS position. The Kokomo Statements were not drawn up by anyone in WELS as a presentation of our position. They were drawn up by opponents of the WELS position. Three of the statements are taken from WELS sources, but taken out of context, they caricature the WELS position and should not be taken as as an adequate presentation of WELS teaching. Anyone circulating the Kokomo Statements as a representation of the WELS position is not giving a fair and balanced presentation of WELS teaching.

A brief evaluation of the so-called Kokomo Statements is contained in a 1982 paper by Siegbert Becker, "Objective Justification," which is available from the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary library. Papers on objective justification also appear in Vol. III of Our Great Heritage, available from Northwestern Publishing House.

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GJ - I traveled to Kokomo and talked to both families who were kicked out of WELS for rejecting the Kokomo Statements, three of which were almost verbatim from J. P. Meyer's Ministers of Christ, NPH.

I reproduced the letter in Thy Strong Word.

Sig Becker endorsed the Kokomo Statements. Sausage Factory President Panning was in charge of the appeal process, and he supported the Kokomo Statements.

Whenever convenient, WELS denies the Kokomo Statements, but they are official policy. As one Lutheran said, "Didn't they bind the conscience of people who did not agree?"

Someone is obviously feeding Joe Krohn the official, deceitful line about UOJ in WELS. Would that be a stealth member of Church and Chicanery?

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dk, in plain spoken fashion, addressed Joe. This is what he has left a new comment on your post "WELS - Stop Lying about Kokomo":

Hey Joe,

I have to ask you to think about this: If the WELS do not accept the Kokomo statements as official doctrine (as the WELS Q&A claims) how much more despicable are they for kicking out those two families!

"Um, hey... we don't believe these statements but since you're laymen and acting with authority we're going to kick you to the curb"

Howdy Joe: What do you make of that? Isn't that a pretty blaring contradiction? I'm not thumbing my nose at you, but you have to agree at the inconsistency, right?

What is the best construction that we (as Christian people) can put on this collection of facts?