Email:
The last two days (Tuesday and Wednesday) you have really posted hard-hitting material on the big I. I do not think you could have spelled it out any better than you did.
Why we subscribe to the Book of Concord and why the Changers are the crypto-Calvinists of our time in WELS.
I am glad to hear that the WELS pastors are bending the officials' ears. I think this convention should be about whether we want to be Lutheran or non-Lutheran.
The schools are meaningless unless WELS wants to be Lutheran. People are really speaking out.
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GJ - The false teachers being exposed think it is unfair to quote them, link their websites, and catalog their offenses against the Christian faith. When the synod controlled the information, and the Shrinkers controlled the official magazine, the laity thought everything was hunky-dory.
Isn't it odd that the crypto-Calvinists were so allergic to the word Lutheran that they had to get rid of it on the masthead of the official magazine?
Given the dominant content of FIC (nee The Northwestern Lutheran), a better name would have been The Milwaukee Bee.
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"Luther protested against Rome's soul-destroying teachings and reformed the Church by restoring the pure doctrine of God's Word. Zwingli hoped to reform the Church by abolishing Rome's superstitious practices. Calvin believed that a complete reformation implied two things: First, it was necessary to abolish all ceremonies, even those which were in use in the ancient Church, such as the liturgy, the church year, pulpits, altars; secondly, a truly reformed Church must follow the pattern of the Apostolic Church in all its church practices and adopt the form of church government given to Israel in the Old Testament."
F. E. Mayer, American Churches, Beliefs and Practices, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1946, p. 24.
"The divine power must never be separated from the Word of Scripture; that is to say, the Holy Ghost does not operate beside or outside the Word (enthusiasm, Calvinism, Rathmannism in the Lutheran Church), but always in and through the Word, Romans 10:17; 1 Peter 1:23; John 6:23."
John Theodore Mueller, Christian Dogmatics, A Handbook of Doctrinal Theology, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934, p. 134f. Romans 10:17; John 6:23; 1 Peter 1:23.
"The doctrine of the means of grace is understood properly only when it is considered in the light of Christ's redemptive work (satisfactio vicaria) and the objective justification, or reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5:19-20, which He secured by His substitutionary obedience (satisfactio vicaria). If these two doctrines are corrupted (Calvinism: denial of the gratia universalis; synergism: denial of sola gratia), then also the Scripture doctrine of the means of grace will become perverted." John Theodore Mueller, Christian Dogmatics, A Handbook of Doctrinal Theology, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1934, p. 442. 2 Corinthians 5:19-20.
"Calvinism rejects the means of grace as unnecessary; it holds that the Holy Spirit requires no escort or vehicle by which to enter human hearts."
John T. Mueller, "Grace, Means of," Lutheran Cyclopedia, Erwin L. Lueker, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1975, p. 344.
"Pietist preachers were anxious to discover and in a certain sense to separate the invisible congregation from the visible congregation. They had to meet demands different than those of the preceding period: they were expected to witness, not in the objective sense, as Luther did, to God's saving acts toward all men, but in a subjective sense of faith, as they themselves had experienced it. In this way Pietism introduced a tendency toward the dissolution of the concept of the ministry in the Lutheran Church."
Helge Nyman, "Preaching (Lutheran): History," The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church, 3 vols., ed. Julius Bodensieck, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1965, III, p. 1943.
"All those doctrinal questions which were not immediately connected with the personal life of faith were avoided. The standard for the interpretation of Scripture thus became the need of the individual for awakening, consolation, and exhortation. The congregation as a totality was lost from view; in fact, pietistic preaching was (and is) more apt to divide the congregation than to hold it together."
Helge Nyman, "Preaching (Lutheran): History," The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church, 3 vols., ed. Julius Bodensieck, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1965, III, p. 1943.
"Pietism greatly weakened the confessional consciousness which was characteristic of orthodox Lutheranism."
Helge Nyman, "Preaching (Lutheran): History," The Encyclopedia of the Lutheran Church, 3 vols., ed. Julius Bodensieck, Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1965, III, p. 1945.
"In other words, Zwingli and his numerous adherents declare that the means God has ordained are unnecessary and hinder true piety."
Francis Pieper, Christian Dogmatics, 3 vols., trans., Walter W. F. Albrecht, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1953, III, p. 104.
