Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "WELS Member Comments":
"There are conservative (true to the Word) pastors that could take the call."
Pastors who are true to God's Word and the Lutheran Confessions do not exist in the WELS.
They all confess a new gospel, a new declaration of righteousness and have destroyed the central doctrine of Scripture in thier current confession. Opposing Christ and the Confessions they profess that the whole unbelieving world is righteous, forgiven of all sin and, by divine verdict, been declared by God to be guilt free all before faith worked by the Holy Spirit. Christ declares that no one is forgiven prior to faith in Him. Christ declares that the Holy Spirit's faith grasps hold of the fact that Christ paid for all sins and that by believing that your sins are then forgiven, you are justified through Christ and righteous in God's sight just as Christ is. WELS teaches that faith grasps hold of the fact that the whole unbelieving world was already declared forgiven when Christ paid for the worlds sin. That faith doesn't make of an unjust man a just man as Scripture and the Confessions declare but is just a open and empty hand accepting that you've already been declared forgiven. You are no different after faith than you were before faith.
The WELS and all Lutheran Synods confess this false gospel of Universal Objective Justification. Anyone who does is condemned by God and stand outside the body of Christ as Paul clearly states in the first chapter of Galations. There are those in the Lutheran churches who out of ignorance or hypocrisy do not confess the false gospel of Universal Objective Justification but believe they are forgiven and justified by faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone and not before faith. These are part of the invisible Church and are part of the body of Christ.
In Christ,
Brett Meyer
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GJ - Actually, I disagree that there are no faithful pastors in WELS. I know there are pastors in WELS who realize how ridiculous UOJ is. In fact, there has been a shift toward emphasizing justification by faith (which is rumored to be in the Bible, throughout, unlike UOJ - which came from Halle U. and the Pietists).
The Synodical Conference leaders made a Pietistic mistake when they canonized rules of fellowship and practiced Mennonite shunning. They mistook outward actions for an inward love of the truth. Pretty soon they were doing wacky things, like excommunicating someone for having his son in an English speaking catechism class.
Luther's solution was to trust the Word and let God work through the Word. So he did not leave the Catholic Church. They excommunicated him - and he is still excommunicated.
I am deeply troubled by the many Boomer pastors and members who let their congregations and synod rot away. Issues in WELS did not have the courage to stay together when DP Free died, and very few showed their faces before that, when Gurgle showed up to glare at them.
I have friends and contacts in all the synods, except ELCA. I knew some pastors who realized the error of ELCA, but too late. Now they are like the people who thought Obama was the Messiah.
At any given time a Lutheran body is facing doctrinal error. However, they have not done a good job of dealing with those errors in the last 50 plus years. WELS may be different, but that remains to be seen.
6 comments:
"GJ - Actually, I disagree that there are no faithful pastors in WELS. I know there are pastors in WELS who realize how ridiculous UOJ is."
Granted it is possible there are pastors in the WELS who reject UOJ. But contending against UOJ openly is like playing Whack-a-Mole with those who worship the Synod.
Your contention that there are pastors who are faithful but unseen and unheard brings up another question: What does it mean "to be faithful"? Can anyone name one WELS Pastor who is currently serving a WELS congregation and openly contends against the damnable heresy known as UOJ?
I've recently heard of one WELS Pastor who rejects it as his father did before him but until further discussions take place I do not know if he ever has openly contended against this false doctrine.
Being faithful to Christ and His Word must require contending for His doctrine.
1 Corinthians 10:21, "Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils."
In Christ,
Brett Meyer
Damnable heresy...
I am as great an opponent of Church Growth as you will ever find. I am a WELS member, and I do not agree with Universal Objective Justification. However, I think you may want to dial back the rhetoric a bit here. Dr. Jackson's own book suggests we have to account for those who use the term objective justification as a synonym for the atonement. That is how I understood it, though I understand the doctrine better thanks to Dr. Jackson and no longer use the term. If by UOJ you mean something like literal universalism or "Kokomo justification," I have never once heard a WELS Pastor teach or preach that doctrine. I am not saying there are none who do; I am only saying I have never encountered it.
So, before we damn entire classes of people for heresy, let us perhaps consider that there are in fact many faithful WELS pastors who may use the term objective justification (again, a term I do not think we should use) in a relatively innocent way. I also wonder how far you would go in damning people. Do you damn anyone who does not 100% suscribe to the Book of Concord?
The doctrine of Universal Objective Justification as taught and confessed by WELS, ELS and LCMS is damnable.
The doctrine of Objective Justification as a synonym for the Atonement is a completely different confession than what the UOJ false teachers promote.
I can't retract my stated condemnation for the false gospel of UOJ. In my earlier statement with which you contend I made an allowance for those faithful Christians who hold only to Justification by faith alone.
Name a WELS pastor who has publicly corrected August Pieper who has been quoted by Pastor Nathan Seiltz (Evergreen Lutheran High School, WELS) saying, "But whoever molests the doctrine of justification stabs the gospel in the heart and is on the way of losing entirely Christian doctrine and personal faith and of falling into the arms of heathenism, even if he ever so much emphasizes justification by faith."?
Who stood up at the 2005 WELS Convention when Pastor Jon Buchholz presented his multipart essay on Objective Justification. These are his quotes:
"Jesus then offered his innocent life as the payment (atonement) for the guilt of sinners. In this great transaction that took place on the cross, God removed the guilt of the world’s sin and replaced it with the righteousness of Christ."
"Here is the legal or juridical nature of justification, revealed at Calvary. The change does not take place in the sinner. The change takes place in the relationship or the status between a sinner and God. A verdict has been rendered, which declares man free of sin and guilt, righteous in God’s sight, and worthy of eternal life, for Jesus’ sake."
"Since the term objective justification is found neither in Scripture nor in the Lutheran confessions, we can understand the term correctly as referring to the justification of the entire world."
NOTE: He does not say justification FOR the entire world but justification OF the entire world. Pastor Buchholz rejects UOJ as a synonym for the Atonement and declares the false justification of UOJ.
"God has forgiven the whole world. God has forgiven everyone his sins." This statement is absolutely
true! This is the heart of the gospel, and it must be preached and taught as the foundation of our
faith. But here’s where the caveat comes in: In Scripture, the word "forgive" is used almost
exclusively in a personal, not a universal sense. The Bible doesn’t make the statement, "God
has forgiven the world."
Cont...
Buchholz UOJ quotes continued...
"God has forgiven all sins, but the unbeliever rejects God’s forgiveness." Again, this statement is true—and Luther employed similar terminology to press the point of Christ’s completed work of salvation. But we must also recognize that Scripture doesn’t speak this way."
"God has declared the entire world righteous." This statement is true, as we understand it to mean
that God has rendered a verdict of "not-guilty" toward the entire world. It is also true—and must be
taught—that the righteousness of Christ now stands in place of the world’s sin; this is the whole point of what Jesus did for us at Calvary. However, once again we’re wresting a term out of its usual
context. In Scripture the term "righteous" usually refers to believers."
Who stood at the Convention and corrected the false doctrine being promoted by Pastor Buchholz? Who rebuked him out of love for Christ and Christian love for those attending and those men, women and children who would learn from these statements in the future? The entire presentation and question period is available via recorded video and audio online. No one corrected him, he has never retracted what he said.
Name the WELS pastor who has publicly rebuked the essay on Justification by WELSian Siegbert W. Becker. That essay continues to be quoted and used as defense material for UOJ. In that essay he defends and acknowledges that all four Kokomo statements are Scripturally correct and do not contain false doctrine. He even goes so far to claim that those people who no longer believe they have faith in Christ are in fact believing Christians. The list of blasphemies go on without apparent end in that essay.
The same can be said of WELSian Mark Zarlings essay on Objective Justification.
Read Galations chapter 1. Christ through Paul declares that those who teach another gospel are accursed.
Romans 10:3, "For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God."
In Christ,
Brett Meyer
Anonymous, you ask, "Do you damn anyone who does not 100% suscribe to the Book of Concord?"
No, I don't. But without that subscription they are not Lutheran. Recognize that UOJ doesn't deal with the doctrine of election or the doctrine of baptism. UOJ is a doctrine that deals with the Central Article of Christian faith. The doctrine that declares what God revealed to us about how our sins can be forgiven (all sins, including unwillful errors about the doctrine of election and baptism). But it is this one central doctrine concerning justification, the distribution of Christ's body and blood for the forgiveness of sins and righteousness that is only in Him and which avails against God's wrath over sin that is destroyed by the false doctrine of UOJ. Destroy that doctrine and your sins are not forgiven. Confess another way to obtain Christ's body and blood, His righteousness, for the forgiveness of sins and your sins are not forgiven.
The false doctrine of UOJ is, in my opinion, the great falling away that Christ talks of in Scripture. The Lutheran Confessions are the 100% correct exposition of Scripture undefiled by works righteousness and decision theology. The Lutheran churches have - for the most part if they are not hypocrites who hold to the Confessional Justification by Faith alone but still reside in synodical fellowship with those who reject it - fallen away from the one true doctrine of justification by faith alone.
You also state, "I have never once heard a WELS Pastor teach or preach that doctrine." Did you listen to the 2009 WELS Convention? If you did and you didn't hear UOJ being taught in it's fullness than you don't know what the doctrine teaches and you became another victim of the false teachers who plainly taught it to you and all the delegates and church members who listened.
Walk softly and try not to ruffle any feathers if you choose. I've chosen to call UOJ what it really is and take my lumps.
In Christ,
Brett Meyer
Dr. Jackson, what are the appropriate "rules" of fellowship? Surely you are not advocating pulpit and altar fellowship with ELCA, Presbyterians, RCC, etc., are you? Would you let a Baptist play the piano for a funeral or wedding?
Maybe I missed the intent of your comment. I was just curious if, and where, you still see pietistic influences in the fellowship practices of LCMS, WELS, ELS.
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