not to goose-step behind someone whose authority rests on being a mediocre Greek student.
From the current draft:
Luther versus the UOJ Pietists:
Justification by Faith Alone
Gregory L. Jackson, PhD
Epiphany, 2011 Revision
Martin Chemnitz Press
Art, Copyright, Norma Boeckler, 2010
Text, Copyright, Gregory L. Jackson, 2010
ISBN #978-0-557-66008-7
Acknowledgements
Lutheran laity began this project by asking me to look into justification by faith and the UOJ controversy at a WELS congregation in Kokomo, Indiana. That research became an important part of Thy Strong Word, which is also available in print and as a free PDF download from Lulu.com. The need for additional study has been motivated by the spread of false doctrine among Lutherans, the abandonment of the Confessions and liturgical worship, and the hatred expressed toward justification by faith.
Many Lutheran pastors think they are conservatives because they convertly express their mild criticism of Church Growth, Emergent Church, and the New Age fantasies of Leonard Sweet. Nevertheless, they goose-step, with glazed eyes, to the beat of forgiveness without faith, universal absolution, justification without faith.
Introduction
Lutherans will find the following to be a familiar, erroneous definition of justification:
This is very conveniently expressed by the terms objective and subjective justification. Objective justification is the act of God, by which he proffers pardon to all through Christ; subjective, is the act of man, by which he accepts the pardon freely offered in the Gospel. The former is universal, the latter not.
This is not a quotation from Walther in 1847 or Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics in English in 1950. Nor is it from any work prior to the Age of Pietism. Instead, it is the translator’s note from a book of lectures published by a Halle University Pietist, Georg Christian Knapp. The date of the first English edition is 1831, eight years before Walther landed in America with the Stephanite migration. The translator, Leonard Woods, Junior, was the brilliant, young superstar of the mainline Protestants. His translation of Knapp was used throughout the 19th century, so the book influenced the conservative German Lutherans who read the original and the mainline Protestants who used the English translation in their schools.
The original German book began as lectures at Halle in the late 1700s, which were published in 1817. Halle University was established in 1691 to teach Pietism, a peculiar blend of Lutheran and Calvinistic doctrine. The Knapp book is still in print today, an indication of its formidable influence in German and English in the 19th century in America. That influence continues today, because universal absolution became the hallmark of mainline Protestantism, notably in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Universal absolution is also the essence of Universal Objective Justification (UOJ), the only important doctrine for the old Synodical Conference – the Wisconsin Synod, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod, and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod. UOJ is the reason why the WELS, the ELS, and the LCMS work together with ELCA – they share the same doctrine.
The Biblical doctrine of justification by faith has become toxic to the old Synodical Conference. The development of this turning away from sound doctrine can be documented in two ways. First of all, the historical context needs to be considered, because most people do not know what Pietism is, how American Lutheran church bodies began in Pietism rather than Lutheran orthodoxy. Secondly, the favorite passages of the UOJ advocates need careful examination, because their perversion of the truth requires twisting God’s Word.
Additional materials include the favorite quotations of UOJ advocates and why these sentiments are wrong. Justification by faith is naturally taught clearly before the Age of Pietism, so those quotations are also listed.
Research is being completed about the injection of Pietism into the nascent Synodical Conference. That work, by another author, will eventually be included in future editions of this volume. Additional essays are also going to be added, with permission from the author’s family.
