Justification by Faith Essay - Introduction

Norma Boeckler design

Essay -
Justification by Faith:
Luther’s Doctrine versus the Universal Objective Justification of Pietism

By

Gregory L. Jackson, STM, MA, PhD
Bethany Lutheran Church
Bella Vista, Arkansas
Easter, 2010
Introduction – Justification by Faith: Luther’s Doctrine versus the Universal Objective Justification of Pietism

· The efficacy of the Word.
· Enthusiasm.
· Zwingli and Calvin.
· Pietism.
· Walther's Pietistic Easter absolution of the world.
· Justification by faith.

The current state of the Lutheran Church in North America constitutes proof that the visible expressions of the church have done more than lose their doctrinal heritage – they have consciously and persistently rejected it in favor of Enthusiasm, the source of all false doctrine.

This rejection has been the work of Lutheran Pietism, a curious amalgamation of Calvinistic doctrine and Lutheran identity, with Lutheran doctrine on the scaffold and Calvinism on the throne – and in the hangman’s role.

Some visible proofs of the victory of Pietism over Lutheran doctrine are:
Hatred of the Confessions.
Repudiation of Luther’s work.
Rejection of the historic liturgy and the Creeds.
Sermons replaced by coaching talks.
Cell groups.
Predominance of the Law, but chiefly man-made law, such as “You must be growing.”
Antinomianism, as if God’s Law is obsolete.
Silence about the efficacy of the Word.
Avoidance of the Means of Grace, or weak-kneed lip-service to this Biblical concept.
Receptionism in Holy Communion.
Tawdry gimmicks used in place of evangelism through the Word.
Obvious persecution of faithful pastors and shunning of faithful laity.
Promoting, defending, and rewarding false teachers.
Seminaries and colleges providing a tawdry Calvinistic education, with no one objecting.
District and synod officials in cahoots with the false teachers.
Feminist dogma leading to de facto women’s ordination.
Unionism with every possible sect.
Division, tension, hostility, polarization.
The silence of the shepherds and the slaughter of the lambs.

Luther identified justification by faith as the chief article of the Christian Church. This famous passage is often quoted just before the advocates of Universal Objective Justification (UOJ) launch an attack on Luther’s work and the Scripture itself. Not content with eviscerating their own heritage, they look into every possible place in the Book of Concord where they can conjure UOJ in place of the Word and against the Word.

Briefly stated, Universal Objective Justification is the claim—from Pietism—that God absolved the entire world of sin at the time of the crucifixion or, in one of their many contradictions, at the time of Christ’s resurrection. The UOJ advocates insist that every single person in the world enjoys the status of guilt-free saints, even if they never come to faith and suffer in the depths of Hell itself. This claim is palpable nonsense, and its animosity toward sound doctrine has grown with the years.

The American Lutheran expression of UOJ was copied from Pietism by C. F. W. Walther and promoted by his disciples. His efforts to dominate the 19th century Midwest resulted in the spread of this Enthusiasm. Students of church history will note that the Church Growth Movement is a tacky version of Calvinism, with dollops of mutual love exchanged between Church Growth and Pietism.

Some of the milestones of UOJ in the Lutheran Midwest are:
1. C. F. W. Walther’s work.
2. Franz Pieper’s Christian Dogmatics.
3. The Missouri Synod’s Brief Statement, seconded by WELS, the ELS, and the micro-mini sects.
4. J. P. Meyer’s Ministers of Christ.
5. The WELS Kokomo Statements, based on J. P. Meyer.
6. Sig Becker’s advocacy of the Kokomo Statements.
7. Herman Otten and Jack Cascione.
8. Robert Preus, when he was promoting Church Growth at Concordia, Ft. Wayne.
9. The LCMS statements on justification, dishonoring the Reformation, 1987.
10. Jon Buchholz reiterating the Easter absolution nonsense of Walther, at a WELS convention.

Opposition to UOJ has been expressed by:
1. LCMS Pastor Vernon Hartley.
2. Walter Maier II, LCMS seminary professor at Ft. Wayne.
3. Robert Preus’ last book Justification and Rome.
4. Thy Strong Word, 2000.
5. Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, second edition.
6. Brett Meyer and several anonymous laity who encouraged me to pursue this topic, the third rail of Midwestern Lutheranism.

God willing, I will address the major points of UOJ in time for the WELS Texas Enthusiasm Conference, April 19-20, this year. Not surprisingly, the same district is a hotbed for the worst of Church Growth excesses.

The initial essay should be long enough to appear as a booklet on Lulu.com, to be downloaded for free as a PDF, also as a file to download from http://www.gjlackson.com.
The essay should grow into a book with the same basic outline, but it is impossible to tell when it will be finished.

Morning Shock - Someone Defending Ichabod!

The sweatshirt is gone, but the image is fun to PhotoShop into my gradeschool picture.
I wore this sweatshirt at a WELS dedication.
WELS pastors were offended by the sweatshirt,
but not by Fuller doctrine.
NWC students begged to wear it.

I was thinking about blogging being a waste of time and energy when I saw this post linked on the left.

Most of my writing energy comes from receiving hostile and ignorant comments. I am endlessly amused that a coward has anonymously set up a blog to attack me--anonymously, of course--and engage in enough stupidity to prove he is WELS.

Freddy Finkelstein is correct about the point of polemical writing.

I do not consider myself the equivalent of anyone, certainly not at the level of the Reformation theologians. We are all pygmies in comparison. I do think we should be faithful to our outward confession of faith, without reservation, or else find and embrace another.

Freddy missed the reason for people objecting to polemical writing. They object with personal attacks because the Holy Spirit convicts them of their sin, their sin of unbelief. Why else would Lutherans rage against Luther being quoted? How odd to say, "I am a Lutheran," and complain about Luther being quoted - while kneeling at the feet of Babtist Ed Stetzer.

Someone recently contacted me about the years Nils A. Dahl taught at Yale. He was my New Testament professor, world famous and admired in many countries. He held an endowed chair at Yale. Nevertheless, I found information about him impossible to discover, and I am fairly good at that. The websites of Yale did not yield anything about retired and dead professors - so quickly do they pass from memory. So I wondered why men will lie and dissemble so they can be the District Presidents of a tiny sect or professors at a shrinking seminary. If world famous scholars can pass from the scene so quickly, how much faster will we fade from memory? Sooner or later the bishop's hat will hang dusty on a hook and the academic robe will be tossed away by the grieving family.

KJV Mark 13:31 Heaven and earth shall pass away: but My words shall not pass away.

Nils Dahl, Buckingham Professor of New Testament at Yale, published in English, French, German, Swedish, and Norwegian.
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Freddy Finkelstein has left a new comment on your post "Morning Shock - Someone Defending Ichabod!":

Dr. Jackson writes: Freddy missed the reason for people objecting to polemical writing. They object with personal attacks because the Holy Spirit convicts them of their sin, their sin of unbelief.

True enough. And I shouldn't have missed it, either. Last night, as I was searching URLs to lightly document some of the individuals and events I was describing, I bumped into a polemical work that was pivotal in our journey to Confessional Lutheranism, and recalled the process that Dr. Jackson describes as it worked in me and Mrs. Finkelstein.

I discovered Rev. J. V. Kimpel's polemical work, The Charismatic Movement in the Lutheran Church, on the website of the LMS-USA way back at a time when Mrs. Finkelstein and I were still confused about the charismata, the Means of Grace, and the role and work of the Holy Spirit. I was still an Evangelical when I read it, and it offended me. The language was quite direct -- in ALL CAPS in some places as if the author were SHOUTING (Christians are to be calm and and happy all the time, I had been taught, and are never to be so direct and confident -- after all, we might be the one's who are wrong). The author rejected false doctrine and false teachers (Christians are only supposed to accept in the name of Jesus, we had been taught -- we should never reject anyone and should be tolerant of how the Holy Spirit has led others into a unique perspective of His Word). Kimpel used Scripture like a weapon, not a cuddly pillow. I was disturbed and angered, but nonetheless drawn to it again and again. I checked his use of Scripture. I deciphered his reasoning. It was all sound in my judgment. But I didn't know what to do with that information -- I was afraid that it would destroy my wife's faith and Christian identity.

Eventually, as she and I discussed matters, it became clear that we were no longer tracking. I gave her the article, and said, "Read this, then we'll talk more." It took her a week to read, amidst anger and sobbing, and source checking. In the end, she came to the same conclusion I had: We'd been lied to since our childhood, by people who should have known better. Kimpel's use of Scripture and reason was not sophisticated, but straightforward, drawn from the plain meaning of the text. No deep exegesis to draw out a "true meaning" not directly reflected in the words themselves, and there was no need for intellectual gymnastics in order to agree with his reasoning. The truth was so plain, and so important, our pastors and elders should have understood themselves perfectly well what Kimpel was saying, and avoided the errors they and an entire generation had fallen into, and lead us to believe.

Polemic plays a vital role in the Church. Some folks are better at it than others, to be sure, but Lutherans have always been the best at it. We dare not lose our polemical skills, or let them fall into disuse.

Freddy Finkelstein

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L P has left a new comment on your post "Morning Shock - Someone Defending Ichabod!":

Well done to Freddie for the post.

re: Comparison with Flacius.

Although Dr Jackson maybe like Flacius in his tenacity, I have not seen him overstate his case unlike Flacius. One should be aware that Dr Jackson has a sense of humour. This is different from over stating the truth.

LPC

ClimateGate Just Got Funner - The Global Warming Fraud Continues To Implode

Last winter was colder than a WELS Friendship Sunday event.

Climategate: Faster and Faster, the Dominos Fall

With the revelation about the cherrypicked Russian stations (plus six other freshly, independently discovered problems), the real story of how we got here just took a shape.

December 17, 2009 - by Charlie Martin

The Climategate files were made public just a month ago, and the email messages that were revealed have already had real impact. The emails show us scientists being petty and political, even corrupt. Suppressing dissenting science and perhaps even violating the law to prevent data from being shared with the rest of the world. They show us people with failings, egos against egos. But the emails themselves aren’t enough to call the overall science of CO2-driven, human-caused climate change into question.

The Climategate emails, however, make up only five percent of the Climategate files. The other 95 percent, the programs and data and documents, are where the real story is hiding. That story has begun to come out, in several independent analyses of the data we have, using hints from the emails and from other files and raw data that is available from other sources.

A story is beginning to take shape. This story broke into the world media Wednesday. An article in RIA Novosti, the Russian state-owned news service, states:

On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) issued a report claiming that the Hadley Center for Climate Change based at the headquarters of the British Meteorological Office inExeter (Devon, England) had probably tampered with Russian-climate data.

The article reports that the IEA had taken a new look at the data used in the Intergovernmental Panel for Climatic Change (IPCC) reports. These reports, which became the basis for warnings of dramatic human-caused global warming that led to calls for extensive regulation and to the current climate change conference in Copenhagen, are based on world temperature estimates using measurements from thousands of reporting sites throughout the world.

Novosti reported that the data used for temperature measurements in Russia appeared to have been carefully chosen from the warmest reporting sites. If an average were taken over all Russian reporting sites, then there was little or no warming to report.

Using only the sites chosen for the IPCC reports, Russia instead showed significant warming, with a “hot spot” over Eastern Siberia.

This story turned out to fit neatly with some of the CRU emails. As Steve McIntyre discusses at Climate Audit, one email from Phil Jones to Michael Mann says:

Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL.

So here’s a puzzle. What papers is Jones referring to, and how did they claim CRU had it “wrong over Siberia”?

While the Novosti report has gotten the most attention, it’s not the only such report. The Climategate files forced the UK Meteorological Office to make at least part of their raw data available. One of the first was Willis Eschenbach, at Watts Up With That. Read the whole discussion and also Eschenbach’s answer to a critique published in the Economist for the details, but here is the “money shot”:

In this figure, the blue line is the raw data. The black line is the adjustments that had been applied to that data, and the red line is the result following the adjustments.

The next domino was a study by Dr. Richard Keen of the University of Colorado that was reported at the Air Vent blog. In it, Dr. Keen compares the raw data from the National Climate Data Center (NCDC) with data from the Global Climate historical network, the adjusted data as published in the IPCC report. Dr. Keen finds that the raw data does indeed show an upward trend of 0.69°C per century, which he believes is explained by the “Pacific Decadal Oscillator,” a well known long-term phenomenon.

The data used by the IPCC instead shows warming four times greater, 2.8°C per century, an adjustment of about 2°C.

Other such comparisons followed: Data from around Nashville; data collected in Antarctica, which, after adjustment, comes out to be from a single site near the ocean; data from the Baltic and Scandinavian countries; even in Central Park.

In all of these cases, there are mysterious, unexplained warming adjustments for the last part of the century.

It ought to be said that these adjustments don’t necessarily prove the data has been purposefully fudged. Handling this kind of large data set requires using statistical techniques to try and make the data consistent. (Dr. William M. Briggs, a Pajamas Media contributor, has a nice series starting here for people who want to read the technical details.) On the other hand, at some point we have to remember Goldfinger’s Law: Once is accident, twice coincidence, three times is enemy action. And the problem is, without the raw data, and without a clear explanation of the process by which the data has been adjusted — something that seems unlikely in light of the HARRY_READ_ME.txt file — there is no way to tell what the adjustments are based on. The CRU clique asks us to trust them, when the history in the Climategate emails doesn’t say much to encourage trust.

What can be said is this: We now have substantial evidence, from several independent sources, that the data used as the basis for the IPCC report has been adjusted in undocumented ways, and those adjustments account for nearly all the warming we are told has been caused by humans.

Until the data is re-examined, fully, openly, and transparently, it is impossible to conclude how much of a contribution to global climate change humans have made, or whether that contribution has been made by human-generated CO2. And without knowing that, attempts to “fix the problem,” through cap and trade or Copenhagen agreements, is misguided at best — and dangerous at worst.