Creation Day - 2010

Willowcreek's Little College is a fad promoter.

For Creation Day I fired up the grill and sent a huge cloud of carbon dioxide into the air, cackling with delight. Al Gore may curse me, but the Icelandic volcano smoked extra hard as a testimony against the pagan tree-huggers best remembered in the Hitler video satire.

---

From California:

The penchant for hopping on the pantheistic earth worship symbolism has a long acceptance in WELS. While still a member of a WELS congregation here in California, there was a likeable nice young summer vicar assigned to the congregation. When he arrived from Wisconsin, he had a bumper sticker widely used by what was called the Ecology Movement in the 60;s and into the 70's. It was a version of the flag done in green with the ecology "e" letter where the blue field of the flag would be. It's still around now and then.

Someone called attention to the inappropriateness of it especially since he would be considered to represent what the church stood for. He didn't see why it should be an issue, and thought it OK since to him it meant being a good steward of God's Creation. It was an example of the total disconnect on the part of WELS, that the world's symbols and methods had meaning, much of which was antithetical to Christianity. It seemed incredulous that WELS colleges and seminary would not prepare the students and seminarians to know and recognize that the message sent by displaying such symbols sent a message known and recognized by the world, not one of a naïve vicar's own interpretation. The bumper sticker remained until he returned to Wisconsin.

Four Atheist Essays in the Holy of Holies: WELS Essay Files

Hmm. LCMS CGM. No WELS CGM. No, let's try atheism.
Yes - Freedom From Religion.

Peterson, Curtis A.

Titles:

1. A Second and Third Look at Church Growth Principles
2. Dangers and Opportunities in the Contextualization of the Gospel
3. The Case for Remaining in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod in a State of Confessional Protest
4. The Doctrine of Church Fellowship in the Lutheran Confessions

He is still publishing, too - for atheism.

Financial Peas University

This Seminar is based upon Financial Peace University (FPU), a life-changing program that teaches you to achieve your financial goals by eliminating debt, saving for the future, and giving like never before. More than 1 million families have attended FPU with amazing results. You will be challenged and motivated to make a plan for your money and change your family tree forever! The specific topics covered will be: saving, budgeting, and eliminating debt. The fee is $15 per family (payment due by the beginning of the first session). Childcare and a light supper will be provided.

• When – This course will be offered as a two part seminar on Sunday, April 11^th and Sunday, April 18th, from 4-7pm.
• Leader – Donna Nitschke (Donna is a certified counselor with Financial Peace University and has counseled over 400 families in the FPU principles.)
• Where – Old Settler’s Association (where we meet on Sunday mornings)

p.s. If you have a spouse, we strongly encourage both of you to be there together.

***

GJ - Correction on the headline. Mrs. I says, "Financial Peace, not Peas."

I thought Easter Sunday was so two weeks ago.

Sig Becker's UOJ

Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "WELS Church Lady":

Siegbert W. Becker is used as the holy doctrinal standard for WELS defense of UOJ. Here's a beaut from Becker on the Kokomo statement #1

The first Kokomo Statement, 1) Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner’s
attitude toward Christ’s sacrifice, purely on the basis of God’s verdict, every sinner, whether he knows
it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of a saint.

Becker, "One really becomes a guilt-free saint only through faith, if we limit ourselves to the biblical usage of the word. However, since our holiness, as Augustine says, consists in sin’s remission rather than in life’s perfection, we could say that when God forgave the sins of the whole world he regarded all sinners as guilt-free, but if they are guilt-free we might also say that they are considered sinless in the sight of God. But a sinless person is a holy person, a saint. The fact that unbelievers do not consider themselves to be forgiven does not change the truth of God’s Word that tells us that God does not impute the sins of all men to them, or that through one man justification has come upon all men." Page 14 http://www.wlsessays.net/files/BeckerJustification.PDF

Oh! don't limit yourself to the Biblical usage of the word!!

---

Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "WELS Church Lady":

Additional WELS golden nuggets on the Kokomo statements via S.W. Becker states, "The
third statement is a basically good summary of our position" Becker follows with, "it is especially necessary to point out that the statements do not contain false doctrine."

Kokomo statement #1 - Becker, "the meaning of the statement is nevertheless clear and correct."

Kokomo statement #2 - Becker, "we could say that when God forgave the sins of the whole world he regarded all sinners as guilt-free, but if they are guilt-free we might also say that they are considered sinless in the sight of God. But a sinless person is a holy person, a saint."

Kokomo statement #3 - Becker, "The third statement is a basically good summary of our position,"

Kokomo statement #4 - Becker, "Even the fourth statement can be defended even though it leaves much to be desired. As we have said, the statement is not drawn from a WELS source. If it is true that God has forgiven the sins of the world then it is also true that he forgave the sin of Judas."

http://www.wlsessays.net/files/BeckerJustification.PDF

WELS Church Lady

An act of God - the Easter egg hunt was rained out.
Lutherans were egg-static.


WELS church lady has left a new comment on your post "Brett Meyer Tries To Organize the Ball of Yarn Cal...":

If the powers that be think you can have a UOJ conference without the ichabodians knowing about it, they are sadly mistaken. We were on to them LONG before the conference. Why did Schleicher defend Kokomo?? Don't write a check that you can't cash. Bourman's essay? Where is it? Was he indeed the UOJ hold-out? Teaching Justification by Faith as noted in the Bible and BOC? Perhaps. Who knows, it could be just like the rest. Computer and technical errors do occur!

Hey, Five vicars will be assigned and guess what church in Austin is getting one. One lucky vicar will work alongside ex SP Gurgel. The four other assignments were worthy, Gods' blessings on those vicars and the congregations.

In Christ,
from WELS church lady

Freddy Asks a Question

Hoenecke's professor at Halle, Tholuck, was a Universalist.

Freddy Finkelstein has left a new comment on your post "LP Cruz Explains Calvinism to the Crypto-Calvinist...":

If, as LP suggests, it is true that UOJ has turned the Law into a farce, it would explain the conspicuous rarity of Second-Use preaching. Who really needs it after all? Why not dumb-down Law preaching and adopt a more relevant, seeker-sensitive effeminate approach? You know, upside-down evangelism! Speak the Gospel, and the Law stuff can come later, if at all. That is, Speak to the unconverted righteous person as if he is already a believer! But wasn't that Karl Barth's error, a notion he derived from a mistaken interpretation of Aquinas? Wasn't failing to take sin seriously a hallmark of neo-orthodoxy? And wasn't Karl Barth a celebrity at Fuller in their early days?

If LP is correct in his analysis, it seems to me that in UOJ, while the doctrine of Original Sin is still acknowledged, the doctrine of Actual Sin has been rejected.

Is this the case?

Freddy Finkelstein

***

GJ - WELS Pastor Robert Schumann, a Wally Oelhafen fave, loved the Church Growth Movement and preached that the Law was obsolete - the classic Antinomian position. His members asked him if he really meant that - and he did mean it. He also denied Creation, which is why St. Paul, German Village left the ALC - denial of Creation.

WELS really did a number on that congregation. They made Stolzenburg a fake-pastor for years, and now Floyd is taking members from St. Paul whenever there is turmoil. With such abysmal doctrinal leadership, turmoil is a sure bet.

Antinomianism is big in WELS, but try to explain that to a layman whose pastor is sleeping around the parish.

Brett Meyer Tries To Organize the Ball of Yarn Called UOJ

The DNA comes out in the long run.


Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Make This a Dialogue on UOJ":

I'm wading through the essay titled is Objective Justification Universalism. http://scdwels.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/schleicher-paper.pdf
(I'm a bit grumpy because I was so thoroughly enjoying "Luther vs. the Pietists" - outstanding!) This WELS essay is replete with the standard contradictions and "Repeat After Me" UOJ statements.

One specific section needs more attention.

Page 5, "14 Justification does not involve a change in our nature, for Scripture speaks of the nature of 15 those justified as still sinful. Paul speaks of “God who justifies the wicked'' (Ro 4:5). He states, 16 “Christ died for the ungodly. . . . While we were still sinners, Christ died for us'' (Ro 5:6,8). 17 As our confessions state: “To be justified” here (James 2:24) does not mean for a
18 righteous person to be made out of an ungodly one, but to be pronounced righteous in a forensic sense'' (Ap IV:252)."

Questions: When is a man born again? When does a man die to sin and raised again to life in Christ? When does man, by the grace and work of the Holy Spirit, put off the old man and put on Christ? When does the carnal mind of man die and is given the Holy Spirit's spiritual mind? When does the Holy Spirit make of an unjust man a just man?

John 3:3, "Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God."

Colossians 3:9-10, "Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds; And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him:"

2 Corinthians 5:17, "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new."

71] "but we maintain this, that properly and truly, by faith itself, we are for Christ's sake accounted righteous, or are acceptable to God. And because "to be justified" means that out of unjust men just men are made, or born again, it means also that they are pronounced or accounted just. For Scripture speaks in both ways. [The term "to be justified" is used in two ways: to denote, being converted or regenerated; again, being accounted righteous. Accordingly we wish first to show this, that faith alone makes of an unjust, a just man, i.e., receives remission of sins".
http://www.bookofconcord.org/defense_4_justification.php

***

GJ - Now Brett. You know what happens when someone asks a WELS guy a pointed question. They answer a question with a question.

"Who told you this?" and

"How do you know Greg Jackson?"

They even have WELS Facebook police, who want to know why someone is listed as my friend. Alone in the world, I have 960+ FB friends, including Waldo Werning and Ed Stetzer.

Alone in the world, I am in constant contact with Little I and his family, who live a few minutes away. Brett: Just between you, me, and 8,000 readers - I cannot comprehend how WELS Stormtroopers can maintain such a colossal display of ignorance. Nothing seems to dent the depravity of their malice.

Alone in the world, I hear from various clergy and laity on a daily basis. I could list the names and titles, but I won't. Many times they write just to fill me in, and I keep that information for background.

---

Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Freddy Asks a Question":

Mr. Finkelstein, this is the case.

It is in fact worse than that if such a distinction can be made considering the consequences of perverting the Gospel of Christ. UOJ teaches that although God has declared the whole unbelieving world to be righteous, forgiven of all sin (justified) and guiltless by His divine verdict, they are also at the same time condemned and under his wrath because they don't believe that they have already been declared at peace with him and righteous. Consider the implications of this. For a sinful man to be forgiven by God he must have Christ's righteousness. To have Christ's righteousness and considered by God to be sinless, justified and righteous but still be under God's wrath means that Christ's righteousness and the bestowal of it upon man is not effective in making that man a child of God and no longer under His wrath and an heir to eternal life. UOJ is an attack on the righteousness of Christ. Either Christ died for all sins and his righteousness removes all sin or it doesn't. UOJ teaches that unless the unbelieving world believes they are already forgiven of all sin they go to Hell for the sin of unbelief. Wait - so Christ didn't pay for the sin of unbelief? His righteousness doesn't remove the guilt of the sin of unbelief? The same unbelief we were all born with? Christ himself states that he died and paid for the sin of unbelief. Romans 11:23 And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be grafted in: for God is able to graft them in again.

Just another horrible perversion of Scripture by the false man made doctrine of UOJ.

***

GJ - That ball of yarn just won't unravel, Brett!

LP Cruz Explains Calvinism to the Crypto-Calvinists

John Calvin had trouble with Law and Gospel. Calvinist John Newton: "Twas grace that taught my heart to fear..."


L P has left a new comment on your post "Make This a Dialogue on UOJ":

Sorry to come late.

OK here is my bit. I am reviewing the Schleicher Paper.

He asked Is Objective Justification Universalism?
Me: Does he still need to ask? (LOL)

OK seriously we have these
1. The need to identify universalists societies which the paper does is useful but in the end, irrelevant. Why? Because one can be inventing its own brand of universalism and the fact that your position does not match the others do not imply your position is not a form or shape of universalism.

2. God has declared the world righteous for Jesus' sake. This is an objective reality, whether anyone believes it or not. Even if the whole world rejected the message of the gospel, it would still remain an objective reality that God had acquitted the world of sin.

Does the author believe in Law and Gospel distinction? Or in the first place does the author KNOW the distinction between Law and Gospel? It does not appear that he does by that statement. Proof: If the whole world is now declared righteous for Jesus sake, then what is the need to preach the Law and then the Gospel?. There is no more Law to preach. For what does the Law accuses us - precisely we are WICKED we are Unrighteous. But since the Gospel - so he says is that - God HAS declared the world righteous of Jesus sake, already then there is no more Law to preach. Since the author misses the Law, by default, he misses the Gospel as well. Even if he does what Dr . Siegbert Becker says - you do not preach the Gospel to the impenitent wicked (his words) unbeliever, still the Law he preaches is actually a farce. For he knows that this unrepentant unbeliever by his "Gospel" is already forgiven even before he was born, so the Law he preaches carries no sincere threat. The Law has been reduced to hypotheticals, it becomes a myth.

3. Another one he says Calvin would accept that justification is objective in nature (as it applies to the elect)

He is right about Calvin but he does not see that UOJ is really Calvinism in spirit. Calvinism sees at least for the elect already saved even without faith, which is what UOJ does except it does this universally!

4. Again category mistake equating the Atonement with Justification as on bottom paragraph p.5 God has justified the world

5. This paper is filled with so many flaws, I could not keep count of them. For example quoting Mt 9:2 and arguing that believing is synergism. Did this author even read carefully the passage? For in that verse before Jesus pronounced the forgiveness of sins, Jesus saw something ..."and Jesus seeing their faith, said to the paralytic - Take courage My son your sins are forgiven".

Clearly this teaching says believe you are already justified and so you are. Or else believe that you are not and so you are not. It all depends on what you believe. Now who is making faith in this manner a form of works?

Just like Calvinism, this paper muddles up the object of faith. For example, the paper mentions belief in Jesus. But what does believe in Jesus mean?

6. The paper is flying at mach speed, in lampooning faith in Christ as a none event, as if faith is something easy. Yet it is precious to God. The category mistake is just disheartening. For example when quotes "It is finished" - He mistakes this payment as automatically equivalent to justification. Rather it meant "paid in full". Tetelestai. In fact in the Bible, if you disbelieve this, you are still in your sins and the Scripture describes you as not righteous but "wicked". So one needs to wonder, if God declared the whole world already as righteous, then how does and why does he send them ever to hell (any of them for that matter). So God sends people whom he already declared righteous to hell. Or when anyone who is already declared righteous and then disbelieves God takes it back and calls them wicked. This paper make God an Indian giver (so to speak).


More could be said...

LPC

***

GJ - LP is good at examining the contradictory nature of UOJ. What keeps the little UOJ Klan operating is their inner conviction that they have the true Gospel.

My advisor at Notre Dame was Tjaard Hommes, a Remonstrant (Arminian) from Holland. His interest in Calvin, Schleiermacher, and Barth encouraged me to do plenty of research in those areas. Since he earned his doctorate at Harvard, the books I read were written by his professors and fellow students at Harvard. That was a far cry from the yellowed dog notes of the Mequon Sausage Factory, where brains are permanently entombed in talking points.

Remonstrants broke with traditional Calvinists over a number of points. They rejected Limited Atonement and Double Predestination. In keeping with the traditions of Zwingli and Calvin, they did not reject Enthusiasm.

Therefore, UOJ is Calvinism without the Limited Atonement. As Luther warned, when the Means of Grace are denied, all kinds of foul errors rush in.

At Notre Dame I edited a number of articles, written by Hommes, for scholarly journals. The process of getting them ready and seeing them in print was another stimulus for research rather than repeat-after-me slogans. As the sole Lutheran in my area, I was always being asked about Lutheran doctrine. But it was the anti-Lutheran, divorced, adulterous clergy in Columbus who really energized my research in the Confessions. They were UOJ and Church Growth, just like their counterparts in Texas.