Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Intrepids Are Doomed - Endorsed by Tim Glende





Suffering from the crabs in Seattle,
Glende and Ski attended a passtor's conference.
But WELS was not hosting one anywhere.
Marc Driscoll, the cussing pastor?


TUESDAY, AUGUST 31, 2010

A Welcome New Blog

If you haven't seen it yet, we would encourage our readers to visit the new Intrepid Lutherans website. We would especially invite you to read the following posting:

http://www.intrepidlutherans.com/2010/08/pietism-and-ministry-in-wels-brief.html

Unlike Dr. Gregory Jackson's blog, "Ichabod, the Glory Has Departed," IntrepidLutherans.com offers scholarly insightful articles on the church growth movement, pietism and other issues affecting confessional Lutheranism in our day.


***

GJ - Abandon hope if Glende endorses anything, albeit anonymously.

This may be a sign of repentance.

Stay tuned.



Why Purchase Hell When Heaven Is Given Away for Free?




My title is from a statement by Luther - so many purchase Hell by their works when they can have Heaven for free.

I was debating these matters by IM on Facebook last night. I seem to have a lot of conversations that way, often very late. They tear me away, reluctantly, from grading student papers.

Hygienic doctrine (aka sound doctrine - look at the Greek) teaches us how God does everything through the Means of Grace. I found a little piece by Prof John Brenner, published in FICKLE, on that topic. I did not swoon, because I saw no antitheses. If Sparky really believed what he wrote, he would have added: "So why are we promoting Reformed and New Age doctrine at this school and around the synod?"

Satan wants the sheep fed, fat and tender, but not warned.

All false doctrine devolves into a system of works, which is our default belief system. That is why works-religion is so popular and works-salesmen attract crowds. The Gospel is thinly sown. When people have their self-justification taken away by preaching the Means of Grace, they are just as furious as the Pharisees who trusting in their own righteousness. No longer does it matter than someone is fifth generation WELS--or, as they said in Byzantium--born to the purple. No longer does the acreage of the parking lot matter.

He got a grant? God grant him spiritual wisdom instead.

When Lutherans teach works religion--via their heroes Hybels, Warren, Sweet, Groeschel--they touch the hearts of the audiences, by hardening them even more. The works-preachers harden their own hearts too. A few decades of this sick doctrine and an entire synod is destroyed while the vultures feast on the bones. No discernment is left. No one has the will to stop the cackling carrion birds.

Luther is inexpensive. Luther is free. I would rather spend the rest of my life reading Luther than crack open a book from the latest works salesman.