LutherRocks has left a new comment on your post "Where Is the Love?Fox Valley Offers the Ecumenical...":
Actually UOJ was somewhat evident in the 1932 Statement when WELS was still in fellowship with Missouri...but in 1967 when WELS first published 'This We Believe', it was much more evident. The wording in the Justification section remains unchanged to this day save for substituting the NIV for the KJV. My mom still has the booklet. All sinners are justified and righteous in God's sight regardless of faith...but of course the scriptures don't speak this way...
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GJ - Here are some dates and historical trends I am considering. I need to look into more details. Insights from others are welcome:
- Before 1932 - Missouri and WELS taught justification by faith, not UOJ.
- 1908 - Hoenecke died and WELS was quick to forget him. The Wauwatosa boys took over. They were trained by Walther and Stoeckhardt.
- 1927 - WELS and Synodical Conference leader Gausewitz died. He taught justification by faith.
- The 1932 Brief Statement was a clear proclamation of UOJ, including bizarre Scriptural support, especially Romans 4:25, which is a justification by faith verse. The first Brief Statement to support UOJ (1932) was a triumph of F. Pieper, whose acolyte Stoeckhardt also found UOJ in Romans. Earlier Brief Statements did not teach UOJ.
- Post 1932 - The Synodical Conference began to fall apart. WELS SP Brenner noticed the change first. The convenient line is to blame it on intellectuals going liberal with their outside degrees, but the real rot came from the inside, the Walther-Pieper faction enforcing and promoting UOJ.
- UOJ and Church Growth grew rapidly in the 1980's. Missour, WELS, and the ELS bring up justification by faith so they can prattle about justification without faith, attacking faith and ignoring the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace. The Olde Synodical Conference is ecumenical with Fuller, Sweet, Stetzer, Stanley, Hybels, and Driscoll because they teach a hybrid form of Enthusiasm, a slick Universalism.
- The unionism is a result of false doctrine, not the cause of false doctrine. The Spineless Presidents cannot even address the issue.
1 comments:
I did some reading over the weekend. Believe it or not, Wikipedia is a treasure trove of religion info with much on Lutherans and their doctrines.
Here is the history lesson for the day...
Lutherans have been warring against Pietism since the days of Luther as well documented on this blog. I googled 'Confessional Lutheran' over the weekend and found this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confessional_Lutheran
clicking around on the hyperlinks was extremely informative...like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Lutherans
WELS is a paradox. On the one hand it claims to be Lutheran and yet it keeps the 'Evangelical' from the old Prussian Union in its name. So the influences of old hold to this day. You wonder why we keep looking to the Reformists? It is because it sounds so familiar.
In the mid 1800's WELS was a liberal Lutheran body; full of Pietism from the old Prussian Union. I believe the doctrine of UOJ sprung from this as a combatant to decision theology (synergism). But now it has swung so far the other way that you are sounding again like the reformed Rob Bell teaching a universal reconciliation; forgiveness to all whether you believe it or not or before you were even born.
@ Pastor Lillo...For whatever reason you keep coming back here as I did. I hope some of the stuff rubs off on you like it did me. I've had some lively discussion with my brother the last few months regarding the various flavors of UOJ rampant in WELS. I understand you may be in his circuit...
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