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.
