AC V has left a new comment on your post "The New Pharisees Control the Synods":
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Forward to Volume 109: THE COURAGE TO BE PATIENT - John F. Brug
Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly - WELS Winter 2012
"Last summer at the international conference of the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference a discussion addressed the question: "What are the distinctive characteristics of confessional Lutherans in general, and of the members of the CELC in particular?" As might be expected, many answers to the question centered on the doctrine of justification and in particular the doctrine which we call objective justification, the truth that God has declared the sins of the whole world to be forgiven because Christ paid for them all in full. God reconciled the world to himself in Christ, not charging their sins against them. Naturally, there was also an emphasis on the importance of proclaiming this message of reconciliation to everyone for whom Christ died, so that they can apply God's verdict to themselves in faith. Not surprisingly, an emphasis on real means of grace, which do not simply stimulate the sinner to greater effort to cooperate in his salvation but which create and sustain faith in Christ's completed atonement, shows up not too far down the list of Lutheran distinctives."
Not much further down the list would appear our doctrine and practice of church fellowship.".......
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AC V has left a new comment on your post "The New Pharisees Control the Synods":
Here's my take on it.
Does this Brug guy even read the Lutheran Confessions? He sure doesn't write like it. God help the CELC if he's its spokesman. Here's a "Unit Concept" the WELS and CELC ought to emphasize. It has to do with the doctrine of Justification, which is by faith alone. To wit:
"...everything that belongs to...the article of justification,...are necessary only the grace of God, the merit of Christ, and faith, which receives this in the promise of the Gospel, whereby the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us, whence we receive and have forgiveness of sins, reconciliation with God, sonship, and heirship of eternal life." - Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, The Righteousness of Faith III:25.
The other observation. Brug says, "an emphasis on real means of grace, ... shows up not too far down the list of Lutheran distinctives."
"Not too far down the list?" If it had shown up farther up the list as Fuerbringer correctly points out in the quote above, then perhaps the rest of Brug's article wouldn't have been dedicated to an emphasis on Church Fellowship, namely, what the CELC/WELS is AGAINST.
All the distinctives of a sect are in plain view. Can you not see it?
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GJ - Brug begins with his position in a cushy job at Mequon, a school called by one pastor "the most respected and most toxic institution in WELS." One dare not stray from the playbook - not that Brug would.
The Book of Concord and Luther's writings do not have any impact on WELS. A typical graduate of the Sausage Factory will say, "The Book of Concord is boring and irrelevant."
Brug's Ministry of the Word is a textbook on what is wrong in that sect. Otten loves it.
The chief article of the Olde Synodical Conference is justification-without-faith, exactly the opposite of the Word, Luther's writings, and the Book of Concord.
One observer noted today that UOJ has wrecked the lives of many in WELS because there is no sin and no consequences. Those with fragile emotional health are pushed over the edge since the psychology of UOJ is completely warped.
The characteristics most obvious among the UOJ gurus are:
- Deceptiveness about what they teach. They mean "justification of the sinner" to represent absolution of the entire world.
- Obsession with salvation by works, always bragging about their great merit, due to their DNA or glorious accomplishments. They reject the efficacy of the Word so they must be the sole cause of anything good.
- Degenerate behavior. Sadistic bullying, drunkenness, and homo-erotic behavior are the norms at synodical schools.
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AC V has left
a new comment on your post "Justification
Without Faith - The Chief Article of...":
Brug: "...means of grace, which... create and sustain faith in Christ's completed atonement."
Even a basic reading of Scripture and understanding of Luther's Catechism would have informed Brug to write that the means of grace are "for the forgiveness of sins."
As it is, Brug sounds more like a Calvinist than a Lutheran.
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GJ - He is too timid to say "create and sustain faith in God's universal absolution."
That is why the Sausage Factory needs the NNIV, which says "all have sinned and all are justified." WELS and all the ultra-left mainline sects will adopt the NNIV.
