LPC has left a new comment on your post "A.D. Asks - Can We Only Believe in What Is Already...":
Dodger,
You get my vote, bingo, but indeed the Reformed is Covenantal, where as Lutherans are Testamental. This is the difference but UOJ is Calvinism which we have been saying for a long time. The critics of Walther spotted this 100 years ago.
UOJ indeed reduces the Gospel to a Reformed understanding of a Covenant, because UOJ requires you to believe a past justification and if you do not - you are down the tubes.
Walther and Huber were the same, notice how they throw to JBFA people the Calvinistic label, but all the while they were the ones being Calvinistic.
Reminds me of a scene in the Gospels, the people equated Jesus' power to heal to the devil even saying he had one. Same thing.
The real Calvinist in this controversy are the UOJers.
LPC
***
GJ - What is Lutheran Pietism, but an artful blend of Calvinism and Lutheranism? Spener was profoundly influenced by Calvinism and the cell groups that Calvinists borrowed from the Roman Catholics.
All of today's Lutherans in America are products of various Pietistic efforts.
Sure, the founder of the Missouri Synod was a syphilitic adulterer, but that did not keep him from being a Pietist. Everything about Stephan was Pietistic - his Bohemian heritage, his congregation with Zinzendorf ties, his cell group ministry, and his absolute dominance over the Walther clergy circle, which was already formed around a Pietist leader and a Halle Bible study cell.
Wisconsin Synod - unionistic Pietism. Hoenecke, bless his heart, graduated from Halle, but studied the Confessions and knew Lutheran orthodoxy.
The Muhlenberg tradition (General Synod, General Council, ULCA, LCA, ELCA) - Pietism, right from Halle, where Muhlenberg graduated.
ALC - more Pietism, much of it Norwegian Pietism.
Augustana Synod - Swedish Pietism mixed with Lutheran orthodoxy from Capital Seminary.
When the UOJ Hive calls justification by faith "Calvinism," it shows they do not know Lutheran doctrine and cannot comprehend their own Calvinistic roots.
 |
| Zion tells the Pietistic story and 99% of the scandal of Missouri. The LCMS constantly lies about its own history. |
