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| Spener led to Halle University, the fetid womb of UOJ. |
Daryl Meyer has left a new comment on your post "UOJ Is a Liberal Philosophy - Not Biblical Doctrin...":
Perhaps one of the best quotes in Koehler's synod history is Hoenecke's remark about Walther: "He knew his Kant."
Halle would have done Seminex proud. Besides the customary Pietism and rationalism, it was also a dung heap for what we today know as 'intelligent design', espoused especially by one of Hoenecke's mentors, Julius Mueller. From Mueller's gem, The Christian Doctrine of Sin (1885): "Upon the principles of theistic metaphysics indeed, it is usually assumed that the production of new species does not take place in the progressive development of finite existence, but only at the beginning. But even supposing this opinion to be correct, the relation in which the various species stand to each other, very much favors the extension of this beginning itself in a series of successive moments, just as we find it represented in the Mosaic account of creation...whether the intervals between the successive moments be days only or thousands of years."
Given this sort of culture, it's no wonder the SynCon has long since distanced itself from schools like Halle, Basel, and Barmen in general and Pietism in particular, even as it clings fast to its precious vestige of Pietism, UOJ. The irony of ironies comes from the good old WLS essay files, Fredrich's Lutheran Pietism Comes to America (http://www.wlsessays.net/files/FredrichAmerica.pdf):
"If there is one characteristic Wisconsin Synod pastors have in common, it is a profound and congenital distaste for Pietism. The easiest way to win a debate on our conference floors is to charge the opponent with being a Pietist. On the enemies' list of most of us Pietism stands high in third place, just behind Satan and Antichrist. Such an attitude is understandable. A church body heartily committed to the truth of objective justification cannot help being turned off by the worst vagaries of Pietism."
I can't make this stuff up.
