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| Frederic Church - Twilight in the Wilderness, 1860 |
When I read liberal theology - Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, and the rest - the style and errors of Universal Objective Justification come to mind.
The style begins with an assumption that the terms used are also the enclosure of the system. For example, Bultmann begins with myth in the Bible, so the Bible must be mythical. When pressed on this point, Bultmann said in a published book, "No schoolboy believes that a dead body resuscitated itself and rose from the dead." That is why so many mainline ministers graduate saying, "I really had to rethink my Christology."
No kidding. If Jesus died for nothing and remained dead, that dries up the source of all Christian preaching. That is why mainline seminary students are taught to speak one language, a misleading one, so the congregation is moved gradually into an intellectual high-church Unitarianism. When I first heard, "I had to rethink mah Christology," I knew the young Southern minister of a huge congregation became a Unitarian in seminary, and he signaled that to his colleagues. Ah. Nods of approval. So did I, they signaled back.
The SynCon Lutheran seminary students are no different. They must make a decision for universal absolution without faith, but they know it is not wise to bear down on the issue of guilt-free saints from Sodom in hell. It is not very poetic to say that and makes no sense, and has never inspired a hymn. "For all the saints, from Sodom now in hell..."
Once OJ or UOJ is introduced, like myth, the issue becomes one's rebellion against "our beloved synod" and "our common confession of UOJ." The issue has been decided simply by using those UOJ and OJ words. Now the conceptual building blocks must be arranged to make sense of it all. The more one can obfuscate the basics, the more he will earn the praise of fellow apostates.
Thus their claims and some obvious objections -
There are not two justifications, simply two sides of the same coin. Why not three or four? Or just one?
The Kokomo Statements were invented by two families as a parody of WELS dogma. (A parody of Biblical justification - yes - copied from J. P. Meyer's Ministers of Christ, just reprinted by WELS.)
Justification by faith is Calvinism. (Adding a chuckle is considered good form.)
Faith must be in something already accomplished. (Hebrews 11:1. Buehler? Buehler? Anyone?)
UOJ is not Universalism (even though it teaches the same universal absolution).
UOJ is orthodox Lutheran doctrine (even though it does not appear until much later in Pietism - and earlier in the excommunicated Samuel Huber.)
The New NIV is a perfect translation because Romans 3:24 contains the all we knew had to be there to prove us right. (But isn't the NNIV a decidedly mainline, feminist, ecumenical paraphrase?)
If someone retains faith while in the midst of modern theologians, the enormous gap between him and the rest becomes obvious. The "Easter faith of the apostles" means - they believed in the actual, physical resurrection of Christ, but we do not. We just believe that they believed in a myth.
The Virgin Birth of Christ means - that was their primitive, child-like way of expressing their faith in their teacher, who was completely inoffensive and died for no obvious reason.
Until the 18th century, all the church theologians were believers who worked from the foundation of the Bible as the revealed Word of God, inerrant and infallible, authoritative, normative.
The Age of Rationalism, which blended into Pietism - notably at Halle University, began casting doubt on the miracles of Christ.
Rationalistic doubts spread so that Knapp at Halle taught the early church was wrong about the Trinity being Biblical and Tholuck advocated Universalism. FYI for Mequon graduates - Knapp and Woods coined the normative language for double-justification and Tholuck mentored Adolph Hoenecke. You remember Hoenecke from my previous posts, don't you?
Modern theology students are expected to know the philosophy of the 19th century (Kant - a real bore) and the assumptions of the historical-critical method, which was adapted from classical studies. Robert Preus had a great summary of what happened - the classical scholars exhausted themselves on all the famous Greek and Latin authors, so they turned to the Scriptures and began wondering who wrote Romans, John, etc.
The system of modern theology is completely enclosed, a reservation where the guardians keep the obedient inside. One example, fairly recent, revealed how a famous scholar was literally expelled for taking a traditional, Biblical approach to Jesus on the Son of Man issue. She blasphemed modern theology and its authorities, so she was extended the Left Foot of Scholarship, removed from her position. Academic freedom is for conformists.
The UOJ reservation is exactly the same and works from the same rejection of Biblical principles. Every Biblical text is simply a jumping off point for the UOJ dogma. Many of their old talking points have been exposed, so the UOJ Enthuiasts move to new points of departure. But that does not matter. A few candid remarks can expose someone as a UOJ denier, which will earn a barrage of attacks.
Luther argued from the Word of God, not on the basis of "our beloved synod."
