Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Crying Fowl When Birds of a Feather Do Flock Together



LPC has left a new comment on your post "UOJ Enthusiasts Are All Law - Except for Themselves...":

All that Rev. Boisclair have to do to dispel the guilt by association is denounce what Edward Preuss has done. Birds of a feather flock together. He should show that such a saying does not apply.

LPC


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GJ - Boisclair tries to use the guilt by association (sui generis) fallacy to escape the Edward Preuss quotation lovingly cited by Robert Preus, then Jack Cascione and Paul McCain.

A claim is a logical fallacy when the argument is irrelevant. The UOJ Hive at LutherQuest (sic) tried that when they condemned me for getting a PhD at Notre Dame. That made me a Roman Catholic, they imagined. When I pointed out how many of their Concordia Ft. Wayne faculty had doctorates from Notre Dame, the clamoring ceased. Likewise, the rabble thought I joined too many synod. But I listed the carefully hidden history of St. Al Barry's synod memberships (four) - and they were silent again.Bob Preus had three or four under his belt, and Rolf already has four, including the Rolf Synod that kicked him out.

The UOJ Enthusiasts buzz and swarm without edifying anyone or learning anything. This quotation is significant because it can only be cited with approval when someone fails to grasp Biblical, Lutheran doctrine based on the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace.

If a Calvinist translated Knapp's words into double-justification,
that makes OJ/SJ harmonious with...
A. Calvinism.
B. Pietism.
C. Lutheran doctrine?
D. A and B only.

Divorcing the Holy Spirit from the Word (Enthusiasm) is the basis for all false doctrine, including pagan religions.

Boisclair was careful not to denounce the quotation, only my use of it in the context of justification by faith. So far he seems to agree with it. To disagree would make Robert Preus, Paul McCain, and Jack Cascione fallible. Everyone knows that Holy Mother Missouri is infallible, so any suggestions to the contrary are blasphemous.

Boisclair has such a feeble grip on his own synod's history that he did not know that their founder, Martin Stephan, attended Halle University and taught his Pietistic justification (Easter absolution) to Walther. Stephan brought the Saxons to Missouri, a slave state, and controlled the clergy around him as the guru of their Pietistic cell. Other Lutherans despised the slave states and would not settle there, but the Moravian Pietists had no problem with slavery - and neither did Walther.

Treating young women as sexual slaves for Stephan was no problem for the clergy leaders around their bishop. Walther ignored it, even acted as the enforcer for Stephan, swearing his allegiance to Stephan as his bishop-for-life. Walther was cagey, biding his time until the outbreak of syphilis among the young women devotees created a crisis he could manage for his own benefit. Walther's first move upon "discovering" the adultery, was to steal 40 acres of land from Stephan. He did that on a trip from St. Louis to Perryville instead of confronting his bishop about the adultery. Walther organized the hand-picked mob to come down to Perryville to threaten, rob, and kidnap the bishop. This became the template for ELS, LCMS, and WELS polity - overlooking clergy adultery, breaking the law, kangaroo courts, and greed.

I can prove UOJ a dozen times over from Lutheran documents, if I confine myself to the era of Pietism. But -  as Hunnius observed - not one orthodox Lutheran taught any form of universal absolution during the Reformation or in the decades following the Book of Concord.

WELS is busy hunting heretics now - not focusing on the Church and Changers - but on justification by faith.

Does any Lutheran leader or political professor
take these words from the Book of Concord seriously?


PS - I am Robert Preus' biggest fan, because he continued to study and grow. He was prevented from leading Concordia Ft. Wayne, and he might have simply retired in peace. Instead, he saw the school descending into Romanism and wrote his Justification and Rome before he died.



As one astute commenter wrote -
follow the use of imputation and you will
understand what justification by faith means.