Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Why Do Words and Ideas Anger and Scare the Leaders So Badly?

These three Lutheran leaders agree about one thing -
they reject Luther's doctrine of Justification by Faith, the Chief Article of Christianity,
the Master and Prince, the Judge of all other articles of faith.
They love bad Bible translations.

I have heard from various people that my posts anger and scare leaders.

That puzzles me, because their words and ideas do not anger and scare me. I have many acquaintances who think the opposite of me. One FB friend just quoted UOJ lovingly, and the actual words were really sappy and wrong.



One LCMS pastor is moving from CPH to Ft. Wayne to teach. He edited Luther's Works, so I asked on FB if he taught Luther's Justification by Faith. That offended his friends.

Paul McCain made sure no one linked this blog on the Steadfast Lutherans Matt for President group blog. The various writers also opposed having anyone defend Justification by Faith.

Steadfast (note the irony) Lutherans did their best to avoid mentioning me, although in the end they had to admit that UOJ came from Pietism. Once they began going full throttle on the Chief Article, the founder Steve Spencer bailed out and said IL was not accomplishing anything, Indeed. They jumped off the blog like fleas from a dying dog.



At the Emmaus Conference, which was promoted as a discussion among the LCMS, WELS, and ELS, one layman was ordered not to discuss Justification by Faith with anyone. However, Jar Jar Webber was not prohibited from discussing UOJ at the conference.

I am prohibited by Luther to offer motives for these reactions, even though my motives are constantly impugned by these opponents. I am often shocked by their confidently telling others that I do not know Greek when classical languages was my major in college. My future wife talked me into taking German with her as well. Ja wohl!  Should I send my transcripts?

I enjoyed learning more Greek by writing out my own translations in seminary. Between college, seminary, and Yale - I took beginning French, advanced Latin, advanced Hebrew, plenty of New Testament Greek, if one counts an entire year where most of the classes were either Hebrew exegesis or Greek exegesis.

So I tutored Little Ichabod in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. John Lawrenz coveted our son's Vulgate, so we gave it to him. Our son also learned to be fluent in Spanish and German at MLS.

Most ELCA Lutherans cannot explain the Augustana - the Augsburg Confession.
But the yahoos pictured above can only teach against it,
and their members are no better than ELCA in their prideful ignorance.
This is Augustana College, where I met Mrs. Ichabod - 50 years ago.


I could rehearse their other clear manifestations of fear, anger, and dishonesty.

I went to an inerrancy conference in Chicago decades ago. They gave us free books on the topic, all written by non-Lutherans. I appreciated having them and learned a few things from them, especially from a non-Lutheran perspective.

A tsunami of fear seems to be overtaking Lutherans as they look ahead at their doom and destruction. After all, the endowment-rich seminaries of ELCA are collapsing just in time for WELS and Missouri to import the leaven of the most rapidly dying group. Thrivent will pay them to accomplish these acts of self-destruction.

If the biggest boy on the block is failing, where will the little guys go? If the richest one is broke and firing staff, what will happen to the poor, country cousins?