Dr. Bruce Church and Brett Meyer on UOJ - From 2010

bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Seminary Costs Compared - Missouri Leads With Most...":

The seminaries of the ELS, WELS and LCMS, remind me a little of Scientology in that they think their Waltherian doctrine is soooo much better than all other doctrinal systems, including that of other Lutherans, that students ought to pay a pretty penny to learn it. CG doctrine and practice is just another layer of Gnostic secrets that makes LCMS seminaries worthy of being 9th and 11th most expensive in N America, and the ELS and WELS unaccredited seminaries worthy of being more pricey than the average accredited seminary in N America.

The "Gnostic Secrets Premium" (GSP) is about $5 grand, and if you want accredited GSP (LCMS), add another $7 grand:

http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2010/09/seminary-costs-compared-missouri-leads.html
--
Scientology:
http://www.bible.ca/scientology-gnostic-roots.htm

A religion where you pay to learn secret knowledge that saves you!!!

Scroll down/search for "picture from a Scientology book" and read:
http://zombietime.com/mohammed_image_archive/misc_mo/

---


Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Sloppy Synod Sermon":

Pastor Samelson states, "But that forgiveness doesn't do me, you, or my neighbor any good without faith"

This UOJ statement that Pastor Samelson regurgitates for spiritual enlightenment is in the same spirit as a secular backwards compliment.

Note that UOJ has God forgiving the whole unbelieving world of their sins but it isn't true and doesn't do them any good unless they believe it. The Triune God who created the world in a Word. Who speaks of what isn't and it is. Who said "Let there be ..." and it was. That same Triune God has in a Word declared the whole unbelieving world forgiven. But it doesn't benefit them unless they believe they're forgiven. UOJ teaches that God declared the whole unbelieving world forgiven of all sin, righteous in Christ, children of the Almighty God, justified and guiltless in His sight - and yet they aren't unless He calls them to believe that they already are. And that faith they use to believe they're already forgiven children of God doesn't do anything but accept that it's true.

UOJists claim that there's only certainty and comfort in Objective Justification as the UOJ doctrine teaches. It's in fact the opposite. The same God who declares them fogiven of all sin when they believe it is the same God who declared them forgiven of all sin while they were unbelievers and it wasn't true then. It didn't benefit them when God declared them forgiven before - how can you be sure it benefits you now - especially since nothing changes through faith. Remember, UOJ teaches faith doesn't do anything but accept what was already declared to be true.

Note that UOJ teaches if faith justifies, if faith does anything to make something a reality (justification of the sinner through the righteousness of Christ) then faith is a work of man and synergistic. This is a clear admission that UOJ teaches faith is from man and not from the Holy Spirit. An example: Faith is a work of man if it brings anything about that wasn't there before. So they remove the activity of faith and replace it with pure passivity. Their UOJ confession still makes it the work of man. If they truly believed that faith is a work of the Holy Spirit then when shown by Scripture and the Confessions that it is only faith that makes a just man from an unjust man the work would be attributed correctly to the Holy Spirit and not to man. No wonder Baptists Stetzer and Stanley are so attractive to the (W)ELS.

Lutheran Confessions
71] but we maintain this, that properly and truly, by faith itself, we are for Christ's sake accounted righteous, or are acceptable to God. And because "to be justified" means that out of unjust men just men are made, or born again, it means also that they are pronounced or accounted just. For Scripture speaks in both ways. [The term "to be justified" is used in two ways: to denote, being converted or regenerated; again, being accounted righteous. Accordingly we wish first to show this, that faith alone makes of an unjust, a just man, i.e., receives remission of sins".
http://www.bookofconcord.org/defense_4_justification.php

This BOC declaration alone destroys UOJ for those who are truly Confessional Lutherans:
71] but we maintain this, that properly and truly, by faith itself, we are for Christ's sake accounted righteous, or are acceptable to God.

And if you're not Confessional, meaning if you don't have a quia subscription to the Lutheran Confessions, you're not Lutheran. Just sayin'...

***

GJ - WELS does not subscribe to the Book of Concord and says so in one of their divinely inspired collections of essays, either the Wauwatosa set or Our Great Heritage. They are not bound by the Confessions or anything else.

Someone would have to purge the pastors of their synod-worship before they could ever deal with justification by faith. Every WELS discussion begins with their own talking points, which define anything following. The Gnostics would be jealous.

Why Roses? Their Blooming Season Is Long and the Flowers Thrill Everyone

Effortless harvesting, if a few small scratches are ignored.

Rose are not quite as easy as those flowering annuals and hardy perennials that people insert into shallow holes. Designing a garden with perennials and annuals is a challenge, but the effect is great all summer.

Nevertheless, roses are quite easy and repay any extra trouble by producing valuable and valued roses for a long time.

Now that the leaves are finally falling and the colors changing in the sunny South, I can see one more reason why roses are so much fun. The normal flowers are almost done. No one prunes mums, which are losing their color and fading away. Nothing else is really colorful and healthy now - except roses. The rest have closed up for the season - Crepe Myrtle, Rose of Sharon, Hyacinths.

Roses are doing well, in spite of cold nights and light morning frosts. Roses have a long growing season. Of course, it is too easy to ask, "Would you rather have a dozen mums, a dozen daisies, or a dozen roses?"

More importantly, roses surprise us all season, from blooming one month after planting a new, bare-root plant, to those late blooming roses. The last rose of summer is difficult to leave on the bush, because the pests are largely gone, the plant is mature, and autumn rains have refreshed the summer-smitten plant.

The pink KnockOuts are fully blooming right now. I can see them from the end of the block. Closer up, Easy Does It and Veterans Honor are blooming. A Queen Elizabeth has reached six feet to produce a solo bloom.

I am no artist, so I let the Creator paint
the landscape for me.

Every day I am in the rose garden, I turn a corner, around the maple or in the far corner, and see a new bloom. Roses are not as thrilling as grandchildren, but they generate the same thrill of seeing something new and different, something so good that it has to be shared with someone.

 A KnockOut double red blooms fast
and fades fast, but lacks nothing in beauty.

For instance, when Team Jackson grilled on my birthday, we had delicious home-made cheesecake instead of ice cream. On the way out the door, grandson Alex said quietly to me, "Will we have ice cream next time?" I am still chuckling about that, one month later. Mrs. Ichabod will hear it several times more and add her mini-conversations.

Roses power through mistakes I have made. I will give up on one that seems to have been neglected too long. Then it comes back with a perfect flower. One rose in a bud vase will trump any other solo flower.

Fragrant Cloud is like incense in the chapel.

Deception in the November 14, 2016 Christian News. Denying the Denial of Justification by Faith Alone

This absurd pronouncement appeared on LutherQuest,
Jack Cascione's gathering of yahoos, nogoodniks,
and poorly educated apostates.
"Everyone...have (sic)" everyone is singular.

“Nunes in his preface has words of commendation for Cardinal Avery Dulles, a mentor of Father Richard Neuhaus. Both Dulles and Neuhaus denied the doctrine of Hell and justification by faith alone." Dave Becker

What is more ironic - Herman Otten or Jack Cascione hosting a doctrinal forum?

 McCain quoted this with approval on his
now-erased blog, where he copied The Catholic Encyclopedia
articles verbatim as if he composed them.
Preuss left Concordia Seminary in St. Louis
to become a major Roman Catholic editor.
Co-inky dink? I think not.

Otten seems outraged that the Missouri Synod, which kicked him out, is so kind to liberals and so willing to work with ELCA. Nunes (LCMS) is a choice example, because his vicar from ELCA murdered a woman in the congregation. When I told Otten's stealth friend - Paul McCain, at the Purple Palace - that Missouri obtained ELCA vicars for their congregations, Paul the Plagiarist flipped his wig and denied it. I saw the evidence in writing at the ELCA seminary in Columbus, where vicars wrote up their vicarage adventures. ELCA women preached, baptized, and consecrated in LCMS congregations.

No one has expended more ink denying Justification by Faith than Herm Otten. And that is the elastic bond between ELCA and the LCMS. Because both church bodies teach Justification without Faith, they can get along, plan, worship, and do evangelism together without internal or external contradiction. They are living out their unfaith.

This is why James wrote -
Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (New NIV for the UOJ crowd) James 3:1

Here is a little church history for those who snoozed through their classes in college, seminary, and graduate school. The graduate school reference is gratuitous since so many want to teach without the education needed.

Universal Objective Justification - also OJ and General Justification - came from the Pietists at Halle University. The concept existed in Lutherdom only once before, when Huber was kicked out of Wittenberg for teaching UOJ and attacking Justification by Faith.

Halle taught UOJ, a milder form than the flotsam promoted in the LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC-ELCA today, and the Calvinist translator of their major textbook used the terms Objective Justification and Subjective Justification in an explanatory note. Walther learned his UOJ from his Pietistic and syphilitic bishop, Martin Stephan, who learned it at Halle University.

Walther's Pietistic and rationalistic UOJ took some time to dominate the LCMS, and when it did, there was no room for Justification by Faith, which is barely tolerated in Missouri now and excommunicated from WELS, the ELS, and the CLC (sic).

Note that grace is the term used in all the mainline denominations and ELCA to state that everyone in the world is already forgiven and saved, the constant theme of WELS.

When they use the Reformation term Means of Grace, they mean telling the poor souls they are already forgiven and saved. Most laity have the Biblical knowledge to ignore this tripe, but the leaders and professors live it and love it. Their only condemnation is for those who deny their beloved and addicting UOJ.

Trinity in Bridgeton told Otten they would not give any more money to Christian News if Otten published my articles. Anathema sit!

WELS kicked Paul Rydecki out of their sect and tried to foreclose the church property. Anathema sit!

Jack Casione attacked me for quoting Robert Preus, who had many excellent classic quotations against UOJ in Justification and Rome. Anathema sit!

 I copied this from Justification and Rome, Robert Preus.
Can we show some love for Calov, a favorite of
Johann Sebastian Bach?

Pope John the Malefactor responded to a letter about justification with this headline - "How Can Anyone Who Questions UOJ Call Himself a Christian?" - thus excommunicating a layman just for asking about the domga. Anathema sit!

ELCA, WELS, the LCMS, and ELS came from the bowels of Pietism, so they share a common history, a common school (Halle University) and a common heresy - UOJ. The mainline denominations are similarly from the mission initiatives of the Pietists, so they all have the "why can't we all get along" mentality that turned Halle into a center of rationalism in only one generation.

A denomination without a sincere confessional basis cannot resist the go-along-get-along philosophy of Pietism. As long as Missouri and WELS had some leaders who knew and loved the theology and Biblical insights of the Reformation, they thrived. The mighty oaks of the past have fallen and their books have been left forgotten in the archives of used book sales. I can obtain them for $1 plus $4 shipping.

The LCMS leaders are so poorly educated that they call Justification by Faith "Calvinism," showing they do not know Calvinism or the Reformation. Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (New NIV for the UOJ crowd) James 3:1

Christian News clearly sells to a mixed audience of UOJ fanatics, loyal Babtists, and conservative Roman Catholics. Otten tolerates every dogma but not the Chief Article of the Christian Religion.