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| Matt the Fatt, Mirthless Mark, and Pope John the Malefactor are too cowardly to admit they are Universalists: they agree with ELCA leaders - everyone is forgiven and saved, pure amazin' grace. |
A few have asked me why some are beating me up - on Facebook - for posting what I have been writing about for over 20 years. A Missouri Synod pastor f-bombed me in a public post and another LCMS pastor continued the tirade, demanding that I answer their rude, intemperate, and illogical rants.
Perhaps the laity have caught the scent of their dogma, like the people who wrote, "Our neighbor got into hog farming. We just got wind of it."
Reflecting on the rage of the Universal Objective Justification clergy (seldom laity), I considered the fate of the Universalists who are now allied with the Unitarians in the Unitarian Universalist Association.
My neighbor in Columbus was a Universalist minister and he even invited me to conduct an entire service, with my own organist, at his congregation. He explained to me that the Universalists were quite conservative, not at all like the radical Leftist Unitarians. I did not object to conducting a service, except for the fact that it promised to be more of a dog and pony show for the curious.
His comments intrigued me and I continued to look into this strange UUA combination, which is really less bizarre than WELS-LCMS working with ELCA.
The Universalists began with the same kind of proofs as the UOJ/OJists provide today. I am taking this from Wikipedia because anyone can go from there and find additional information. Their article is rather flawed but that is natural considering the long history and variations.
LCMS-WELS clergy often say, "All are forgiven. All are saved. Everyone. Everyone." See the George Borghardt video and almost anything by a Preus. These pastors and their camp followers will say, "I was saved 2000 years ago."
What makes them furious is anyone questioning that God declared the entire world righteous, forgiven, either at the cross or the resurrection (with a few other Moments of Absolution posited as well).
Their general argument follows this pattern: Christ died for the sins of all, so everyone is forgiven and saved.
The Universalists of America seemed to be Trinitarian at first, and one of their older hymnals has many traditional Christian hymns in it.
Tufts University was founded to promote Universalism, and its first president was a Universalist. Its chaplaincy program now has a pan-religious, Left-wing emphasis.
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| PT Barnum gave its newly founded institution of higher education, Tufts College, $50,000 to establish a Museum of Natural History; and later he gave Tufts another $100,000 to build two wings to the museum. In addition he sent the museum mounted skins, skeletons and other animal remains, and the great elephant Jumbo's hide. |
Wiki 0n Thomas Wittemore
"The glory of God, and of His Son Jesus Christ, as manifested in the final holiness and happiness of all men, is the central sun of Universalism."
-Thomas Wiltmore, Plain Guide to Universalism.
Some Bible verses he cites and are cited by other Christian Universalists are:
- 1 Corinthians 15:22[18]
- "For as in Adam ALL die, so also in Christ shall ALL be made alive." (ESV; emphasis added)
- 2 Peter 3:9
- "The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance." (ESV; emphasis added)
As anyone can plainly see, the Universalists used the passages about the Atonement without considering the Means of Grace, so they concluded that there could be no difference between Christ dying for the sins of the world and the entire world being forgiven and saved.
The jubilate, celebrate, happy-clappy world of the mainlines took over this view and finally got a Bible to state that "all have sinned and all are justified" Romans 3:22 New NIV - endorsed and officially adopted by the treacherous and dishonest WELS.
The mainline denominations are based upon Pietism and Calvinism, and they include the LCMS, WELS, and the other ones claiming to be Lutheran while also despising Luther's doctrine. The slide into Universalism was inevitable, given the Pietistic foundation of the ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS. Stephan and his toady Walther came over as Pietists with cell groups, and the Synodical Conference promotes cell groups more than ever before. Pietism does not mix well with the Means of Grace: one excludes the other.
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| "We won, Brett. OK, Liz Eaton kicked me out of the leadership, but that is the price of progress." |
How Could the Universalists Merge with the Unitarians?
The Unitarians began by rejecting the Trinity and still being rather moralistic. My aunt Jennifer was a Unitarian and one of my best members ever grew up a Unitarian. Jean said to me, "What you say about Unitarians was not true when I was growing up. They had a strong ethical emphasis. And we believed in God."
That was true, but the radical Unitarians grabbed power in their group, just as the UOJ Stormtroopers did in the LCMS and WELS.
As Luther wrote, when the Means of Grace are rejected, all kinds of foul errors rush in. Thus the Universalists could not withstand the erosion of their doctrine into a form congenial with the Universalists, and they went radical together.
Is that odd or unusual? Not at all. WELS Synod President, LCMS Synod President Ralph Bohlmann, and ELCA President Herb Chilstrom met together with their leaders at the Snowbird Conference. No one had any qualms about it, as long as the WELS members and clergy knew nothing about it. I published the article and photo via Christian News and Hell broke loose. But nothing stopped their joint evangelism efforts, joint worship, or joint anything. They simply stopped putting out joint ELCA-WELS-LCMS news releases.
For the record, Carl Mischke denied that WELS was participating in the insurance-funded ELCA Joy Radio show. Letter to Pastor James Sherod. I phoned the ELCA leader about this denial and he was perplexed and outraged. His secretary said, "Barber (WELS) comes to all our meetings." Later, WELS leaders said that the Joy Radio show was instrumental alone and featured no actual singing, so it was not unionism. Hahahahahaha.
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| When you foul your own nest, do not complain about the results. |
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| The articles of faith in the Apostles' Creed do not fit in with our modern, scientific age, according to this "scholarly" book. |
The Universalists of WELS-LCMS Have Joined with the Unitarians of ELCA
I do not have to explain the denial of all Biblical doctrines in ELCA, do I? That began in earnest with the Braaten-Jenson Dogmatics, which some in the LCA considered a "conservative" response to the leaders who thought all theology was outmoded today.
Braaten-Jenson denied the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, the Resurrection, on and on. I ordered a set to read to my LCA congregation, then mailed them back to get a refund. The smirky Fortress responder wrote, "It is a best-seller." Indeed, it was the official doctrinal book of the LCA.
Note well - even if you ignore everything else - this same Carl Braaten, theological star of the LCA and ELCA - denounced the infamous 2009 ELCA convention for changing the rules of marriage and ordination.
This is what happened in Minneapolis: appeals to reason and experience trumped Scripture and tradition, punctuated with pious injunctions of Lutheran slogans and clichés. The majority won. And they said it was the work of the Spirit, forgetting that the Holy Spirit had already spoken volumes through the millennia of Scriptural interpretation, the councils of the church, and its creeds and confessions. Carl BraatenPS - I especially appreciate Braaten's invocation of the Holy Spirit, because his dogmatics book says the Trinity is little more than God, the man Jesus, and the spirit of the believing community.
ELCA began falling apart and the seminaries collapsing soon afterwards, but Braaten built the foundation for the Mark Hanson-Liz Eaton takeover.
Surely WELS would be repulsed by any association with ELCA, especially when their Big Brother elected a lady Presiding Bishop. But no, WELS may claim Black Belt status in fellowship canon law, but they violate it for their lust for mammon. Isn't their media star, Mark Jeske, a WELS pastor, a Pieper grandson? They extended the Left Foot of Fellowship to a seminary president for less than Jeske's normal daily output.
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