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| The double-talk twins will offer different answers, depending on the situation. |
My New Testament professor from long ago died, and they had a lot of good things to say about him. The one they chose to publish described his love of Lutheran hymns, singing them out loud, and yet reading the Bible "critically," showing someone could be a man of faith while questioning the facticity of the Scriptures (his words).
Another quotation used the following nugget to describe his point of view. One Gospel has an angel in the empty tomb. Another has two angels. They contradict each other! There goes the inerrancy of the Bible. The Unitarians eat this up.
But wait. One account describes two angels. The other quotes one angel speaking, never saying "But only one angel was there." The Easter accounts have been examined for centuries. Simon Greenleaf started on them to prove they were conflicted and finished his work a believer. He was the nation's expert on evidence. Or one can consult Lenski on the issues. Or Luther. Or the Scriptures themselves.
I am not an expert on anything, except Internet sleuthing, but I remain appalled at the lack of reading comprehension by the great, wise, and powerful, and the double-talk from the clergy leaders. This professor graduated from Harvard with a doctorate, but he seemed to have majored in post WWII German scepticism. I had a Princeton product who taught the same nonsense. I asked in class, "Why don't we go around the room and say whether we believe the Virgin Birth or not." That was like tossing fireworks into a henhouse, and the question was never answered.
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| UOJ's Jungendbund - once I exposed his Universalism, the statements disappeared from the Higher Things website. |
Not Confined to WELS
The WELS pastors take great pride in their blatant lying. They deceive the laity about how hard they study in seminary, which is a continuation of their college drinking binges. COS anyone?
A WELS pastor will be on your side all the way until it really matters, then turn on you and join the chorus of denunciations. Someone wrote to call it gaslighting, which is close to the mark, but it is even more evil than that.
The primary is the impossibility of reconciling one perspective with the other. That difficulty is pandemic in Lutherdom and the mainlines, because of post-Kantian rationalism.
As I wrote before, almost all theologians today are rationalists, basing their eloquence on Calvin's example. They place themselves above the Scripture and divorce the Holy Spirit from the Word.
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| Donkey Basketball in the CLC (sic). "Resist the beginnings." |
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| The CLC evolved from donkey basketball games to mercenary soldiers rented out to shell enemy positions. |
Whether ELCA, LCMS, WELS, ELS, or a micro-mini sect, Lutheran pastors and laity have little trust in the Word. The acid corrosion of faith in the Word comes from Calvinism, often via Pietism, which they cannot concede. Name the sect and they are the true blue Lutherans.
If someone says, "Do you realize how ridiculous this is?" - they will shun the person as an evil-doer, a trouble-maker, not a team player. But the destroyers are not the ones doubting the doubts, but leading the way into darkness.
WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect on the Prairie have never admitted how besotted they are with the Church Growth Movement, which is now Missional! Oh, you fooled me by changing the words. Shame on you. Next joke please.
No Lutheran was allowed to question the ideology of Fuller Seminary, but no one was permitted to admit the truth, either. Nor was anyone allowed to point out the obvious, that the ones who promoted numbers were being slain by their own poor numbers.
Silencing critics works poorly when there are only a few willing to speak the truth. That makes the truth more valuable. This little blog, which "has no credibility," (Kincaid Smith) had 11,000 views total on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. St. Stephen's Day is already 2,000 views. That makes for a fairly big lecture hall or cathedral, but it comes from "a room in a rented house" (Paul the Plagiarist McCain). Nearby is the chapel, where the saved worship views have reached 20,000.
I noticed the almost dead Emmaus Conference was going to treat their sect leaders as "Luthers unawares," a claim approaching the nirvana of parody. However, they changed direction. I wonder if they feared another book based on their effluence.
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| Walther, Hoenecke, Koren? Luthers unaware? |
