Discussions are quite limited among Lutherans lately, which may explain what this little blog had 6,000 views yesterday.
His Holiness, SP Matthew Harrison, has promulgated - from the throne of his heart - expulsion for anyone who discusses doctrine without being a certified, designated, and licensed expert in the LCMS.
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| This We Believe. |
James the Lesser, Bishop of the ELDONUTs, has also imposed silence on his underlings. Three who used to discuss the issues on the Intrepid Lutherans blog - Rydecki, Lindee, Knepprath - no longer publish their views, after volunteering their imprisonment and silence in ELDONA. Tis a pity that the synods did not figure this out earlier -
- Recognize ELDONA,
- Continue the pension plan and property management, and
- Transfer those dissenters and parishes into ELDONA.
No one would hear from them again. Blogs are stopped in ELDONA. Parish websties remain vague and uncommunicative in ELDONA, like those template congregational sites where the tabbed photo gallery is empty.
The best example is the tag for one congregation - What We Teach - the page only contains a small graphic of the ELDONA banner.
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WELS SP Schroeder loves everything except
Justification by Faith.
Legalists are the true Antinomians. |
Preaching the Synod or Christ?
Only two kinds of congregations exist in all of Christendom. One preaches the synod or the organization. The other preaches Christ and His Gospel.
This distinction organizes all the denominations better than the labels normally used. The Church of Rome perfected preached the organization, which is why they draw so many clergy already brainwashed by the same attitude. If I were LCMS and truly believed the myths and lies of the church body, I could move to Rome without hesitation. Rome mastered that approach when Missouri was just a bankrupt sex cult on the Mississippi River.
"Father O'Malley, why are so many priests, bishops, and cardinals in trouble for crimes against children?"
Answer - Holy Mother Rome is indefectible. No matter how much individuals may stray, the Church is still perfect, and the Holy Spirit will not allow a pope to err.
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| Two kinds of churches - Luther said it better. |
Doctrinal Labels Do Not Fit
The reason seminarians are taught so many labels for denominations is to fool them into thinking those distinctions actually matter. Can a charismatic LCMS congregation be called Lutheran when their thoughts, words, and deeds are Assemblies of God?
A more inclusive and descriptive label would be Fullerite or Fulleroid. The Fullerites would be all those congregations and denominations that follow Fuller Seminary principles but deny - so they are Fuller Lites, recently condensed to Fullerite. The Fulleroids are those who run to their manuals, lectures, and Church Growth Book-of-the-Month club selections to test and prove the latest maxims. They are Fulleroids because they live and breathe Fuller Seminary, promoting it so constantly that they are a pain in the neck. Fuller-PITAs might be misunderstood - or worse, understood - so they simply Fulleroids, a cult within the Fullerites.
Reformed is a favorite label used by WELS and the LCMS, although Calvinist is more precise and fitting. Should not those Lutheran pastors and synods who turned from the wretched NIV to the Calvinist edited ESV be called Reformed - or just plain Calvinist? They prefer a Calvinist Bible to the KJV.
Are not the people promoting the Babtist New KJV...also Babtist? The New KJV converts sacramental passages into the verbiage that does not alarm the Fullerites, who imagine they make disciples the way a baker makes cookies, by the dozens.
Matthew 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
GJ - Talk about bad translating. So the imperatives are go, make, and baptize? That makes as much sense as the rest of the drivel from Fuller. As my class in NT Greek knows, the verb does not include or even suggest making anything. There are no "disciples" in the verse, unless we use the verb form - disciple all nations. The object of the verb "teach" is "all nations" - not "disciples."
As Church Growth guru Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, aided and abetted by his WELS handlers said, "The Calvinists teach the same as we do, except for the Sacraments." Thus the blind lead the blind and crow about their doctrinal discernment. If someone cannot distinguish Enthusiasm from Biblical doctrine, is he not an Enthusiast himself?
Younger-Dumber-Poorer
The new graduates of Mordor were selected by WELS to judge the New NIV, because they had before them the threat of unemployment, shunning, and a part-time job with Amazon. They loved, loved, loved the New NIV!
The younger the pastor, the more likely it is that he has embraced the synodical directives and their seminary mind-control methods. He is younger than the old veterans, considerably dumber in doctrine, and weighed down with enormous educational debts.
The older clergy remember being taught with more emphasis in the Biblical languages, and they were allowed to use the Gausewitz catechism, which taught Christ rather than the synod. They are also more likely to be able to move their congregations from one Calvinist Lutheran group to another, good leverage when having a rubber-hose conversation with a synod official. CP Keith Roehl threatened WELS with that when they pushed him to follow a few rules.
Looking at the Lutherans alone, the Y-D-Ps will remake their organizations just as surely as the Boomers ruined theirs.
An Alternative - Preaching Christ and His Gospel
The Lutheran establishment - from the ELS on down to the ELCA - teaches justification without faith. And they claim St. Paul as their favorite professor, Luther as their never-read guide.
But St. Paul teaches we are justified by the faith of Jesus - in three places - which makes it difficult to divorce faith from justification. Pardon me while I use a reliable translation to prove my point.
1. “Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference” Romans 3:22 KJV
2. “Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.” Galatians 2:16 KJV
3. And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith: Philippians 3:9 KJV
These passages clarify the enignma of "from faith to faith."
17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. Romans 1:17 KJV
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"Yer not Christ-ians," the UOJists snarl.
"Yer faith-ians!" Yer faith is in yer faith."
Hand raised - "Was Luther a faithian?" |
Sad to Say
Lutherans have squandered their doctrinal and worship heritage for little more than a bowl of lentil soup. Therefore, many congregations of other denominations preach Christ and care for souls rather than preaching the denomination and worshiping the leaders.
That is probably why WELS and Missouri leaders slip over to the Babtist congregations and conventions to see what is happening. Lutherans have denied the Means of Grace to such an extent that they name the term while teaching against it.
Some congregations - even among the Lutherans - still teach that faith is directly connected to forgiveness and salvation. They do not merge the Atonement and Justification to declare the entire world absolved of sin, saved, and only needing to be told this crypto-Universalist magic formula.
That is why the traditional labels no longer apply. Doubtless the future will soon disclose the disastrous unraveling ahead for all denominations.
Like Sears and K-Mart, the denominations have gone from merging, to merging the merged parishes and schools, to selling off assets to delay liquidation.
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Grace is not opposed to faith, as anyone knows who readers
the Galatians Lectures, but who does anymore? |
