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| Sparky Brenner's Jars of Clay, The History of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. |
Mordor faculty lounge: "He reviewed your book again?"
Sparky: "Who?"
Bivens: "Ichabod, the enemy of our gospel."
Sparky: "A complete review?"
Wendland: "No, I fear it's the death of a thousand cuts. One more tidbit."
Forget Q. I can read the minds of the unfaithful and predict their responses.
On display today is the logical fallacy of poisoning the well. WELS practices it 24/7, as the graphics show. The idea is to make the source so untrustworthy that anything from that source is automatically toxic. That also warns the clergy to stay away from that topic, that source, that blog.
As I mentioned before, Sparky Brenner is an Ichabod unawares. He has published information backing my intuition that the so-called Election conflict was really about (really against) Justification by Faith. Notice that Walther and his cronies chose to attack Pontopiddan rather than deal with the Scriptures. Slogans are so useful - "He teaches intuitu fidei! in view of faith." The Latin is so obscure that the Fox Valley Fools wrote it as inuitu fidei - which I imagine is pig Latin for the faith of Eskimo.
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| Fox Valley raged against this insightful graphic. I should not pick on them for their bad spelling and worse Latin, but they never stop bragging about their superior educational system. Evidence? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? |
The origin of the blacklisted phrase is - "in view of the merits of Christ apprehended by faith." How exactly is that bad? Nevermind, the UOJ Stormtroopers say. So a slogan was invented, in Latin no less, to flail Justification by Faith. That is poisoning the well. Since then, Synodical Conference discussions have resembled drunken bar fights more than efforts to clarify Scriptural doctrine.
Here Is the Passage
As those within and without WELS should know, all WELS stories concerning the LCMS illustrate the staggering superiority of WELS over Missouri, so this tale shows how Hoenecke helped out when Walther's poor choice of words alienated so many.
Walther argued that Election is without faith, because otherwise faith would be a work. CFW was heavily influenced by Pietism and by his rationalistic education. UOJ is full of rationalistic logic, such as - "If Christ became sin for us, the entire world is pronounced forgiven and saved." The trouble is, they have no Scriptural or Confessional basis for that. Nevermind.
Here is the poisoning of the well, as practiced by Sparky Brenner. When Schmidt disagreed with the Great Walther, it was a "personal struggle." That is a dog-whistle for those who know the old LCMS canard. Schmidt did not get the call (Walther made faces at the mention of Schmidt's name) but F. Pieper did, so the Election conflict was Schmidt's revenge for not getting the call. That makes SynCon ears perk up, even if no one else catches the hint. Brenner calls it a "personal struggle" between Walther and Schmidt in Jars, p. 83.
When someone argues that WELS is teaching false doctrine 24/7, one of the faithful apostates will snap, "You are judging hearts, and that is a sin." They may say, "You are shredding the Eighth Commandment" or "Have you ever read Matthew 18?"
Claiming that Schmidt disagreed with Walther because he did not get the call is poisoning the well. Somehow an enormous book came from those hurt feelings - The Error of Modern Missouri. Everyone fell in line because Schmidt did not get that call? That is a strange claim to make.
In truth, Walther manipulated the call to get F. Pieper placed as his personal choice. Pieper enlarged the UOJ bridgehead established by Stephan and Walther until that dogma became Chief Article of Missouri, WELS, and the Little Sect on the Prairie.
Note this from the Sparky dissertation -
"Schmidt addressed the relationship of universal justification and the individual’s appropriation of justification in several of his theses." p. 61
Oh no! Sparky almost said Justification by Faith, but his careful phrasing avoided those toxic words.
Friends, relatives, and WELS clergy - mark how easily the details reveal the script.
Sparky's dissertation really hammers Schmidt for no longer going with the Walther position -
Schmidt seems to have sought the call to become Missouri’s English professor of theology in 1878.296 He seems to have been hurt when he did not receive that call.297 On January 2, 1879, Schmidt notified Walther of his objections to his 1877 essay. He told Walther, “I can no longer go with you. . . I dare no longer keep silence.”298 Schmidt soon contacted President Schwan of the Missouri Synod to let him know that he was going to make his objections public unless circumstances changed.
The accusation is made in the main body of the dissertation, but refuted in the footnote -
Schmidt’s brother-in-law, Pastor Henry Allwardt, disputes this accusation. He claims to have spoken with Schmidt about Walther’s essay in March 1878, fully two months before the convention that failed to issue the call to Schmidt. Both he and Schmidt at that time were one in their concerns about Walther’s essay. Henry A. Allwardt, “Appendix to A Testimony against the False Doctrine of Predestination recently introduced by the Missouri Synod,” translated by R.C.H. Lenski and W.E. Tressel in The Error of Modern Missouri: Its Inception. Brenner, p. 79.
Another GJ nota bene - Lenski's family was kicked out over objecting to UOJ, so that is why WELS continues to rave that "Lenski is not good on justification." Haha - they poison that well with every class at Mordor.
For those who are unaware of Schmidt, he was quite talented, fluent in Norwegian. If not for Walther's dogmatic blundering, more Lutherans would have been united behind Justification by Faith. But this way, Walther made sure he was the Missouri Pope and later the Synodical Conference Pope.
To this day, all doctrinal matters are settled by Holy Father Walther, among the stalwart - and synod president elections (each one an election without faith) hinges on one's Waltherian fidelity, whether real or feigned. "But let's keep working with ELCA." That makes more sense than people realize - ELCA teaches the same UOJ from the same bosom of Pietism - Halle University.
The point of the Brenner story in Jars is to say that Hoenecke helped smooth out Walther's language and cement friendship between Missouri and the Wisconsin Sect. Walther needed Hoenecke's help and friendship.
