Magic acts are a lot of fun. We all know that the magician distracts our eyes so that he can quickly do the trick where we are not looking.
The UOJ Magicians work the same way, but they are nasty and vindictive, not entertaining. Their energy comes from their hatred of the Word, which they cloak with fine words and sanctimony.
LCMS and WELS - Same History - Same Tricks
Missouri and WELS came from Pietism, which has a way of asserting itself again. The clergy who would rather be unionistic, because they love every doctrine but their own, bitterly resent the chains and shackles - as they see them - of the Book of Concord so they throw off those horrid Confessions.
Missouri and WELS both taught Justification by Faith for many decades.
JFBA Examples in WELS:
- Gausewitz was the catechism and no one talked of UOJ. The instigator of Kokomo never heard of UOJ before seminary.
- Some oldsters in WELS remember that they were taught Justification by Faith in the olden days, because they were.
- JP Meyer and other false teachers worked to supplant the Confessions and the Chief Article, so WELS clergy ignore and loathe the Book of Concord.
JFBA Examples in the LCMS:
- The 1905 German catechism of the synod taught Justification by Faith, not UOJ.
- They also used the Gausewitz Catechism, because he was the president of the Synodical Conference.
- The KJV catechism, lately in the CPH catalogue, teaches Justification by Faith - not UOJ.
- Dr. Walter A. Maier preached Justification by Faith and taught it as the foundational doctrine of Christianity, named before inerrancy in one quotation. See the graphic. He was praised by sister synods, not denounced as a false teacher.
The Magic Wand of Verbal Abuse
The UOJ Magicians have only one trick. They verbally abuse anyone who threatens their position, and they scare easily. They mask their fear with fake ferocity, always using their buddies to back them up, like shills in an audience helping with a mind-reading trick.
Robert believed in due process. He repeatedly said that he would not be used to deny due process to Walter A. Maier. He also expressed his opinion that his efforts to bring Maier to an orthodox formulation (sic) of this doctrine with the help of such eminent theologians as Dr. Harry Huth, the great Missouri Synod Confessions scholar, would bear more fruit than his brother’s approach.
WAM II, left, got the Preus "due process" treatment. I do not have his academic achievements at this time. He is with a bunch of Maiers. When I met WAM II, he was jolly and friendly. |
Imagine yourself as a professor at the synod's seminary, the son of the world-famous preacher and Biblical scholar, Walter A. Maier, PhD, Harvard, who taught Justification by Faith and inerrancy.
- Jack Preus, the LCMS president, sends a letter to every congregation, denouncing you as a false teacher - for teaching what built The Lutheran Hour, your father preaching on the radio. But the accusation is dishonest, because it does not say, "You teach the Chief Article and we reject that, agreeing with the rationalistic Pietists." No, it is "YOU deny our precious
dogmadoctrine ofJustification without FaithObjective Justification." - Robert Preus, Jack's brother, as president of the Ft. Wayne seminary, denounces you to the entire LCMS, using the most ridiculous arguments for UOJ, even citing the UOJist who left teaching in the LCMS to be a Roman Catholic editor! That was Edward Preuss of precious memory, still quoted with a school-girl's sigh.
- Instead of being the leading candidate for LCMS synod president, a big effort is mounted to deny you any votes because (wave the magic wands) both Preus brothers have unethically and illegally denounced you as a false teacher. And yes, that is indeed slander.
- Ralph Bohlmann becomes the LCMS president, promotes Church Growth, and sees his daughter ordained as a UCC pastor and married to another woman.
- Herman Otten, a supposed Maier friend, backs UOJ to the hilt, essentially agreeing with the Preus brothers. It took another magician, Paul Rodham McCain, to equal this level of hypocrisy and back-stabbing. Otten sells books against Luther, praises a Roman Catholic author for publishing the obvious, and specializes in promoting the thralls of UOJ.
The irony of this Preus team is that neither Preus brother earned an Ivy league degree or engaged in Biblical scholarship, as Walter A. Maier, WAM II, and WAM III did. Jack and Bob both studied Latin scholasticism at the University of Minnesota - the Icey League. Academic achievement in the Preus family stopped there. As The Right Reverend Bishop James Heiser said to me, "The Preus children are not known for their theological acumen."
The Preus brothers used the weakness of CFW Walther's education to their advantage, calling up the ghost of Stephan's thrall to pound WAM II into the ground. The weakness of LCMS clergy and laity always comes through when they line up like iron filings around the magnetic personality of their first pope, professor, publisher, and political expert, CFW Walther, BA.
The answer does not come from inane theses that beg the question, like Valleskey on Fuller and Church Growth. The answer comes from careful study of the Biblical text. Anyone can do that, but few take the trouble.
I am happy to say that the younger generations of men are willing to address what the Boomer men ignored.
According to this former editor of Steadfast Lutherans, Dr. Maier was "a moron" for teaching Justification by Faith. |