Justification and Rome: Robert D. Preus: 9780570042648: Amazon.com: Books

Justification and Rome: Robert D. Preus: 9780570042648: Amazon.com: Books:

Justification and Rome Paperback – June 1, 1997

by Robert D. Preus  (Author)

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This study does more than simply restate the respective positions of the Lutheran Church and Roman Catholic Church of the 16th century, it also examines the pertinent materials of our generation on the same issues. Preus clearly explains where Lutherans and Roman Catholics have equivocated and in the process presents a succinct and honest evaluation of the current Roman Catholic doctrine of justification. It also evaluates some of the various efforts of Lutherans and Roman Catholics to reconcile their differences and achieve consensus or "convergence" on the doctrine. 

'via Blog this'

Here Is the Punchline Folks - LCMS Pastors Call Justification by Faith "Calvinism". No Kidding! But Calvin Never Taught JBFA.

Meantime the crisis came in the Synodical Conference. The predestination controversy was raging with ever increasing ardor, and all were pressed to take sides on the burning question. I was editor, and of course, had to speak out. Not that I was disposed rashly to put myself forward. It was long before I admitted what seemed to lie so plainly before the eyes of all who were willing to see. For a long while I thought that there must be some mistake about it. Antecedently it looked improbable to me that such a man as Dr. Walther, with all his wide learning and profound devotion to Lutheran doctrine, would at last be caught in the snare of Calvinism. The confusion apparent in the first presentation of Missourian predestinarianism nourished this thought, and for months I entertained the hope that the mystery would yet be cleared up and Missouri would yet retrieve its honored Lutheran character. But I was disappointed. The Missourians defended their error, and it became ever more evident that their offensive statements were not slips of their tongues and pens, but were the expression of false doctrines which had entered their souls. As soon as I was convinced that they inculcated Calvinistic opinions, I did not hesitate to say so; and I accordingly was one of the first among us to incur their displeasure. The announcement was made that Missourians would not sit in conference with any who pronounced their doctrine Calvinistic, and that settled the matter for them as regards their future relations to opponents.

 Cat 1 - dog 0.

***
GJ - Pastor Loy perhaps felt compelled to call CFW "Dr. Walther" because his own Capital University gave the UOJist an honorary ThD in 1877. At any rate, Loy was unfailingly polite and respectful.


I agree with Stephan - Walther was a fox. He knew how to play the role of a humble layman, but he called himself "Pastor of Brauensdorf" after resigning that call, when he helped make Stephan a bishop by acclamation. Of course, no one could be a leader in the Stephanite cult unless he agree 100% with Stephan and subordinated himself entirely to Stephan's will. That is why CFW and the rest "did not know" about the bishop's adultery. Ha!


The Missouri sect played to the worst instincts of Walther, who duplicated the attitudes of Stephan, demanding 100% obedience. That made CFW even worse and closed him off to any corrective discussion and debate. There are stories about his tyranny, but they are smothered by his almost-divine status in the LCMS.

Is Matt the Fatt any better than Walther? Discussing LCMS doctrine - without having an official title - is enough to get one kicked out of the ministry and removed from one's congregation. Harrison only looks good in comparison with his campaign manager, Paul the Plagiarist. And yet the subservient LCMS puts up with them both, God's punishment inflicted on them for tolerating and promoting false doctrine.

Matthias Loy - On Dealing with the Infallible Walther. GJ - This Is What Wrecked the Synodical Conference

Walther anticipated the smartphone and the
Starbucks coffee mug.

From The Story of My Life by Matthias Loy. Chapter 8

Negotiations along this line were successful, and in 1872 the Synodical Conference was organized on a sound Lutheran basis and with principles that assured a consistent Lutheran practice. This was not only the largest of all the synodical bodies bearing the Lutheran name, but also the most thoroughly Lutheran in word and work. The Ohio Synod heartily joined in its formation, and I rejoiced in the attainment of a purpose which, in my sight, contained the promise of unspeakable blessings.

For years I was not disappointed in my expectations. We worked together with unanimity of purpose, and being one in our faith and our aim there was little collision in devising means for its attainment, and in the execution of our plans. Sometimes vestiges of feelings engendered by past conflicts cropped out, but the discussions were frank, and there was no need to withhold the expression of honest conviction. Yet all the while there was something which had a depressing effect on a large portion of the membership. The Missouri Synod dominated the Conference. It was numerically the strongest of the synods united in it, and it was the strongest in intellectual power and theological learning. Aside from the one master mind which dominated the Missouri Synod, this would not have been the case. Other synods had men of ability that rendered them the equals of the Missourians, with the exception of Dr. Walther, who towered above them all. As he was a man sincerely devoted to the Lord and to the Evangelical Lutheran Church, I was glad that we had him among us, and was thankful that God had given us so powerful an advocate of a cause so dear to my heart.

But the good thing had its drawbacks. The Missourians were conscious of their superiority, and some were manifestly proud of it. Among them were not lacking weak brethren who manifested this in ways bordering on insolence, as though they would say, We are the people, but who are you? That was not the spirit of Dr. Walther and of the chief men among them. But even Dr. Walther was not wholly free from contributing to the depression. I do not think that he was of an arrogant and domineering disposition, but his experience was such that his demeanor not unseldom assumed that appearance. He was accustomed to have his doctrinal statements accepted as indisputably correct and his judgment assented to as decisive and final. He could brook no public contradiction when he had spoken. He had become a dictator by habit, without claiming to be this or to have any authority for it. This had the effect of inducing men to be silent when they should have spoken, preferring not to express their dissent when this might be followed by unpleasant situations. Once an important subject of discussion was left in such a form that I was uneasy, and some others were evidently not satisfied. We secured the appointment of a committee, composed of one delegate from each of the synods represented, to draw up a paper which should clearly state what we desired and obviate the ambiguity to which objection was raised. The committee met and performed its task with perfect unanimity. When we reported, Dr. Walther, who was acting as moderator, took the paper, glanced over it, and laid it aside with the remark that it did not express what he contended for and did not furnish what was wanted. Nobody said anything, and the paper was not submitted to the Conference.

On another occasion I was constrained to oppose a position which he took in support of a thesis that he presented. In my judgment the thesis was all right, but the argument used to establish it seemed to me to involve a principle which I regarded as erroneous and which might prove dangerous in theory and practice. I could not maintain peace of mind without stating my objections. Modestly I ventured to speak against his position, most sincerely prefacing my remarks with the statement, that one thinks twice or thrice before openly expressing dissent from a man like my friend, Dr. Walther, but that with all his gifts he is not infallible, and we owe it to our God and our Church to speak in defense of the truth as we see it, even though it be against a man whom we all delight to honor. My introduction produced such a sensation that my speech hardly received the desired attention.

To my astonishment Dr. Walther was seriously offended at my remarking, as an excuse for what might seem presumption on my part, the fact that he was not infallible. He took it as an insinuation that he nursed the delusion of his own infallibility. He declined to take any further part in the discussion of the topic, and finally withdrew the part of his paper which had been the object of my attack, while the thesis itself was adopted. But for several sessions a pall hung over our deliberations, which was removed only after mutual friends arranged for a private meeting between us, that explanations might be made and misunderstandings removed.

With such difficulties to contend with, our work went on less joyously than our unity of faith and purpose would have warranted, though it went on prosperously notwithstanding these drawbacks. Some of our people were certainly less eager to take part in the discussions and transactions of the Conference, and less zealous in carrying out its plans, than they would have been in other circumstances. They did not feel as fully at home there as they did at the conventions of our own synod, where no one was afraid to say what he thought and felt.

 "Everyone has to agree with me, but just for the sake of good order."
PS - "Get those Jackson books outta here!"

Matthias Loy on CFW Walther's Calvinism. Thank You Alec Satin

Matthias Loy. And I was there. No, really.
I visited the retired pastor of Loy's parish in Delaware, Ohio.

Who explained Knapp so well that Walther loved the two categories - Objective and Subjective Justification? The Calvinist Woods wrote the explanation to Knapp's rather opaque and labored dogma. I would say that Walther's Calvinism came from Halle Pietism, which was dominant in CFW's life, especially his UOJ mentor Bishop Martin Stephan, STD.

From The Story of My Life by Matthias Loy, chapter 6.

Overburdened as I was with work after the Standard had become a weekly, circumstances in 1882 impelled me to undertake additional editorial labors. With the Missourians we had long been at peace, and our relations had become so cordial that we had united with them in forming the Synodical Conference. It had always been a favorite idea of mine that the Lutheran Church in this country should, so far as this could be done on the basis of her confession, join her forces and all parts work together for the spread and defense of the precious truth of the Reformation, and especially that different organizations professing the same faith should cease to place obstacles in each other’s way by occupying the same territory and pursuing special synodical interests at the expense of the Church’s welfare as a whole.

According to the will of God churches of the same faith must treat each other as brethren and help each other, and causing division and working against each other is sin. Whilst I knew quite well that the external union of churches into large organizations is not commanded, I regarded it as a requirement of Christian wisdom and love to form such unions in order to avoid interferences with each other’s work and to make the best possible use of the various gifts and opportunities for the common good.

I was therefore sincere in my desire to have our Synod unite with other Lutheran Synods in the General Council, and regretted that the position taken by that body rendered this impossible without sacrificing all that could make the union desirable. Any scheme of expediency, however wise it may seem, is merely human folly when it is set up against the wisdom of God. Therefore I contended against the Council when it declined to act in accordance with the good Confession which it formally adopted. It was the same principle that actuated me in my efforts towards securing a union with other Synods which, like our own, could not unite with the Council, and I was therefore glad when the Synodical Conference was organized, as I was sorry that, from my point of view, the Council had been a failure. But after six or eight years of harmonious co-operation in that body, troubles came. The elements united in the Conference were not in every respect congenial, but they were one in the same Lutheran faith and thus harmonious in all that is requisite for true unity in the Church.

Some of our ministers did not like the supercilious ways of some of the Missourians, and were not as cordial as might be wished even with some of the Missourian leaders. The Wisconsin and Minnesota men were even less enthusiastic in their admiration of Missourians, and occasionally something akin to antipathy was shown towards some of them, who sometimes conducted themselves as if they were not averse to being regarded as the princes of the court and the others their retinue. Notwithstanding these undesirable manifestations the synods were growing together nicely, and there was no serious jarring or jangling in prosecuting the work in which all were heartily engaged.

The trouble that came was of a doctrinal sort. Even before the formation of our Conference, some views of predestination had been published by Missourian pastors which had a Calvinistic taint. But this was not in their official organs. What these had published was acceptable to all of us. But in 1877 Dr. Walther began to advocate a theory which excited doubt and suspicion. On most of us what was published in the minutes of the Missouri Synod made little impression. It was a confused discussion of a difficult subject, and little notice was taken of it until it was made the subject of inquiries among the Missourians themselves. Prof. Schmidt, of the Norwegian Synod, finally made public his scruples about the doctrine of Dr. Walther and showed its inconsistency with that of the Lutheran Church.

Instead of revoking his error, Dr. Walther defended it. He was not accustomed to any dissent from his teaching among his own people, and was never inclined to yield a point when any of them ventured publicly to express a doubt, which as a rule was done, if done at all, in the way of a humble request for further light. So the predestinarian controversy began, and our Ohio Synod became entangled in it because of our connection with the Synodical Conference in which it had sprung up, and which must ultimately accept or reject the new doctrine.

From the beginning my sympathies were entirely with Prof. Schmidt, who defended the doctrine which the Lutheran Church had been unanimous in teaching for three hundred years; but it seemed to me that Dr. Walther had rather become confused in his expositions, and that when the matter should be cleared up he would correct his extravagant expressions and accept the uniform teachings of the old dogmaticians, from which he still quoted largely, as was his wont.

The printed Minutes by which the conflagration was started, show two irreconcilable lines of thought, and I was loathe to think that the Calvinistic line was designed to be dominant, and that the purpose was to introduce a mild form of Calvinism. But as the controversy continued I could not close my eyes to the fact, as it became more and more apparent, that Dr. Walther maintained a theory that was essentially Calvinistic. 

This was expressed in the Standard, and before the subject came before the Synodical Conference the Missourians, under Dr. Walther’s leadership, had adopted a plan by which all who were convinced that the new theory was a species of Calvinism should be denied a seat in that body. As they had a large majority in it, the Ohio Synod, seeing it to be useless under such circumstances to make any effort to secure the triumph of Anti-Calvinism in a body from which any one attacking Walther’s Calvinism was excluded, declared its withdrawal.

How To Detect False Teachers in the Lutheran Church. False Teachers and Ideas Are Conveniently Identified in Red. Biblical Terms and Teachers Are in Soothing Blue

 John Sparky Brenner says the Justification of the World was the key issue in the Synodical Conference breakup. He is correct about that, but sides with the false teachers.

False teachers in the church are easy to detect, but people shy away from doing so. Jesus ended the Sermon on the Mount with warnings about wolves in sheep's clothing. The Good Shepherd chapter in John's Gospel (chapter 10 for Mordor graduates) contrasts the Good Shepherd with thieves, robbers, wolves, and hired hands.

Likewise, Paul warned his congregations about the characteristics and actions of false teachers.

Luther elaborated in his Sexagesima sermon that I will post at the end.

First - Look at Their Authorities
One way or another, people give away their authorities through quotations, footnotes, and laudatory references.

1. Some start and stop with Walther, Pieper, and their fellow travelers. Any dead person in this circle is beyond criticism.
2. They may cite figures from the past whom they admire. That serves as a guide to their thinking. Rauschenbusch is a marker among Lutherans for socialists and Marxists. C. Peter Wagner, McGovern, and Win Arn are the original Shrinkers, along with Robert Schuller.
3. Others are obsessed with the power of the synod and the political actions taken through resolutions.
4. The Church Shrinkers flit from fading blossom to fading blossom. Search the names they use and see how many are directly connected to Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, and Mark Jeske. Although this blog is fairly young, several of their superstars have already blown up or faded away.

Bonus Section - Who are the Bad Guys?

Even the false teachers follow the classic confessional formula of stating their beliefs and anathematizing the errorists. By observing the bad guys cited, we can see where the writer or speaker is with Christian doctrine.

• The Anti-Lutherans treat Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, and the Concordists as bad guys. They are ignored or pilloried as irrelevant.
• Gausewitz is never mentioned by the UOJ faction.
• Lenski is a bad guy - that needs to be mentioned whenever his name comes up. "He is not good on justification."
• The great leaders of ELCA's distant past are forgotten by ELCA and by the devious Synodical Conference: Jacobs, Krauth, Loy, Lenski, Schmauk, and Reu.
• In case anyone wonders - I am a BAD GUY to the UOJ/Shrinkage people who hate Luther.

Second - Take Note of Their Religious Phrases

What we read comes through in what we communicate. There are no thoughts without words. Try that some time.

1. Faithful Lutherans realize that the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace is foundational. Isaiah 55:8ff.
2. Faithful Lutherans also realize the work of the Church is to convict the world of sin, because "they do not believe on Me." John 16:8ff.
3. Every version of cell group is a marker for Pietism and Church Shrinkage: small, share, care, koinonia, affinity, home Bible study. These people hate pipe organs and love praise bands. Their favorite music is subjective, all about me.
4. Mission goals may sound religious but they come from Drucker's Management by Objectives, which Fuller Seminary and the apostate Lutherans love.
5. Spoiling the Egyptians was first used by Augustine, then borrowed by a Fuller intellectualoid, subsequently borrowed by David Valleskey.
6. Instead of writing about the treasure of the Atonement, they speak of the Justification of the World (John Sparky Brenner), Universal Objective Justification (Valleskey), Objective Justification (Webber, Buchholz, et al.), General Justification. They pretend they are talking about the Atonement, but they define their term otherwise, because it is "God's declaration of the entire world forgiven and saved."
7. Instead of writing about Justification by Faith, they use their term from Woods, the Calvinist - Subjective Justification. John Sparky Brenner cannot bring himself to write Justification by Faith, but uses this circumlocution - Individual Appropriation of Forgiveness. So JBFA is garlic for your dogma, Sparky? Sad.
8. Numbskulls - or liars - you choose, call Universal Objective Justification the "Chief Article of Christianity" and apply various phrases for JBFA to their hobby horse, UOJ.

 Frosty Bivens plagiarized Zarling's awful essay to argue that
UOJ is the Chief Article. I am seeing red, and that makes me blue. See the graphic below for the Chief Article, endorsed by Luther, Melanchthon, and the Formula of Concord.

 Melanchthon, Luther, and the Formula of Concord agree.

 Mark Zarling declared UOJ to be the "diamond" of Christian doctrine (his term) and the Chief Article, a designation he stole from sincere Christians, the Book of Concord.

 Valleskey and Bivens have two favorite dogmas - Church Growth and Universal Objective Justification.

Luther's Description of False Teachers - Based on Paul's Text for Sexagesima Sunday

PAUL’S DESCRIPTION OF FALSE TEACHERS. Sexagesima Epistle Sermon. Lenker.

9. Note the master hand wherewith Paul portrays the character of false teachers, showing how they betray their avarice and ambition. First, they permit true teachers to lay the foundation and perform the labor; then they come and desire to do the work over, to reap the honors and the benefits.

Glende had to have the right building for his ego, so he sold this one
for a song and went on synod welfare.

Jeske and Brug got Glende his big church building,
which Glende abandoned before the structure was finished. Now it is a thriving Baptist church that added onto Glende's original Cathedral for Coffee.

They bring about that the name and the work of the true teachers receive no regard and credit; what they themselves have brought — that is the thing. They make the poor, simple-minded people to stare open-mouthed while they win them with flowery words and seduce them with fair speeches, as mentioned in Romans 16:18. These are the idle drones that consume the honey they will not and cannot make. That this was the condition of affairs at Corinth is very clear from this epistle — indeed, from both epistles. Paul continually refers to others having followed him and built upon the foundation he has laid. Messengers of the devil, he terms them.

10. And such false teachers have the good fortune that all their folly is tolerated, even though the people realize how these act the fool, and rather rudely at that. They have success with it all, and people bear with them.

But no patience is to be exercised toward true teachers! Their words and their works are watched with the intent of entrapping them, as complained of in Psalm 17:9 and elsewhere. When only apparently a mote is found, it is exaggerated to a very great beam. No toleration is granted. There is only judgment, condemnation and scorn. Hence the office of preaching is a grievous one. He who has not for his sole motive the benefit of his neighbor and the glory of God, cannot continue therein. The true teacher must labor, and permit others to have the honor and profit of his efforts, while he receives injury and derision for his reward. Here the saying holds true: “To love without guerdon, nor wearying of the burden.” Only the Spirit of God can inspire such love. To flesh and blood it is impossible.

Paul here scores the false prophets when he says, “Ye suffer fools gladly”; in other words, “I know the false preachers often act as fools, nor can they help it, because their teaching is false; yet ye excuse them.”

Kelm copied Fuller Seminary slavishly,
and his Church and Changer group accused everyone else of not being with it,
not being creative, not hard-working like them,
not caring about Holy Mother WELS' future.

11. In the second place such teachers are disposed to bring the people into downright bondage and to bind their conscience by forcing laws upon them and teaching work-righteousness. The effect is that fear impels them to do what has been pounded into them, as if they were bond-slaves, while their teachers command fear and attention. But the true teachers, they who give us freedom of conscience and create us lords, we soon forget, even despise. The dominion of false teachers is willingly tolerated and patiently endured; indeed, it is given high repute. All those conditions are punishments sent by God upon them who do not receive the Gospel with love and gratitude. Christ says ( John 5:43): “I am come in my Father’s name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye shall receive.” The Pope, with his spiritual office, became our lord, and we became his captives, through his doctrine of human works. And our present-day schismatics pursue the same object with their fanciful doctrine concerning their works.

DP Jon Buchholz replaced another DP noted for kicking pastors out,
and he began doing the same thing - bu the Changers are spared.
Buchholz lied to the New Mexico congregation and then
tried - and fail - to steal their property through foreclosure.

12. In the third place, false teachers flay their disciples to the bone, and cut them out of house and home, but even this is taken and endured. Such, I opine, has been our experience under the Papacy. But true preachers are even denied their bread. Yet this all perfectly squares with justice! For, since men fail to give unto those from whom they receive the Word of God, and permit the latter to serve them at their own expense, it is but fair they should give the more unto preachers of lies, whose instruction redounds to their injury. What is withheld from Christ must be given in tenfold proportion to the devil. They who refuse to give the servant of the truth a single thread, must be oppressed by liars.

Bad enough to steal the property of a church just kicked out,
but to grab what was long ago thrown out?

Funny how often Mark Jeske's name comes up
in WELS/LCMS examples of false doctrine and perfidy.

13. Fourth, false apostles forcibly take more than is given them. They seize whatever and whenever they can, thus enhancing their insatiable avarice.

This, too, is excused in them. Thus, the great establishments of the Pope did not suffice for him; with various artifices, bulls, laws and indulgences, he has brought under his power land and people and all they possess, exhausting the world by usury. And so it should be, for this state of affairs was richly deserved by men for despising the Gospel and its preachers.

Mark and Avoid Jeske
teaches self-love and fellowship with everyone except Lutherans,
so Thrivent Insurance pays him $140k for being on the board and
making things worse.

The Institute of Lutheran Theology, ELCA-based,
trains women for ordination
and ELS Jay Webber for the ELCA dogma of universal salvation.
Thrivent Choice - a hint at their pro-abortion stance
or a reference to choice meat being second-rate?

14. Fifth, these deceitful teachers, not satisfied with having acquired our property, must exalt themselves above us and lord it over us. Not only do they possess all property, but they must for that very reason become our superiors; must have precedence and receive honor. We bow our knees before them, worship them and kiss their feet. And we suffer it all, yes, with fearful reverence regard it just and right. And it is just and right, for why did we not honor the Gospel by accepting and preserving it?

What can anyone say, except,
"What did WELS do to deserve these clowns, bullies,
camp-followers, and con-artists?"

15. Sixth, our false apostles justly reward us by smiting us in the face. That is, they consider us inferior to dogs; they abuse us, and treat us as footrags.

I venture to say we became sensible of such treatment when, under the Papacy, we were readily put in the van, cursed, condemned and delivered to the devil. We endured it all, suffered most patiently, and yielded up property, honor, body and soul. Fault in a sincere teacher, however, could by no means be tolerated. Very well, then; God is just, and it is his judgment that we must honor the messengers of Satan a thousand times more than his own, and do and suffer everything. “I speak by way of disparagement [speak as concerning reproach], as thought we had been weak.”

The congregations he kicked out or hated out
are begging to return, hoping the terms of surrender
are not too burdensome.
Thus the hirelings feed their sheep to the wolves.