Reader Trying to Figure Out the UOJ Contradictions

The Efficacy Motherlode

A reader was trying to figure out how someone could advocate UOJ when it is full of contradictions. I pointed out the lack of classical Western disciplines being taught, not only basic logic and critical thinking, but the foundations of Latin and Greek.

No one in seminary today could make it through the Philadelphia or Gettysburg seminaries of the General Council/General Synod. Their Biblical language requirements were that difficult.

But there is a more important matter, which I should have stated. The issue is authority. No matter what the UOJists say, the clear Word of God has no authority for them. Like Roman Catholics who mine the most absurd alloys from the Scripture, the UOJists simply repeat the dogmatic statements that seem to reflect the favored passages. I am not saying they ever look at them closely. That obviously stopped happening at the 1932 LCMS convention, when they cited Romans 4:25 for their imaginary dogma. Did anyone at the convention notice that Romans 4 is about Abraham as the example of Justification by Faith?

As they say about counterfeit currency, the best way to spot it is to know the attributes of genuine currency. That is utterly missing in their training, because the students are fed the warped and twisted meanings going back to Walther, Stephan, and Rambach.

As Matthias Loy wrote, no one was allowed to disagree with Walther. I have heard legends about CFW's fits and tantrums when opposed, but fortunately Loy put them into writing. Although Loy was excessively polite and gracious toward Walther, one disagreement led to a permanent rupture. Note how that happened with Loehe too, and even today true blue Waltherians must hate Loehe.

 The UOJ cool cats do the same with doctrine.

European Lutherans are bad too. Ask Otten. Ask Cascione. I wonder if they include Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz. They certainly know more about Geschichte der Leben-Walther-Forschung* than they do about Luther's doctrine.

*The original title of Schweitzer's The Quest of the Historical Jesus was Geschichte der Leben-Jesu-Forschung - The History of Life-of-Jesus Research.

If Holy Mother Synod is the ultimate authority and power, then UOJ is the key to success and promotions. Felonies do not keep church workers from their church jobs, but questioning Holy Mother means immediate excommunication.

All the logic in the world will not turn the UOJists away from their pot of fool's gold. Logical fallacies? Their idols use logical fallacies all the time. "Your faith is not in Jesus! Your faith is in faith, so you are your own Savior!" That drivel is best delivered in a towering rage with a red face.

My favorite for being deliberately dishonest is - "We are saved BY GRACE through faith," always when correcting Justification by Faith.

My simple vocabulary test is the following:

1. Can you say Justification by Faith is the Gospel?
2. Tell me about the Means of Grace.
3. Can you express the Gospel without using the Pietistic terms of Objective Justification and Subjective Justification?
4. How does your position differ from ELCA's?

Duke to hold workshop on 'White Fragility' - Washington Times

Duke to hold workshop on 'White Fragility' - Washington Times:



"The event, first reported by The College Fix, features former University of Washington professor Robin DiAngelo, who claims to have coined the phrase “white fragility” in 2011. She is the author of the forthcoming book “White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism.”

According to Ms. DiAngelo’s book, white fragility “refers to the defensive moves that white people make when challenged racially.” It can include emotions such as “anger, fear, and guilt,” and behaviors as divergent as “argumentation and silence.”

This is the second conference in as many months hosted by the Duke Divinity School featuring Ms. DiAngelo’s work."



'via Blog this'

Duke Divinity School dean's speech interrupted by LGBT protest | The Herald Sun

Stanley Hauerwas

Duke Divinity School dean's speech interrupted by LGBT protest | The Herald Sun:


"DURHAM


A long-running quarrel at the Duke Divinity School resumed at the end of February in spectacular fashion when a group of students interrupted its dean’s annual state-of-the-school address to press for better treatment of gay, lesbian and transgender students.

The group rolled out a list of 15 specific demands, with timetables for the school to fulfill them, that touch on such things as scholarships, internships, curriculum and faculty hiring."

'via Blog this'

From Alec Satin - On Election without Grace

At the time the controversy was going on, it seems clear that the Missouri had taken the stand that the Symbols either did not teach Intuitu Fidei, or that the fathers were confused in teaching it.

 

The author of Intuitu Fidei expects that Missouri will practically speaking eventually disregard the Confessions.

 

Here's my question:  What does the Synodical Conference teach and believe now in 2018?

 

(a) Election was made upon a limited group of unbelieving sinners without regard to their future faith. (election comes first), or

 

(b) Election was made with regard to those who would believe (God's knowledge of future faith comes first).

 

The first is of course pure Calvinism.

***

GJ - I was just reading a book by a Missouri Synod professor, on the Confessions. He declared that Walther's views on election virtually reproduced Article XI of the Formula of Concord. Thus the blindness is passed onto the next generation.

Birds Feeding in the Rain - Let's Have Another Cup of Coffee. Impulse Plant Buys at Local Stores

Yesterday I filled all the bird feeders, and the rain began overnight. I was going to check the level in the wheelbarrow, but the backyard was already underwater. My curiosity abated.

When birds feed in the rain, they are saying, "We are in for a long, cold storm." The more it poured this morning, the faster they arrived. I even saw a woodpecker getting his sunflower seed.

So, I thought, "What better time for more coffee? Another pot of pour-over coffee, which Mrs. I loves as much as I do." She agreed.



Sipping coffee and writing is fun, especially since many readers are gardeners. So I decided to mention low-cost plant purchases at local stores. I either buy at Walmart or Lowe's.

Shasta Daisy - They grow well and attract beneficial bugs, especially Tachinid Flies, which look like houseflies but make up for their dirty cousins. They come back early in the spring and form large clumps.

Cone Flower family - Rudbekia. Goldfinches love their seeds, late in summer, so they are worth the trouble. A full-colored goldfinch on a seed head, eating them all, in full sun, is quite a sight.

Carrot family*- But not carrots. The carrot family has a lot of cousins loved by beneficial insects. The plants are very hardy too, good for planting and forgetting.

angelica, anise, asafoetida, caraway, carrot, celery, chervil, coriander, cumin, dill, fennel, lovage, parsley.

*Cow parsley and hemlock are on the list - also giant hogweed. All are very good for beneficial insects but dangerous for one's health. Giant hogweed became very popular in England, just as UOJ did in the Synodical Conference. Common sense is not common.

Mint family. I am fond of Mountain Mint, Cat Mint, and Monarda. Scarlet Bee Balm is a spreader, so it is good for a wild area, not a garden. Some mints are clumping; some spread through roots. Catnip is a nonononono. Cat Mint is clumping and attractive to cats and pollinators.

The Efficacy of God's Word - Hardening and Blinding. Question from a Reader

 Click here for the efficacy motherlode.

Exodus 7:13 And he hardened Pharaoh's heart, that he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had said. 14 And the Lord said unto Moses, Pharaoh's heart is hardened, he refuseth to let the people go.

Exodus 9: 12 And the Lord hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as the Lord had spoken unto Moses.

13 And the Lord said unto Moses, Rise up early in the morning, and stand before Pharaoh, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God of the Hebrews, Let my people go, that they may serve me.

--

Matthew 13 13 Therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. 14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive: 15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them.

--

Ephesians 417 This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, 18 Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: 19 Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. 20 But ye have not so learned Christ;

The efficacy of God's Word is no longer taught in Christendom, and one can find scant reference to this Biblical doctrine in all the scholarly Biblical literature.

Simply put, God's Word always has an effect - when read, heard, or remembered. The clearest and most powerful statement of many can be found in Isaiah -

Isaiah 55 8 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, saith the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.

10 For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

11 So shall My Word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.

This does not limit God's Word to positive effects - contrition and faith, fruits of the Spirit - but includes the divine effect upon individuals from rejecting, scorning, and twisting God's Word. 

To think otherwise would mean - as an analogy - that I can power a subdivision with electricity and yet cut into a live electrical cable at the substation without any danger to myself. People have done that, to steal copper from thick cables, but they have not escaped the experience.

Moses asked for God's Name at the Burning Bush, and God said, "Tell them I AM sent me." Therefore, Moses was not speaking on his own when he spoke to Israel and Pharaoh. He was speaking the Word of God to them. Pharaoh grew increasingly hardened until he sent out troops to kill the Israelites.

However, after the Angel of Death killed the firstborn, Pharaoh repented for a short time and believed the Word. I have marked his temporary conversion in red below.

Exodus 12 31 And he called for Moses and Aaron by night, and said, Rise up, and get you forth from among my people, both ye and the children of Israel; and go, serve the Lord, as ye have said.

32 Also take your flocks and your herds, as ye have said, and be gone; and bless me also.

So his final hardening was deadly in all respects. And so we have an example from the ancient past of the effect of God's Word when obstinately rejected, time after time.

One Modern Example, Biblical Studies

Biblical studies have been pursued as an academic exercise for several centuries. Halle University was founded for Biblical piety and quickly became rationalistic - the Bible was just another book about religion. Modern scholars hail that turn of events.

Modern Biblical scholars mock the Bible, laugh at its historical narrative, and glory in rejecting its doctrine. Moreover, they cannot tolerate any Biblical scholar among them who believes in Christ and the truth of the Scriptures. Thus the product of modern seminaries is going to be a man or woman or transition who only uses the Bible as a political podium.

A Second Modern Example - Halle's UOJ

Universal Objective Justification came from Halle University's rationalistic phase. By the way - Halle absorbed Wittenberg, which is no more, just as DMLC swallowed NWC in WELS.

A brief glance, a passing word from the mainlines - will teach anyone that the entire National Council of Churches and Rome teach all people have already been forgiven and saved. Like Karl Barth and his hawt assistant Charlotte Kirchbaum, they embraced the OJ and dropped any mention of the SJ in their dogma. Note - SJ is not faith, but a decision to accept universal absolution without faith.

But lo, the robed and doctoral-striped leaders of WELS, ELS, LCMS, and the CLC (sic) teach Halle's UOJ too. Are they blinded and hardened by toying with the power of God's Word, scorning and twisting and rejecting it? Yes, they are.

They show that first in their utter and comprehensive corruption. They treat pastors as their slaves and eunuchs, except for the equally corrupt ones. They treat the laity as their harem and as sheep to be fooled and fleeced and fooled again.

The 500th Anniversary of the Reformation was more than an x-ray of Lutherdom in America. It was a complete Positive Emission Tomography scan of all the sects, from the dying ELS down to the pagan Rome they call ELCA.

UOJ is obviously Halle rationalism and clearly shared by all the Christian denominations in America. What the big seminaries of the past failed to accomplish was completed by Fuller and Trinity Divinity.

The Lutheran conversion from Justification by Faith has been slow but inexorable. Each generation buries a few more of the faithful and raises up more of the blinded and hardened UOJ experts. 

People should be terrified by this last age, the Era of Apostasy. When Noah built his ark, at God's command, the rest mocked him and ignored his preaching of righteousness through faith. 

They did not consider their fate until the atmosphere condensed down upon them and the earthquakes spilled millions of gallons of water into their lands, the volcanoes

spewing steam into the air to add to the unrelenting rain. I was in St. Louis when it rained 60 days in a row, the evaporating rainwater adding to the clouds above. Flooding was everywhere and people saw the power of Creation for a moment. But it is so easy to forget when the flowers are blooming again and the fields are white with grain for the harvest.