Saturday, November 3, 2018

Background for All Saints Sunday

Goosebumps - Hebrews' unique summary of the Bible.
Hint - this speaks of Abraham's Justification by Faith, Genesis 15.

Background for All Saints Sunday - Eternal Life

We should not take the resurrection of Christ for granted or assume that everyone using the name Christian believes in it. One of the hallmarks of modernism is the rejection of the resurrection of Christ.

This attitude grew quickly at Halle University, which was founded to promote Biblical Christianity. The school quickly became ratonalistic, which means the faculty explained away anything miraculous in the Bible.

Schleiermacher was the initial gateway to modern theology;
Barth was the gateway to our apostate era.

Some famous names of that era are Reimarus, D. F. Strauss, Albert Schweitzer, and F. Schleiermacher. One is supposed to know the works of these great "scholars" to be a Biblical scholar. Although their theories differed from each other, they agreed in rejecting the divine in their work.

Theology moves slowly, so this rationalism grew in some quarters but came to America rather later. By the early 20th century, the modern theologians like Walter Rauschenbusch (Social Gospel lectures at Yale) reinterpreted everything in the New Testament. It was not taken at face value but each story had another meaning. Jesus died on the cross, wrote Rauschenbusch, to express His solidarity with the poor.

Karl and Charlotte worked on "his" Dogmatics until her death. He was heavily influenced by Schleiermacher.

Karl Barth and his mistress Charlotte Kirschbaum treated theology the same way, reinterpreting everything divine. Although others were much like Barth/Kirschbaum, his Dogmatics had long-lasting and continuing influence with Roman Catholics, liberal Protestants, and Fuller Seminary, whose hip professors studied with Barth. So did my doctoral advisor John Howard Yoder at Notre Dame. Stan Hauerwas and Frank Fiorenza at ND were both "Barth scholars." This intellectual history serves to show how extensive is the idea of making a Biblical narrative into something else. If anyone wonders about the collapse of Catholicism and Protestantism, this is why - people are given myths, as the leaders may call them in a fit of honesty, and they fall away under that influence.

My Moline friend's wife summed it up well in her description of her learning at the Disciples/Unitarian seminary. "The Virgin Birth and the Resurrection? Those are not important doctrines anyway."

The resurrection of Christ is the basis for faith in the Bible. That fact alone drew the disciples away from fear and despair, giving them a Gospel message that no one could frighten from them. No one doubted that Jesus died, but the apostles and hundreds of witnesses also said, "The Savior rose from the dead, because He died for our sins. Believe in Him and receive salvation and eternal life."

Our one great fear - and pain - is loss of life, whether we admit it or not. Ours is a grief-denying culture, but that does not mean anyone escapes grief. We lose family members and friends, beyond our control. We plan for what happens after we have died, and we have little control over that. So one great fact is pivotal - we have souls and there is a path to eternal life. That makes everything else drop away in importance.

Friday, November 2, 2018

Fall and Winter - The Tiny Things Matter Most

Vanilla Spice is another form of Clethra.

I was discussing fall and winter with famed editor Virginia Roberts, who is well acquainted with science. I had a copy of Darwin's Black Box to share. I do not argue Creation from science, but I enjoy discussions about the topic. I have yet to see "science" contradict Creation.

We discussed how the tiniest parts of Creation are the most fascinating, because they carry out complex operations perfectly. We all know the answers to the behavior of animals - instinct. Why do first-time mothers take care of their young so well? Answer - instinct. Why do bees do a dance to lead their colleagues back to food? Answer - instinct. Why do birds fly South for the winter? Answer - instinct. We should not ask Who wrote the software for this instinct, all instincts working in perfect harmony. But what drives the bacteria, fungus, protozoa, and other microbes?

Darwin's Black Box argues that evolution was easier to sell when no one knew the workings of nature at the microscopic level. In essence, technology and research have undermined the foundations of evolution.

I have either done or avoided most of the work. Now the autumn rains, leaves, and mold start the winter tasks. The old chemical gardeners thought green = nitrogen = growth, but I think rotting leaves = carbon = fungal growth. Nobody would put on nitrogen fertilizer in the fall, though it works on grass - if grass is your passion. And strangely, people treat these useful, power-packed leaves as toxic invaders of the yard and garden. Rake them, burn them, haul them away! I like their attitude - I take their piles of leaves and improve my soil over winter months. I can be standing in piles of leaves in the early spring and yet have none in the late spring - all turned into soil ingredients by earthworms and mites.

Meanwhile, the roots work all winter to improve their fantastic network with fungi, the fungal growth fed by carbon.

Our little congregation is similar. We are few and scattered. But by God's design and will, we use the Word to spread the Gospel in many ways. Sassy and I walk door to door, but we also go country-to-country through the Net, with followers all over the world. In the old days, anonymous scolds made a point to say how nobody read the blog, nobody gave any credibility to the factual reporting, the doctrinal discussions. I miss copying the comments into the main body of the blog so people could observe their eructations forever and ever.

H. C. Leupold on the Six-Day Creation

In the late 1980s, Trinity Seminary was coaching its graduates on how the evade "the question" from call committees. This is the resulting lawsuit - which you do not want to read. Trinity is now a part of Cap University, ELCA.

Some distinguished professors and authors who taught at the seminary:

R. C. H. Lenski
H. C. Leupold
Matthias Loy

Herbert Carl Leupold on the Historicity of the Creation account in Genesis:

We are utterly out of sympathy with such an attitude; for it does not conform to the facts of the case. Nothing in the book warrants such an approach. It is rather a straightforward, strictly historical account, rising, indeed, to heights of poetic beauty of expression in the Creation account, in the Flood story, in the record of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac, in Judah’s plea before Joseph, and the like. But the writer uses no more of figurative language than any gifted historian might, who merely adorns a strictly literal account with the ordinary run of current figures of speech, grammatical and rhetorical.

Leupold. Exposition of Genesis. 1942. Introduction

--

Dr. Herbert Carl Leupold, Columbus, Ohio, was born at Buffalo, N. Y., on July 23, 1891. He received his early education in the Lutheran parochial schools at Buffalo and later finished his elementary and secondary education in the Buffalo public schools. He received his pre-seminary and seminary training at the Martin Luther Theological Seminary at Buffalo, NY., which was discontinued when the Buffalo Synod became a part of the American Lutheran Church. Dr. Leupold graduated from the Martin Luther Seminary on June 24, 1914.

Thereupon he served as pastor of a mission, Ascension Lutheran congregation in Buffalo, and at the same time held an assistant professorship at the Martin Luther Seminary until 1922. He served as professor of historical theology at the Martin Luther Seminary from 1922 to 1929. In 1929, when the Buffalo Synod dosed Martin Luther Seminary, Dr. Leupold was transferred to the Evangelical Lutheran Theological Seminary at Capital University, Columbus, O., where he became professor of Old Testament Theology, in which capacity he is serving at the present time. He was elected secretary of the Theological Seminary faculty in 1941.

Dr. Leupold received the Bachelor of Divinity degree from the Chicago Seminary in 1926 and the Doctor of Divinity degree from Capital University in 1935. Dr. Leupold has gained renown as an Old Testament scholar and an authority on liturgics. He has become a well-known lecturer and writer in these fields.

Consolation - Faith in the Death and Resurrection of Christ

Artwork by Norma A. Boeckler

This consolation we find in the words of Christ: “He shall testify of me,” for outside of this testimony of the Holy Spirit concerning Christ there is no sure and abiding consolation. The words “of me” ought therefore to be written in large letters and well remembered. They teach us that the Holy Spirit, when He comes to console, preaches no other doctrine, not the law, nor anything else but Christ, since it is impossible to comfort the troubled hearts except by preaching Christ’s death and resurrection.

Luther. House Postil Vol. 2. “Sunday After Ascension. (Exaudi.) John 15.26-16:4.”

Artwork by Norma A. Boeckler

The Faithless Want to Lecture Us about Faith.
Misdirection in the Sam Huber Lectures

Here I Misunderstand -
The Sam Huber Lectures in North Dakota

More than one person has noticed that the least able are trotted out to defend the creaky, sinking barge known as Objective Justification. Why not feature the men and women with the synodical honors and PhDs? But no - we keep hearing the dogmatics notes from seminary, endlessly repeating the same drivel from Pietism.

"It's all about the Benjies, brethren. I will teach y'all about fishing for funds, for only $100 a month."

One guess is that no one wants to be painted into the corner with synodical elections coming up. True, they never change anything for the better, but some hope to gain or retain power, perks, and the Benjies. Just remember what they say at the car factory - "It's all about the Benjies." Kudu Don Patterson can explain that timeless truth, for $100 a month contributed to his coaching business.

So let's talk about a topic they know nothing about - faith. The faithless opportunists, even smug about their supplies of snake oil,
will talk about faith, but only on their terms.

"The doctrine of subjective justification is that we receive this forgiveness and righteousness only through faith in the gospel of Christ." Rolf Preus, Sam Huber Lectures

Notice that Rolfie One-Note lacks the courage to quote me verbatim and give the source. But - since no one else is skewering his claims - one must assume who the target is.

There is no "doctrine of subjective justification," because it is not taught (the meaning of doctrine) in the Bible, the Church Fathers, Luther, the Lutheran Reformation, or the Book of Concord. If anything, the early post-Concord theologians argued against the creeping Calvinism and Pietism of the OJ/SJ claims. This has been proven by Dr. Robert Preus, whose final book is studiously ignored by its supposed co-editor, Rolfie One-Note.

Also, there is no "doctrine of objective justification," just a leftover from late Pietism, which was heavily influenced by Calvinism. The idea of Pietism was to blend Lutheran and Zwingli-Calvin theology. From the General Synod to the Missouri Synod, the founders in America came from Halle Pietism or its subordinate branches.

OJ is Anti-Gospel, Rolfie, Not THE GOSPEL

"The doctrine of subjective justification is that we receive this forgiveness and righteousness only through faith in the gospel of Christ." Rolf Preus, Sam Huber Lectures

Rolfie One-Note would have us understand that universal forgiveness and salvation - without faith - is THE GOSPEL. Moreover, God has declared this as a judgment (the meaning of justification) but in a way so mysterious that fanatical adherents cannot pin down when this happened or where this gem is revealed. Yay, more than a gem - it is the Diamond of OJ (WELS).

The zircon of OJ fools those with no knowledge of the Scriptures and no spiritual discernment.

Rolfie One-Note wants to trade the Biblical concept of faith for trust in the false doctrine of Universalism. Since OJ is universal forgiveness and salvation, OJ is the Anti-Gospel.

The Preus clan and its devoted camp followers want to demand all the time - "What is the object of faith?" Their answer is "The Absolution of the World - without faith."

They are like the car repairman who said, "Trust me. Your car needs all these repairs." I took down notes and asked for a response from a certified repairman, who said, "He does not know what he is talking about! Nothing he says is correct."

Thursday, November 1, 2018

For Reformation - Joseph Stump - The Life of Philip Melanchthon - Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry

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The Life of Philip Melanchthon by Joseph Stump

The brilliant intellectual gifts of Melanchthon elicited the unqualified admiration of Luther, Erasmus, and in fact of all his contemporaries. Endowed by nature with an extraordinary memory, and possessed of unwearied industry in the pursuit of knowledge, he became in almost every branch of learning the peer and frequently the superior of those who made these branches a special study…

His strength lay…in the power to develop, expand, clear up, define, and defend evangelical truth. The old comparison, that Luther found the deep-lying veins of ore and brought the precious metal to light, while Melanchthon coined it and set it to circulating, contains much of truth. He was gifted with rare powers of lucid expression, and wrote a beautiful style. On this account he became the scribe of the Reformation. He not only wrote those two greatest confessions of Protestantism, The Augsburg Confession and The Apology, but whenever the Wittenberg theologians were called upon for an opinion, it was almost invariably Melanchthon upon whom the task of preparing it devolved.

He possessed in an eminent degree the very talents which were needed to make him an invaluable assistant to Luther. A wise and beneficent Providence decreed that these two, the one warlike, aggressive, bold, the other peaceful, cautious, apprehensive, should labor side by side for the same great cause; and that, linked together by the same devotion to God and the truth, they should supplement one another’s work by the very diversity of their talents and temperaments…

Contents of The Life of Philip Melanchthon

Preface and Introduction from the 1897 edition
1 His Birth And Parentage
2 His Childhood. 1504-1509.
3 At The University. 1509-1516.
4 The Call And Removal To Wittenberg. 1518.
5 At Wittenberg.
6 Early Conflicts.
7 Melanchthon’s Marriage And Domestic Life.
8 Melanchthon During Luther’s Absence From Wittenberg. 1521-1522.
9 New Labors. A Visit To Bretten. Melanchthon And Erasmus. 1522-1524.
10 The Peasants’ War. Luther’s Marriage. The Saxon Visitation. 1525-1527.
11 The Second Diet Of Speyer. The Marburg Colloquy. 1529.
12 The Diet Of Augsburg. 1530.
13 The Schmalkald League. The Religious Peace Of Nuremberg. Melanchthon Invited To France And England. 1531-1535.
14 The Wittenberg Form Of Concord. Journey To Tuebingen. Accused Of Heresy.
15 The Convention At Schmalkald. Attacks Upon Melanchthon. 1537-1539.
16 The Frankfort Suspension. Labors In Ducal Saxony And Brandenburg. Second Convention At Schmalkald. The Landgrave’s Bigamy. Melanchthon At Death’s Door. 1539-1540.
17 The Religious Colloquy At Worms. The Diet At Ratisbon. 1540-1541.
18 The Bishopric Of Naumberg. The Reformation At Cologne. A Year Of Suffering For Melanchthon. 1541-1544.
19 The Diet At Worms. 1545. The Diet At Ratisbon. 1546. Luther’s Death.
20 The Schmalkald War. The Dissolution And Restoration Of The University. 1546-1547.
21 The Augsburg Interim. The Leipzig Interim. Controversies. 1548-1550.
22 The Osiandrian And Majoristic Controversies. The Religious Peace Of Augsburg 1550-1556.
23 The Crypto-Calvinistic Controversy. Negotiations With Flacius. 1556-1557.
24 The Religious Conference At Worms. 1557.
25 His Last Years And Death. 1558-1560.
26 His Character And Services.
Benediction

About Joseph Stump

Joseph Stump was born on October 6, 1866 in Marietta, Pennsylvania. He received his education at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio, and The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. From 1887-1915 he served pastorates in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Stump was professor at Chicago Lutheran Theological Seminary in Maywood, Illinois from 1915–1920, and at Chicago Lutheran Divinity School from 1920–1921, and served as president and professor at Northwestern Lutheran Theological Seminary from 1921 until his death in 1935. His works include An Explanation of Luther’s Small Catechism; The Christian Life; A Handbook of Christian Ethics; Life of Philip Melanchthon; The Christian Faith; and A System of Christian Dogmatics.¹

From the Preface

The life of so distinguished a servant of God as Melanchthon deserves to be better known to the general reader than it actually is. In the great Reformation of the sixteenth century, his work stands second to that of Luther alone. Yet his life is comparatively unknown to many intelligent Christians.

In view of the approaching four hundredth anniversary of Melanchthon’s birth, this humble tribute to his memory is respectfully offered to the public. It is the design of these pages, by the presentation of the known facts in Melanchthon’s career and of suitable extracts from his writings, to give a truthful picture of his life, character and work. In the preparation of this book, the author has made use of a number of biographies of Melanchthon by German authors, and of such other sources of information as were accessible to him. His aim has been to prepare a brief but sufficiently comprehensive life of Melanchthon, in such a form as would interest the people. To what extent be has succeeded in this undertaking, others must judge.

That these pages may, in some measure at least, accomplish their purpose, and make the Christian reader more familiar with the work and merit of the man of God whom they endeavor to portray, is the sincere wish of the author. – Joseph Stump, 1897