One of our members reminded me of how great it is to have a community of believers in an era of disparaging the Gospel. That admonition made me think about the value of opposition.
In sales, it is called The Takeaway. "You really can't afford the expensive car model." The natural response is, "Oh, yes I can. Where are the papers to sign?"
One of my professors in seminary - a Princeton ThD - made fun of studying Greek. He said, "One of our pastors visited our school and said he never used Greek at all." Rather than discouraging me, he inadvertently encouraged me to keep going. I used our long seminary holidays to write translations of John, Mark, Galatians, and Revelation - from Greek to English - as a way of learning more.
The Left serves as The Ultimate Takeaway. In politics, the Left wages a constant assault on the US Constitution. In Lutherdom, the Left leads an unrelenting attack on the Scriptures, faithful translations, sound doctrine, Luther, and the Reformation.
The ELCA is so far gone that the other synods look deceptively conservative in comparison. In reality, the faux-conservatives are the rearguard of ELCA, covertly adopting the very dogmas and practices of their big gay sister, somewhat behind the fads, but always suppressing whatever is good, noble, and faithful.
Some examples of honoring the output of ELCA are -
- Bad translations (ESV, NIV, The Message),
- Bad hymnals (Christian Worship, LBW, etc)
- Bad practices (Fuller, Willow Creek, Trinity Divinity)
- Bad dogma (Objective Justification, women's ordination, gay ordination).
As I wrote, more than once, WELS in Columbus, Ohio was my Harvard and Yale in Lutheran doctrine. I had devoted some years to studying Lutheran history and doctrine, but nothing made me comb through Luther and the Book of Concord like a meeting of the Ohio Conference or worse - a room with Zehms, Stolzenburg, Schroeder, Kovaciny, Kuske, and Roehl mocking, attacking, slithering around the important topics while patting each other on the back. "Win a free trip to Russia - drive your car up a utility pole and lie about it." - the genius of WELS. "Do what you will, and we will cover it up, after checking the family tree."
Academic theology is easy - pick a minor topic and gather a bunch of sources about it. The references are 99% of the paper. One little idea might be offered, so a good title would be "Toward a Tentative Proposal for the Probable Cause of Law/Gospel Confusion." Martin Marty said a dissertation could be harvested for three books or 18 academic papers.
Far more challenging is figuring out where the ocean of Dreck came from, the ocean flooding the synods and drowning everyone. Meanwhile, the "conservative" leaders are shouting, "We have the purest and best water, and you are polluting it with your lying, scandal-mongering!"
Almost all my professors were apostate or turncoats who hid their fall from grace. The exceptions were the Yale Divinity professors who emphasized the Biblical text, the actual content - while avoiding the quicksand of academic fads. They were later replaced with wild and wacky nihilists, so I would not suggest anyone go to Yale Divinity now - even with free room, board, and tuition. It only takes one generation, as all the synods have proven, for the good to retire (like Lenski) and the bad (his replacement) to take over.
Many of us have had the same experience with synods, so we can be thankful to God for being awakened by the buckets of ice-water tossed on our drowsy minds.
- They really teach that Church Growth garbage and attend Fuller together?
- They took 45 years to realize Barth and Kirschbaum were co-authors and living together in Marxist bliss?
- They can read Galatians, Genesis 15:6, Romans 4, and conclude - Objective Justification. God has pronounced the entire world forgiven and saved?
- They gladly remove how many verses from the New Testament, only to put them back tentatively when caught, like a boy stealing cookies?
So I have to say "Thank you!" to the LCA for prodding me awake, for WELS in proving so many times they cannot tell the truth, the "conservative" factions for avoiding the issues - in search of a good argument against individual communion cups or potted flowers on the altar. These brave prophetic souls fill the Holy of Holies with smoke, the exhaust of their consuming idolatry.
The apostates have the money but we have the Treasure.
