Redeemer Lutheran Church - Yes. Universal Absolution Lutheran Church - No.

 Isaiah 53 is the Report of Romans 10. Who has believed our Report? The harmony of Isaiah 53 and Justification by Faith is impossible to refute. Moreover, this Gospel of Atonement is properly called the treasure, the pearl of great price.

First we have to start with Objective Justification dogma. Every version of it says the same thing - God has declared the entire world righteous, forgiven, even saved, apart from the Gospel Word or faith. Various labels used for OJ are:

• Justification - by itself, without modification.
• The Chief Article - but that is not the Book of Concord definition.
• General Justification.
• Justification of the World.
• Justification of the Sinner.
• Universal Objective Justification, a favorite in WELS.

The core statement is a) the declaration; b) forgiveness of the world, without any limits, even going back to Adam.

However, people have to decide this is true for them to receive the benefits. Otherwise, they are going to be guilt-free saints in Hell - St. Hitler, St. Judas, St. Oscar Wilde.

Although their Subjective Justification sounds a bit like Decision Theology (Arminianism, synergism), they pay almost no attention to this part. Their Maginot Line, their 54-40, their Helen of Troy is universal absolution without faith.

Joe Krohn shouted from the stygian darkness of LutherQuest (sic) - 

"I would put this simple question to Jackson and all of his followers: Is mankind redeemed in the death and resurrection of Christ? It's a yes or no question."

(His next post sounded like synergism, or at least demi-semi-synergism." I will ignore his irrelevant sneer at those who follow Justification by Faith, St. Paul, and Luther.)

The entire Bible teaches redemption, which is found in two different but related verbs in the New Testament. One is based on the word for market and means paid for, purchased. The other verb is used in setting slaves free.

Additional redemption synonyms are atonement, reconciliation, expiation, propitiation.

The OJ fanatics are confused because -through Calvinism, Pietism, and Rationalism - they merge redemption/atonement with the declaration of forgiveness, Justification.

Walther was not the only one to teach this confusion. Woods, the famous Calvinist - who translated  the lectures of Halle Pietist Knapp - used the terms Objective Justification and Subjective Justification to explain the professor's turgid prose.

 Jay Webber would rather have Rambach than Dr. Chemnitz.

The Halle Pietist Rambach said the same thing, using the resurrection of Christ falsely at the moment of world absolution.

Much confusion comes from the secret shame of American Lutherans. Our forefathers came to America more as Pietists in organized movements than as Lutherans dedicated to Luther and the Book of Concord:

• Pennsylvania Lutherans - Pietists.
• Walther/Loehe churches - Pietists.
• Norwegians - baked-in Pietists.
• Swedes and Danes - Pietists. Some Danes were not, so they were called the Happy Danes.

In general, Pietism had little interest in the Means of Grace, preaching, the efficacy of the Word, or formal worship. The parish was the place to organize the cell groups (Stephan and Walther then, Church Growth today). The real church was the cell group. Those cell group members were very close and loyal.

Walther always taught the Halle Pietism he learned from Bishop Martin Stephan, STD, but Missouri taught Justification by Faith, a fact no OJist will acknowledge or even dispute. The dominance of OJ came slowly through the radicals, such as the Preus Crime Family (dirty deeds done dirt cheap).

The rationalistic component of OJ comes out in the more advanced denominations - ELCA, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, Northern Baptists. They are simply Universalists at best and atheists in practice. The Universalist were rather conservative overall, but linked with the Unitarians to become social justice warriors and divinity-deniers.

LCMS-ELS-WELS-CLC (sic) are not far from ELCA standards. They love having their trotters in the same Thrivent trough. 

Confusion does not come from those who are loyal to the Augsburg Confession but from those who stand on the Book of Concord, which is why they never read it. 

A book is tough to read when standing on it, and the OJists show little knowledge and less love of those Means of Grace, efficacy of the Word, Christocentric documents.

Colleges, Colleges - All Fall Down

The new plan to bail out the WELS college happened at the same time HotChalk helped bury the LCMS college in Portland, Oregon.

HotChalk turned Portland into a large, online graduate school with a local college attached. Students funded it with student loans, the tool that will bury a lot more colleges in the future.

President Obama did some things to expand student loans, which fueled tuition inflation and the eventual conclusion that many degrees - like Martin Luther College's - were not worth $80,000 in personal debt.

There are many small colleges charging $50,000 a year for room, board, and tuition. That will give most people a pause, no matter how artfully the cost is disguised. A tiny college still costs $30,000, as any weary recruiter will admit.

 Why does your paper look exactly like so many others in Google?

Game Over - What To Expect

 "Game over!"

I have often told Christina, who pays attention to the news, "If it is in the news, it is not the news. The real news is always somewhere else."

For example, over 1000 prosecutors called for the head of the Attorney General because sentencing was being discussed for one case - Roger Stone's. When that many people respond at once to a minor event, there is much more behind it. I have seen synods do the same thing - coordinated rage, purpose-driven.

The mainstream news has beaten to death the Ukraine phone call, without covering the vast amount of loot stolen there. Those perps have barely been mentioned in connection with their nefarious deeds.

The major news events of the last three years are:

• The Wall is being completed at a rapid pace, which will curtail human and drug trafficking, while providing an important military barrier.
• Gitmo has been remodeled and enlarged, as if being prepared for military tribunals and detention in government housing. Treason can only be tried by military tribunals, an important issue in Kavanaugh being approved for the Supreme Court. Did anyone catch that? A former military lawyer asked him.
• Gorsuch recently ruled that judges could no longer take a carefully placed case and make a universal ruling/injunction, a tool promiscuously used for nullifying executive and legislative decisions.
• The military has been rebuilt, and our long-hidden stealth space force is now named the Space Force.
• The US is moving away from endless wars - engagements that were a stark contrast to WWII, which began for us at the end of 1941 and was over in 1945.

I do not own a Palantir, but the background news tells me that news will change for the better in the immediate future.

Buckle up - it is going to be a bumpy ride.