A Calvinist with Objective Justification Will Be a Calvinist with Holy Communion

The cub editor of Christian News was given a poor education in Christian doctrine, and now he shows as little aptitude for the Faith as he does for editing -

• "A hymn for Transiguration (sic!) Sunday O Wondrous Type! O Vision Fair (LSB 413).  Two different version (sic) and the text can be seen here."

Hale on his blog:

"Regarding the “online administration” of the Lord’s Supper, Communion is communal – it has to do with people gathering together to receive the undivided Christ’s body and blood. A surprising number of Lutheran pastors and churches, though, are trying to redefine the Supper, against Christ’s will stated in Scripture. While Communion is a comfort, it is not a necessity. There is much false emotionalism in Lutheran circles over receiving Communion."

"Our Lord is not panicked or upset by what is going on, even if most of the world is."

 end of quotes, emphasis added

I have to start with this quote from another blog dealing with the topic - "...note Robert Kolb’s charge on the CPH website that we have neglected to seriously study Walther since the middle of the 20th century up to the present." That is the Kolb who put together the Book of Concord with the ELCA gay activist Wengert.

I am glad Hale and the LCMS guys want to prove my thesis that Walther was the American Calvin - and certainly not the American Luther.

Enthusiasts divorce the Spirit from the Word, so one version is Pentecostalism, where the Spirit is always telling people what to do in their dreams and adding new books to the canon. One book would be First Kenneth - the Spirit told Kenneth to become a missionary in Nigeria, where a large sum of cash awaited him. His cell group agreed, so it had to be true. And he left.

Calvin was another type of Enthusiast. He taught with great consistency that divine worship, the sermon, communion, and baptism were only valid if the Spirit chose to be present. Lacking any concept of the efficacy of the Word (see Fuller and the Lutheran seminaries), Calvin had to fill in with human reason.

Hale's Objective Justification is very much like Calvinism, but his blabber on the blog reminds me of WELS and Pentecostals jabbering about everything except what the Scriptures teach. I can find no claims made by Hale that are supported by the Word of God. 

I am not overly emotional about Holy Communion, but I left the Disciples of Christ (home of the Church Growth Movement, loved by WELS-ELCA-LCMS-ELS-CLC sic). I was struck by the importance of the Eucharist at Salem Lutheran Church - quite a contrast with passing little crackers and grape juice across the pews at First Christian. Immersion really mattered at FC. Every since I became a Lutheran, the Sacraments have been important as the visible Word of God.

Hale is quite the angry young cleric, with sparks flying here and there, rage flowing when his ridiculous OJ is questioned. Perhaps he simmers over the smells and bells antics of David Scaer at Ft. Wayne. But they are buddies in trashing the Chief Article.

Creation Garden Photos - Building a Picture Book for Alicia Meyer and Pastor Palangyos

 Alicia Meyer brought up the topic of a gardening photobook. Missionary Pastor Jordan Palangyos wants to see more flowers, so I began sorting photos into a new folder for a full-color book.

Army Ranger Bob takes Veterans Honor roses to the gravesite of his mother and step-father. His step-father was also an Army Ranger.

This hawk settled on the bird-feeding site, the recycle barrel and immediately decreased the bird traffic.

Elderflowers yield elderberries, and the bushes rustle with bird and squirrel traffic when the berries are ripe, shiny black.

Butterfly Weed attracts... right!

 Daisies attract a beneficial fly, which preys on rose aphids.

Bride's Dream is the biggest rose in the garden. This clearance rose cost me $5 for the plant.

 Falling in Love is bi-colored and fragrant. The spider helps keep the rose flawless.

 We enjoy keeping the Cardinals fed because they are so attractive. During mating season, the male feeds his future bride. We often see them feeding on the barrels, one on each. A yard based on Creation will be attractive to all creatures and provide abundance for them all.

 We put food out for the squirrel, but he wanted to audit my taxes too.

Walther, From Bishop to Pope, Early Draft. Walther, The American Calvin, A Synod Built on Felonies

The Pietist Walther Brothers

Missouri Synod mythology focuses on CFW Walther, but the cell group affiliation began with the older brother at Leipzig University. Otto joined Tutor Kuehn’s group, inviting his brother to join when he arrived at the university. The brothers remained together in that group for 10 years and continued with Martin Stephan, another Pietist cell group leader, until the younger brother kidnapped him, sending him to Illinois. They even coordinated the kidnapping of their nephew and niece from their father’s parsonage, because they claimed the children wanted to go to America. When Otto died, his congregation in St. Louis extended the call to CFW, who accepted it.

Kuehn was scorned as a Pietist when he was a student at Leipzig, as were his disciples. As Forster observed in Zion on the Mississippi, that opposition drew the group together, and they remained close friends, the entire circle submitting to Stephan when Kuehn moved away and died. CFW began his studies at Leipzig in 1829 “and was promptly introduced into the Pietist circles of the university and the city.”[1] Consumption and the effects of Kuehn’s Pietistic acts of contrition forced CFW home to recuperate. 

Kuehn’s approach was excessive and harsh. He urged the group to practice various kinds of denial and hardship in order to test and prove their conversion and commitment and join Christ in His sufferings. It was said of the leader that he had come to his spiritual certainty through many temptations and believed others should do the same. Walther practiced these spiritual exercises to the extreme, depriving himself of food and exercise because he thought these things were sinful.[2]

The Old Testament scholar Delitsch, an observer of the Walther-Stephan years, wrote:

During that period of struggle he was wasted like a skeleton, coughed blood, suffered from insomnia, and experienced the terrors of hell. He was more dead than alive.[3]

During this time, Walther read Luther, which is often mentioned by his admirers today as proof of his profound education. Unlike today, Luther was respected as the greatest Biblical expositor of Christianity, so even the Reformer’s opponents studied him. Walther was weak in Biblical languages and spent his teaching career and ministry uttering his truths in dogmatic statements, which had little relationship to the Scriptures, even when cited. His example has been a burden on American Lutherans, who placed loyalty to Walther far above knowledge of the Scriptures and Luther. LutherQuest and Christian News made Walther the final word on every issue, locking them into the Stephan-Walther Objective Justification nonsense which plagues all of Lutherdom today. Proof comes from the 500^th anniversary of the Reformation, 2017, when the Lutheran church bodies were tepid in recognizing Luther but were not ashamed to mock him and sell Luther trinkets through Concordia Publishing House.

From Bishop to Pope

The conditions for following Stephan were extreme, and this protected his position, authority, and prerogatives as a separatist leader. Anyone who looks at Stephan’s style can easily see how Walther adopted it. Of course, the dictatorial attitude conditioned the Walther circle under Kuehn for ten years, so submitting to Stephan was not an abrupt change. In fact, Walther felt transported from “Hell to Heaven” through Stephan’s spiritual advice.[4]

In the eyes of his followers Stephan became the champion of orthodoxy, the defender of the faith. They firmly asserted that the means of grace were dependent upon his person and that, if he were silenced, the Lutheran Church would cease to exist in Saxony. Stephan’s doctrine was unerringly true, his solution to a question inevitably correct. Any criticism of or opposition to the Dresden pastor was condemned in the harshest terms. Stephan became an oracle, and all who disagreed with him, or with whom he disagreed, were wrong…The Stephanites were the Church.[5]

Those who are innocent of LCMS training can see the transfer of this delusion from Stephan to Walther and to many, but not all, of the Missouri clergy today. Nothing was more Stephanite than Synod President Harrison leading the convention to remove from the ministry anyone discussing doctrine without having the specific office. For many congregations, including those critical of the administration, that removal from the official list would be proof. The Left Foot of Fellowship would be extended, in love, to the pastor or teacher targeted for silencing.

Stephan’s clergy followers were docile and obedient, which only encouraged his vainglory. Forster blames the adulation of his followers, but the effect of syphilis should not be ignored. Stephan garnered great respect for his leadership, advice, preaching, and counseling in the early years. Hostility grew around 1825, when he assumed he could do no wrong, and his followers saw opposition as the result of his unique leadership. His orientation was Pietism, but Stephan also emphasized the Book of Concord and had Concordia Hours where the Formula of Concord was the chief topic. He was unusual in that rationalistic era for embracing the Confessions and the Scriptures. Although denying it, Walther continued the style and content of Stephan’s work.

---

[1] Zion, p. 46.

[2] In Search of Religious Freedom, p. 67.

[3] Zion, p. 47.

[4] Zion, p. 63.

[5] Zion, p. 63f.

As the WELS Dries Up, Project Garasene an Oinking Success

"Let's try the latest thing and see if it works!"

"As the WELS declines, it is doubling down on a new hymnal with even more emphasis on liturgical worship..."John Meyer

Hahahaha.

WELS has been using bait and switch for decades now, they are selling Presbyterian bar music (25 songs) and packaging it as "doubling down with even more emphasis on liturgical worship."

The Mordor seminary - Mequon, Wisconsin - has been promoting Contemptible Worship for decades, with no-talent groups formed to make their money with music for the Kingdom. But whose kingdom? They are so comfortable with Enthusiasm that they imagine the latest thing will slow down their self-destruction.

 If you are puzzled about real worship today, hire Busta Gut. No one brings it home better.

1. No grace without the Means of Grace.

2. No forgiveness without faith.

Those are two basics of Biblical, Lutheran Christianity, which they have repudiated for many years, self-identifying with the worst of ELCA and Missouri's Seminex. It was only a matter of time before the gay apostates took over in the guise of being "Confessional Lutherans," a meaningless term on their lying lips.

Those who are ignorant of the Faith are also illiterate in the English language. Pay attention to the grammar of this boorish outpost of boozing pomposity -

"partnering with other ministries beyond our walls (such as Time of Grace) because the Church is bigger than us (sic) [bigger than us are? - no, bigger than we are. Let's hope so.]

 Busta Ryme's work as a church consultant is done. He has set great plans in motion for capturing more territory, more souls, more loot for Thrivent and his Father Below.