Who Is First? WELS or ELCA?

Sam Birner, WELS Martin Luther College Graduate

 Sam Birner, WELS Martin Luther College Graduate

 Martin Luther College - WELS - loved the frame-by-frame copy of "Party in the Fire Island Pines," which was uploaded to YouTube. Another dorm film involved statues coming to life and cursing.

Megan Rohrer is ELCA's first transgender bishop.

Erwin Guy is the bishop who preceded Megan Rohrer.
He is now president of United Lutheran Seminary.

J. C. Dietrich - Small Catechism Research

Quotes from Dietrich, thanks to Alec Satin - 

139. What is faith?

Faith is that act of the soul by which, having known the truth of God’s Word, it confidently, by the power of the Holy Ghost, lays hold of the grace and mercy of God set forth in the Gospel promise, for the purpose of obtaining eternal life.

[*] 147. But why are they [good works] not necessary to merit for us righteousness before God and salvation?

Because we are justified and saved by grace, alone through faith in Christ Jesus.

Rom. 3:28. We conclude that a man is justified by faith, without the deeds of the law. v. 20.

Eph. 2:8. By grace are ye saved, through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast.

[*] 148. But are they not necessary to preserve righteousness and salvation?

No; for we are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.

1 Pet. 1:5; Phil. 1:6.

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GJ

I am much more a fan of Luther's Small Catechism than all the expanded explanations of Luther's explanations. Moreover, the Seminex conquest of Missouri and WELS has leaked its toxins everywhere, including adding Objective Justification furtively to 432 page CPH edition. Was that supposed to be a joke or just a money-maker?

The various editions, such as the original, sublime Gausewitz, are compared to each other, so it is important that the Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry is gathering them under the Lutheran catechism category.

We do not know much about Dietrich, but he was close to the Luther's era. Although Schwan's Catechism was requested and published by the Missouri Synod, the Dietrich Catechism was still used and influenced future catechetical works.

Gregory L. Jackson

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1906 Theological Quarterly - Dietrich's Catechism "did not teach in view of faith." p. 131.

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G. H. Bode, Jr - 2005 dissertation - Conrad Dieterich (1575-1639) and the Instruction of Luther 's Small Catechism "For instance, he examines the doctrines of justification, faith, and election under the Third Article of the Creed, as the work of the Holy Spirit." p. 255

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https://community.logos.com/forums/t/60446.aspx

Ken McGuire | Forum Activity | Posted: Wed, Nov 21 2012 11:11 AM

1902 Dietrich Catechism.docx

In 1529 Luther wrote the Small Catechism for parents to teach their young children.  But somehow it turned into a book for Pastors to teach adolescents. To get more age-appropriate and to include issues of the day, "Explanations" were added to it.  There were multiple "families" of these explanations and earlier I posted one that came out of Denmark and Norway.  This document is from a German stream.

Johann Conrad Dietrich (1575-1639) (all three names do have variant spellings) was a 17th Century Lutheran who wanted to improve confirmation instruction and so wrote his Institutiones catecheticae. As the title suggests, they are in Latin and a brief examination of 2 different editions on Internet Archive and Google books shows that they are massive, detailed comments on just about everything that could come up in catechizing.  Or rather what could come up THEN.

Somehow there was a briefer German Catechism that is from Dietrich that was used in Dresden among other places, which was taken across the Atlantic to the New World, which was used by Missouri, Wisconsin, Buffalo, and Joint Synod of Ohio, among others...  As a living document the exact contents did vary a bit over time and over place.

There was a need for an English Catechism too, and at least by 1872 Joint Synod of Ohio published one.  According to http://www.worldcat.org/title/dr-martin-luthers-small-catechism-explained-in-questions-and-answers/oclc/38867098/editions?referer=di&editionsView=true that 1872 edition has the same number of pages as this 1902 edition.  In addition, the debated phrasing of question 321 appears to be the same as the 1872 version...

Even after the "replacement" catechism was written by Heinrich Christian Schwann in 1896, there was still a demand for the Dietrich catechism in the Missouri Synod, and this work is listed as a major source for the catechism we use today.

Source for the text was http://archive.org/details/Dr.MartinLuthersSmallCatechismExplainedInQuestionsAndAnswers This one took a bit more work since the OCR was not that clean.  In addition, there is a fair amount of referencing between questions, which I have tried to link. I have added Milestone references based upon the Tappert Book of Concord, which means that there are no links for the section on the Office of the Keys, Table prayers, or Christian Questions and their Answers.

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Dresden Catechism 

http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2012/07/thanks-to-two-readers-dietrich.html

Dropbox links do not work, probably from their security "improvements."

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https://collections.lstc.edu/catechisms-and-hymnals/catechisms/

Catechisms | Rare Books Collections

Dieterici (Johann Konrae Dietrich, 1575-1639. Edition Novissima. Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1685. 18th Century Catechisms. Forklaring ofwer Katechismum.

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CPH's 432 page SMALL Catechism

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Tending the Weeds and Knowing the Difference

The plant above is Butterfly Weed, a cousin of Milkweed. I put in a late order at the Growers Exchange for Little Joe Pye Weed for the Military Gardening Group, and found Joe Pye Weed available in the large, economy size and the compact size. Little Joe Pye is ideal for people who do not want a nine foot tall monster overshadowing the other flowers. That may not happen the first year or second, but the third year gets the honors for being a champion.

I mentioned Joe Pye Senior and Junior being available because Milkweed was sold out again. The gardeners who want Monarch butterflies always buy up the Milkweed plants early.

I can easily spot the distinctive greens of Joe Pye Senior and Junior, but both could be any old weed when starting out - and quite fragile.

Many weeds have sprung up on their own, and they give away their nature early, with peculiar leaves. I do not remember every name, but one weeds produces plenty of seeds while growing through the root system to become a colony of pests and launching area for even more weeds, wherever the wind takes them. My soil is rich clay teeming with fungi, earthworms, and organic matter - ideal for weeds.

Joe Pye Weed

Sound Doctrine and False Doctrine

Doctrine follows the same path when we compare desirable plants to weeds. False doctrine is similar to sound doctrine, especially at the beginning. The false teachers of WELS-LCMS-ELS-ELCA-CLC always begin with - "We just want to try something, a little experiment. We are few and very weak, so we are no threat."

Soon the false teachers want equal rights, because so many of them have formed into groups, circles, and assassination teams. They cannot be criticized even though they gain traction by harshly attacking sound doctrine and mocking the old fuddy-duddies.

The Lutheran synods did this by aping -

1. The Roman Catholics
2. The Calvinist Church Growth gurus
3. The Ecumenical Movement
4. The Pentecostals
5. The German Rationalists
6. The secular, professional money raisers.

Now they are in complete control - from Bishop Liz Eaton in ELCA on down to Mark Schroeder - and worse.

Now that they dominate, they prowl their precincts looking for whom they can devour. 

1 Peter 5:8 Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: 9 Whom resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world.

Discernment, testing the spirits, comes from studying the effective Word of God.

2 Timothy 2:16 But shun profane and vain babblings: for they will increase unto more ungodliness. 17 And their word will eat as doth a canker (cancer or gangrene): of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus;

Paul's stern admonition at the end of Romans is "Examine and avoid" - not "Register, attend, and parrot..."

Romans 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them. 18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.

Crab grass came over as a grain plant.

Weeds Have Value

Many easily identified weeds have value in loosening and improving the soil. As I wrote before, we had a thick patch of crabgrass in the area now devoted to the Butterfly Garden - the sunniest and most fertile area of the front and back yards. Instead of pulling and cursing the crabgrass, I blocked the sun with cardboard and wood mulch. The leaves and roots decomposed into rich compost.

False doctrine has value too, in causing division. That must happen, to separate the good from the bad, the sound doctrine from the false doctrine. The timidity of the synod leaders proves that they are captive to false doctrine, not only unChristian but anti-Christian, not only unLutheran but anti-Luther to a fault.

1 Corinthians 11:18 For first of all, when ye come together in the church, I hear that there be divisions among you; and I partly believe it. 19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.