Important To Know How the Denominations Fell Apart - On Purpose

 

Rauschenbusch is the litmus test in the Social Gospel Movement. Reading denominational literature can easily disclose the Rauschenbusch agenda, the leadership, and the goals. He delivered the Social Gospel lectures at Yale Divinity School in 1917.

I was offered a box of books at a small, worn out Lutheran university - Wittenberg in Ohio, once the home of Hamma Seminary. The librarian thought I could use them, because my doctoral dissertation was on the Social Gospel Movement and A. D. Mattson. 

A major theme, even before the Great Depression, was using the Christian Church for changing the culture. Walther Rauschenbusch was the key figure, a litmus test about who was hugging up to Marxism.

Like Europe, America embraced rationalism to replace the divinity, miracles, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. To this day, the Good Samaritan is not portrayed as the Savior but as the social activist earnestly trying to make the road to Jericho safe. Very few realize who the Good Samaritan is, which is sad if not pathetic.

Following the European impulses, the American theological leaders - influenced by the big, ancient universities - embraced what they learned at German universities and other centers of learning as well. The "best" American professors impressed their seminary students with a much more "scientific" and socialistic understanding of the Bible.

Brief pause - the 1881 Revision of the King James Version of the New Testament was dishonestly corrupted by Westcott, Hort, and other polecats. The Greek text was corrupted and the big Bible societies joyously  - with the help of Rome - manufactured their brand new baby.

This group of ELCA bishops claimed the Holy Spirit was "in the closet." They chanted "Let her out! Let her out!" to accomplish their nonsense with clever smirks and cloven tongues.

The fermentation was slow but steady in its growth. The 1960s in America were loaded with traditional congregations ordered to revive the poor areas, change the Bibles used, alter the hymns, and ravage the liturgy. The Biblical and liturgical liberals slowly leveraged the women pastors, and the feminist pastors soon insisted on female bishops.

Rev Doctor Osage Professor Guy Erwin was rushed into the pastoral office, raised to the bishop's chair, and promoted to president of Gettysburg-Philadelphia's seminary.

Linn Tonstad, Yale Divinity Professor

Biography 

Professor Tonstad is a constructive theologian working at the intersection of Christian theology with feminist and queer theory. Her first book, God and Difference: The Trinity, Sexuality, and the Transformation of Finitude(link is external), was published by Routledge in 2016 and was named both as a best new book in ethics and a best new book in theology in Christian Century in the spring of 2017. Her second book, Queer Theology: Beyond Apologetics (link is external)was published by Cascade in 2018 and translated into French in 2022. She joined the Yale Divinity School faculty in 2012. Her teaching interests include Christian theology, queer theory, philosophy of religion, and theological method. Professor Tonstad has made contributions to various journals, including Modern Theology, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and Theology & Sexuality. She is co-chair of the Theology and Religious Reflection unit of the American Academy of Religion. She is currently working on her third book, tentatively titled The Impossible Other: Theology, Queer Theory, and the Politics of Redemption. 

Read more

• Linn Tonstad: unmasking the tyranny of exclusion

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Quinquagesima - "He also freely confesses Christ and fears no one; his need constrains him to the point that he inquires for no one else. For it is the nature of true faith to confess Christ to be the only one who can and will help, while others are ashamed and afraid to do this before the world."

 

Quinquagesima Sunday. Luke 18:31-43. Christ’s Passion and the Faith and Love of the Blind Man

II. THE FAITH AND LOVE OF THE BLIND MAN.

9. The second part of our Gospel treats of the blind man, in which we see beautifully and clearly illustrated both the love in Christ to the blind man and the faith of the blind man in Christ. At present we will briefly consider the faith of the blind man.

10. First, he hears that Christ was passing by, he had also heard of him before, that Jesus of Nazareth was a kind man, and that he helps every one who only calls upon him. His faith and confidence in Christ grew out of his hearing; so he did not doubt but that Christ would also help him. But such faith in his heart he would not have been able to possess had he not heard and known of Christ; for faith does not come except by hearing.

11. Secondly, he firmly believes and doubts not but that it was true what he heard of Christ, as the following proves. Although he does not yet see nor know Christ, and although he at once knew him, yet he is not able to see or know whether Christ had a heart and will to help him; but he immediately believed, when he heard of him; upon such a noise and report he founded his confidence, and therefore he did not make a mistake.

12. Thirdly, in harmony with his faith, he calls on Christ and prays, as St. Paul in Romans 10:13-14 wrote: “How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed.” Also, “Whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

13. Fourthly, he also freely confesses Christ and fears no one; his need constrains him to the point that he inquires for no one else. For it is the nature of true faith to confess Christ to be the only one who can and will help, while others are ashamed and afraid to do this before the world.

14. Fifthly, he struggles not only with his conscience, which doubtless moves him to think he is not worthy of such favor, but he also struggles, with those who threatened him and urged him to keep quiet. They wished thereby to terrify his conscience and make him bashful, so that he should see his own unworthiness, and then despair. For wherever faith begins, there begin also war and conflict.

15. Sixthly, the blind man stands firm, presses through all obstacles and triumphs, he would not let the whole world sever him from his confidence, and not even his own conscience to do it. Therefore he obtained the answer of his prayer and received Christ, so that Christ stood and commanded him to be brought unto him, and he offered to do for him whatever he wished. So it goes with all who hold firmly only to the Word of God, close their eyes and ears against the devil, the world and themselves, and act just as if they and God were the only ones in heaven and on earth.

16. Seventhly he follows Christ, that is he enters upon the road of love and of the cross, where Christ is walking, does righteous works, and is of a good character and calling, refrains from going about with foolish works as workrighteous persons do.

17. Eighthly, he thanks and praises God, and offers a true sacrifice that is pleasing to God, Psalm 50:23: “Whoso offereth the sacrifice of thanksgiving glorifieth me; and to him that ordereth his way aright will I show the salvation of God.”

18. Ninthly, he was the occasion that many others praised God, in that they saw what he did, for every Christian is helpful and a blessing to everybody, and besides he praises and honors God upon earth.

19. Finally, we see here how Christ encourages us both by his works and words. In the first place by his works, in that he sympathizes so strongly with the blind man and makes it clear, how pleasing faith is to him, so that Christ is at once absorbed with interest in the man, stops and does what the blind man desires in his faith. In the second place, that Christ praises his faith in words, and says: “Thy faith hath made thee whole;” he casts the honor of the miracle from himself and attributes it to the faith of the blind man. The summary is: to faith is vouchsafed what it asks, and it is moreover our great honor before God.

20. This blind man represents the spiritually blind, the state of every man born of Adam, who neither sees nor knows the kingdom of God; but it is of grace that he feels and knows his blindness and would gladly be delivered from it. They are saintly sinners who feel their faults and sigh for grace. But he sits by the wayside and begs, that is, he sits among the teachers of the law and desires help; but it is begging, with works he must appear blue and help himself. The people pass him by and let him sit, that is the people of the law make a great noise and are heard among the teachers of good works, they go before Christ and Christ follows them. But when he heard Christ, that is, when a heart hears the Gospel of faith, it calls and cries, and has no rest until it comes to Christ. Those, however, who would silence and scold him are the teachers of works, who wish to quiet and suppress the doctrine and cry of faith; but they stir the heart the more. For the nature of the Gospel is, the more it is restrained the more progress it makes. Afterwards he received his sight, all his work and life are nothing but the praise and honor of God, and he follows Christ with joy, so that the whole world wonders and is thereby made better.

The Episcopal Archbishop Is Back - Budde Light

 

Mariann Budde could not contain the joy. The Lutheran Church in America and her Episcopalians once had 3 million members each. Budde now has half of that, according to Wiki. ELCA went from 5.3 million members in 1988 to half that amount (Wiki) in 2023. What would they have done without all the Church Growth books, lectures, and agitations? WELS and LCMS still envy the two - "Give us some of that what you have! Father Abraham, have mercy on us, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool our tongues; for we are tormented in this flame." (Luke 16, Waltherian paraphrase)

The Big Five Apostates - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) - are sinking in the mire of corrupt Bibles, horrible hymns, and grinning proponents of Fuller Seminary. The Slough of Despond is filled with the moans and regrets of their foolishness. 

"If this is how our journey begins, how much worse will it be in the end?" They burrow into the slime of their lust for success.

-----