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Not Jar-Jar,
Jars of Clay.

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5.0 out of 5 starsHagiography, PR, and Valuable Insights - But Nothing about Church Growth and GA Hazing Abuse.

ByGregory Jacksonon February 18, 2018

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This is a valuable book, even though it is mostly hagiography and PR for WELS. Treating the history of the school via its presidents is handy, and there are many worthwhile details about who married whom - to help outsiders figure out some of the bloodlines of WELS. I also like the revealing of false doctrine in WELS, such as "the precious doctrine of objective justification." One might hope that the author, who calls himself Lutheran, might be able to say the words "Justification by Faith" during his career. Did WELS adopt Church Growth by sending so many through Fuller Seminary? That should be a theme of an honest history of WELS, but that seems to be hidden away in the secrets closet. Another significant theme would be the abusive GA/HB hazing ritual inflicted on new students. Dean Brenner said, "The good outweighs the bad." I would love to see that stated under oath in court some day. Judgment Day for WELS is coming, as Brenner's father used to say.

Another Insight from the History of Mordor - aka Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary

Sparky Brenner's Jars of Clay, The History of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

Mordor faculty lounge: "He reviewed your book again?"
Sparky: "Who?"
Bivens: "Ichabod, the enemy of our gospel."
Sparky: "A complete review?"
Wendland: "No, I fear it's the death of a thousand cuts. One more tidbit."

Forget Q. I can read the minds of the unfaithful and predict their responses.

On display today is the logical fallacy of poisoning the well. WELS practices it 24/7, as the graphics show. The idea is to make the source so untrustworthy that anything from that source is automatically toxic. That also warns the clergy to stay away from that topic, that source, that blog.

As I mentioned before, Sparky Brenner is an Ichabod unawares. He has published information backing my intuition that the so-called Election conflict was really about (really against) Justification by Faith. Notice that Walther and his cronies chose to attack Pontopiddan rather than deal with the Scriptures. Slogans are so useful - "He teaches intuitu fidei! in view of faith." The Latin is so obscure that the Fox Valley Fools wrote it as inuitu fidei - which I imagine is pig Latin for the faith of Eskimo.

 Fox Valley raged against this insightful graphic.
I should not pick on them for their bad spelling and worse Latin, but they never stop bragging about their superior educational system. Evidence? Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

The origin of the blacklisted phrase is - "in view of the merits of Christ apprehended by faith." How exactly is that bad? Nevermind, the UOJ Stormtroopers say. So a slogan was invented, in Latin no less, to flail Justification by Faith. That is poisoning the well. Since then, Synodical Conference discussions have resembled drunken bar fights more than efforts to clarify Scriptural doctrine.

Here Is the Passage
As those within and without WELS should know, all WELS stories concerning the LCMS illustrate the staggering superiority of WELS over Missouri, so this tale shows how Hoenecke helped out when Walther's poor choice of words alienated so many.

Walther argued that Election is without faith, because otherwise faith would be a work. CFW was heavily influenced by Pietism and by his rationalistic education. UOJ is full of rationalistic logic, such as - "If Christ became sin for us, the entire world is pronounced forgiven and saved." The trouble is, they have no Scriptural or Confessional basis for that. Nevermind.

Here is the poisoning of the well, as practiced by Sparky Brenner. When Schmidt disagreed with the Great Walther, it was a "personal struggle." That is a dog-whistle for those who know the old LCMS canard. Schmidt did not get the call (Walther made faces at the mention of Schmidt's name) but F. Pieper did, so the Election conflict was Schmidt's revenge for not getting the call. That makes SynCon ears perk up, even if no one else catches the hint. Brenner calls it a "personal struggle" between Walther and Schmidt in Jars, p. 83.

When someone argues that WELS is teaching false doctrine 24/7, one of the faithful apostates will snap, "You are judging hearts, and that is a sin." They may say, "You are shredding the Eighth Commandment" or "Have you ever read Matthew 18?"

Claiming that Schmidt disagreed with Walther because he did not get the call is poisoning the well. Somehow an enormous book came from those hurt feelings - The Error of Modern Missouri. Everyone fell in line because Schmidt did not get that call? That is a strange claim to make.

In truth, Walther manipulated the call to get F. Pieper placed as his personal choice. Pieper enlarged the UOJ bridgehead established by Stephan and Walther until that dogma became Chief Article of Missouri, WELS, and the Little Sect on the Prairie.

Note this from the Sparky dissertation -
"Schmidt addressed the relationship of universal justification and the individual’s appropriation of justification in several of his theses." p. 61

Oh no! Sparky almost said Justification by Faith, but his careful phrasing avoided those toxic words.

Friends, relatives, and WELS clergy - mark how easily the details reveal the script.

Sparky's dissertation really hammers Schmidt for no longer going with the Walther position -

Schmidt seems to have sought the call to become Missouri’s English professor of theology in 1878.296 He seems to have been hurt when he did not receive that call.297 On January 2, 1879, Schmidt notified Walther of his objections to his 1877 essay. He told Walther, “I can no longer go with you. . . I dare no longer keep silence.”298 Schmidt soon contacted President Schwan of the Missouri Synod to let him know that he was going to make his objections public unless circumstances changed.

The accusation is made in the main body of the dissertation, but refuted in the footnote -

Schmidt’s brother-in-law, Pastor Henry Allwardt, disputes this accusation. He claims to have spoken with Schmidt about Walther’s essay in March 1878, fully two months before the convention that failed to issue the call to Schmidt. Both he and Schmidt at that time were one in their concerns about Walther’s essay. Henry A. Allwardt, “Appendix to A Testimony against the False Doctrine of Predestination recently introduced by the Missouri Synod,” translated by R.C.H. Lenski and W.E. Tressel in The Error of Modern Missouri: Its Inception. Brenner, p. 79.

Another GJ nota bene - Lenski's family was kicked out over objecting to UOJ, so that is why WELS continues to rave that "Lenski is not good on justification." Haha - they poison that well with every class at Mordor.

For those who are unaware of Schmidt, he was quite talented, fluent in Norwegian. If not for Walther's dogmatic blundering, more Lutherans would have been united behind Justification by Faith. But this way, Walther made sure he was the Missouri Pope and later the Synodical Conference Pope.

To this day, all doctrinal matters are settled by Holy Father Walther, among the stalwart - and synod president elections (each one an election without faith) hinges on one's Waltherian fidelity, whether real or feigned. "But let's keep working with ELCA." That makes more sense than people realize - ELCA teaches the same UOJ from the same bosom of Pietism - Halle University.

The point of the Brenner story in Jars is to say that Hoenecke helped smooth out Walther's language and cement friendship between Missouri and the Wisconsin Sect. Walther needed Hoenecke's help and friendship.

More Glimpses from the Past - The Sparky Brenner Hagiography - Jars of Clay

Roland Bainton, Yale University,
author of Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther

My approach to reading history is to look for the telling detail. However an author might organize his material, certain things give away the agenda.

I have three heroes in the field of history:

1. Thucydides -  History of the Peloponnesian War remains the greatest analytical history ever. Written 2400 years ago.
2. Gibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. This is the greatest history written in the English language. The volumes came out as America was gaining independence, so it profoundly affected the American leaders who were trained in the classics. Imagine that today - political leaders fluent in Latin.
3. Roland Bainton - Many call him an anecdotal historian. He collected vast amounts of material first, using stories to capture key points he wanted to teach about a given era. Fortunately, I was able to meet him and hear him lecture several times. He helped me when I was writing my dissertation and offered to do some xeroxing for me. Imagine the pampered peacocks of higher education doing that today. Bainton knew 20+ languages, so I borrowed his method for teaching Latin, Greek, German, any language.

I appreciate John Sparky Brenner's work because any scribe, rummaging through the closets, will throw out precious bits of data, which are valuable - even when left on the floor.

I am enjoying the narratives about various WELS leaders of the past. Hoenecke is one of my favorites. He was not translated into English until nobody was left who cared about doctrine. Brenner told about Hoenecke defending the "correct" position on Election. Missouri loved that.

"Now. I. Am. Interested."

Yes, I am a Kenda fan. So I pick up the cigar butt left on the floor and wonder - "Why is it on the floor and not thrown away? Was it deliberate? Accidental? DNA? Brand? Smoking habits?" A cigar butt can be a file cabinet full of information to investigate.

The cigar butt in this instance in "the correct position on Election," which is dropped and left alone. The main point was that our WELS guy became an instant hero to Missouri. That is often stated, so this is more of a point in a seminary class.

The "correct position" is Walther's divisive obsession about Election without Faith - to provide some foundation for the quicksand of his Justification without Faith/UOJ/OJ/General Justification.  

For people in WELS and for the desperately seeking UOJ in Missouri, Hoenecke is magical. He is little known and seldom quoted because WELS did not want to translate his Dogmatics into English, then took 10 years to complete the project. But he is one more expert to add to the Synodical Conference UOJ roster.

Hoenecke's environment was mostly rationalistic, and he graduated from Halle University when rationalism was dominant. His mentor Tholuck was a Universalist. I see Hoenecke as a man who came a long long from his educational background and was far better in his work than F. Pieper.

I do not think we have anyone left who really knows the German and Latin sources, as Lenski and Hoenecke did. They are both invaluable for their use of sources.

Jarring Admission

Brenner does not like Schleiermacher being quoted so much by Hoenecke, but Schleiermacher was the man who made OJ/SJ come of age, theologically speaking, by dropping the SJ. Barth and all the modern theologians followed. Everyone is forgiven and saved - there is nothing else to say.

I would not put Hoenecke in the same camp as the foaming-at-the-mouth UOJ Enthusiasts. I found his section lukewarm on the subject, but he added a horrible notion to the dogma - OJ "protects the Gospel." Nothing "protects" the Word of God, which is always effective in carrying out and prospering His will. If a claim goes against the clear teaching of the Bible, it cannot be maintained as Christian.

For Justification by Faith we have the entire New Testament, the Augsburg Confession, the Apology, the Formula of Concord, and that special book commended by the Formula - Luther's Galatians Lectures. Chemnitz, Gerhard, and Calov are also clear and compelling, but the Synodical Conference was a muddle and now is united with ELCA in teaching Universalism.

Why Read Sparky's Jars of Clay

Those who want to make sense of WELS-ELS-LCMS claims should study the details of the past. It is easy for some to cite a self-serving story to prove their case, knowing that most are supposed to be in worshipful awe about well known figures, even if they are mostly forgotten. 

Remember that every WELS anecdote about the LCMS has the Missouri Synod in awe of the Wisconsin sect's superiority. However, I never saw a hint of that in the Missouri Synod. Listening to WELS story-telling will reveal that self-serving habit, learned in seminary, polished to a fine sheen from never being rebutted.

 You question the superiority of WELS?

If you question the myths, you are no longer in fellowship and deserving of the stink-eye, the shun button, or the Left Foot of Fellowship.