Roland Bainton, Yale University

 Roland Bainton was the star of the show.
He was delighted to get a photograph of my son's photo!

Once upon a time, Yale Divinity - and many history students - packed the rooms just to hear Roland Bainton speak. The school wired rooms just to hear him. Much later I found his very large painting in their main eatery. Later, a student in my church catechism class later to me, "You actually met him!?"

The class was impressed that the Lutheran insurance company used Yale's history star, Bainton, in their presentation. 

Harkness Tower at Yale

A young lady leaned against my diploma on the wall.
Her sister said, "I want that!"
History matters,

The KJV Bible is an excellent source of wisdom for everyone. There is no substitute for regular reading, morning and evening combined. As one church member says, "Every morning and every evening." 

Curiosity is bound to excite our brains by energy and repetition. It is good to remember that the KJV is the best and most successful, no matter what the others insist. The latest just keeps changing.

Babies love to hear their moms and dads. What better way to unite both parents, cuddle the child, and build a foundation!

Perhaps Many Still Want To Appreciate the Traditional Christian Faith

 

Bainton made Luther's history a household term and the standard for all denominations. I bought my copy in high school, after picking Here I Stand at a paperback store.

I noticed, the day before yesterday, that the number of people using Ichabod was about 25,000 views during a 24-hour day. That was in contrast to the normal number, more like 5,000 views.

The nation cries out that no one is interested during Holy days, That reminded  me of one layman that his could not get his own congregation to have mid-week services of any kind. His explanation from the pastor was, "No one cares."

Our Ash Wednesday service had 36,950 potential views yesterday. Moreover, the worship material - based on The Lutheran Hymnal - was not only good for the day but also available from the past and far into the future.  

 Bainton signed his own sketches so he missed out on the Church Growth frenzy. Compare him to Fuller Seminary personal sketches.

"This is what I found on line

Ash Wednesday to mark the start of Lent, symbolizing repentance, humility, and mortality. The ashes, made from burned palms from the previous year, serve as a physical reminder of human frailty—"Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return"—and a call to turn away from sin. 

In Christ,

Norma Boeckler"

Top Universities - Review

Yale Divinity School - Lawrence Eyre and I went there. Lawrence is a Whiffenpoof, the famous singing fraternity for undergraduates. I did eat lunch at Morey's once, the closest I got to being in a singing group.

Roland Bainton, author of Here I Stand, A Life of Martin Luther.

Yale Library - Roland Bainton had an office there. We went to meet him some years after finishing the STM degree. He helped me with my dissertation and offered to do some xeroxing for me! Ann Johnson earned a master's degree in music at Yale, so three of us from the Garfield Elementary School, MHS 66, earned degrees there.

Campanologists love the Harkins bell tower.

National Review has a report on universities, which prompted the nostalgia above. Yale College costs $57,000 for tuition and fees. Add on room and board! The top rated universities were in the same category, $50,000+ for tuition and fees.

Every college and university (with rare exceptions - like Purdue) raised prices as if the debt engine would never run out of gas.

Anton Boisen studied forestry at Yale. No, I am not kidding. Now it is the School of Environmental Studies, though forestry is easier to spell.  Boisen made his mark by championing chaplains at hospitals and similar institutions. The idea was to help people by integrating their illness with Christian care, an idea similar to the Inner Mission, which promoted nursing care and hospitals. 

Pay Close Attention to These Sources - Rolf Preus, Jay Webber, Phil Hale, Jack Cascione, and WELS Objective Justification Salesmen

 I corresponded with Roland Bainton, the author of Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther, and gathered short biographies of him from his students, which is now in the Yale University Library.

Clyde L. Manschrek studied church history with Bainton at Yale.

 Recently I bought this for myself (again) and bought another copy for a church member. Manschreck thanked Bainton for his guidance in scholarship. Bainton trained people for 50 years, and we heard him lecture at Yale - including Mrs. I and LI. 

Many laity have caught onto the ruse, because toxic Objective Justification has been hidden from them, like deadly heavy metals hidden in a beverage. "Dear, this coffee tastes bitter...tinny...funny...strange." One doting wife brought more of the same into the hospital while her husband was being treated for unusual symptoms. How thoughtful of her! And he got worse in the hospital.



I have observed many OJ salesmen announcing with pious rage, "He denies Objective Justification!" They never say, as they should, "We loathe Justification by Faith." In fact, that term is seldom mentioned at all. Bivens and Zarling cleverly used the descriptions for the Chief Article and applied them to Objective Justification. Do they practice to deceive in any other areas of the Faith?

Most realize, from basic reading of the Bible, that Paul teaches Justification by Faith. I have argued that for decades, perhaps being too lax in overlooking the poor education offered by LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic). There is a reason parochial is synonymous with backward, ignorant, poorly educated, narrow-minded. Someone raised in Wisconsin and forced into WELS parochial schools, from Kindergarten up, will learn hazing methods, the glories of Holy Mother WELS, and little more. The children of one family, all WELS graduates, did not know what the Book of Concord was.

What does the outside world say about this topic?

Manschreck wrote about the Apology of the Augsburg Confession in Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer:

"He supported the evangelical doctrines and practices with scriptural references and diligently traced the origin and development of the opposing views to expose them as human, scholastic additions. He showed that the Lutheran practices were not innovations at all but in complete conformity with the ways of the primitive church. For all the polemic in the writing, it was also dignified and respectful. A sense of deep feeling permeated the entire book, as if Melanchthon had experienced everything about which he wrote. Justification by faith keyed the contents, for not only was this itself copiously treated, but every topic was inevitably brought back to this central doctrine. No other document of the time affords a better view of the theology of the Reformation nor a better explanation of the Augsburg Confession than the Apology of Melanchthon." p. 212  [underlining added for the synodicals]

And no, Luther did not disagree with Melanchthon about the Chief Article. He had the greatest respect for Philip and realized the beneficial qualities of his associate. That anyone would connect Halle's OJ with Luther is a testament to the abysmal ignorance of the current leadership of those dying sects.

 Harvard's Krister Stendahl called Nils A. Dahl, above, "the finest Biblical exegete in the world today". Dahl emphasized "the text!" and not theories, though he studied with all the famous scholars - Bultmann, Mowinkel, et al.

"By the doctrine of justification I mean the Pauline doctrine outlined in Romans 3:28: man is justified by faith apart from the works of the Law. In the letter to the Galatians the form is polemical and pointed whereas the letter to the Romans gives a more comprehensive, positive account intended to ward off misinterpretations."
Dahl, Studies in Paul, p. 95. [underlining added for the synodicals]

Those who try to portray their Objective Justification as the doctrine of the Bible and Reformation are fools or tricksters. The OJists do not quote or refer to actual scholarship because that would harm their pretensions. They add their unpublished efforts to the dunghill of Enthusiasm and crow, "Thus it has been and always will be."

We saw Jaroslav Pelikan, the senior editor of Luther's Works, every Sunday. He defined Luther's teaching as Justification by Faith.

The New Rome

 Biblical leaders - they are as wise as doves, as innocent as serpents.

This week, I was reading Clyde Manshrek's Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer. I began on this topic in college and read his book then. Manshrek was a student of Roland Bainton at Yale, a school known for producing classics in church history. Many have read Eric Metaxas books - Luther or Wilberforce. Metaxas went to Yale.

Manshrek's point about the Imperial Diet at Augsburg was

• The papal party won on non-biblical sources;
• The Lutherans won on the Scriptural arguments.

Following the Yale tradition, I gathered material for years - on the topics of Justification, the Means of Grace, and the efficacy of the Word.

These are the arguments for Objective Justification, the uncharted but highly promoted dogma that God declared the entire world righteous, forgiven of all sins, absolved, and therefore saved.

1. CFW Walther and his acolytes taught OJ. (Never mention Stephan or Huber.)
2. Rambach and Quistorp taught OJ. (Do not mention Halle Pietism!)
3. JP Meyer and subsequent WELS professors taught OJ. Mark Zarling and Frosty Bivens - OJ is the Chief Article. Oh really? Check out what the Holy Spirit teaches.
4. Dr. Robert Preus taught OJ, but he did not write Justification and Rome (wink - it disappeared down the memory hole).
5. The LCMS, WELS, ELS, and CLC (sic) joyously agree in teaching OJ.
6. The new NIV Bible teaches OJ and even says in Romans 3 - "all are justified. All, ALL, ALL!" (Do not quote the Greek words, please. Never mention all the Left-wing denominations that contributed to this paraphrase or use it gladly. It's not unionism if they all agree.)

The "Satanic argument, the wrong path!" according to Ft. Wayne graduate Pastor Phil Hale. The Scriptures are the wrong path to understanding Justification?

Genesis 15:6 King James Version (KJV)

6 And he believed in the Lord; and he counted it to him for righteousness.

Romans 1:16-17 King James Version (KJV)

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.

17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.

Romans 3:22 King James Version (KJV)

22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

Romans 4:23-25 King James Version (KJV)

23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Romans 5:1-2 King James Version (KJV)

5 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ:

2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Galatians 3:22 King James Version (KJV)

22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.

Philippians 3:8-9 King James Version (KJV)

8 Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,

9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

James Hastings Nichols - The Princeton Professor of Church History. Roland Bainton's Student, Widely Admired

James Hastings Nichols - History of Christianity - free copy:
Church Historian, Academic Dean, Princeton University
student of Roland Bainton.

We visited Princeton in 1972, in time to enjoy hurricane weather. The New Jersey town was beautiful enough to be a museum by itself, and the campus was very attractive from the outside. Many buildings had that dank, crumbling atmosphere that comes with the Ivy League.

I was directed to the office of James Hastings Nichols. A request for a great church history book reminded me of this. He was required reading in the field, the editor of the journal Church History, and the academic dean. He was very kindly, always assuming I would be accepted - Never "if you come here," but "When you come here..."

The Princeton staff was warm and welcoming, always bragging about professors who had Yale degrees. I thought, "Maybe I should start there." Strangely enough, I did.

Roland Bainton was on the divinity campus often and lectured for special occasions, the year we arrived in the Fall of 1972. In the 1980s he offered to xerox some pages from his book on Yale, to help me with my dissertation at Notre Dame.

Bainton was famous for the telling details in his books and lectures. While others bore us to death with enormous studies that never omit a single detail from their research, Bainton would offer a narrative that combined understanding with a picture. His study of 20 languages showed that learning a new language was no barrier to his research.

Nichols showed that narrative ability, mentioning in his textbook that the first slave ship to land in America was named Jesus.

George Hunsinger, Princeton, 
exposed the Marxist sympathies of Karl Barth.

Speaking of Princeton, one of their current professors is George Hunsinger, whom we met at Yale when he was a graduate student and his wife was at the Yale Medical Library - where I worked.

He was in our apartment, telling us stories about their experiences in Germany. He wrote a book that every admirer of Barth and Fuller Seminary should read.

Karl Barth and Radical Politics shows how the "red pastor of Safenwill" worked with the Communists to spread their propaganda.

I know Evangelicals who explode like the Fourth of July - or more appropriately, like Guy Fawkes Day - when I mention Barth's extreme apostasy and love for Marxism.

Barth is responsible for Fuller Seminary's abandonment of their inerrancy stance (which was pretty weak to begin with) and remains their official and beloved theologian.

Another study of Barth, buried in my library at the moment, describes his enormous insecurity at becoming a theology professor without any graduate study. His able-bodied mistress - Charlotte Kirschbaum - prepared the research for him and likely wrote most of his Dogmatics (as claimed by Frank Fiorenza, former president of the Barth Society, my professor at ND, now at Harvard).

But this is yet another important detail about Barth, which supports the idea of Kirschbaum writing most of his famous work (the fine print) with the professor writing only the outline (the large print).
Barth had graduate students and associates look over this drafts. Some added lengthy clarifications, which Barth simply copied into the final draft without attribution.

Fuller seems to have spawned a whole generation of plagiarizing apostates like Barth. WELS has made plagiarism a virtue, practiced with this motto - "Why re-invent the wheel?" They have group sermons they copy from a private server and steal Craig Groeschel material, slogans, and graphics without attribution, as shown by the Appleton Alcoholics.

Spiritual Fathers in the Christian Church

Bainton took time to pose with our son twice,
and he helped me with my dissertation, offering to xerox pages for me.

Luther taught OJ, according to Jay Webber.
I guess he never read this book either.

My first interest was church history, so I was very happy to see Roland Bainton on campus at Yale so often. If he was talking, we were there.  He was a socialist and a rationalist, but that did not keep him from being kindly, considerate, and easy to approach. When we asked to visit him at Sterling Library, where he had his own office, he posed with our son the second time and showed off his bands for keeping his trousers out of his bike spokes. 

Years before, Bainton posed with baby Marty, after our son broke up the lecture audience at the mention of Martin Luther's son - Martin. LI moved his arm and said "Eep" very distinctly. Bainton loved it as much as the others, who knew the baby was another Martin.

Paul L. Holmer posed with Little Ichabod in his office.

I took continuing education one year at Yale, just so I could hear Paul Holmer again. Mrs. Ichabod threw him a party when he had a one-semester sabbatical. It gave the students and faculty a chance to show him how much we appreciated him. The Left hated him, so some liberals took his class just to argue with him.

Last night I was searching for graphics and found a number of Holmer. I often go to the page for that graphic. I found a summary of his life work and realized even more what a genius he was, how he held that back to let his students thrive. He and Nils Dahl were always in church at Bethesda Lutheran; they even did Swedish services together,  Dall preaching in Swedish - with Holmer on the organ.

Nils Dahl was considered the best Biblical expositor of his time.

 Dahl taught Biblical studies unlike the rest. He stymied the class by asking what we knew for certain about Jesus - in his Christology class. He answered, "The text! Do not teach what we do not know, but what we do know." He studied under the famous New Testament scholars of Europe, such as Mowinkel and Bultmann, but he shunned the theories for the text. He wanted us to study the famous scholars but use the text for research.

Meanwhile, the so-called conservative Lutheran professors want everyone to follow the official dogma, no matter how much that contradicts the Bible.

I met Stan Hauerwas at Augustana College, where he was not renewed,
took his advice for attending Notre Dame, and had him for a dissertation advisor.

Stan Hauerwas and Roland Bainton were my examples in publishing early and often. Stan grew up a bricklayer - helping his father - doing a lot of hard physical work, similar to what I did in my father's bakery. However, I had much better benefits and far less to lift.

Stan was the opposite of my official advisor, who was all talk and all forked-tongue. Stan acted tough but he made things happen, without asking or expecting thanks.

He is now the best known theologian in America. His publishing allowed him to be selected for a well known European lecture series and endless opportunities, such as working with the Kennedy family.

Sterling is the main library,where I found a 270 year-old book labeled,  when Yale wasjust the  Collegiate Institute at Saybrook.

This is the nave of Sterling Library - yes the nave.
Baintain said Sterling was a church where education was worshiped,
pointing to the figure of Knowledge above the desk.

Lasting Values

We have moved a few dozen times. Our new neighbor said she does not know where to start in cleaning her house, so she was a bit jealous of our  radical change. Readers who have been in the same home for 30 years or more have said the same thing.

My favorite books are in a bookshelf that I remember from childhood, because my mother bought it and used it wherever she lived. We also have a table and a rocker she bought, plus a small set of shelves. Siblings have furniture my father built during the Depression, when he stayed in high school and took woodshop, because there was so little work. All that furniture is still being  used, after 80 years, because it was well made and real wood.

Some things are remembered for being lost. Most of our diplomas are gone now, because a certified transcript has more value than a diploma. Some items pass out of history, like the Ark of the Covenant, and all we can do is recall when we last had them. The most important are memories, such as often-told stories of the children and remembering when the grandchildren were tiny.

LI put the chapel network online last Saturday. When he was doing this, I had a flashback to a time we put his Atari computer together. "Dad, help me put this together." That was 30+ years ago. I endlessly brag that the two of us sold Mrs. Ichabod on the Atari as an educational tool. In fact, we really wanted to play games on it - and we did. But LI also went through the manual, page by page, and learned things that amazed a chemical engineer who also owned an early Atari. LI's venture into Unix got him his first and only professional job, and mine into Cisco got him involved in network engineering. I also took Unix, which was my entry point in university teaching.

Roland Bainton did not earn a photo in Wikipedia.

I learned from doing some research about Yale professors that the famous ones from a few decades ago are now mostly forgotten. Roland Bainton was a super-star for writing gonzo bestsellers while earning praise for scholarship and teaching. I had to work hard to gather a few digital photos of him. I was reading his booklet about buildings named after famous Yalies. Many of them are known only through the booklet today.

Long ago I put together a collection of letters about Roland Bainton, all written by his former students. The letters are now in the Yale University archives. Bainton supplied me with the names and addresses, and I wrote to his distinguished graduate students, many of them retired now. One of them was a Roman Catholic bishop, the same one who marched with the Bethany Lutheran Seminary (ELS) faculty when one of the Marvin Schwan buildings was dedicated. When I got the announcement from the Mankato paper, I wondered, "Is that the Bainton student?" The PR announcement from Bethany boasted about the bishop's status as a Roman Catholic. He gave the lecture to start the ecumenical series. The same Erling Teigen event, when printed in the Bethany yearbook, omitted the salient facts for some reason.

When we pare things down, as we must, many values diminish. Do I really want to keep JFK Reckless Youth? No, but it is a good book to give away.

I have owned Luther's Sermons, Lenker edition, for decades. Some volumes look very beat up from reading in various locales. At least one is missing. Eight volumes cost me $40 new. That set and Galatians (Kregel) are my favorites for reading at any given time.

UOJ is going to be a passing fad, as time goes on. Knapp is so forgotten that Lutherans will not admit the Stephan-Walther cult got its double-justification from him.

The Biblical concept of justification by faith alone will be taught and remembered, if only by a few. UOJ turns into brassy Universalism, because it is only one step away from that heresy while remaining impossible to teach from the Scriptures, Luther, or the Confessions.

Walther approved the double justification language,
which appeared first in the Woods translation,
then took root in Germany.