The Kokomo Statements, 1979
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I. "Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner's attitude toward Christ's sacrifice, purely on the basis of God's verdict, every sinner, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of saint."
II. "After Christ's intervention and through Christ's intervention God regards all sinners as guilt-free saints."
III. "When God reconciled the world to Himself through Christ, He individually pronounced forgiveness to each individual sinner whether that sinner ever comes to faith or not."
IV. "At the time of the resurrection of Christ, God looked down in hell and declared Judas, the people destroyed in the flood, and all the ungodly, innocent, not guilty, and forgiven of all sin and gave unto them the status of saints."[34]
Footnote 34: "Every one of the statements can be understood correctly, even though one must swallow a little hard to accede to the fourth [Kokomo Statement]." Sigbert Becker, "Objective Justification," Chicago Pastoral Conference, WELS, Elgin, Illinois, November 9, 1982, unpaginated.
The letter sent to the two families quoted the statements and declared that the families were being expelled for denying those statements. Certain people have tried to confuse the issue by claiming the statements were made up by the expelled families to parody WELS doctrine. Three statements are almost verbatim from J. P. Meyer’s Ministers of Christ, now out of print. The fourth statement came from a controversy in the 19th century but was added by Pastor Papenfuss to the previous statements from J. P. Meyer. Although WELS has often backed away from the Kokomo statements, the synod continues to defend the content and reproduce the most obnoxious falsehoods found in them. The Evangelical Lutheran Synod teaches Kokomo justification in their seminary. After a layman wrote to Bethany Seminary professor John Moldstad Jr., the following statements appeared in the Evangelical Lutheran Synod Lutheran Sentinel:
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“When Paul uses the word ‘reconciling’ here, [2 Corinthians 5:19] he clearly means that forgiveness of sins is really imputed to ‘the world.’
John Moldstad, Jr., “I have heard some Lutherans say they do not believe the Bible teaches objective justification. How can they assert this and still call themselves ‘Lutheran’?” Lutheran Sentinel, October, 1996, p. 11.[35]
Footnote 35 says - "The alleged question sets a record for being prejudicial. The typical ELS member would never say something so idiotic, since most Lutherans react in shock and disbelief to the very concept Moldstad is trying to promote, that forgiveness comes without the Word, without repentance, without the Means of Grace, without faith. The article is a response to Dr. Peter Moeller questioning the validity of Objective Justification, enclosing articles on the topic from Pastor Vernon Harley. Moldstad sent a long, friendly letter to Moeller on August 6, 1996."***
GJ - Not surprisingly, the Central Southern Babtist District of WELS is having a doctrinal confab to promote Kokomo Justification. I wrote before that some pastors tried to do this at another gathering, and the layman ate their lunch, doctrinally speaking.
This April meeting is a great opportunity to watch, listen, and confront false doctrine. All the CG gurus love Kokomo Justification (UOJ) because the Pietistic error simply erases all need for sound doctrine. It is the Olestra of Christian doctrine, because no one can absorb it - including the UOJ Stormtroopers themselves.
Olestra was invented by certain chemistry wizards so people could eat fatty foods all day and not gain weight. Olestra cannot be used by the body. I know people who tested it by eating Olestra snacks, not realizing what the body does to indigestible food. To spare the readers, let me simply observe that the results were immediate, volcanic, and long-lasting.
Walther's Law and Gospel has many good insights in it, especially when he quoted Luther. Nevertheless, his Luther lectures also touch on UOJ, which remains like an alien lump in a good book. Synodical Lutherans jump at the suggestion that Walther might have erred in his Human Nature, although they are quick to pan Luther.
Likewise, Valleskey stumbled badly trying to blend UOJ with his hodge-podge of Christian doctrine in We Believe, Therefore We Speak.
No one can make sense out of UOJ, so they leave the statements alone - like Delphic oracles, to be understood differently by each person. Some hear the Atonement, so UOJ is the Atonement (contrary to the facts). Others hear Universalism (they are condemned as trouble-makers). Still others hear Gospel Reductionism, another form of Universalism. Those people are the best Shrinkers, but they are cautioned not to use an ELCA/Seminex term like Gospel Reductionism. No, far better to cloak this Misthaufen with confusing doctrinal terms.
Many times a summary statement gives away the agenda, thus in FIC:
"Faith: the personal touch
Through the work of the Holy Spirit, we are personally justified, as we are given the gift of faith.
Author: Jon D. Buchholz
God loves all people. Jesus died for all people. God’s verdict of “not-guilty” stands for all people.
But not all people are going to heaven."
DP Buchholz has tried to clean up Kokomo, but that is like cleaning up after Olestra - difficult, painful, and ultimately a failure.
Notice two characteristics of Kokomo - "the verdict" (which is Walther's absolution of the entire world) and "personal justification" (which implies Objective Justification, another term for everyone absolved without faith).
Like all false doctrine, and the most effective lies, UOJ begins with some facts and twists them. Christ did die for the sins of the world. That is the Atonement, the Reconciliation, the message of the Gospel. But that cannot be blended with forensic justification in the same breath.
Forensic justification is a term from the Reformation, meaning that God declares the individual believer forgiven of his sins. When the pure Word of God is preached, the Gospel treasure is distributed by the Holy Spirit and received in faith by individuals. We use the term Means of Grace to summarize God's use of the Word and Sacraments to convey Christ and His Atonement to us.
Grace cannot come to people without the Means of Grace, because God has appointed those instruments to do His work and give us confidence in His mercy.
The UOJ advocates continue to claim that God has absolved the entire world--given everyone grace--without the Means of Grace, so their opinion is pure Enthusiasm. I can find that opinion in Walther's Easter absolution sermon and in the work of Halle Pietists, but I cannot find that insight in the Scriptures, Luther, the Book of Concord, or any source before the era of Pietism.
UOJ Stormtroopers try to wiggle out of Enthusiasm by using rationalism. "Christ took on our sins on the cross, so that made everyone righteous the moment He died." (Or they misuse Romans 4:24-25 to say - at His resurrection. Now they combine the two because I have chided them about the Moment of World Absolution.)
They cannot hide their rationalism by calling it Gospel. The Scriptures simply do not say that the world became sin-free the moment Christ died, alternatively the moment He rose from the dead, or in the new combo - the moment He died and rose again.
The double-justification scheme comes from the Wood translation of Knapp, the Halle Pietist. Was Wood a Lutheran? No. Was Knapp a doctrinal Lutheran? Hardly. Knapp was not even an orthodox Trinitarian. He believed that the Trinitarian confession of the Church was at odds with the first era of Christianity.
Once again, the Unitarian-Universalists have donated a book to Harvard about Knapp, who agreed with them! Your precious advocate of Objective and Subjective Justification provided a historical argument for Unitarianism. To this effect I will quote the authority of George Christian Knapp an eminent Trinitarian writer, whose " Lectures on Christian Theology," as translated by Leonard Woods, Jr., are a standard work with Trinitarian believers. After a full and learned discussion of the whole subject, he distinctly admits that it is " impossible to prove the agreement of the earliest Christian writers with the common Orthodox doctrine as established in the fourth century." Vol. I. pp. 294, 299, &c.