Wednesday, June 8, 2016

Please Explain This - I Am Listening.
How Did Luther Anticipate Objective Jstification
300 Years Before Its Articulation by a Calvinist Translating a Pietist?

Calvinist Leonard Woods, Junior, graduated from Andover Seminary.
He explained Knapp's theology with these terms -
Objective Justification and Subjective Justification.

Objective Justification is the Helen of Troy for the Synodical Conference, the dogma that launched a thousand essays. Simply put, OJ states that God declared the entire world forgiven when Christ died - or when Christ rose from the dead. They have not decided on the Moment of Absolution, but the entire unbelieving world was absolved on or about Good Friday - they say. We have not yet heard from the Holy Spirit where this dogma is revealed, but in a world where John Lawrenz debates with the Holy Spirit and almost wins, anything goes.

A related matter is the salvation of the entire unbelieving world. That is often claimed by OJ Enthusiasts, who say, "I was saved 2,000 years ago!" That gets awkward, dating their salvation from the approximate time Jesus was in the Temple. The more astute among the false teachers say, "I was saved at Calvary." Redeemed, yes, but not saved.



Objective Justification and its overlooked partner, Subjective Justification, were articulated by a Calvinist, Leonard Woods Junior, the super-star son of Leonard Woods, Senior, the first theology professor of Andover Seminary - also a Calvinist.

But Subjective Justification is not Justification by Faith, as some might assume, just as OJ is not the atonement, in their own words. Subjective Justification means accepting the dogma of Objective Justification.

These two terms - OJ and SJ -  came from a Calvinist translator of the Halle University professor's Pietistic lectures on theology - George Christian Knapp. His German doctrinal book was published in 1827 and translated by the Calvinist Woods in 1831.



Explain this - how did Luther teach Objective Justification 300 years before the term was articulated by a Calvinist, Woods, translating a German Pietist, Knapp?

The quotation above, from the commentary commended by the Formula of Concord editors to explain justification, repudiates the claim solemnly declared by Jay Webber, ELS pastor with an STM from an ELCA online seminary.

Where did Walther obtain his special revelation about universal absolution without faith? The scholars have shown, and Walther admitted, that he learned his OJ from Bishop Martin Stephan, who studied at Halle but never graduated from any university.

Now we begin to smell the pot-roast, as Luther said. The concept of OJ came to Protestants through Pietism.



An Even Bigger Question
Lutherans are about to celebrate the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. But they dodge this question with the greatest of ease.


  • WELS claims twice in their precious Essay File that OJ is the Chief Article of the Christian religion
  • The ELS and LCMS are itching to work with WELS on the basis of OJ
  • ELCA teaches exactly the same false doctrine, because their various segments all came from Pietism too. 
When Benjamin Mayes announced his call to Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne, he mentioned his work editing Luther's works at CPH. I had to ask -


Gregory L. Jackson Did Luther teach justification by faith? If so, why is Missouri working with WELS?
Jordan Cooper This was a very relevant comment to the above post.
Gregory L. Jackson I thought so, for an editor of Luther.

Mayes holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Concordia University Nebraska (1997), a M.Div. from CTSFW (2003) and a Ph.D. in Historical Theology from Calvin Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids, Michigan (2009). While working on his doctorate he served as assistant pastor of Our Savior Lutheran Church, Grand Rapids. He has taught as an adjunct professor at CTSFW since 2011. Most recently, he has worked as an editor for Concordia Publishing House (CPH), St. Louis, Missouri. He will continue to serve CPH as managing editor and co-general editor of Luther’s Works: American Edition. He and his wife, Rebecca, have two sons, Caleb and Jonathan.

Will 2017 be one giant con-job, with Lutheran leaders letting everyone think they teach Justification by Faith?






SP Harrison Unfriended Me - in 2011


We were Facebook friends when he was running for president. We still have 800 mutual friends.

Harrison might not have liked the way I reported on his kissing up to Paul McCain. Not long ago someone wrote to Waldo Werning, "Are you training a replacement?" The answer must be, "Yes!"

Werning was close to the Preus brothers and Herman Otten.

Werning is being reborn as Paul McCain. The difference - Werning kept most of his hissy fits private, instead of posting them all over the Net.

"If Jenny Craig calls again, just hang up, OK?"

Amazon Edition of Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant, Third Edition - Being Prepared


Thy Strong Word is being finished for Amazon-Kindle, which will make it much less expensive for readers. My finishing editor, who does so much in fixing the format, moved to Texas and set up a new household, so that slowed TSW down. The debut is scheduled for mid-June.

Kindle eboods are ideal for looking up and quoting material. I have both versions for favorite gardening books.

Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant
Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant is next. I have corrections from a proof-reader, Next I will send the corrected file to Norma Boeckler for artwork.

The budget for CLP is:
$100 - Proof-reading
$100 - Finishing work
$100 - Free promotional copies      
$300 -  TOTAL

Those who contribute will get free copies when the book is done, which should be in the next 30 days.

Norma Boeckler is the award-winning artist who
designs the covers and the interior art.

In the Jungle, The Mighty Jungle

The Tokens made "In the Jungle" their song,
but the hippo and dog are the best performers.


TV is still using this song in the background. When I walk into the garden in the back, I am in the jungle. The birds are singing and having a go at the feeders, sometimes bathing in the children's swimming pools. If it is quiet and I go to the feeders, the chorus starts up to announce that breakfast is served.

Squirrels see me watching their approach to the feeders. Sometimes the varmints retreat, but they often sit brazenly on top the sunflower seeds in the platform feeder. I have seen squirrels bat the birds away with their front paws, so I chase them away for a moment.

The backyard has everything birds could desire:

  • Tall grass for shelter.
  • Fresh berries for discerning tastes: blue, black, poke, wild strawberry, elder, beauty, goose, raspberry, etc.
  • Trees and bushes for diversity in habitat.
  • Perches to serve as a crow's nests for spying bugs.
  • Wood mulch and logs to feed and concentrate soil creatures.
  • Abundant fresh water, until they bathe.
  • Four feeders - platform, finch, suet, and hanging.
  • Bugs galore to eat.
  • Fresh showers from the Jackson Aqueduct


Modern Marvels - The Jackson Aerial Aqueduct
Soaker-hoses are a good way to water with relatively little waste. I have two outdoor faucets, one in the front and one in the backyard. I use splitters to run two soaker hoses from each faucet, plus one traditional, pesky, kink-prone hose.

Most of the watering is done by turning the water on and switching hoses by a complex system of levers that only I can understand. A special touch is the the soaker-hose run on top of  the fence on Mrs. Wright's side. The birds can get a shower this way, which is especially appealing to hummingbirds.

In the dry weather especially, the birdbaths get brown-green from the algae, dirt, and fertilizer which is dumped on grateful plants nearby.

The front soaker-hoses run under the mulch in the rose garden. I no longer know exactly how they run, but the slanted yard sends excess down to the maple tree garden.

In the backyard, ceramic pans for plants catch the soaker hose water, which also cleans them. The ceramic pans provide additional water sources for birds - but especially for toads hydrating in shallow water.


Battling the Poison Hemlock - The Umbrella Flowers of the Carrot Family

All the carrot family flowers are umbrella-like,
but the flowers vary in color and arrangement.
Beneficial insects love all the tiny flowers.

Dill smells exactly like dill pickles.


Almost Eden and his dog Opie were outside when Sassy and I walked over. I wanted to check out the carrot family weeds on his berm, which is a lab for anything goes plants. He got the topsoil free from a construction site. They messed up their scraping of the soil and could not process it for sale. He gladly took it. Topsoil disturbed will expose past weed seeds and welcome new ones planted by the wind and the birds.

One cluster like mine was definitely Queen Anne's Lace. As I learned yesterday from the Net, "Queen Anne has hairy legs." Once I saw the hairy stems, I looked more closely at the flower, which definitely had the spot of "blood" in the middle. Unlike her cousins, Queen Anne decided to have a fake bug painted into the compound flower, to encourage pollination.

People sometimes rave against evolution, but evolution must use the language of Intelligent Design, yea even Creation, to explain what goes on in plants. Every feature has a purpose, and purpose requires design and Creation.

My interest is not only the marvel of Creation by the Word itself, but the perfectly inter-related engineering of each feature and the continuous management of plants and animals.

Some members of the carrot family contribute directly to gardening:
Carrots
Parsley
Fennel
Anise.

David - The Death of Socrates
Hemlock has distinct purple blotches or streaks near its base.

Queen Anne's Lace is disparaged as a weed known for "truck parking lots," as Jessica Walliser writes. Poison Hemlock is the plant that killed Socrates, when he was given a death sentence and forced to drink it.

Almost Eden pointed out that toxic plants are not so bad since we no longer go out and eat whatever we find in the forest. He said, "Just don't eat it."

Even so, I saw the Poison Hemlock having the potential for many more family members to follow. Growing unbidden in the former sweet corn garden, the plants grew in a cluster, with a cluster of flowers, each complex flower having hundreds of seeds. The opportunistic weed took advantage of the sun and reached 8 feet in height. The Hemlock also had mulch to feed the soil population and extra watering from the blueberries I planted. The greed! The avarice!

I used hedge-clippers to cut the plant at the base and chop it up within the garbage can. I react more to cutting roses, since my skin burns and tingles from rose pollen.

I had another suspect plant along the fence, so I looked for distinctions within the carrot family. This one was not quite in bloom, but had hairy legs. Aha. Next I rolled a leaf to get its aroma - definitely carroty. I will leave the Queen Anne's Lace growing alone the fence, because I like the plant and its attraction to beneficial insects.

Poison Hemlock is supposed to smell mousy but I never detected an odor there.

The "spot of dried blood" identifies Queen Anne's Lace,
so we do not have to mention her hairy legs.


Dill smells dill pickly and fennel gives off a licorice aroma. Anise has the fragrance of black licorice.