ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Not everyone is thrilled with Higher Things, which was UOJ from the start. Tis predestined - UOJ leads to total doctrinal apostasy, hedonism, and using the Gospel for a pillow to fall asleep on.
"In light of these facts, what purpose could further discussion hold? And so at the end of March 2016 I sent an email to Pastor Borghardt in which I expressed that I was giving up on Higher Things. I would no longer try to alert him to the problem because it was obviously an impossible task. His continuing commitment to Donovan Riley's ever growing involvement and influence in Higher Things was proof positive that this was so.
That doesn't mean I ceased to be concerned about this problem in modern Lutheranism. The former LCMS seminary professor Chad Bird is another active contributor to Christ Hold Fast. He and Donovan Riley share the same extreme soft antinomian theology. In December 2016 I wrote A Response to Chad Bird's "Gospel Phobia." In this piece I stated very carefully the biblical and Confessional teaching about the Law and exhortation in preaching. This arose out of work that I did for presentations at the National LCMS Stewardship Seminar in 2014 and the Michigan Confessional Lutheran group in 2015. I cannot explain it more clearly than I have done here. If a person believes something else or wants to practice in a different way, then we simply don't believe the same thing and I can't do anything about it."
Chad Bird represents the LCMS clergy who violate their ordination and marriage vows, yet want to teach everyone their wisdom. Floyd Luther Stolzenburg took his little circus to the ELS and WELS.
I told Little Ichabod that we just finished John 9 in the Greek class - one chapter in one lesson. He said, "That is such a funny chapter."
LutherQuest thinks their divinely-appointed roll in life is to quench Justification by Faith - by shunning, expulsion, and false witness. They refuse to acknowledge what they oppose - Justification by Faith - and instead call their nemesis "teaching against Objective Justification."
There is a certain level of comedy involved in following the scripts, lives, and legends of false teachers - Johnnie One-Notes all. Can you picture Rolf and his clan fitting into this song?
I recall James Heiser recoiling in shock when he realized Balmer "rejected Objective Justification," spoken like a true Ft. Wayne graduate. Later, Heiser saw the light when he read Thy Strong Word, but managed to suppress those thoughts for years while working with the Rolf Preus Synod. Heiser's one note is being bishop, so pivoting from OJ to Justification by Faith was easy for him.
The song fits the pretend Lutherans who cannot discuss the efficacy of the Word, which destroys their dogma, or the Means of Grace, which has the same effect. They cannot discuss anything beyond their Chinese fortune cookie quips - "Raised for our justification!" - as Rolfie One-Note likes to spit out, a symptom of Pietism's Tourette's Syndrome.
The plot of John 9 is easy to follow, a very long miracle with many lessons embedded. Jesus noticed a man born blind, so He spit and anointed the man's eyes with a mixture of clay and spit. Jesus sent the man to wash his eyes in the Pool of Siloam, which means Sent.
The neighbors are divided, because this man was a blind beggar. They hauled him to the Pharisees, who interrogated him (cue the synodical doctrine commission). The Pharisees were frustrated with the man's witness, so they called the man's parents, who were coy, but said Matthew 18-wise, "He's of age, ask him."
This is really the Keystone Cops chapter because the blind Pharisees refused to see the miracle or acknowledge the truth of the man born blind. They kept falling over themselves trying to get the answer they wanted.
John 9:24 Then again called they the man that was blind, and said unto him, Give God the praise: we know that this man is a sinner.
25 He answered and said, Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.
26 Then said they to him again, What did he to thee? how opened he thine eyes?
27 He answered them, I have told you already, and ye did not hear: wherefore would ye hear it again? will ye also be his disciples?
28 Then they reviled him, and said, Thou art his disciple; but we are Moses' disciples. (GJ - Walther's disciples)
29 We know that God spake unto Moses: as for this fellow, we know not from whence he is.
30 The man answered and said unto them, Why herein is a marvellous thing, that ye know not from whence he is, and yet he hath opened mine eyes.
31 Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.
32 Since the world began was it not heard that any man opened the eyes of one that was born blind.
33 If this man were not of God, he could do nothing.
34 They answered and said unto him, Thou wast altogether born in sins, and dost thou teach us? And they cast him out.
People will continue to pass synodical stories to me, and they are easy to post and to back up with the evidence. Many want me to do their work for them, or at least to watch as the leaders smolder over how to suppress the results of their incompetence and corruption.
But the real task ahead is teaching Biblical doctrine. The Lutheran seminaries have failed completely in carrying out this basic, fundamental work. That is why the seminaries and synods are drying up faster than a puddle in Phoenix.
WELS says, "We will create our own translation!" and they plagiarize the NIV.
The LCMS says, "We like the ESV better!" when the senior editor is a famed Calvinist. But they have always stuck to Calvinism the way lint sticks to Velcro. Stephan got his UOJ from Calvinistic Pietism, and Walther, the ultimate plagiarist, got his false doctrine from Stephan. Like the Israelites, he was not ashamed to spoil the Pietist, taking gold, books, jeweled chalice, land, and doctrine from the barely educated Bohemian weaver.
"I should have studied the New Testament as much as I studied the Packers' history," said no WELS pastor ever.
Should a pastor who is deposed for preaching against objective justification or practicing open communion be permitted to return as a LCMS pastor if he repents and promises to preach objective justification and practice closed communion?
Talk about a hypothetical! How many times has a pastor been deposed for preaching against objective justification and practicing open Communion in the LCMS? Although, the WELS did throw out a guy who denied objective justification. He went to ELDoNA and ELDoNA quickly adopted his error as their own.
So here is what I suggest. If a guy is deposed for preaching against objective justification and he repents and promises never to do it again, he should, as penance, be required to spend, say, two hours a day for a month visiting with the "bishop" of ELDoNA, trying to persuade him to return to the orthodox Lutheran position on this.
Two Ft. Wayne pastors walked together in UOJ: Heiser and Rolf Preus. Heiser clearly thought UOJ was an adiaphoron, and Rolf imagined Heiser was sincere. Rolf has agreed with Justification by Faith, in moments of weakness, but he always returns to his obsession with UOJ.
Ft. Wayne graduates and Lutheran popes - read this out loud, slowly. Again? What is the Chief Article of the Christian Church?
