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| Karl Barth, this is your girlfriend. |
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| This is your girlfriend decades later. |
One can look back a little in the various sect histories and see the marks of that Pietism, holding revivals, opposing the liturgy, creating law that makes sanctification proof of justification and even the cause of justification (Hoenecke). For example, Augustana College banned all card playing in the1900s and dancing on the campus property was hotly debated after WWII.
Because Pietism looks for outward signs of sanctification, some of these are often the marks of the movement:
- No dancing;
- No cards;
- No movies or theater;
- No alcohol, not even for communion;
- Communion is rare, three times a year;
- Cell groups are essential and often considered the Real Church;
- "I worship Jesus, not Luther;"
- The Book of Concord is irrelevant and out of date;
- Revivals are good.
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| Cheer up. Missouri would love to be shrinking at our rate. |
If people have a good grasp of the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace, they see a weak foundation for the Christian Faith. That is why Pietism always turns into Rationalism and finally into Atheism.
The children of Pietism are taught the outward signs of fidelity, or at least to provide good optics about the outward signs. Thus a dry town will have alcohol delivered by taxi, even though the village is too small to support a taxi company for travel.
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| WELS exVP Wayne Mueller - "There is no Church Growth in WELS." And no cross-dressing, either? |
Those ELCA-ELS-WELS-LCMS clergy who went to Fuller Seminary: they should have run away screaming. Clergy in those sects should have denounced and repudiated Church Growth, but UOJ's nonsense made them weak and defenseless.
Besides, many reasoned, "This is a good way to get a better job. I can sift out the gold dust from that there California goldmine."
Faith trusts in the Word of God, which conveys Christ to us. But human reason looks for cause and effect.
"Our sect is shrinking, but so is the Masonic Lodge." This hilarious excuse was voiced by Paul Calvin Kelm, the ultimate WELS rationalist.
"We are losing members, but Missouri is losing them twice as fast." SP Mark Schroeder
Pietism may be indifferent toward the strength of Biblical Lutheran doctrine, but rationalism is furiously opposed to the Means of Grace. I have been reading the headings of Luther's Sermons, volume 8, and those category headings alone send the rationalists empty away.
Next time a synod windbag opens his mouth about conditions in hi sect, see how much of his message is rationalism.
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| The irony award goes to... |
