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| This Luther quotation is at once the best critique of UOJ and the Church Growth Movement. Jay Webber, a Ft. Wayner, failed to cite it in his monstrous paper. |
One time, ELS Pastor Kincaid Smith and another ELS pastor phoned our place. They would not identify themselves or speak to Chris, although she knew them quite well. Later, they got me on the line and Kincaid began working me over. One of his choice remarks was this, "I was just telling another pastor - Jackson has no credibility."
I responded, "Then why are two ELS pastors phoning together, long distance, if I have no credibility? There are lots of people I never call, because what they say makes no difference to me."
Kincaid was caught completely off-guard when I told them that I defended the ELS all the time. Those of you with photographic memories may recall that he reviewed Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure, and commended it to others to read. He admitted in that review that my criticism of Church Growth made him angry. But he also allowed it was valid.
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| What did they have in common? Heiser and Rolf Preus graduated from Ft. Wayne. |
SpenerQuest Ugliness Reminds Me of the ELDONUTs
The ELDONUTs are 93% Fort Wayne graduates and hold themselves as vastly superior to St. Louis seminary grads. That is funny, since Ft. Wayne has lower Biblical language requirements. Maybe St. Louis has caught up. Graduates of The Fort, as they call it, are overly impressed with their Bachelor of Divinity degrees, whose merit would be proven if they knew Lutheran doctrine.
Heiser has his minions pass around blatantly false stories, including one which includes someone with no beef against him or his sect. The synods work the same way. Kincaid Smith (above) howled that the synod officials claimed he had brain cancer. Later he was the official hatchet man for the ELS against Rolf Preus, as I recall. If someone joins a small enough sect, he can be a dean and a professor at the one-student seminary.
I have always wondered about the harshness, the yelling, the angry claims of many LCMS pastors. However, that does not mean they are all bad. Most of my clergy friends - and they are legion - belong to the LCMS. Universal Objective Justification is the reason that graduates of The Fort are narrow-minded bigots who feel no need to progress beyond David Scaer's shouted talking points.
Normally, graduates of a school buy and read the books written by their professors. That may not be 100%, but the habit is common and understandable. But the self-preening Ft. Wayne graduates have not read or understood Justification and Rome by Dr. Robert Preus. Perhaps they think the book is Just a Vacation in Rome. They want to argue their precious UOJ without any hint that he just might have left some antidotes to that thinking. The quotes I have used and illustrated from the Preus book suggest that Calov, Quensted, etc were responding to and criticizing some form of UOJ.
The SpenerQuesters remind me of Gollum complaining about the elvish rope. "It burns. It freezes. It hurtses us." Gollum so identified with the The Ring that he spoke in the first person plural. So the UOJ Stormtroopers react in much the same way - the Chief Article burns, freezes, and hurts them. They identify completely with a dogma from
- Samuel Huber, a Calvinist;
- Halle Pietism, such as Rambach's;
- The OJ and SJ of a Calvinist translator of Halle lectures!
When Babtists and Pentecostals hear infant baptism mentioned, they become angry and leave the room in a huff, because this Biblical doctrine and practice is something they cannot abide for a moment. I mentioned this anti-Sacrament view to an LCMS woman and she looked peeved. Later, when she brought it up in her cell group, supposedly Lutheran, the leader said, "We will not even talk about it." The previously irritated woman came back to me to say I was right about cell groups turning anti-Sacramental, which like UOJ is one of the "strengths" of Pietism.
PS - Acolite John repented of his previous libel and returned to double-down. The problem is Jack Cascione's, because he and AJ must prove those statements are correct.
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| SpenerQuest - weighed in the balances and found very lite. |
