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| No wonder the right people hate Loehe. His resume was nothing compared to Walther's. CFW even got the Ft. Wayne campus for free and asked Loehe for continued financial support. |
Pietism has some variations. For instance, Swedish Pietists were against alcoholic beverages because one of their leaders crusaded (for good reason) against the alcoholism in Sweden. German Pietists never had a place for the Temperance Movement or anti-alcohol stances.
Pietism is more often defined more easily by what people do than by what people believe and teach. Many practices of Pietism are concerned with future implications. All card-playing was condemned as leading to gambling, so possessing cards was enough to get someone expelled from our Swedish Lutheran college, Augustana, many years ago. Dancing was also forbidden on the campus until after WWII.
The "conservative" Lutheran groups are easily defined by their degrees of Pietism, legalism, and Pharisaical works-righteousness. All the 19th century Lutheran groups came from Pietism, from the General Synod to the Wisconsin Synod. Alcoholic Pietists are still Pietists but the WELS pastors said they were drinking beer "as a witness to the Pietists."
One pastor of the Church of the Lutheran Confessions (sic) said, glaring at me, "Every single member of my family, 105 of them, is a member of the CLC!" I was tempted to ask, "Are they all Pharisees like you?" Justification by works? - indeed.
WELS was telling members not to pray with any other group, because that was prayer fellowship. That is more dangerous than playing Old Maid or square dancing - not just the implication but the very act of unionism.
I look at it from the perspective of doctrine. Why would I want to worship with Methodists, Presbyterians, ELCA or the pan-synodical Church Shrinkers?
But the Pietists - they can be fun. Often the stricter (more legalistic) Swedish Lutherans separated from the Augustana Synod and devoted sermons to how loose Augustana was. Of course, Augustana fired back. One old Augustana pastor smoked a cigar at the church supper after he preached as a guest. The young pastor asked him, "Why do you, a pastor, smoke?" He answered, "To give young whipper-snappers like you something to preach about, since you don't know the Gospel."
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| The great and wise defend the double Justification of this Calvinist translator and his esteemed Halle Pietist theologian - and I am the bad guy? |
CLC (sic)
The CLC (sic) clergy were supposedly against the Lutheran insurance companies, but they excommunicated a pastor who pointed out they did not follow their own rules. The same sect got very bothered about people belonging to military social clubs, since they were churches, yes churches. They have "chaplains" at their local groups and help in honoring veterans who have passed away. But the laughable CLC (sic) jumped onto the self-love bandwagon, long after Robert Schuller wrote a book on it, called Self-Esteem, The New Reformation. The eructations from that new Reformation have not ended.
The CLC SP (sect president) wrote me a stern rebuke, saying "You have shown contempt for our synod resolutions." I defended myself to one and all, saying, "No, I was doing my best to hide it."
LCMS
The LCMS started with Loehe Pietists and Stephan Pietists. The Loehe group invited the Perryville sex cult to talk with them and they began moving toward cooperation. The Stephanites modestly called the group The Missouri Synod after themselves and made themselves the founders, lords, and masters. Even today, Loehe loyalists are de facto bad, dangerous, and harmful within the LCMS, according to the Stephan loyalists, who venerate Walther.
Walther's Calvinistic Election without Faith
Walther concocted a thinly veiled version of Calvin's double-predestination, disguising it as glorifying God's grace. I know this is difficult, because it is preposterous and anti-Scripture. By defining faith as a work of man, eliminating faith from justification and election meant that he, the Great Walther, gloried God more than anyone else.
From a doctrinal comparison, that made the LCMS no different from Calvinism, where faith and the Means of Grace have nothing to do with forgiveness and salvation. Little baby Calvinists are born with the covenant of grace, just as little baby Missourians (Edward Preuss, Jack Cascione, Paul McCain) are born already forgiven.
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| "Justified before we were even born!" - and McCain is allowed to edit Lutheran books?! |
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| "This is not the justification which we receive by faith..." And he is on a quest for Luther? Show me proof of any influence of Luther upon the gang that hangs out at that seedy, little, bumptious discussion group. |
Effect One - The adherents become indifferent to Christian, Biblical doctrine and increasingly rationalistic. ELCA's history includes many, fine Lutheran Biblical teachers - including Lenski, Krauth, Schmauk, Jacobs, and Passavant - no longer remembered or honored.
Effect Two
The modern Pietists measure everyone by his degree of social activism. Excommunication follows a refusal to endorse every single social justice campaign. From "You call yourself a Christian and yet you play cards?" they move to "You use plastic?"
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| Jack Preus, Robert Marshall, and David Preus taught Justification without Faith. Their sects have agreed - why be separate when we agree on doctrine? |
