The clergy have many opportunities to deal with doctrine, at the circuit, district, and synod level. Instead, they jockey for positions of influence.
LutherQueasy has endless posts on the convention, little else.
When ELCA was being formed, most of the resolutions were about keeping the LCA pension requirement as high as it was, instead of adopting a percentage like The ALC's. Lawyers conducted the district by district votes on final approval of the whole debacle. Quotas were applied to every position. That quota system included the fresh, new idea of having non-Lutherans in key positions while removing most of the power from bishops. Result? - Bishop Liz Eaton cheerfully denies all the articles of the Christian Faith. Of course, massive losses followed those victories.
The laity are the only hope for Lutherdom at this point. They are the most loyal to the Scriptures and far better read than the clergy. The pastors, professors, and hierarchy are superficially exposed to the Word by virtue of their duties, but hardened and blinded by persistently rejecting the meaning of the Scriptures.
A good example of doctrinal idiocy is the recent rant by Team Cascione, which includes a WELS pastor who cannot spell his boss's name. A book examines the content and offers a fair account of the book's content. Disagreeing is plenty of fun, but that means comparing the book's actual argument to other opinions, especially the reviewer. David Becker did a little of that and someone harshly complained, but he did not go into detail. The fact of LCMS being Justification by Faith in its official publications - and proving it with documents - that is a big deal. Someone proved that, and I omitted the name, because the OJ Hive is so nasty and vindictive.
Cascione, who modestly calls himself Cardinal, did not review The Path To Understanding Justification. He simply dragged out the standard, vacuous OJ arguments in a confused, disorderly manner, replete with Straw Man logical fallacies. Confidential to Nadler - repeating Cascione's disorganized opinions will only make them more odious to those who have faith.
The laity are the key to the future of Biblical, Lutheran doctrine because they are not damaged by seminary professors like David Scaer. Can the clergy honestly agree with this?
First of all, let us not lose sight of the principle on which the whole battle of the Reformation was fought and the Augsburg Confession as brought into being. The Word of God as given us in the Holy Scriptures is the only source of our knowledge of the truth unto salvation and the only judge of controversies arising among men in regard to that truth. From this alone articles of faith can be derived. What this declares must be received; what conflicts with this must be rejected.
The Church can recognize no authority but that of God, and no revelation of His will unto man’s salvation but Holy Scripture. From this no appeal to any other authority can be allowed. If any person or church will not recognize this sovereign authority, the difference in principle is such as to render all discussion of differences in doctrine useless.
From Loy, Matthias. The Augsburg confession: An Introduction To Its Study And An Exposition Of Its Contents Columbus, Ohio: Lutheran Book Concern, 1908.The persecutors do not come from the Vatican and burn the martyrs - they come from synod and district headquarters, the publication houses, and the seminaries.
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| EHV also means Extra High Voltage. No one is getting a power surge from the NIV. |
Mordor forced the New NIV on the already half-blind WELS. Someone told me that the home-brew EHV is already replacing the NIV, which has already become the official version under Mirthless Mark Schroeder. The world needed another Bible?
I have put my tentative Yo! The Surfer Dude Living Paraphrase on hold, for now. It will be online only, because the words will change every week. To accomplish that, Yo! will stop working when it needs an upgrade, and the upgrade will cost.
