A number of people have responded to the Daily Luther Sermon Quote. They look forward to it, as much as I do. Here is a little history:
- I began going through the eight-volume Luther Sermons (Lenker), marking the best quotes, then putting them into Megatron, my DOS database. Christina helped by marking the best quotations with some of her wry comments about synods. Typing the quotes in and correcting them made me much more familiar with Luther.
- Much later, I found a crude set of those sermons published on the Internet, so I copied them into Ichabod.
- When the synods began to mock the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, I decided to put the Lenker edition into print. I had a lot of help with editing and graphics (Norma A. Boeckler, artwork; Virginia Roberts, editing; Terry Howell, editing; and some other helpers).
- I almost always post the appropriate Luther sermon with the sermon for the week.
- Luther is a much better writer, so I decided to cull quotations from the sermons, not quips with no citations, but at least a paragraph or two, almost every day.
- I enjoy reading Luther each morning and using the Norma A. Boeckler artwork plus a few works of classic artists.
- There are good reasons to know Luther's sermons, which a Roman Catholic nun praised when we were in the same program at Notre Dame, almost 50 years ago. "How can a man from 500 years ago speak to me - a nun -today?" I answered, "Because he is explained the Word of God, which never changes."
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| The great Karl Barth and his Marxist cupcake. |
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| "I am not a cupcake. I am the main writer for this bum's systematics. His work will stop when I die." And it did! And he finally dedicated a volume to his wife, what's her name. Nelly, I think. |
Deadly Systematics
Systematics are a deadly disease, going back to Augustine, a real windbag. It got worse with Aquinas, who did his best to re-invent Aristotle.
The German Reformation did not produce systematics, but the Zwingli-Calvinists did their best to crank them out. Unfortunately, the post-Reformation Lutherans fell into that style in answering the Zwingli-Calvinists, which led into an attitude of sacred awe toward anyone who produced a set. After Chemnitz and Gerhard, who were not dogmaticians, there is not much to enjoy. I suppose that is why Walther picked Baier as his back-up, because it was much farther from Luther. Does anyone study Baier today? Walther was not only a criminal leader of a cult, but also a prolific theological tyrant, kidnapper, and grand larceny thief.
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| Knapp's Calvinist-Pietist translator thought up the two justifications - objective and subjective - and Walther liked them, one heretic following another. |
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| Always look for the crooked smile. The camera does not lie, but synod leaders do. David Preus was the most malleable Preus and also lived the longest of the three - David, Jack, and Robert. |
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| Walther, the control freak, made sure that Pieper took over after him. |
Walther plucked Francis Pieper from the Wisconsin Synod, which began its work in Lutheran-Calvinism, a fact unknown to Spineless Schroeder today. Pieper cleverly merged Walther's bombastic fantasies with Lutheran terminology.
Dogmatics became popular in the 20th century, because some academics wanted to merge Christian vocabulary with their invented philosophies. Karl Barth was a Marxist who installed his young female assistant in his own home, though he was married with children. Paul Tillich was a seriously disturbed philosopher who used his students' wives and anyone else available, as described by his wife.
Two Courtesans and the Evangelist
For the sake of simplicity, out of an abundance of editing, I place the Church into three categories.
- Rome with tag-along Eastern Orthodoxy
- Calvinism and its rationalistic baggage
- Luther
Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy have seduced the entire Protestant world (especially the so-called Lutherans) into their corporate structure. If the Lutheran synods would examine themselves, they would agree that everything they do in their organizational structure, false doctrine, and criminal abuse is learned from Rome.
Calvinist is the simplest way to describe the rationalists who use the terms but do not believe the meaning of those words. Their "Easter faith of the disciples" means that the Apostles imagined Jesus rose from the dead, so the Twelve promoted faith as something never experienced, except in their hearts. Calvinism is an all-purpose courtesan that goes well with Marxist activism and Peter Drucker sales mechanics. All the modern Bibles - especially the Beck Bible - are Calvinist. Deal with it. Their answer to - You don't agree with Evolution and deny Creation, do you? - is YES!
Luther
Martin Luther is the label for those pastors and laity who make the Scriptures their foundation for faith and salvation. The Reformation swept over German and Europe on the strength of Biblical exposition, simply teaching the Bible. That was accomplished by Luther, his circle of Scriptural scholars, and the next generation or two.
Those who agree with Luther's teaching belong to the work of the Holy Spirit in the Word and Sacraments. They ex-communicate with those who play kissy-face with Rome, rationalism, and other spiritual maladies.
