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| If the great and wise among the Big Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) would read, mark, learn and inwardly digest this, they would end their siege against the Chief Article, Justification by Faith. |
America thinks history concerns what happened a few years ago. Let me fill you in on The Social Gospel Movement, which owns the better part of all denominations. I was looking for a dissertation topic when a kindly librarian at Wittenberg College gave me someone to study and a box full of books on the topic of the Social Gospel Movement.
A few men gathered to form the Brotherhood of the Kingdom. At that time, Kingdom was a special word for them, not unlike Growth! is for today's Church Shrinkage Movement. Walter Rauschenbusch was one of the Brotherhood leaders. He was one of the liberal Baptists, very popular among the liberal Protestants. His famous Yale lecture on "The Social Gospel" was a reworking of the Gospel itself - many parallels with the obnoxious Church Growth Movement. The articles of Christianity are simply there to be used for the benefit of the Movement.
The Social Gospel Movement was far to the Left from the beginning. Using the Biblical terms, it was dedicated to changing the meaning of all of them. They wanted the federal government to pass more regulations and the churches to support everything, actually to be lobbyists for all those causes.
President Franklin Roosevelt was very busy in controlling everything and passing would-be-good federal regulations that suffocate us to this day, because they never stop smothering and devouring.
If you run across a Lutheran praising Rauschenbusch, you have identified another Social Gospeler. Their agenda is Socialism or worse, their doctrine is modern Unitarianism at its "best." I have been invited to Unitarian-Universalist congregations to teach twice - not that I would go. They now have a very long radical activist creed that must be obeyed to join. I said, "Thank you, but we have nothing in common."
Readers should be concerned that their Church Growth icons are also radical leftists. The modern Social Gospelers want the Growthers to be lax in doctrine and ruthless in carrying out a caring program of improvement - more like Jane Fonda, a lot less like Luther. The Social Gospelers want everyone to feel guilty about everything, but that is not enough. The complete agenda must be fulfilled so they can add more items.
Do you really think the LCMS and WELS have pushed back the Social Gospel and worse to come? If they have any connection with the Federal Student Loan business, they are sworn to accept and support homosexuals, lesbians, and combinations thereof. How are they different from ELCA?
As I have said before, one WELS pastor almost cried when he heard that our District Pope was on an ELCA board for sending things overseas. I have to prove to another, chapter and verse, how WELS was giving money ($5,000) to the United Nations!
When I could search synodical gift funds through an Internet program (no longer allowed for free), I could see how ice cream money was given to LCMS and WELS and shuffled around so that outsiders did not know where it finally arrived. While they were kicking out a pastor for teaching Justification by Faith, they were also praising and protecting a man who gave them tons of money. They were furious that I had part of the truth printed in Christian News. The whole truth was even worse.
The peewee synods (ELS and CLC) like to posture as so far beyond the LCMS and WELS, but they are also proponents of nest-feathering and shock at how bad the other synods are. Former members have a lot they can tell, and current members keep their silence.
