Works Righteousness - Pietism and All That - From 2013

The CORE (www.gotocore.com)

11 hours ago

• Sunday's Take-Away: How successful have you been this week following Jesus' example of what it is to be a "servant"?

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rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Leading People Down the Path of Works-Righteousnes...":

A generation ago, we still heard much admonition against falling prey to works righteousness. The Theology of Glory and Works Righteousness go hand in hand. The end result is that one starts tooting their own horn. A broken and a contrite heart O God, thou wilt not despise. The word contrition has fallen out of vogue in today's so called Christianity. Yet, Luther used the word contrition in his Small Catechism.

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narrow-minded has left a new comment on your post "Leading People Down the Path of Works-Righteousnes...":

Thank you for this great post. I can attest to the fact that Pietism leads to failure. Having grown up Methodist, I gave up on Christ in my late-teens and through my twenties. Jesus was just an example. "Be like David," I was taught. The Bible, especially the OT, was treated as the Life Handbook, with nary a mention of the Promise. So, I want to be a murderous adulterer, like David? I was never taught to look at David's Faith in the Promise.

I recently read that Wesley looked to Constantinople for much of his theology, and it's true. I know one EO priest who came from Methodism, and it's an easy transition. Methodism is just EO without the bells, smells, and intense Mariology.

It amazes me how the Pietists seem to fall the hardest. While I am a miserable failure on my best day, the Pietists seem to succumb to sin worse than anyone, especially in the department of keeping the pants zipped. Look at Martin Stephan. Look at the televangelists.

Any "good" we do apart from Faith is considered sin. If the tree is sick, it will bear no fruit. It is sad, given the great gift the Lutheran Fathers gave us, that the SynCons have thrown away JBFA. Perhaps this is why UOJ is the mainstay today, because Pietists eventually come to the realization that their works are like filthy rags. If we despair of our sin without Faith, Universalism is the only hope.

Praise to the Triune God for the Gift of Faith!

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GJ - Hoenecke has the key distinction. He could put an entire essay into one sentence - The Pietists confuse sanctification with justification and make the first the cause of the second.

There are only two justifications. One excludes the other. Justification by works is the most popular, not only excluding but persecuting justification by faith. Since this tree is evil, it can only produce corrupt fruit.

Justification by faith excludes all human works as a cause for our forgiveness. Justification by faith necessarily leads to those fruits which the Pietists urge upon everyone but cannot produce from their works-righteousness. Faith makes the tree good, as Luther reminds us, and so the good tree produces abundant fruit.

My two friends from high school were ordered not to smoke and threatened by their parents if they smoked. My classmates were Methodists, and they became cigarette addicts. Law motivation energizes a rebellion and clearly defines how adolescents can make parents go crazy.

Universal Objective Justification is Pietistic gasoline poured on the fire. UOJ only knows the law, since faith has been excluded. Therefore, the law-encased sinner becomes Antinomian when told he was born forgiven and saved, end of story, period (DP Jon-Boy Buchholz). Confused and illiterate in Biblical theology, he is taught to make a decision for UOJ to be forgiven personally - as opposed to globally. That obliterates any understanding of the Means of Grace.

Bragging about Works - Typical Corrupt Fruit

The worst problem manifests itself in bragging about "sharing Jesus.'

Tim Glende defines himself as: Passionate about sharing Jesus in the Valley. Hard worker.

Ski made his personal mission statement (repeated in many places) -

"Our church’s mission statement downtown is this... The Core exists to transform lives for Jesus through faith that is real, relevant and relational.  My personal mission statement is this, because I’ve developed my own... From every pore of my body, I will ooze Jesus Christ so that in this world, as I brush up against people, my sweaty, oozy Jesus will get all over them!  Every day he gives you opportunities.  Every day!"

And it is still on the websty of the church where Gausewitz' father preached.

If Ski is looking for work, even though DP Doug promised his return to The CORE, 
he could always work at Am Oozing Love Church, also endorsed by WELS with a big fat grant and absolution for plagiarizing just about everyone.

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LPC has left a new comment on your post "Comments on Works-Righteousness. Luther Said Peopl...":

If we despair of our sin without Faith, Universalism is the only hope

What a true observation!

LPC

As an Unnamed Source Said, "The Bishop Became a Pope."

Zion on the Mississippi - not a hagiography.
LutherQueasy - "Walther answers all questions."

 The Weaver Messiah set the stage for Pope Walther, an interesting parallel with the short-lived LCS, which morphed into ELDONA.

Let us meditate on the meaning of the first graphic, created many years ago. The words of Walter Forster ring true, thanks to additional information from the Stephan family and the behavior of the myth-protectors.

Just as Stephan insisted on controlling everything and every body, Walther happened to become the seminary president, dogmatics professor, the synod president, the magazine and book publisher.

If Walther could not get his way, he changed the rules, which is how he maneuvered F. Pieper into replacing him as dogmatics professor. Ludwig Fuerbringer wrote frankly about his uncle Ferdy doing this.

Walther, like his emulator Heiser, trashed anyone who might be a threat to his papacy. CFW was a multiple felon - threatening violence, stealing, and kidnapping at least three people. The professor, F. A. Schmidt, who questioned Walther's Objective Justification was condemned for his motives - does that sound like the Eighth Commandment?

Walther blamed Mrs. Stephan for her husband's promiscuity, apparently anxious to make the bishop a sympathetic figure when that suited His Holiness. A pastor faithful to his call might have said that the bishop -

• leaving his wife and sick children behind, 
• traveling to America with his mistress on the same ship, and
• moving his mistress into the same lodging in St. Louis - 

created the disharmony, especially when Stephan's wife begged for reconciliation. But no, the mistress reported that Bishop Stephan not only controlled the souls of the members, but also their bodies.

Walther did not want any of the early history of the sect published, and he largely got his way. When Forster published a massive and detailed history of the Stephanite migration, it was condemned as the bitter work of a disgruntled LCMS pastor. Eighth Commandment?

When a member of the Stephan family wrote a memoir of the family, exposing many of the lies in the LCMS mythology, he was condemned for not being a professional historian and not publishing the first name of Walther's initial Pietism guru!

As an example of minor matters, the author writes regarding the candidate who misled Walther into Pietism, “Kuhn is the only name given. No first name is given in any of the literature” (p. 68). But Stephan does not know the literature. In an article by August Suelflow from 1987, we find the name, “Johann Gottlieb Kuehn,” [note also the umlaut that Stephan missed]3 and in Suelflow’s biography of Walther, even more precisely, “H. Johann Gottlieb Kuehn.” [GJ - Schocking!]

From Magnus Sørensen - Some Important Notes from a Research Paper

The Justification of Christ as the Efficient Cause of Our Justification -The Narrow Lutheran Middle in the Controversy on Universal Objective Justification

Magnus Sørensen


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GJ -

The linked paper is from a European pastor who has left the corrupted and corrupting bosom of Objective Justification. As you can tell from reading the entire paper, he was still suffering from the effects of picking the best position among the Synodical Conference writers. Therefore, the conclusion is muddled. The Word of God judges all human publications, so we have to start there, at the source. 

I picked out a few highlights that are so obvious to those who actually do research, and quite valuable in showing that Pietism was indeed the error that led Stephan, Walther, and the Synodical Conference into Objective Justification. The paper also reveals Robert Preus supporting Justification by Faith from Romans 4:5 at an early stage, before his gig as one of the Righteous Brothers (Jack and Robert).

His paper showed how Moravian Pietists taught Objective Justification, how the Easter absolution of the world (without faith) was basic to this view.

What was Bishop Martin Stephan? Answer - a Moravian Pietist.

His church was actually on ground donated by Zinzendorf (Moravian Pietist) and his congregation was Moravian Pietist - as Stephan was. They were allowed to have Pietistic cell groups (loved by all Church Shrinkers) on their church grounds, though Stephan used other places to cloak his many adulteries with young women. Walther confessed that he learned Justification from Stephan, and the OJ Walther Fan Club proclaims Walther never wandered from that position (Robert Preus festschrift).
The research show, therefore, that there are only two sources for Objective Justification. One is Calvinism, as Samuel Huber revealed before being kicked out of Wittenberg.

The other source is Pietism, as shown by this paper - especially by Stephan's Movavian Pietism that brought the cult to America.

Dr. Lito Cruz - Math PhD and Certified Lutheran Pastor - On CFW Walther

Dr. Lito Cruz

These quotes are taken from the work of the Rev. Dr. Karl Edwin Kuenzel.

I blogged about this in here

The fanatical adoration of CF W Walther in American Lutheranism is astoundingly cultic already, so here are the results of Dr. Kunzel's evaluation:

Walther was a tremendous leader, a dynamic preacher, a powerful lecturer, and a remarkable writer. However, lest we wind up worshipping the man, as many had done with Martin Stephan, and perhaps some do with Luther, we need to be mindful of some of Walther’s deficiencies.

Walther was legalistic when it came to the matters of usury, dancing and going to the theater, life insurance, running a tavern, in-law marriage (e.g., a man marrying the sister of his deceased wife), geographical parish boundaries, the local congregation, and the pastoral office. He often made his position as if it were Scripturally based and therefore God-given doctrine, when, in fact, he was going beyond what the Bible says and turning matters of casuistry into untenable doctrines.
....
Not only did Walther use terms that were readily misunderstood by others, but another cause for his naevi [faults], according to his student August Pieper, was that Walther depended too heavily on the secondary sources of theology, i.e., Luther and the lesser fathers. In spite of all his emphasis on Scripture, there can be no denying this. Although Walther was a great and a very talented leader, he was a poor, even an inferior exegete. He had only an average knowledge of the original biblical languages. Frequently he would cite dozens of Bible passages merely because Luther and the dogmaticians had done so. Yet these passages did not prove what they were supposed to prove. Although very eager to express himself on matters, he failed to recognize that his position was based on translations and not on the original text. Thus, he could say something as if it were doctrinally true, but without a firm scriptural basis. Overall, the knowledge of Scripture that Walther had was more an intimate acquaintance with Luther’s Bible and knowledge of certain passages rather than knowledge of the whole line of thought of a biblical book and of the original text.
Note: The conclusion is that he was a fantastic quoter but a poor and weak exegete who could not read the original Biblical text. As we can read, seems like he had an opinion about any spiritual matter, "eager to express himself on matters". There are plenty of these cultic types of people who can even quote Scripture from memory but when analyzed deeper, it is off.

How Dishonest Is Walther's Synodical Conference History? Answer - A Carefully Woven Basket of Lies

 A generous Schwan donation would allow the LCMS to turn this famous structure into their Basket of Lies Building.
Too late - a developer bought it.

Alec Satin asked about the dishonesty of LCMS history, which began with CFW Walther forbidding any early histories from being published.

Most of the truth is published in Zion on the Mississippi, but the hypnotized sheep and wolves repeat the slander that Zion was written "by a disgruntled LCMS pastor." The Stephan memoir - In Search of Religious Freedom - is illuminating but fails to disclose the big story - Bishop Stephan's syphilis, passing it onto his wife, his children, and the young women of his cult. The Walther circle "saw nothing" and said nothing until the opportune time, when they "suddenly heard" about the adultery and organized a mob to threaten, rob, and kidnap the bishop. Are they not the three steps of church discipline? After all, Walther was an expert in pastoral theology.

On the behavior side, the Perryville founders have nothing to boast about. They were felons who had the advantage of taking over an area from the Mormons and being their own law, telling their own stories, as they still do today. Their current historians point at the chest that held the bishop's gold, implying he needed robbing, but they do not admit to the carefully organized riot, the theft of 120 acres, the clothes, the books, and personal possessions seized.

 This Photoshop fake made people think the basket building was vandalized! They were furious. LCMS acts the same way when someone opens up their basket of lies.

Worst of all, Walther constructed a line of succession so that his false doctrine would be protected, taught, and marketed as the purest Christian doctrine ever. He made sure that F. Pieper, newly ordained, would replace him and replicate his style and dogma.

Walther took the Calvinist-Pietistic Easter absolution and expanded it into election without faith, denouncing anyone who did not agree with him. What qualified him as the theologian of the Synodical Conference? His rationalistic BA from Leipzig? His lack of Biblical languages? His publications from within his own sect?

Notice that the modern "conservative" Lutheran synods love to appoint the new, the inept, and the hopelessly compromised to positions of power. Thus they rise up as one to defend every error, to hide every felony, to rob the widows and orphans so they can paint a layer of gild on Holy Mother Sect. Amen.

Matt the Fatt Ordered Joshua Scheer To Cover Up an LCMS Scandal - And He Did. Some warning from the ELCA… and a great video from the Fort Wayne Symposia | Steadfast Lutherans

Steadfast Lutherans told the horrible story of Darwin Schauer placed in a congregation, only to offend again.

 Matt the Fatt ordered SL editor Joshua Scheer to erase all the evidence from SL, and he did. I preserved the story on Ichabod, which made Scheer grumpy.

 One of your LCMS pastors, Joshua?
Protected by Harrison, too?

 The caption is in the graphic below.
LCMS is still haunted by Walther and Stephan.

Love that cheesehat. A man of the sheeple,
always ready to entertain.

Some warning from the ELCA… and a great video from the Fort Wayne Symposia | Steadfast Lutherans:



"Posted on March 15, 2018 by Pastor Joshua Scheer
So in the heavily antinomian, reductionistic, Biblically uninformed “bound conscience” ELCA a couple recent things should be pointed out as warnings for those who have drank (sic) too deeply of their theology (or fathers) and methodology (largely listening to the culture instead of the Word)."



'via Blog this'

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GJ - LCMS cover up artists (like Herman Otten) are congratulating themselves for not being ELCA. Did someone spike their dranks, I mean, drinks?

The grandees of Steadfast Lutherans teach the same UOJ as ELCA does. In fact, SL is a closed shop for UOJ. No one can post who teaches Justification by Faith. Comments in favor of the Chief Article are often erased, and those JBFA Christians are called "morons" by the previous editor, a self-inflating bullfrog named. Best of all, no one can link to this blog, which is great for viewer numbers, averaging 3,000 per day - every day.

Tim Rossow called y'all "morons."
LCMS seminaries do not teach manners, grammar, or Lutheran doctrine. They have drank (sic) from the same cup of toxins.

Scheer madness also linked  an ELCA website that seems to be even naughtier than Nadia, but why give them Search Engine Optimization? I know - to enhance that superior feeling, even though the LCMS clergy think Nadia, Leonard Sweet (seminary speaker), and other snake oil salesmen are worthy of study. Here is Nadia and a penetrating question from Sceptical Baby.

Herman Otten's Christian News 2-12-2018, Publishes the UOJ Brief Statement of 1932, Which Is Now the Filter Through Which the Scriptures Are Read

 Does this say we were already pronounced forgiven, even before we were born, as Cascione and McCain claimed, quoting Preus quoting Edward Preuss?
Hardly!

Of Justification
17.  Holy Scripture sums up all its teachings regarding the love of God to the world of sinners, regarding the salvation wrought by Christ, and regarding faith in Christ as the only way to obtain salvation, in the article of justification. Scripture teaches that God has already declared the whole world to be righteous in Christ, Rom. 5:19; 2 Cor. 5:18-21; Rom. 4:25; that therefore not for the sake of their good works, but without the works of the Law, by grace, for Christ’s sake, He justifies, that is, accounts as righteous, all those who believe, accept, and rely on, the fact that for Christ’s sake their sins are forgiven. Thus the Holy Ghost testifies through St. Paul: “There is no difference; for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, being justified freely by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,” Rom. 3:23, 24. And again: “Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the Law,” Rom. 3:28.

 These words are never mentioned by the UOJ Stormtroopers, and the fanatics are absolutely allergic to the phrase Justification by Faith.


Herman Otten and His UOJ Stormtroopers Are the Radical Liberal Universalists. 

Notice - he is reading Christian News,with a big feature on Valleskey and Church Growth.

Pietism has no use for the Creeds of Christendom and considers the cell group and their faction as the One True Church. That was the belief of Walther and his buddies following Martin Stephan. They alone had the Gospel, and when they left Europe, the Gospel left with them. One person from the group disagreed, and he lost his financial subsidy until he retracted. That sounds just like the LCMS-WELS-ELS today.

Pietism degenerates quickly into rationalism, and rationalism into Universalism. Missouri already took a quasi-Universalistic stance in the name of Objective Justification in 1932. Although the 1932 Brief Statement was just a political move, the UOJ fanatics seized on it (selectively) as their canon law, their most excellent way to beat people to death.

Although Otten likes to denounce the liberals, he is The Heresiarch, cleverly adopting a pious stance while removing the Biblical foundations of the efficacious Word and Sacraments. Honoring Stephan's pimp and enforcer - CFW Walther - Otten dishonors the Scriptures and the Book of Concord, St. Paul, Augustine, Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz.

"But that cannot be right!" loyal readers cry out. "CFW Walther judges everyone and everything."

If anyone disagrees with Walther, who learned UOJ from the promiscuous Bishop Stephan, that person is a blasted liar, heretic, and secret buyer of Girl Scout cookies (WELS only).

 Walther repudiated faith and never recovered from his training in rationalism and Pietism. But we do not need to be bound to his ignorance. Faith comes from God, and Jesus teaches us to believe in Him and His righteousness,
the righteousness of faith. 

An Illustration of the Filtering Effect of Propaganda

 "Not Stephan...again?"

Luther has a great statement about false teachers seeing through a red filter. No matter what Scripture passage the false eachers are given, they said, "It is still red."

I have listed many examples of this when giving Universal Objective Justification (forgiveness without faith) its due. It is worthwhile to see how propaganda affects us.

I became a Lutheran at the age of 16 and found Lutherans really excited about Luther, Roland Bainton, and his Here I Stand, A Life of Martin Luther. A few years later I got to meet Bainton and hear him lecture.

When I was ordained, the LCMS was going through its Seminex crisis. Within a few years I knew the LCA was getting worse, but the Missouri Synod was not much of an alternative. By the time we left the LCA, the new propaganda was in place and the LCMS was promoting its heroes.

I heard all the slogans that were never mentioned in the LCA - inerrant Scriptures, quia subscription to the Book of Concord, opposition to the historical-critical method of attacking the Scriptures. The Missouri Synod sounded like Paradise compared to the LCA.

 Your precious Objective Justification and Subjective Justification inventions are not yours. Oh no! They were an explanation of the Halle Pietistic lectures - Knapp's,
in the Calvinist's translators own words. And Woods, the translator, was not only a Calvinist but a superstar Protestant in his own era.

Missouri Popular Myths
According to popular notions, Walther began the LCMS (not true - Loehe did). Details of the origins were murky, so it was discussed as have a virgin birth at Altenberg, when Walther rode in on a white charger and showed who knew Luther best.

Who wants to say that the real leader - Martin Stephan - abandoned his family in Dresden, taking his mistress, his oldest son, and his blindly obedient cult followers to America?

At one point I read Zion on the Mississippi, but the early pages did not sink in, due to my lack of education in the real history. The Preus faction won at that point, and they raised the banner of the glorious Synodical Conference, its power and purity restored...at least in some spots.

I have owned Zion on the Mississippi several times, but the more recent readings were the most productive. The Saxon Migration was a traveling scandal, a cancer transplanted from Dresden to America. Stephan talked about leaving with his disciples, but the command to go did not happen until the government tried him and found him guilty of adultery, breaking various laws, and misuse of money.

Missouri Synod clergy and laity normally agree about the LCMS myths they learned and re-learned. I know the Perryville-Altenburg Holy Land perpetuates the falsehoods. At the very least, they keep up the spin on the real history.

When someone is related to key figures in all this, the pressure mounts to keep from telling the truth. We might say, "I am not related to anyone in the LCMS," but there is a marriage and - boom - an entire family tree has been spliced into one's life. And one can end up talking to a key figure in the new Creation crisis in the LCMS - in his own living room.

Give Sparky Brenner Credit - He Is the Perfect Spokesman For WELS Mythology and UOJ. However, He Is Mute about Hazing and Church Growth

 When two Mequon students went to Dean Brenner to express their opposition to the secretive hazing ritual at the seminary, Sparky defended GA/HB and said "The good outweighs the bad." The two students did not graduate from Mequon.

I am going to review Brenner's Jars of Clay fairly soon, but I found a couple of pages ideal for showing how the LCMS mythology slopped over into WELS. Brenner calls this a history of Mordor, aka Mequon aka Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary. But it is really a public relations booklet for insiders, a hagiography, often ignoring the basic details and skipping the real issues.

Do not ever look for a critical history of the Synodical Conference. Only the insiders care about their history. Only an outsider would dare to tell the sordid truths.

But here is the good part. I looked through the index of Sparky's book for Church Growth, which is not even mentioned. How can that be! Mordor is 100% Church Growth. What about hazing, GA or HB? No, even though WELS hazes students at the prep, college, and seminary level. I looked for UOJ - nope. I searched for OJ - nope.

Then I found in the Index - Justification, objective, p. 64. As Kenda would say, "Now. I. Am. Interested." Of course, there was no entry for the Chief Article of Christianity - Justification by Faith. In time, the facts and Biblical study will eliminate the Wisconsin sect - or merge them with the United Church of Christ.

 August Pieper, Concordia St. Louis graduate, 1879.

 J. P. Kohler graduated from Concordia, St. Louis 1880.
Kohler was the WELS seminary president first, disagreed with A. Pieper, and Pieper became president when Kohler was canned.

What is Sparky going to do with the topic of Justification? If he is faithful to the Scriptures, he will disappear faster than cases of beer at the dorm. Now that Gausewitz has been erased from synodical memory and Rydecki is anathematized, the Gospel can find no place to root on the flinty hearts of WELS.

Note the Twisted Use of Luther

August Pieper Reflections, 1922
"Make no mistake," Pieper insisted, "The secret of Walther's power lay in his clear, popular, joyful, and convincing presentation of objective justification. That was also Luther's power , Paul's power, and the power of the Gospel itself, the power of God which creates faith unto salvation." 


He goes on to explain -
In contrast to the justification scheme of later dogmaticians, Walther taught, not a justifying act of God in view of faith, but rather a faith in view of God's justification. God's act of justification [GJ - OJ] forgiveness of sin] precedes faith. It is not that the sinner must first believe [and only then that God forgives sin]. In this connection Walther repeatedly cited Luther's example of a royal castle that was actually bestowed on a beggar, whether he accepted it or not.

Jars of Clay, pp. 64-5

Classic Pietistic Blunder - Merging the Atonement and Justification

Walther was a wonder-boy, with all his energy and alpha-male leadership skills in bullying, threatening, and kidnapping. The Wunderkind confused the atoning death of Christ with God's declaration of forgiveness when someone believes. This is clearly stated in Romans 4, which the blind UOJists use as if it teaches their dogma.

May I mention that UOJ was decidedly advantageous in excusing the abuse of Martin Stephan, STD, and his loyal disciple until the disciple turned into Pope Walther?

Romans 4 KJV

13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, was not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.

14 For if they which are of the law be heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:

15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, there is no transgression.

16 Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,

17 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.

18 Who against hope believed in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.

19 And being not weak in faith, he considered not his own body now dead, when he was about an hundred years old, neither yet the deadness of Sarah's womb:

20 He staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God;

21 And being fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.

22 And therefore it was imputed to him for righteousness.

23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

PS - Brenner's book includes a savage, accurate portrait of the many failings of Walther as a seminary president and professor, as experienced by Pieper and Kohler. In short, Walther was poorly trained in Biblical languages and announced his doctrine rather than teaching from the Scriptures and leading people into the Scriptures. See the pages following the UOJ propaganda - Brenner p. 65ff.

The Foundational Myth of LCMS/WELS - Bishop Stephan and Pope Walther

This is the Immaculate Conception of CFW Walther.
According to LutherQuest (sic) and Christian News,
Walther is the Master and Prince, the judge of all books,
all Christian doctrine. 

Stephan-Walther Myths

1. Stephan took his group to America for religious freedom. False - he had too much freedom. He was under house arrest for multiple adulteries and misuse of funds. He was already being treated for syphilis and gave that to his wife and children.
2. Stephan was a faithful Lutheran. False - he was more Confessional than most, but he was a Pietist and given a Pietist congregation of Bohemians. He came to believe he was the sole Means of Grace in Europe.
3. Walther did not sign the document making Stephan his bishop-for-life. False - Walther did sign the document and served as Stephan's enforcer of discipline, but was mistrusted as a "fox."
4. The big scandal was discovering Stephan committed adultery. Haha. False - Stephan left Europe with his only healthy child in the ship and his main mistress in the next cabin, but did not take his sick wife and children (syphilis). Stephan was constantly in the company of young women in the middle of the night and a trial revealed that he considered himself the master of their souls and bodies. The Walther circle even admitted that the adultery confession story was false, but it is told and re-told to this day.
5. The brave Walther dealt with the bishop and gave him three choices about his adultery. False. Barrels of laughs - Walther organized the mob that came down from St. Louis and also worked secretly with his Perryville pals. No one has three choices with a rifle pointed at him. The mob took everything the bishop had, which was very handy for a bankrupt cult. They forced the bishop across the river. The syphilis outbreak among the young women was the motivation for the riot. Few know today how horrible a disgrace that was, dooming the women to a slow death. Yes, the bishop was a rotten rat, but the enablers were so much worse for donning their halos far too late. Synodical leadership has not changed one little bit.
6. Walther was a Luther unawares. False, getting acid reflux - I guess that Emmaus topic got pulled for some reason. Walther earned a BA in a rationalistic system that hated Pietists. How did he get his call? He must have double-talked the examining board. His real religion was Pietism, although his father was a rationalist (think ELCA). Walther almost died of extreme Pietism, mortification of the flesh, and clung to Stephan's UOJ, which "saved his life." Where he had freedom, Walther was a Pietist, associated with Pietists, and obeyed a Pietist guru - Stephan. 

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 The Walther shrine, recently refurbished, which is appropriate, since Missouri and ELCA agree about UOJ.

To understand American Lutheran doctrine, one must hack through the brambles of American Lutheran mythology. As I wrote before, many of the UOJ fanatics are burdened with maintaining the Herman A. Preus myth, complicated by the Preus Clan myth. A young Preus must admit to himself that his entire family has left an indelible bad impression on Biblical theology by falling for Halle Pietism at its worst.

At the same time, the Preus youngling has to explain how the most articulate of the Preus family, Robert, repudiated the eternal verities of Universal Absolution and Salvation Without Faith, commonly known as Objective Justification, Universal Justification, General Justification, and Justification of the World. One phrase they cannot utter is Justification by Faith, but Robert advocated the Chief Article and abandoned UOJ in Justification and Rome.

The greatest burden of all is the Bishop Martin Stephan and CFW Walther myth. The two belong together because wily CFW crafted the origins story and kept people from telling the truth. Now the facts are known but denied. Missourians sound like the Roman Catholics who claim, "The Church has always taught the Immaculate Conception of Mary." QED - you are a dolt, a devil, or an evildoer.

In short, Bishop Martin Stephan was a Pietist cult leader who preyed upon young women and ultimately gave them syphilis, a horrible disease that he inflicted on his wife and his children (except the oldest son). They died in misery, the children in institutions. The Walther circle was 100% Pietistic and followed Stephan with utmost obedience. They knew he was an adulterer before he took them all to America. Walther bided his time and organized the mob to depose and rob the bishop, apparently when the syphilis broke out among the girls and shamed a number of families.

Suddenly, Walther and selected thugs were outraged,steamed down to Perryville, and

• threatened the bishop's life (a felony), 
• stole all his gold (a felony), 
• took away his property (a felony), 
• grabbed his enormous library and personal belongings (a felony), and kidnapped him at gunpoint (a felony), 
• forcing him to live in Illinois (definitely a felony).

 1 Timothy 3:16 does not teach that the world was absolved of all sin, justified without faith, when Jesus rose from the dead.

Walther took over as pope, in his usual crafty and circumspect way, and began teaching the Easter Absolution of the World, which he learned from Stephan, a man too lazy to earn his minimal clergy credentials by graduating from the university. He did attend Halle, where UOJ was dominant. 

Walther divided Lutherans with his zany emphasis on election without faith, which was another way to prop up his flimsy Justification without Faith. As far as I can see, there was a lot of lying about "in view of faith," a lot of smoke blown in people's faces. I still read mentions of a catechism no one seems to own anymore. But the aftermath, besides all the division Walther caused, is an increasingly absurd group of dogmatic claims about UOJ.

The DNA of UOJ is easy to trace. Its contagion was slow but gradually reached the Synodical Conference through Walther's domineering influence. Nor was UOJ something unique to the Perryville cult. Pietistic rationalism across Europe came to the same conclusions. The first part of UOJ (forgiving the entire world) soon became the only message of modern mainline theology, thanks to Schleiermacher (Halle trained, Halle professor) and others.

Walther made sure Franz Pieper followed him as seminary professor, so St. Louis produced a steady supply of UOJists, with intermarriage concentrating the autosomal recessive gene. By forcing the Wisconsin sect into supplying pastoral candidates, another UOJ cadre was achieved within WELS, which established its own seminary again - with UOJ teachers.

That does not mean UOJ was foreign to Protestantism. Former Calvinists find the language quite familiar. The Knapp theology textbook, where OJ/SJ was enshrined in the comments, was dominant in 19th century America, remaining in print today. Likewise, the best-selling Barth-Kirschbaum dogmatics profoundly affected the weak-kneed Evangelicalism of today, dropping the SJ for OJ all the way. UOJ never had much to do with faith because the dogma is 99.9% world forgiveness and world salvation.

Like the unScriptural claims about Mary in the Church of Rome, UOJ has a wealth of books - if wealth is the right term - supporting its dogma, plus many articles published by those insiders who are either trusted for their names or related to the readers by blood.

Walther did a superb job of crop-dusting all those who might interfere with his leadership. They were all false teachers. However, someone could leave Concordia, St. Louis for the Church of Rome, argue for papal dogma, and still be honored by all the UOJists - Edward Preuss. Notre Dame gave him their highest award for his promotion of Marian dogma, but the UOJists cite him and quote him like he is a warm, comforting blanket of grace.

 Grand theft marked the triumph of the Walther mob that kidnapped Bishop Stephan and left him to die in Illinois. Stephan's mistress came across and joined him. Stephan's wife and children died in Dresden.

Garden Myths and Lutheran Myths - So Much Alike

"This evil weed must be destroyed...
Dandelions are herbs? I still hate them."

I read the hilarious Cascione review of Scaer's article about Bishop Martin Stephan, eight years after the fact - fast response, Jack. Cascione's and Scaer's claims sounded so much like the gardening myths I have often heard repeated.

This link has some good resources on Bishop Martin Stephan and the Perryville disaster.

This is Scaer's original article about Stephan.

Gardening myths are repeated back and forth, even though they have little or no factual basis.

• Birds will starve if we stop feeding them. 
• Egg shells will improve the soil, by adding calcium. 
• Roses are difficult to grow and need constant attention, with lots of fungicides and pesticides.
• Organic matter should be rototilled into the soil - the more tilling, the better.
• Epsom salt is perfect for improving the soil - at least, according to the Epsom Salt Council and Martha Stewart.

Some basic facts about Stephan, Walther, and the Saxons:

1. Martin Stephan was the second abusive guru of Pietism that the Walther circle followed. Their education was rationalistic, but their voluntary associations were purely Pietistic, including cell groups. Guru is a Hindu term for someone with total control over one's life, and that title fit both of their Pietistic leaders.
2. Stephan was called to Dresden to be a Pietistic pastor for a Pietistic congregation, and he never finished his university education, which included time at Halle University.
3. Stephan cultivated an external organization of followers and clergy, which his own congregation resented. He had the Walther circle collect money for his needs.
4. Stephan did not leave with his group until the government took him to court for his promiscuity with young women and his financial dealings. He was long suspected of crimes in both areas, and his main mistress testified about him.
5. Walther and the others had no qualms about kidnapping children for their exodus to America, and they bragged about minors joining their throng. They urged divorce for those whose spouses did not want to join.
6. Stephan taught that he himself was the Means of Grace, and that the Gospel left Europe when they sailed away.
7. The St. Louis residents were suspicious of Stephan because of his female companions and lack of a wife. That is the reason he dictated the purchase of land around distant Perryville - far too much money for land they could not use very well. How ironic - they were snookered by the polygamous Mormons who sold it to them.
8. Yes, CFW Walther signed the document making Stephan their bishop-for-life. 
9. Walther organized the mob that threatened, robbed, and kidnapped Stephan. CFW also stole the bishop's land (given by the followers) and talked the bishop's healthy son into giving up the land that his father owned.
10. Walther's committed many felonies, which are all excused or simply forgotten in telling his glorious, mythical story. Walther blamed the bishop's wife (!) for Martin Stephan's pursuit of young women - confidentially of course and repeated in Servant of the Word.

 As one of these pastors claimed,
"Just because we are with McCain, laughing with him,
and taking photos - that does not mean we are friends."

Walther was the ultimate opportunist - not in the least bit sincere. How did he pass the pastoral exams in Europe when his friends were turned down for the crime of  being Pietists? No one seems to ask that.

Walther imposed Stephan's discipline on his fellow clergy, but the leader suspected Walther was "a fox." One minute Walther pledged lifelong support to the newly promoted bishop. A short time later, he was leading the mob against Bishop Stephan.

The lies told then and now do much to explain how eagerly the LCMS embraces opportunistic synodical leaders today. Money lights up their eyes and the only false doctrine in their minds is Justification by Faith.

The deification of Walther was completed at his 200th birthday, which was more solemnly recognized than the Reformation's 500th will be.