Posted on 02/17/2012 9:45:54 AM PST by SmithL
Is it mandatory that every ELCA spokeswoman or administrator have a hyphenated last name?
So let's see, Lauren Morse-Wendt or Martin Luther?
". . . Here then we have these two, the faith and the Gospel, that these and nothing else are to be preached throughout Christendom. Let us now see who are to be the preachers and who the learners. The preachers are to be angels, that is, God's messengers, who are to lead a heavenly life, are to be constantly engaged with God's Word that they under no circumstances preach the doctrines of men. It is a most incongruous thing thing to be God's messenger and not to further God's message. Angelus means a messenger, and Luke calls him God's messenger (Angelus Domini). The message also is of more importance than the messenger's life. If he leads a wicked life, he only injures himself, but if he brings a false message in the place of God's message, he leads astray and injures every one that hears him, and causes idolatry among the people in that they accept lies for the truth, honor men instead of God, and pray to the devil instead of God.
"There is no more terrible plague, misfortune or cause for distress upon earth than a preacher who does not preach God's Word; of whom, alas, the world today is full, and yet they think they are pious and do good when indeed their whole work is nothing but murdering souls, blaspheming God and setting up idolatry, so that it would be much better for them if they were robbers, murderers, and the worst scoundrels, for then they would know that they are doing wickedly. But now they go along under spiritual names and show . . . and are at the same time ravening wolves in sheeps' clothing, and it would be well if no one ever heard their preaching."
Christmas Day Sermon [Sermons of Martin Luther, Volume 1: Sermons on Gospel Texts for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany]
SmithL, I’m not trying to start a fight with you. However, you must realize that the former LCA was already a severely compromised group in 1962 when it was formed from four other “Lutheran” groups. Your experience would very much have depended on which of these four your home congregation would have sprung from, because some were more theologically conservative than others.
To be noted, however, is that the largest of the four bodies was called the United Lutheran Church in America, which was itself a merger group formed from the General Synod, the General Council, and the General Synod of the South. The name you want to look for in history here is Samuel Simon Schmucker (1799-1873), who drank deeply from the theological well that sprang from the so-called Enlightenment (when it comes to theology, Endarkenment would be a better term). He is, in many ways, the spiritual godfather of the LCA and today’s ELCA. He was not Lutheran in his theology, and the ULCA, then LCA, and now ELCA has been paying an ever and ever higher price since then on account of the theological tares he sowed among the wheat of sound confessional Lutheran theology.
The other Lutheran groups, the LC-MS, the WELS, and the ELS have a completely different history and theological foundations.
Bingo.
“Gospel Reductionism” = Seminex deceptionism.
We’re in no danger of fighting about any of this. I came from the ULCA, way back when, and agree with your conclusions about that branch. My only point is that the quota system used in creating the “New” Lutheran Church gave the AELC more voice than it should have had.
You mean he’s not there already? The ELCA must be “racist” ;)
....Is it mandatory that every ELCA spokeswoman or administrator have a hyphenated last name?...
Yes!
And a hyphenated name SHOUTS “feminist from the 1970s”!!!! (That even applies to “hypenates” who were born in 1980 or later!)
he 1970s were a cultural desert that America has NEVER recovered from! When we do recover, by God’s grace we may become great again!!!!
The heritage of the ULCA/LCA (of which I was once a member) not only includes Samuel Simon Schmucker (1799-1873) but also Charles Porterfield Krauth (1823–1883).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Porterfield_Krauth
Pretty different, isn’t he? And I’m speaking as one who was mentored by pastors who graduated from the OLD Philadelphia Seminary (before it too became radical/liberal), of which Krauth was an early leader. Krauth’s influence eclipsed that of Schmucker in the ULCA/LCA, which after all held to the Augsburg Confession and the doctrine of the Real Presence, and other Lutheran touchstones that Schmucker denied, and ended up with an Orthodox-inflenced liturgy.
The plain fact is that faithful, conservative Lutherans from every church body that formed the ELCA blame the others for the eventual sorry fall of American Lutheranism. ALC people blame the LCA “Eastern establishment”, LCA people blame those “soft Minnesota liberal pietists” of the ALC, and nearly everybody blames Seminex!!!!
With much more justification, many people blame that organizing committee for the ELCA back in the late 1980s, infiltrated by stealth gaysbian activists like Barbara Lundblad, as well as by the quota and “inclusive language” crowds.
Hopefully, those of us who have gone on to become Orthodox or Roman Catholic have moved beyond the blame game. (That’s part of spiritual growth, after all.) We see that nearly ALL American and European Protestantism has experienced the same cultural, theological, and spiritual rot as the ELCA. Therefore, there is something much deeper going on, which the Lutheran “blame game” cannot address.
Fixed it.
Otherwise, perfect! The key issue of UAC vs. Altered is the Real Presence.
You are quite correct in regard to Charles Porterfield Krauth. I have his magnum opus, The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, and have read it closely cover to cover. He was a faithful and fine theologian and pastor. However, that is beside the point. When the General Synod (the heritage of Schmucker) and the General Council (the heritage of Krauth) were joined (after the death of both), what communion did error have with truth? In other words, why did confession of truth wed itself to faulty and heretical confession? What always happens when a little leaven is added to the lump? That is why I didn’t mention Krauth or any others. Schmucker’s theology is the leaven, the leaven of false doctrine. It is the same leaven - he was NOT Lutheran! - that has leavened all the mainline protestant groups in the U.S.A.
Catholicism and Orthodoxy suffer cultural rot as well; and they have their own kind of leaven ... and they do have it! As an aside I went to a function (celebrity speaker) at a local Catholic parish a few weeks ago. Hundreds of people silently (and thus approvingly) tolerated the rot he spewed and took in the leaven he delved out. And the priest just smiled like an idiot and let it go on.
There is, perhaps, something even deeper than you realize going on here!
And if you want to talk about the non-denominational and charismatic groups, well, they simply threw out the whole lump and started anew ... but not until adding their own leaven.
The truth is that wherever Christ builds His church, Antichrist always grabs space in the pews, and then in time some pulpits, and then, when he is able, altars as well. It was no different in the Old Testament church, just read the prophets. And if you think it is different in the time of the New Testament, then you are not reading what is right in front of you in the text of it.
Swimming the Tiber or the Bosphorus is no protection.
“Otherwise, perfect! The key issue of UAC vs. Altered is the Real Presence.”
True enough. However, the Real Presence of Christ in the Lord’s Supper 1) is not the only issue; and 2) it is just the doctrine the devil most likes to use to separate the Good Shepherd from His sheep because it comprehends so many other doctrines, and thus its right confession either confirms or compromises those many other doctrines; and 3) the AC was followed by, most importantly, the Formula of Concord. If one does not confess without reservation the Formula, one’s confession of the AC is pretty much meaningless. In the same way, if one holds to the Apostles Creed, but balks at the Nicene and Athanasian, one does not really hold to the Apostles either.
Or to put it still more simply, one can confess that “Jesus is Lord” till one is blue in the face, and it will do you no good if the Jesus you confess is not the Jesus the Holy Scriptures testify to.
The ULCA/LCA was fatally flawed from the beginning, because Schmuckerism - even the word is unpleasant to the eye and the ear! - was not explicitly and in all points thoroughly rejected. Or, to put it another way, the ULCA/LCA was the American recension of the Prussian Unionism, i.e., the forced union of Luther with Calvin.
“When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking TOLERATION. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few, and weak; only let us alone; we shall not disturb the faith of the others. The Church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we only ask for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions. Indulged in this for a time, error goes on to assert EQUAL RIGHTS. Truth and error are two balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. We are to agree to differ, and any favoring of the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. Anything on which they differ is ipso facto non-essential. Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the church. Truth and error are two coordinate powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them. From this point error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert SUPREMACY.”
- Charles Porterfield Krauth, The Conservative Reformation and its Theology, Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, MN, First Edition 1963, pp. 195-196.
There is much here for every Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran, Calvinist/Arminian, Baptist, Pentecostal, or Non-Denominational (as if there could be such a thing) to meditate on. For the story is the same in each, the only difference being the words used to confuse the participants.
Excellent post. I’ve pasted the Krauth quotation many times on FReep these past few years.
Really! Great. Thanks for all the times you have already posted it. May you post Krauth’s warning again and again and again. It never fails to be timely in its admonition. In connection with which, to quote someone far more famous and reliable than either you or me: “He (or she) who has ears to hear, let him (or her) here.”
The edition I use in the quotes is from 1871....timeless truth.
Ahhhh. Well I had to buy what was available when I bought it. I don’t suppose you’d trade your 1871 for a 1963?
Digital only, my FRiend.
Noting the 1963 date of yours, I seriously doubt that the descendant of Augsburg publishing will publish it again.
“Noting the 1963 date of yours, I seriously doubt that the descendant of Augsburg publishing will publish it again.”
Indeed. I do believe you know whereof you speak. Blessings to you. Goodnight.
I cor.
11
For it hath been declared unto me of you, my brethren, by them which are of the house of Chloe, that there are contentions among you.
12
Now this I say, that every one of you saith, I am of Paul; and I of Apollos; and I of Cephas; and I of Christ.
13
Is Christ divided? was Paul crucified for you? or were ye baptized in the name of Paul?
14
I thank God that I baptized none of you, but Crispus and Gaius;
15
Lest any should say that I had baptized in mine own name.
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