Intrepid Lutherans: Gaining in Popularity?

Last December, as Intrepid Lutherans progressed beyond two-and-a-half years of age and one-half-million page reads, we posted a list of the top twenty most-visited posts since our inception, Memorial Day weekend 2010, in our post Having Accumulated One-Half Million, We Continue On. Since that list of most-visited posts has changed, somewhat dramatically, since last December, I had planned to post an update following my series on the 2013 ELDoNA Colloquium and Synod. Of course, I had intended to have that series finished and posted in time to post that list for our Three Year Anniversary, this past Memorial Day. Even though Memorial Day Weekend is almost two month in the past, however, the changes in the list of most-visited posts are significant enough that I though it would be interesting to post them anyway.

At the time of that previous blog post, last December, we had posted 355 articles and were seeing an average of 900 page reads per day. Since then, according to Google Analytics, we've accumulated an additional 252,000 page reads (with some of the highest page reads per month we've ever had, approaching 50,000, occurring in February and March 2013), we've added another 65 articles, and our average visitor rate has grown to almost 1100 page reads per day – though that has tapered off considerably since May, probably due to a lower publishing rate that month, and also the lack of variety through June and July, in addition to seasonal decline in readership (historically, page reads decline over the Summer months anyway). The disparity between the figure for page-reads reported by Google Analytics and the Flag Counter is indicative of another dramatic change in readership behaviour: our bounce rate has declined significantly, meaning readers are spending more time on our blog, and are taking in more of our articles (Flag Counter only counts initial page-reads of a visitor who has not accessed a page over an extended period of time). Up until last December, Flag Counter and Google Analytics were running about the same count, in terms of page-reads. Not anymore.

Also, the article with the all-time highest page-reads was written in the time since December – an article of fairly critical importance, covering a topic that has seen recurring treatment on the pages of Intrepid Lutherans since the WELS TEC announced, at the 2011 WELS Synod Convention, their full and unreserved endorsement of the feministic NIV 2011 and emphatic recommendation to adopt it as the Synod's standard translation for all of its publishing efforts. Until the next revision of the NIV, at least. The name of that blog article is, How does one interpret language in a post-Modern Age? What about the language of the Bible?. It was published December 11, 2012, currently stands at 7267 page reads, and continues to see over 100 page reads per week.

There have been many other changes in the top twenty, as well. Some have been bumped from the list since last December, other, new articles have appeared on the top twenty, and others have moved up or down the list. I list them in the table, below, from currently most popular to twentieth. For those articles remaining in the top twenty, I (mostly) retain the summary written in December. I hope you find the list interesting, and I hope you take some time to revisit the articles featured in it.

	Page Title	Page Views	Date	Author	Comments	Observations
1.	How does one interpret language in a post-Modern Age? What about the language of the Bible?	7267	12/11/2012	Mr. Douglas Lindee	17	I am not certain as to the precise reason for the popularity of this post – those who link to it, link to it directly, so it must have been passed around via email. However, this article was unique from all the others addressing translation issues, as it makes a doctrinal case for Formal Equivalence (FE). If we say that Scripture doctrine is built from “direct positive statements of Scripture, only” then this is a grammatical definition of doctrine, which requires a faithful grammar in a translation if those who use that translation are expected to rely on it as a source of True doctrine (laymen, for instance). Just as important, in the discussion that follows, the case for Dynamic Equivalence (DE) is destroyed. In supporting DE, one commenter insisted that “the most important issue in translation is not reproducing grammar but reproducing meaning” – an assertion with which I vehemently disagreed, stating, instead, that such a position “is tantamount to establishing levels of importance within God's Revelation, and ultimately defining the source of Scripture's meaning – that which was directly inspired by God – as outside the relevant scope of what God revealed to mankind.” The Scriptures very clearly state that words and grammar are what was inspired by God, that “meaning” is only that which emerges from what God directly inspired. A translation that attempts to reproduce so-called “meaning,” while dismissing the inspired grammatical form and vocabulary from which that meaning emerges, intrusively places man between God's Inspired Revelation and the reader of Scripture, making man – the translator, in particular – the “arbiter of Scripture's meaning.” And we've covered the consequences of this “Magisterial Use of Reason” on Intrepid Lutherans, as well. No thank you. I'll take what post-Modern advocates of Dynamic Equivalence refer to as a “clunky” FE Bible – something that the rest of the world still recognizes as an avowed “Masterpiece of the English Language” like the KJV, for instance – any day of the week, because it was translated according to a far more Scripturally faithful ideology of translation.
2.	Dear Pastors Jeske and Ski: You are clearly in the wrong	6069	02/15/11	Intrepid Lutherans	13	Juicy controversy – everybody was interested, relatively few had the courage to comment.
3.	Fraternal Dialogue on the Topic of “Objective Justification”	5920	09/26/11	Mr. Douglas Lindee	54	Rev. Webber (ELS) recommended “Fraternal Dialogue” on the topic, so we opened it with a position and a series of questions to debate, and attempted to keep the ensuing “dialogue” civil and centered on Scripture and the Confessions.
4.	The NNIV, the WELS Translation Evaluation Committee, and the Perspicuity of the Scriptures	4029	07/28/11	Mr. Douglas Lindee	71	The catch-phrase, “There is no perfect translation,” ultimately devolves into a denial of Scripture's clarity and an affirmation of the Roman position that the literate Christian still needs a “Priest” to explain it to him. The sufficiency and authority of Scripture being one of the planks of the Protestant Reformation, this will never happen among Protestant Christians. Not directly. Translators now take on this role in the Protestant world, under the translation ideology of Dynamic Equivalence.
5.	Thoughts on Gender-Neutral Language in the NIV 2011	3978	09/15/11	Intrepid Lutherans	9	Intrepid Lutherans aren't the only ones in WELS concerned that whitewashing gender differences in the Bible, by way of imposing a feminist ideology of translation over the entire text, will lead not only to doctrinal error, but to a culture of thought among supposedly “conservative” Christians that is at war against the Nature of God itself and incompatible with His message to Man. And let's be clear, Feminism, Abortion, Gay Marriage and Communism are all intimately linked, as exposed in the following Intrepid Lutherans (sub)-article, Nietzsche, Marx, Darwin and America Today: A Very Brief Look at the Tip of the Iceberg
6.	Why I No Longer Attend My [WELS] Church	3926	02/06/11	Intrepid Lutherans	26	Cross-post from Mr. Ric Techlin's blog, Light from Light, publicly revealing difficulties he was having in his congregation, namely, the refusal of his congregation to address his concerns regarding error in doctrine and practice that was being promoted in his congregation. A handful of local pastors volunteered to work with Mr. Techlin, his congregation and district to resolve these difficulties...
7.	Luther's translation of 2 Cor. 5:19	3816	02/01/2013	Rev. Paul Rydecki	137	In this article, Rev. Rydecki warns of corrupted editions of Luther's Unrevidierte Ausgabe von 1545, that are used to defend Universal Objective Justification and the notion that Luther believed, taught and confessed this doctrine – a potent defense indeed, except that those corrupted editions change the tense of certain verbs in this passage in a way that is not insignificant to the Doctrine of Justification. The verbs in uncorrupted editions of Luther's Unrevidierte Ausgabe do not support UOJ at all.
8.	The Witch Hunt Has (Officially) Begun	3711	01/15/2013	Rev. Paul Rydecki	32	This post was issued in response to an item that appeared on the immediately previous quarterly CoP meeting, addressing not only Intrepid Lutherans, but those who have lent us their names in support of our endeavors to raise issues of doctrine and practice – even if the are uncomfortable issues – that need to be addressed. The agenda item indicated a need to begin a asserted effort to follow up with those who have lent us their names. This, of course, wasn't the only agenda item of interest to, and significant consequence on, Intrepid Lutherans, as we indicated a month later in the slightly less popular post, What on Earth could the CoP possibly have meant by THIS?. With only 2162 page reads, we nevertheless heard directly from “Certain Personages” on that one...
9.	Suspended from the WELS – Why?	3518	10/09/12	Rev. Paul Rydecki	0	More “juicy controversy...”
10.	Differences between Reformed and Lutheran Doctrines	3466	04/13/11	Mr. Douglas Lindee	9	The majority of hits on this post are from Reformed and Evangelical sources, as it has been passed around and discussed in a number of different forums, and continues to be frequently read. People still comment occasionally, as well.
11.	Change or Die – Update	3424	02/24/11	Intrepid Lutherans	13	The “juicy controversy” continues, as does both interest in the controversy and reluctance to become involved.
12.	What's Missing in Groeschel's Sermons? – A brief review of Craig Groeschel, Part 2	3316	09/07/2010	Rev. Paul Lidtke	22	This one has been simmering for sometime, but has finally come to a boil. Most of the page reads we receive on this article are the result of people searching not just on “Craig Groeschel,” but on “problems with,” “errors of” and “information about” the man and his ministry.
13.	The WEB: A viable English Bible translation?	3052	09/18/11	Rev. Paul Rydecki	94	Discussion over an unsuitable version of the Bible degenerates into a melee over Universalism, and this version's mistranslation of certain sections which support it.
14.	The whole flock won't survive 'jumping the shark'	2912	02/02/12	Mr. Brian Heyer	42	Thoughtless and ridiculous last-ditch efforts to “save the congregation” by abusing the term evangelism are transparently pathetic acts of desperation, make the congregation a laughing stock in the community and bring shame upon the name of Christ. The methods of the Church Growth Movement are not methods, they are antics, and kill the church by trivializing Scriptures' teachings. Shame on Lutheran congregations who do such things! Another similar and more recent, though less popular, post on Intrepid Lutherans, exposing the same pop-church shenanigans was entitled, Real? Relational?? Relevant??? O THE HORROR OF IT ALL!!! – equally worth the reader's time to revisit.
15.	Emmaus Conference – Recap	2756	05/10/11	Rev. Paul Rydecki	17	Were some people excitedly thinking that perhaps this event represented the reunion of Missouri and Wisconsin? Most new page-reads are probably looking for updates on more recent conferences...
16.	NNIV – the new standard for WELS?	2723	07/15/11	Mr. Douglas Lindee	62	Yup, it sure looks that way...
17.	Intrepid to the Last: Rev. Paul Rydecki has been Suspended from WELS	2640	10/06/2012	Intrepid Lutherans	0	More juicy controversy, lots of people interested, but no one with the courage to comment. Intrepid Lutherans remains and continues.
18.	Pietism and Ministry in the WELS: A brief review of Craig Groeschel, Part 1	2596	08/30/2010	Mr. Douglas Lindee & Rev. Steven Spencer	6	This is Part One of the slightly more read Part Two, listed above, in which Rev. Lidtke compares the Law & Gospel Lutheran preaching common WELS to that of Craig Groeschel. In Part One, we address corrosive effects of Pietism which clearly lies at the foundation of Groeschel's ministry. 'Tis too bd that many confessional Lutherans look to Groeschel as the oracle of post-Modern ministry necessity. This includes WELS Lutherans, as the following recent post illucidates: Do any Lutherans want to be Dresden Lutherans? Meanwhile, the Groeschelites continue their agenda...
19.	Ambivalent	2568	06/27/12	Rev. Steven Spencer	47	Does no one care about the threat of doctrinal error and sectarian practice? One might pardon the laity for not being informed, but what do we make of the silence and inaction of Lutheran clergy?
20.	The Silence Is Broken: An Appleton Update	2540	05/08/11	Rev. Paul Lidtke	29	An update on Mr. Techlin's difficulties, from one of the pastors personally involved in his defense. After formally objecting to what he was concerned were unscriptural practices and teachings in his congregation – and asking to be corrected where he might be in error – Mr. Techlin was simply removed from fellowship: no discussion with him over the issues he raised was entertained, no brotherly attempt was made to work with him through these issues, no example of Christian humility was displayed by his “brothers” which might have suggested they were themselves open to correction. Instead, without Mr. Techlin's or his family's knowledge, the congregation scheduled a meeting, and without even offering him the opportunity to defend himself, voted to remove him and members of his family from fellowship. To his surprise, he received a “Certified Letter” in the mail informing him of the congregation's action against him. Not so much as a phone call from a “concerned brother” or even from his pastor. Just certified mail. Furthermore, this letter made no mention of any doctrinal error to which he obstinately clung, regarding which the congregation collectively determined “further admonition would be of no avail.” To this day, Mr. Techlin has no idea what his error may have been, as no admonition has ever been attempted, certainly none by a “genuine brother” who was himself open to correction. Moreover, this congregation's action was openly defended by their Bishop, and formally approved by a committee he personally appointed to review Mr. Techlin's appeal, which found that “[his] congregation had Scriptural reasons for removing [him] from membership,” without, of course actually enumerating them for the benefit of Mr. Techlin and all other lay members of WELS congregations who may have an interest in knowing what their actual rights as laymen really are, “and, in doing so, acted in the spirit of Christian love.” Mr. Techlin's is not the only recent example of similar processes used to remove “undesirables” from WELS, but his is very well-documented and betrays what seems to not only be acceptable practice but one which Christian congregations are apparently not above employing. The same “We-won't-have-a-conversation-with-you-on-this-topic” approach was used in the case of Joe Krohn, and, as recounted in one of the articles above, was also adhered to in the case of Rev. Rydecki's suspension.

 

Do any Lutherans want to be Dresden Lutherans? Meanwhile, the Groeschelites continue their agenda...

Those of you who have been following us on Facebook and Twitter probably could have seen this coming, as you've recently been fed a steady diet of links to some of our older posts reprising topics like Pietism, Sectarian Worship, Lay Ministry, along with a few links featuring the advice of orthodox Lutherans from previous eras regarding genuine Lutheran practice that also does the job of confessing our separation from sectarians.

But they are just a bunch of old dead dudes, and who really cares about ancient history anyway. Yeah, they said stuff. So what. We say stuff, too, and what we say is what matters today.

Meanwhile, an email rather circuitously made its way to our inbox yesterday. It was initially sent to the pastors of an entire circuit in the WELS SEW District, and included a passel of attachments for their review ahead of their meeting of this Friday. They will be discussing the opening of an INTERDISTRICT MULTI-SITE CONGREGATION. The congregation, Hope Lutheran in Oconomowoc, WI (Western Wisconsin District), had been planning a multi-site effort since 2010, and, with the encouragement of their District President, had been communicating their plans with WW DMB throughout this time. In July of 2012, a conversation with Wisconsin Lutheran College (WLC) President Dan Johnson resulted in his offer to use the facilities of WLC as a "cradle to launch the second location of Hope" – in the Southeastern Wisconsin District (SEW).

Click here for the documentation.

Multi-site Congregations? Whence comest thou?
In a previous exposé on the teaching of Craig Groeschel, entitled Pietism and Ministry in the WELS: A brief review of Craig Groeschel, we critiqued the thirteen points of his Vision and Values document. Point one, along with our response to it, reads

"1. Since Christ is for us and with us, we are a fearless, risk taking, exponential thinking church. We refuse to insult God with timid thinking or selfish living.

"Interpretation: We like to tempt God.

"There is nothing laudable in casting Christian Stewardship aside, to openly take 'bet-the-farm' risks with resources God has given to us, which he expects us to wisely invest. 'Betting the Farm' is not wisdom, but foolishness."

Compare this, the FIRST POINT of Groeschel's Vision and Values statement, with THE FIRST POINT listed in the Mission Vision Values statement of Hope Lutheran, from the documentation packet linked above:

"Since Christ is for us and with us, we are a fearless, risk taking, exponential thinking church. We refuse to insult God with timid thinking or selfish living."

Already we see, Craig Groeschel is their guide – they have adopted his Vision for Ministry and made it their own, quoting from it verbatim. But it doesn't end there. Here are points four and seven from Craig Groeschel's Vision and Values document:

"4. We give up things we love for things we love even more. It's an honor to sacrifice for Christ and His church.

"7. We will lead the way with irrational generosity. We truly believe it is more blessed to give than to receive."

You can read our 2010 exposé on Craig Groeschel to see our responses to these points. But compare these points to POINT SIX listed in Hope Lutheran's Mission Vision Values statement, again from the packet linked above:

"We love to give up things we love for the things that God loves."

We did a post or two on plagiarism, did we not? Yes, I think we did. Here is the series we posted in 2010 on the sin of plagiarism. Craig Groeschel makes an appearance in this series, as well – commenting on those who do not give credit to their sources:

A Superfluity of Naughtiness: Plagiarism and Pastoral Fraud – Part I
A Superfluity of Naughtiness: Plagiarism and Pastoral Fraud – Part II
A Superfluity of Naughtiness: Plagiarism of Sectarian Sources in the WELS – A Case in Point
A Superfluity of Naughtiness: Plagiarism of Sectarian Sources in the WELS – A Case in Point (cont'd)

Re-read these old posts, and read the rest of our 2010 exposé on Craig Groeschel and his connection to the WELS. What we said then still applies today, and that application is most assuredly expanding.


Recently, Craig Groeschel wrote an editorial for FoxNews.com, which was titled, Christians, here's why we're losing our religion. Aptly titled, his objective is, in fact, to lose religion. He writes:

"You see, religion alone can only take a person so far. Religion can make us nice, but only Christ can make us new. Religion focuses on outward behavior. Relationship is an inward transformation. Religion focuses on what I do, while relationship centers on what Jesus did. Religion is about me. Relationship is about Jesus... religion is about rules, but being a Christian is about relationship."

Compare Groeschel's statement, above, to POINT SEVEN in the document Mission Vision Values, again, in the packet linked above. It reads:

"We will not let our behavior or church culture create a barrier between Jesus and a person he died for."

The relationship between statements like this and Evangelical leadership emanating from the likes of Craig Groeshel is obvious. Yet, such leadership is Scripturally incompetent – a clear example of allowing an enemy of the Christian AND the Church (i.e., the World) to dictate our terms. In reality, those who separate religion from Christianity, as Groeschel suggests, have no idea what either religion or Christianity is. Sure, Christianity is a relationship between the individual and Jesus, but Scripture's testimony on the matter is clear and abundant: for as much as it is a relationship between the individual and Jesus, it is also a relationship of confessional unity between fellow Christians AND a relationship between the congregation and Christ. Christianity is NOT strictly a matter between the individual and God, in its visible manifestation, it is principally corporate in nature! One cannot separate the idea of "religion" from Christianity! To even suggest it is nonsense.


Craig Groeschel continues in his editorial:

"But in order to reach the current generation and generations to come, we must change the way we do things. That's why we like to say, 'To reach people no one is reaching, we have to do things no one is doing.'"

He is repeating, here, the sixth point of his Vision and Values statement – which we commented on in our previous exposé. Hope Lutheran echoes this thought in POINT FIVE of their Mission Vision Values statement, contained in the documentation packet linked above:

"We are committed to reaching people that churches are not reaching."

But is Hope Lutheran, or anyone else who copies Craig Groeschel, really living out this vision statement? Hardly. Following the model of those 'who are doing what no one else is doing', those so doing such only succeed in doing what everyone else is doing. It's called a bandwagon. The fact is, it is on the basis of his multi-site church model that Craig Groeschel's LifeChurch.tv was recently named the most innovative church. Those who copy him aren't at all "doing what no one else is doing to reach those no one else is reaching," but are simply doing what everyone else is doing, as they climb on board the bandwagon to do what has apparently been "successful" for Craig Groeschel. Everyone without a shred of creativity of their own, that is. Professor John Schaller has better advice for Lutherans. Read what Schaller writes, to see what he says about doing what everyone else is doing, instead of what Lutherans, alone, can uniquely do.


Craig Groeschel continues further:

"[A]s churches, we don't have the liberty to change the message, but we must change the way the message is presented. We have to discover our 'altar ego' — and become who God says we are instead of who others say we are."

Note that by "we", Groeschel is not referring to the Church anymore. By this point in his editorial, he has already separated corporate religion from the individual. The "we" he is referring to is individual Christians, and nothing more. Thus, the change he is calling for is not change in the Church, but change in the individual Christian, beginning with the separation of the individual Christian from the Church, and continuing with a change in his focus, calling the Christian to dwell on his own behaviour. Not only is this rank Sanctification oriented Pietism (which we detailed in our post, Lay Ministry: A Continuing Legacy of Pietism, and highlighted as a problem with Craig Groeschel in our 2010 exposé), it is a "change in the message." It is a manifestly duplicitous perspective on Christianity. All he is saying here is, "We must change the message to eliminate "religion" from Christianity (yes, change), we must change the message to eliminate "labels" from our identity (i.e., to eliminate a Christian's public confession from his Christianity), we must change the message to focus on what Christians do for God or what Christians do for man in the name of God instead of what the Holy Spirit does for man through His appointed Means, and we must change the message in these ways to accommodate the demands of the unregenerate who won't listen to us otherwise (who, the Scriptures tell us, are at war against God and don't want to listen to Him anyway). Moreover, we must change the message the way others say we must change the message, we must change the way they say we must change, and become who they say we must be." Who are these "others" but Craig Groeschel and similar Evangelical leaders! Separating the Christian from his religion and from his confession, they insert themselves to take over for the visible Church.


The Collective Descent of American Lutheranism
In our post, C.P. Krauth explains how orthodox Lutheran Synods descend into heterodoxy, we quoted Charles Porterfield Krauth as he identified the Course of Error in the Church, well-known since the time of St. Augustine and operating as well as it ever had in his own time:

"When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages in 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; let us alone, we shall not disturb the faith of 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 for this time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are 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. Truth started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated, and that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judgments on all disputed points. It puts men into positions, not as at first in spite of their departure from the Church’s faith, but in consequence of it. Their repudiation is that they repudiate that faith, and position is given them to teach others to repudiate it, and to make them skillful in combating it."

Krauth, C.P. (1871). The Conservative Reformation and its Theology. Philadelphia: Lippincott. (pp. 195-196).

For almost three years now Intrepid Lutherans have been warning of this danger, educating our readers on the differences between heterodox sectarianism and orthodox Lutheranism, and demonstrating those differences along with giving evidence of its incursion into our Synod. Some have joined us by lending us their names; though some have been threatened for this, many remain. But these few do not account for the nearly 1500 daily page reads we see on average. Many folks read our essays and informational posts, and are confronted with the stark reality: our Synod is deteriorating right along with the visible Church everywhere, which almost unanimously now invites the World and worldly influences to abide with her in determining doctrine and practice. If they would aspire to be Dresden Lutherans of any sort, it is high-time for our readers to do more than just read. It is time for them to assert their Confession, to begin acting on their convictions in a way that will bring an end to this sort of thing.

“What was missing in my life was Absolution”: One Christian's Journey from Evangelicalism to Confessional Lutheranism

On Tuesday, we published a short blog post highlighting the research of Rev. Matthew Richard (CLBA), who is working on a doctoral degree at Concordia Seminary - St. Louis, entitled, 'Crucible Moments' and 'Becoming Lutheran'. Afterward, while perusing his blog, PM Notes: Evangelizing Moral Therapeutic Deists; Comforting Post-Evangelicals; Strengthening Monergists, I stumbled across one of his posts from last December: Confessions Of A Former Evangelical (Encore). It is a brief post, featuring only a broadcast from Chris Rosebrough's Fighting for the Faith, regarding which he comments:

A wonderful message from Chris Rosebrough on his journey from Evangelicalism to Lutheranism. A close friend and Baptist blogger posted this sermon on his blog saying that it was "Perhaps the Best Defense of the Gospel You'll Ever Hear (From a Lutheran)". Please listen, it is well worth your time.

I recall this episode from Fighting for the Faith, and agree: It is well worth your time. I've included it in this post, below. Give it a listen.

Incidentally, that post, linked to from Rev. Richard's blog to his Baptist friend's blog, is no longer there. Perhaps his Baptist friend was just cleaning up old posts, but nothing before January 2013 is available. However, maybe this following fact is pertinent. On February 28, 2013, his Baptist friend, a Baptist minister, announced that he has left the Southern Baptist Convention. He has many very interesting, and familiar, reasons for doing so. Please read his post: Why I’ve Left the Convention.


A Journey From Legalistic Pietistic Evangelicalism to the Cross
delivered at the First National BJS Conference, February 2009
by Chris Rosebrough

 

Quotes from Chris Rosebrough's “Plenary Speech” compiled for those of who won't listen to the podcast, who haven't been through the transition of “Evangelical” to “confessional Lutheran,” who don't know what a genuine Worldview Crisis really is (See our recent post, 'Crucible Moments' and 'Becoming Lutheran' for more information on “transition” and “Worldview Crisis”.) They've completely transformed the church service. It's no longer a pastor who is an undershepherd of the Good shepherd, feeding God's sheep with God's Word, making disciples, giving them Word and Sacrament, proclaiming and announcing the forgiveness of sins won by Jesus Christ on the Cross. Instead, it has been turned into a psychological freakshow. How about this from Saddleback Church: “When you're running on empty, learn the ancient secrets from God's Word for a less stressful, more relaxing, lighter and free-er lifestyle.” Now here is the fun part about it. All of these churches... when these guys launch -- four, five or six hundred people. They are marketing experts, they are running circles around us. And the people coming to their churches, are they hearing the Gospel? Not at all... All of these guys "claim" that they are doing these things to reach the lost for Jesus Christ, and to give them the Gospel, and that they are not compromising. HOGWASH! What are the results of all this? ...After 20 years, 40% of their people don't believe in salvation by Grace... 57% don't believe in the Authority of the Bible... 56% don't believe Jesus is the Only Way to Eternal Life. Former Evangelicals, they're like ex-smokers... So you can say that, at that time, I was "On fire for the Lord!" -- and you bet I was, because I was told if I wasn't, I was going to burn in Hell. There was no Grace. There was no forgiveness. Only an endless rat-wheel of good works with no assurance that I was even meeting the lowest standard necessary for me to be saved. That's the thing about the Law: How do you know when you've done it enough to please God? I did everything I could to stand out as a Christian among Christians, and at the time if you were to ask me if I was going to heaven when I died, my answer would have been. “I hope so... I hope so.” Beneath the Christian facade was a young man who was struggling with his sin, and who knew he wasn't winning that battle. And I knew that I was not good enough to be saved. “We believe that 'Entire Sanctification' is that act of God, subsequent to regeneration, by which believers are made 'free from original sin, or depravity,' and brought into a 'state of entire devotion to God', and 'the holy obedience of love made perfect'. It is wrought by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and comprehends in one experience the cleansing of the heart from sin and the abiding indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, empowering the believer for a life of service. 'Entire Sanctification' is provided by the Blood of Jesus, is wrought instantaneously by faith, preceded by entire consecration into this work and state of Grace, the Holy Spirit bears witness. This experience is also know by various terms representing its various phases, such as 'Christian perfection', 'perfect love', 'heart purity', the 'Baptism of the Holy Spirit', the 'Fullness of the Blessing', 'Christian Holiness', and 'Second Blessing of Holiness.'” Perfection... and that's really the Material Principle of Pietism... Modern day Evangelicals, the center of their preaching is 'the changed life', and, their Formal Principle is 'The Bible as Guidebook for Living.' That's what they preach for. Life change. I was literally fed a steady stream of tactics and practical methods for 'living a God-pleasing life'... But there was no peace for me, no assurance, no hope, my sin problem wouldn't go away, and I knew that I would face shame and rejection if I had to stand before Jesus and give an accounting of my life. Because that's all they were preaching: an Accounting. “Be ye perfect, as your Father in Heaven is perfect.” “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” Yeah, but I wasn't... I obviously didn't love God... I came to [my pastor] for Grace, and he gave me more Law. Looking back on it I now realize, the teaching and preaching of my church literally cut me off from all hope of salvation. I diligently searched God's Law for little shreds of hope and tiny crumbs of sunlight that could tell me that I would be okay. But there is no comfort in God's Law. There is no forgiveness offered in God's Law. A person can only live under despair for so long. And that is what this kind of teaching produced in me: utter despair. I was literally withering under the heat of God's Law. But what I didn't know, is that that is exactly what God's Law is supposed to do to us. What was missing in my life was Absolution. There's no way he can make it into heaven, he's not even trying! He comforted me with Christ's shed blood on the Cross, he told me over and over again that Jesus' Blood was shed for me, for my sins, all of them, FREE, even the one's I've committed today. I'd never heard a Christian talk this way before. And I'm telling you, there are millions of Evangelicals who've never heard a Christian talk this way before. They don't know the Gospel! He openly confessed his overwhelming need for a Saviour and his utter dependence on Christ's shed Blood on the Cross for his sins. “But now the righteousness of God has been made manifest apart from the Law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for their is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God and are Justified freely by His Grace as a gift through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” I had stopped my incessant worrying about whether I was good enough, holy enough, or perfect enough to be saved. Instead, I was asking a far more important set of questions: “Was Jesus Christ good enough?” “Was Jesus Christ holy enough?” “Was He perfect enough to save me?” “Did Jesus' Blood, which He shed on the Cross, cover all of my sins? Or just some of them?” These texts show that it is all about Jesus Christ [not ME]. His obedience, His ministry, His perfection, His righteousness, His taking my sin and suffering my punishment for me, on the Cross!

 

Celebrating the Birth of the Greatest Composer in the History of the West: the Lutheran, Johann Sebastian Bach

Today is the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring, and in 1685, the same can be said of musical excellence, both in the Church and in the West, as within them the full vibrance of musical life was born, as well – with the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), the man known as the Greatest Composer in the History of Western Civilization. We have written much on Intrepid Lutherans about this creative Master, a fiercely orthodox Lutheran who infused his faith into his compositions through the language of counterpoint, in it battling not only Pietism but, as we detailed in our post, Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, Part 3: Johann Sebastian Bach, the apostasy of the Enlightenment. The first post in which we first featured J.S. Bach, Music for Holy Week, Part 1 – excerpts from Matthäus Passion, we summarized Bach's life and accomplishments, as follows:

“Bach perhaps needs little introduction: he was and remains the master of counterpoint and represents the pinnacle of Baroque musical achievement. In addition to his many secular works, as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig he composed a full series of Cantatas to accompany the Lutheran liturgy for each week of the Church Calendar, along with many other Sacred works as he was commissioned... It is worth noting, however, than in addition to his status as a composer, Johann Sebastian Bach was also fiercely orthodox in his Lutheranism. Being active as a composer during the rise of German Pietism and attempting to ward it off through the Sacred works he was often commissioned to compose, his professional library was proliferate with personally annotated works of Lutheran theology – he had the library of a theologian, and he used it as reference material in the composition of his works.”

Bach's genius as a composer was not entirely his own. He is known to have studied the Masters of the previous generation and incorporated their genius into his own art: men like Michael Praetorius, Samuel Scheidt, Johann Schein, and especially Heinrich Schütz (1585-1672) – the greatest German composer, second to Bach, who, having composed exclusively for the Lutheran Church throughout his career, has been the subject of numerous posts on Intrepid Lutherans, as well.

Schütz studied under the Renaissance Master of antiphonal and polychoral composition, Giovanni Gabrieli, at St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice. So remarkable was his performance as a student, that Master Gabrieli was compelled to recommend him with the words, “In Schütz you will have a musician such as one will not find in many other places”. Indeed, upon his death in 1612, Gabrieli willed his signet ring to Schütz. Heinrich Schütz was appointed Kapellmeister at the Royal Court in Dresden in 1615, and from there through the remainder of his career, he masterfully wedded the highest musical art of the Renaissance with the German language, the purest manifestation of which, for him, was Martin Luther's translation of the the Bible.

Bach's relationship to Schütz is almost serendipitous. Recall from our post, Music for the Twelve Days of Christmas, Part 2: Heinrich Schütz ... and other thoughts to ponder over the New Year Holiday... the concern Schütz had in the second third of his life over the decline in compositional integrity he had witnessed, for

“the advent of the chordal style dispensing with linear but rich polyphonic textures made it possible for technically less accomplished composers to shine with concertante figured-bass music. According to Schütz, there were hardly any younger composers in Germany willing to deal with the more profound aspects of composition. So their tonal idiom was bound to become increasingly shallow and banal.”

As a result, he published his Geistliche Chormusik (Sacred Choral Music) in 1648, dedicating it to the choir of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig, to “encourage budding German composers, before they would try their hand at the concertante style ...to first demonstrate their skill in this area.” O that today's Lutheran composers would follow this advice, and avoid their own “shallow and banal tonal idiom!”

It seems to be unknown whether Bach took the recommendation of Schütz to heart, or whether those responsible for calling Bach to be Cantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig were seeking to diligently live up to the encouragement Schütz obviously meant for them, or whether his Geistliche Chormusik had any such impact by that time at all. But it is, at least, an interesting coincidence. Other interesting coincidences include Bach's place in time: Heinrich Schütz died as Pia Desideria (published 1675) was percolating in the mind of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705); Bach was born as plans for the Pietist learning center, University of Halle were being drawn; while Bach served in Leipzig, the last of the Lutheran theologians from the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy, and vigorous opponent of Pietism, Valentin Ernst Löscher (1673-1749), served as Superintendent and as pastor at the Kreuzkirche in Dresden (practically a stone's-throw from the Royal Court, and a place known to benefit from regular collaboration with Schütz); and both Bach and Löscher, being in such proximity, battled with fierce dedication against Pietism in their respective vocations. Löscher and Bach died at the opening of the Enlightenment, in 1749 and 1750, respectively – with no one, really, to take their place.

With the death of Bach, accompanied by the demise of the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy, the Spring of musical expression also came to an end, and along with it was left behind the Source of New-Life, the True teaching of God's Word upon which this Spring emerged. God's Truth gave way to Man's pride, the searing heat of Enlightenment notions, such as the “perfectibility of man,” invading both the Fine Arts and Christian Theology, first vaunting the objectivity of man's intellect, then vaunting the subjectivity of man's social and emotional existence, each iteratively warring against the other. Today, we live in the Autumn of both the Arts and the visible Church, the clouds of post-Modernism increasingly obscuring the light of Truth, upon which true art and true theology depend. We await with dread the dark Winter that is fast upon us, ready to endure it for the sake of Christ and the benefit of our neighbor, yet wondering what misery it will bring. But we remember the Spring. And we long for its return.

Johann Sebastian Bach is recognized as the Greatest Composer in the history of Western Civilization; and the work recognized as the Greatest Work of the Greatest Composer is nothing other than a Lutheran Mass – Bach's Lutheran Mass in B-Minor. We offer for our readers today, in celebration of the birth of the Greatest Composer to have ever lived, and in fond remembrance of the Spring that once was, this, a full performance of Bach's Greatest Work.


Lutheran Mass in B-Minor – by Johann Sebastian Bach

 

Music for Holy Week, Part 2 – excerpts from Markus Passion

Yesterday, in Part 1 of this Music for Holy Week series, we introduced the historic practice of daily lessons through Holy Week covering the Passion accounts from each of the Gospels and reported how "The Singing Church" delivered the words of these accounts to their hearers in song. Yesterday, we heard excerpts from compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach and Heinrich Schütz, the two greatest German composers in history, which gave the account of Christ's Passion according to the Gospel of St. Matthew. Today, with much less introduction to the composer and his work, we share with our readers excerpts from Johann Sebastian Bach's Markus Passion. It is important to note, however, that these were not composed as performance pieces. These were works of liturgical music, which set the appointed Gospel lesson to music and were intended for the context of worship. For more details on the composers, and their liturgical compositions, please refer to yesterday's post. In addition to excerpts from Markus Passion, today we have included some images of the recently restored Frauenkirche in Dresden, in which one of the recordings featured below was made.

The site of the present-day Frauenkirche had been occupied by a large Gothic structure since the Middle Ages, but by 1722 had fallen into such a state of disrepair that it needed to be demolished and rebuilt. The rebuilding began in 1726 under the watchful eye of Dresden superintendent, Valentin Ernst Löscher (1673-1754) -- the last of the orthodox Lutheran theologians to emerge directly from the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy. He is remembered for his vigorous polemic against the German Pietists under August Hermann Francke (1663-1727) and Joachim Lange (1670-1744), which is preserved for us in his Complete Timotheus Verinus, recently translated into English by Robert Koester and James Langebartels and currently available from Northwestern Publishing House. Designed by George Bähr and finally completed in 1744, the Frauenkirche stood from that time forward as a marvel of architectural engineering, until it was destroyed in the 1945 fire-bombing of Dresden. It sat, awaiting the fall of the Berlin Wall, as a dingy pile of rubble. Immediately following the end of Soviet occupation of East Germany, in 1989, efforts to rebuild it were organized, and work began in 1993. Working from original plans and historic photographs, the rubble was sifted for re-usable materials so that new materials could be constructed as required. It was completed in 2005.

The video excerpts, below, come from a musical setting of St. Mark's account of the Passion of Christ, Markus Passion, which was composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. The first video was performed at the Frauenkirche in Dresden, Germany:










Excerpt from Bach's Markus Passion
(Recorded at the Frauenkirche in 2009)












Bach's Markus Passion

 

Law and Gospel: What do they teach? -- Part 3.2, What Happened to the Events of the Gospel? (The Church Responds to the Enlightenment: Pietism)

Continued from What Happened to the History of the Gospels? (The Impact of the Enlightenment)...

An Interlude: What Happened to History, Anyway? (cont’d)
Has the Church merely abdicated?One will often read contemporary Christian commentators who lament with bitterness what they see as abdication by the Church in Western Civilization of its involvement in science or society, claiming that it has offered no response to these challenges, and, rather than defend against them, has instead embraced them. Such commentary is unhelpful and considerably off the mark. The fact is, the Church has not merely abdicated. It has struggled mightily and in various ways against the withering onslaught of man’s great enemy – the World – yet has been forced into retreat.


The Impact of Pietism leading into the EnlightenmentBut it must be realized that most of the battles that would be fought in the two centuries following the Enlightenment were already lost in the generation leading up to it, in the era of Pietism. This broad movement within the Church developed within Lutheranism in the mid- to late- 17^th Century, and was finally inaugurated under the leadership of Philipp Jakob Spener (1635-1705) with the publication of his Pia Desideria, in 1675. In it, growing spiritual malaise within the Church was identified and decried, and a program for the reformation of spiritual life within the congregations was articulated.

The structure of the Lutheran church opened it to political manipulation of the state
The 17^th Century is known as the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy. It was during this time that, being tempered as it was by incessant challenges from Rome, Geneva and elsewhere, it’s theology was fully systematized and established. It had never been stronger. That sickly conditions were otherwise a reality, however, is (and was) openly admitted, but the causes were numerous, some being contemporary, and some extending back to the time of the Reformation itself. Heinrich Schmid (1811-1885) documents some of these causes in the introduction of his History of Pietism. Chief among these causes was the structure of the Lutheran Church in Germany itself, a compromise condition established around the time of the Reformation. The Reformers desired a church that was independent of the state, articulating as much in the Augsburg Confession (AC XXVIII), and carefully guarding the rights of the congregation in The Treatise on the Power and Primacy of the Pope. Also desiring to avoid conflict with the princes, instead of pushing for complete separation from the state, as was their confessed desire, the Reformers compromised, agreeing to the oversight of what we would call a presbytery, or a council of laymen and clergy who would oversee the congregations on behalf of the state. Before long, however, political maneuvering of the princes insured the uninvolvement of the presbyters, and as a result, the office of the presbytery was used as a medium through which the princes would govern the congregations – a situation which, in a strictly pragmatic sense, might be tolerable if a given prince were a pious Christian; but this was rarely the case³⁷. Before the close of the 16^th Century, the control of the state over the church caused the concordist, David Chytraeus (1531-1600) to complain of what Johann Valentin Andreae (1586-1654) and others later lamented as caesaropapacy, observing that

the politicians have, according to Luther’s instruction, embraced the gospel all the more eagerly, but only so that they may throw off the yoke of the bishops and take the goods of the church. They no longer want to look to the servants of the church for judgment, but want to judge everything themselves. Thus the church now has to be ruled more according to the verdict of the courts than according to the Word of God³⁸.

As a result of this small matter of confessional compromise, all manner of worldly corruption entered into the practice of the Lutheran Church in Germany. It seems that in some ways the training of pastors descended from the political maneuvering of the princes with respect to religion, such that as students they were focused more “on papistic, Reformed, Socinian, and anabaptistic controversies”³⁹, than on Scripture and exegetical theology. Such controversies were far more than just theological debates, but were also critical matters of political importance, given that the religious confession of the ruling class was often a determining factor in the negotiation of strategic alliances. From such priorities descended the preparation of the pastors. And such became the flavor of their preaching.

Scholasticism crept into the Lutheran method of theology
Exacerbating this situation was the entrance and acceptance of the Scholastic Method into the method of Lutheran theology – also reaching back to the time of the Reformation. Scholasticism, following the epistemology and logic of Aristotle, was a method of organizing knowledge according to the categories and hierarchy of observation, and reasoning from these observations to conclusions regarding universal truth – conclusions which can only be reached intellectually, as they lie outside the reach of the human senses. Early in the Mediæval Era,

the Christian religion was the leading subject of thought... [Thus] its divines had put forward the claim that Christianity was not merely ...the means to reunion with God, but also a philosophy in the widest sense that the term is used – that is, a consistent speculative view of man’s condition, nature, and surrounding world. They held, without reservation, that the doctrines of the ancient philosophers had to be corrected to conform to those of revelation. The resultant theology was the only true philosophy. Thus, in its classic sense, scholastic philosophy is a philosophical doctrine of the ancient world which was amended so as to conform to or be consistent with the Christian theology of the Middle Ages⁴⁰.

Scholastic Theology thus studied matters of God according to observation from Nature, Scripture, and Tradition and harmonized them with the conclusions of classical philosophy. It was from this theological tradition that Luther and the Reformers sought to free the Church, directing it back to the source of God’s revelation to man and championing a purely exegetical theology. Offered in the face of the scholastics who cited centuries of commentary, Sola Scriptura was not an attack on reason, but a subordination of reason to Holy Writ.

This did not, however, preclude utilization of the form of scholastic theology, that is, use of the categories and order of scholastic theology that was recognized by the scholastics, particularly in answer to their charges, which were naturally offered in the context of scholastic method. Beginning in 1521, Philipp Melanchthon (1497-1560), with the approval of Martin Luther, published his Loci Communes – a Lutheran theology expressed in the order and categories of scholastic theology – with many revisions following throughout his life. Martin Chemnitz (1522-1586), following Melanchthon, began work on his Loci Theologici in 1554 – a commentary on Melanchthon’s Loci, which sought to correct the theological aberrations it contained. Despite following the form of the Loci, the character of Lutheran theology remained distinctively biblical and exegetical, even into the beginning of the early 17^th Century.

By the time of Johann Gerhardt (1582-1637), however, attitudes had begun to change. The Catholic counter-reformation had been launched in 1540, with the establishment of the Jesuit Order, which was dedicated to the defense and propagation of the Roman Catholic faith, and continued in earnest in 1545 with the Council of Trent, which concluded in 1563 by issuing sweeping condemnations of nearly every protestant distinctive with which it had been forced to contend. The implications of these theological condemnations were significant, as the various provinces within the Holy Roman Empire remaining within the Roman Catholic Church were obligated to consider the anathematized as political opponents. This was a reality with which the Lutheran princes had to contend, and, no doubt, was a factor under consideration as they controlled the congregations through the presbyteries. Meanwhile, the Jesuits started schools, sent out missionaries, and mounted rigorous theological offensives against the protestant churches – using the scholastic method – mostly in an effort to turn the opinions of the nobility against Protestant teaching and to crush Protestantism in the process. Gerhard, fully acquainted and skilled with the method of exegetical theology, acquiesced to the use of the scholastic method, mostly under pressure from such challenges.

Of no small significance, René Descartes (1596-1650)⁴¹ received his early education by the Jesuits at Collège de La Flèche, and we see traces of the scholasticism he there imbibed in the dualism which emerged from his philosophy. He published his Discourse on the Method in the same year Johann Gerhard died. Some commentators suggest that the “Method” on which he “discoursed” was not just a reference to his new method of investigating truth, but was a reference to the scholastic method itself, and represented his attempt to reform and improve the method used and taught by the Jesuits. Regardless, the growing impact of rationalism was felt in culture, particularly as the nobility became more and more preoccupied with secular matters. It may just be a coincidence, but following the death of Gerhard, and for the remainder of the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy, the analytic methods of scholasticism dominated Lutheran theological methodology⁴².

Impact on church practice in the congregations
Not only had the training of pastors descended from these realities, and their preaching taken on characteristics representing them, the idea of the pastor as “steward of the mysteries of God” became identified solely with the role of preaching, rather than with the authoritative source of the message. Rather than Christ, the preacher was on display⁴². At the same time the pastoral task of shepherding became narrowed to the task of teaching⁴³ – which was itself often accomplished only from the pulpit. Thus, the preacher again, not the people he was called to serve, became central to his ministry. “Pastors began to think that their entire ministry should center on keeping doctrine pure. Thus they were in danger of forgetting that pure doctrine is only a means to a goal,”⁴⁴ not the goal itself. The public practice of the worshipers suffered, as a result. Heinrich Schmid quotes Theophilus Grossgebauer (1628-1661), who observed:

By the public worship service I understand preaching, singing, praying, and intercessions. But today they act as if preaching and listening to a sermon alone make a worship service. Thus in the big cities I have seen people punctually stream into church at the time that the preacher climbs into the pulpit and then, when the sermon is over, stream out. Today, instead of saying with the old Christians that they have praised God with their fellow Christians, prayed from the heart for the unrepentant, received the repentant into fellowship again, encouraged one another with psalms, and heard the Word of God; the people use a new way of speaking unknown to the apostolic Christians: They say that they have “been at the sermon,” as the Roman Catholics say that they have been at mass⁴⁵.

And such became the attitude of the laity toward the Sacraments, as well. Schmid quotes Heinrich Müller (1631-1675), another critic of the status of church life, who records:

Modern Christianity has four mute ecclesiastical idols which they follow: the baptismal font, the pulpit, the confessional, and the altar. They take comfort in their external Christianity, that they are baptized, hear God’s Word, go to confession, and receive the Lord’s Supper, but they deny the inner power of Christianity⁴⁶.

Such observations are what prompted Grossgebauer to also grieve, with much hyperbole, regarding the clergy:

All preaching of the Word and all use of the sacraments is not merely unfruitful, but also soul-destroying. The bearers of the Word and the administrators of the sacraments do not have the courage and the earnestness to maintain and urge the form of congregational life that corresponds to the essence of the divine Word and sacrament...⁴⁷

What Grossgbauer, Müller and other critics of the Lutheran church were concerned about was the proper use and centrality of the Means of Grace, i.e., the form of congregational life that corresponds to the essence of the divine Word and sacrament. They were not pining for a program to inspire enthusiasm for God-talk and personal experience with the Holy Spirit.

The impact of the Thirty Years’ War
It is necessary, however, to realize one other important factor responsible for the malaise which most church leaders admitted during this time: the impact of the Thirty Years’ War. From 1618 to 1648, all of Europe converged on Germany as political, economic and religious interests collided in devastating turmoil. Of direct impact church-life in Germany, territories changed hands and religious Confession through military victory and defeat, or as princes converted between Calvinism, Lutheranism, and Roman Catholicism for political advantage⁴⁸, causing in some districts a whip-sawing of religious practice. Generally, human casualty and economic loss were unimaginable.

The Swedes alone were accused of destroying nearly two thousand castles, eighteen thousand villages and over fifteen hundred towns. Bavaria claimed to have lost eighty thousand families and nine hundred villages, Bohemia five-sixths of its villages and three-quarters of its population. In Württemberg the number of the inhabitants was said to have fallen to a sixth, in Nassau to a fifth, in Henneberg to a third, in the wasted Palatinate to a fiftieth of its original size. The population of Colmar was halved, that of Wolfenbüttel had sunk to an eighth, of Magdeburg to a tenth, of Hagenau to a fifth, of Olmütz to less than a fifteenth. Minden, Hamlen, Göttingen, Magdeburg, by their own account, stood in ruins⁴⁹.

The war threw the entire cultural state of affairs in Germany back a hundred years. Poverty and moral degeneration reached a degree never seen before. Even the days after the war were not a time of fresh and cheerful prosperity. The unity of the German realm was not achieved through the Peace of Westphalia, and the territory of the realm was diminished. Foreign princes had influence on conditions in Germany, and the native princes used the freedom from imperial control they had achieved to enslave their subjects... The moral degeneration that spread during the war aroused in the congregations a stubbornness toward church discipline, against which the clergy were not able to prevail...⁵⁰.

Pietists to the Rescue?
When it is understood that the Pietists recognized along with nearly everyone else that there were some serious problems among the Lutheran clergy and laity in Germany, yet decried “orthodixism” (or, loosely, "orthodoxy for its own sake") as the cause of those problems and set about implementing their own program of reforms to revive the spiritual life of the Lutheran church, the reality is that they were responding to a situation brought about by conditions far beyond this simple diagnosis. Phillip Jakob Spener prescribed the cure in 1675 with the publication of his Pia Desideria – six seemingly modest Lutheran reforms that he thought would bring about spiritual renewal among Lutherans and would extend Luther's doctrinal Reformation into the life and works of the Church and of individual believers⁵¹:

1. a greater study of Scripture among Christians, assembled in small groups called "conventicles",
2. the practicing of the Universal Priesthood of all Believers through lay participation in congregational ministry,
3. encouraging Christians to live out their faith, rather than mere intellectual assent to Biblical teaching,
4. a more brotherly treatment of heterodox teachers,
5. ministerial training that cultivated personal piety as well as academic prowess, and,
6. preaching which dwelt on Sanctification^52,53

Special note ought to be taken of points (1) and (2). In decrying “orthodoxism,” Spener was really criticizing a church political structure which provided pure doctrine well-enough, but which extended no rights to the laity. Schmid quotes Spener, thus:

Under the church constitution, the church is not given its rights; the greatest part of the church, the laity, is suppressed. I fear that this is the source of all corruption and that the church cannot possibly be helped by this sort of arrangement. What gave rise to the papacy was not removed by the Reformation; the rule of the clergy was in most places replaced by the caesaropapism. Therefore, even though the Reformation gave us the pure doctrine through God’s grace, nevertheless the ultimate goal of improving the church did not follow⁵⁴.

Spener’s dispute with the Lutheran church had a strong political component to it, and his cure took the form of a specific kind of human action, catalyzed at first through the leadership of concerned clergy, but eventually taking on an organic life of its own. In this regard, special note ought also be taken of the fact that Spener was a student of the teaching of Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) – having won his master in 1653 at the University of Strasbourg by a disputation against Hobbes’ philosophy. It would be interesting to have access to his specific objections to Hobbes, as the remedy Spener proposes for the Lutheran Church strikes one as very similar to Hobbes’ social contract theory. Schmid, quoting Spener again:

I have little hope in human strength [referring to the character of leaders in the Church and State, and their ability to lead “effectively”], but trust that from time to time pious preachers and politicians will work at gradually gathering in his church ecclesiolae in ecclesia without causing any divisions and arrange these so that there are true Christians in them. These will not fail to be excellent examples and a yeast that works powerfully in the rest of the dough. Either I am wrong, or this is the only way the church can be cared for⁵⁵.

Elevation of the Universal Priesthood and the collection of laity into ecclesiolae in ecclesia, from which they would be sent for the purposes of having a leavening influence in the church, is very near the image of a leaderless body politic, in which a natural order is organically established through mutually beneficial acquiescence and agreement. As a matter of pragmatic necessity, elevating the untrained laity to quasi-ministerial status in the Church would require attenuation of the goal and ideal of orthodoxy. Rigorous orthodoxy in the Church was the primary impediment to his idea of a more egalitarian church structure. In other words, Spener’s program sounds as much like an experiment in (then) modern social and organizational theory, as it does anything else.

If a leaderless body politic was indeed what Spener had envisioned, with a laity fully imbued with the rights of participation in the governance of the church, then he was largely successful – for very swiftly following his publication of Pia Desideria the near anarchy one would expect, resulted.

Valentin Ernst Loescher (1673-1749), an orthodox Lutheran theologian and eyewitness to German Pietism – who was also one of the most effective opponents of it – uses the following words to describe the characteristics of Pietism in his work, Timotheus Verinus, and devotes an entire chapter of analysis to each word as it is applied to Spener's movement:


indifferentism, contempt for the Means of Grace, the invalidation of the ministry, the confusing of righteousness by faith with works, millennialism, precisionism, mysticism, the abolition of the spiritual supports, crypto-enthusiasm, reformatism, and making divisions...⁵⁷

...Because Pietism viewed the role of intellect in spiritual matters with suspicion and displayed strong preference for emotion and intuition, the Church largely became an unwelcome place for the intellectually capable⁵⁸.

As a result, the Western Church was made exceptionally vulnerable through weakened doctrine, experiential anthropocentric practice, and unionism, and in the process forfeited to the world of secular academia a generation of men who, as theologians of potent intellect, would have been crucial to meeting the challenges which would confront it. Among Lutherans, by 1750 and the bloom of the Enlightenment, Loescher, the last of the old orthodox theologians died, rendering orthodox confessional Lutheranism essentially silent until it began to emerge again in America a century later. In the meantime, while Pietism, as a movement in the Church, succumbed in continental Europe to the reaction of “pure rationalism” – which nearly everywhere invaded the Church and society – the individualistic, experiential, and anti-intellectual personal piety and church practice it nurtured, remained.

While Pietism was not a response to attacks on the historicity of the Gospels, we see in this episode of Church History how the Lutheran church in Germany allowed contemporary culture to influence it, such that by the end of the Lutheran Age of Orthodoxy, the Lutheran church itself was made into an example of Cartesian Dualism. One faction, the Lutheran scholastics (particularly the later theologians like Baier⁵⁹, Quenstedt, and Calov), elevated reason in their system of theology, at some points (it is said) subordinating their exegesis to that system. Their theology was still orthodox, of course, thorough and very clear. Yet, their method provided both precedent and platform for the Rationalists of the following generation to disregard an exegetical approach, and to subordinate Scripture to man’s reason. This faction was representative of Decartes’ “sphere of reason,” and as a consequence of elevated human reason, the Christianity which flowed from Enlightenment Rationalism was named “liberal” – also representing the Cartesian significance of reason⁶⁰. The other faction, representative of Descartes’ “sphere of experience,” were the Pietists, who elevated human experience, and at many points subordinated scripture and its objective teachings to the subjectivity of human intuition and emotion.

From this point forward in the culture of the West, as well as within the Church as it grappled with ideas it either imported or which otherwise seeped in from the World, the interplay and exchange of emphases between reason and experience has continued nearly unabated – not as an equilibrium between experience and reason has been sought (such as was enjoyed before the time of Descartes), but as one has been emphasized in reaction to the other.


More to come...



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Endnotes:

36. Schmid, H. (2007). The History of Pietism (J. Langebartels, Trans.). (Original work published in German, 1863). Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House. pp. 1-3.
    
37. Ibid. pg. 4. See also pp. 16-18.
    
38. Ibid. pg. 10 (quoting Theophilus Grossgebauer [1628-1661]).
    
39. Stoops, J. (1971). Philosophy and Education in Western Civilization. Danville, IL: Interstate Publishers. pg. 162-163
    
40. See on Intrepid Lutherans, the previous essay in this series: The Impact of the Enlightenment
    
41. The following Wikipedia article gives some information: Lutheran Scholasticism
    
42. Schmid, H. (2007). The History of Pietism (J. Langebartels, Trans.). (Original work published in German, 1863). Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House. pp. 7-8.
    
43. Ibid. pp. 8-9.
    
44. Ibid. pg. 22.
    
45. Ibid. pg. 13.
    
46. Ibid. pg. 6.
    
47. Ibid. pg. 7.
    
48. Wedgwood, C. (1994). The Thirty Years War. (Originally published in 1939). Norwalk, CT: Easton Press. pp. 41-45.
    
49. Ibid. pg. 512.
    
50. Schmid, H. (2007). The History of Pietism (J. Langebartels, Trans.). (Original work published in German, 1863). Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House. pp. 15,19.
    
51. Ibid. pp. 57-59.
    
52. Ibid. pp. 38-51.
    
53. Spener, P. (2002). Pia Desideria (Reprint edition, previously published by Augsburg Fortress Press in 1964, T. Tappert, Trans. Original work published in German, 1675.) Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers. pp. 87-122.
    
54. Schmid, H. (2007). The History of Pietism (J. Langebartels, Trans.). (Original work published in German, 1863). Milwaukee, WI: Northwestern Publishing House. pg. 59.
    
55. Ibid. pg. 61.
    
56. Ibid.
    
57. Loescher, V. (1998). The Complete Timotheus Verinus (J. Langebartels & R. Koester, Trans.). Milwaukee: Northwestern Publishing House. (Original work published 1718 [Part 1] and 1721 [Part 2]). pg. 249.
    
58. Lay Ministry: A Continuing Legacy of Pietism
    See also: C.F.W. Walther on the Layman's Role in the Congregation's Ministry
    
59. The reader may be interested to know that it was Johann Wilhelm Baier’s dogmatic compendium which was later annotated by C.F.W. Walther, and used as the Missouri Synod’s first dogmatics text. The Baier-Walther Compendium of Positive Theology was later used by Dr. Francis Pieper as the basis for his Christian Dogmatics.
    
60. Recall from The Impact of the Enlightenment the impact of Descartes’ discovery that reason is the seat of existence:
    Thus reason, he discovered, is the seat of existence – not experience. As a consequence, when reason and experience interact, human liberty results only when reason directs experience – that is, when reason is the cause of human action. On the other hand, human slavery results when experience is the cause of reason, when people are prompted to the exercise of reason on the basis of what happens to them or around them.

"The New White-Wine Pietists," by Craig Parton

Given that we have been focusing over the past several weeks on the impact Pietism has on Lutheran practice and doctrine, we thought that the following essay would be helpful to our readers, as they digest the impact and consequences of Pietism in its modern forms, and begin to struggle with identifying and responding to it. The following article was originally published in 1997, and is reproduced below with the written permission of its original publisher, LOGIA: A Journal of Lutheran Theology, and its author, Mr Craig Parton.

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The New White-Wine Pietists
CRAIG PARTON
THOUGH LACKING SCRIPTURAL SUPPORT for this, I contend that hell consists in some small part in viewing films with English subtitles. Babette’s Feast, however, is an exception — a must-see film for adherents of confessional orthodoxy. The film is set in Denmark in the nineteenth century. A bleak, windswept coastal fishing village is inhabited by the exceedingly bleaker remnants of a barely discernible historic Lutheran orthodoxy. The film begins with the village remnant already drinking fully from the founts of a crossless, mystical “Christian” pietism. Vestiges of a long-lost orthodoxy appear only in the names of two sisters within the remnant — Martina (after Luther) and Philipa (after Philip Melanchthon). Their papa had, apparently, some sense of the contribution of these Lutheran reformers. Any appreciation of theological orthodoxy is slim pickings indeed by the time of the arrival of the central figure of the film, Babette.

Babette is a haunting Christ figure. Her origins are obscure and not fully revealed until the film’s astounding conclusion. She brings gifts to the remnant at a level that these pietists cannot appreciate. In fact, at one point she is considered to be completely demonic. Babette, though, comes only to serve. Eventually (after over a decade of silent servanthood) she does make a “demand” — she requires that the villagers attend a Michelin Guide five-star feast. Babette’s gastronomical gift is presented in stark contrast to the frozen cod and lumpy porridge of these law-driven, gospel-starved people.

MARTINA AND PHILIPA COME TO AMERICA
Having fully emasculated Lutheran orthodoxy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the pietism portrayed in Babette’s Feast took flight to America, where it found willing bedfellows.

Nary would a contemporary American pietist, however, ever recognize himself as one of the villagers in Babette’s Feast. But Martina and Philipa are alive and well in 1996. The new American Christian pietist of the ’90s is often a hip, white-winedrinking, Land-Rover-buying, laptop-computer-owning, kinda-MTV-watching, wannabe-generation-X member sired in the hottest evangelical temples. He may or may not have a ponytail and an earring — he definitely does have a testimony. The new white-wine pietists are big on “fellowship” and “accountability groups.” They may wear Ralph Lauren Polo shirts and loafers with no socks. They invite equally hip renegade Catholic priests and socially and politically liberal evangelicals to “fellowship” meetings and “ecumenical prayer breakfasts.”

Pietism is thus no longer championed by nerdy, pocket-penladen, Catholic-bashing, Louisiana Bayou Baptists who condemn dancing, drinking, smoking, and doing the Hoochy Coochy. The new white-wine pietists have few social hang-ups with alcohol, tobacco, or music. Pietism is cross-dressing in American Christian culture today in a way that would have been unthinkable to the pietists of twenty-five years ago. The new white-wine pietists are cotton-clad, jeep-owning preppies, football coaches of major powerhouses, Yuppies who know the difference between a Cabernet Sauvignon and a Chardonnay, and political insiders who walk through the halls of Congress comfortably with the New York Times under their arms.

Thus the cultural and social package in which pietism dresses in the 1990s is often dramatically different from that which initially arose in reaction to the Reformation of the sixteenth century. But while the package is much different today, the theology of pietism remains, incredibly, unaltered. That manmade theology (what Luther called a theology of glory) was created by the first Adam while in rebellion in the garden and continues to this very day with its proclamation of the redeeming power of the law. Theologia gloria remains an enemy of the theologia crucis (theology of the cross). It must be vigilantly identified, scoped, and slain in every generation if our Lord is to find faith when he returns.

Thus the greatest threat to the church today is not from the ACLU, Martin Scorese, The New Age Movement, Gangsta Rap, Planned Parenthood, Time-Warner, Madonna, Congresswoman Pat Schroeder, or Hugh Hefner. The greatest threat is a crossless pietism that has been given luxury-box seating within the walls of the church militant. It is a crossless pietism with confidence in the old Adam and in the life-giving power of the law. It is, though, the old, dank, putrid theology of glory now in the guise of dominion politics, or the seven promises of a promise keeper, or yielded or victorious living, or traditional family values, or any other appeal to life and salvation not centered in the daily inglorious and lowly forgiveness of sins found only in Christ’s atoning death. The new white-wine pietists are lethal because they don’t look, smell, dress, or socialize like the pietists of old. They are, however, enemies of the theologia crucis.

I am a recent convert to Reformation theology. After spending almost twenty years in white-wine pietism, I come to warn. Martina and Philipa are now with us, only they wear lycra work-out shorts, carry head-sets, and drink designer water. They are alive and well in the church and they are legion. They are also alive and well-fed in the historic churches of the Reformation. The following are the nine spiritual laws of white-wine pietism (ten being too doctrinal a number to use), which are increasingly espoused by the ignorant and arrogant within even confessional churches. Thus these laws are no longer being championed by fringe members of confessional churches; they are being brought in like the Trojan horse at the highest levels of influence. They seek to turn Babette’s Feast into a serious bout of botulism.

THE NINE SPIRITUAL LAWS OF WHITE-WINE PIETISM

1. Doctrine divides.
   As one white-wine pietist told me recently: “Who cares how many natures Christ has? It’s enough to just love Jesus.” The point regularly made by white-wine pietists is that the quest for theological depth, clarity, and maturity lead one away from Jesus Christ and the Scriptures and frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit.
   
   
2. Subjectivity is spiritual.
   White-wine pietists encourage people to look inside themselves to their very core. Here one finds purity of motive, willingness to follow God, good thoughts, marital fidelity, and truthtelling. To the extent these qualities do not exist in one’s heart, the more one must strive to obtain them through various welltested ladders of ascent (for example, fasting, accountability groups, a “discipleship” relationship, prayer, and displaying “integrity” in one’s profession). While the Reformation identifies the heart as the problem, white-wine pietists see it as the answer.
   
   
3. Liturgy dulls.
   White-wine pietists distrust ordered worship — it shackles the heartfelt response. These pietists in confessional churches incessantly clamor to “update” worship so that the “spirit can lead.” Thus Lutherans, for example, now experience the strange phenomenon of having an Amy Grant song in the middle of a “modified” Divine Service. In response to questions about this dubious practice, a white-wine pietist told me roughly the following: “We’ve been doing this liturgy-thing for years and nobody knows what they are saying anymore. It’s only meaningful and alive to you because it’s new to you. Anyway, the liturgy is a sixteenth-century German invention. Frankly, it’s all rote and boring to us (and too hard to understand) and to our children. By the way, can you believe how the public schools dummy down to the lowest common denominator? It is scandalous!” The result is that we now have more user-friendly services because the historical (and thus liturgical) service doesn’t “work” for white-wine pietists who have specialized needs within varying age groups, as well as soccer games at 12:10 P.M. on Sunday.
   
   Pastors of white-wine pietists are encouraged to use their word processors on Thursday night to rearrange the liturgy in order to “surprise” victims on Sunday morning. Unfortunately, evangelicals coming to the Reformation come precisely to get away from “surprises.” (A “surprise” on Sunday morning is usually prefaced with the “worship leader” asking: “Does anyone have something that they would like to share this morning?”) The stability of an historic liturgy and its constant reminder each Sunday that we are in need of the gospel and the forgiveness of sins is what I, for example, found so utterly compelling about the Lutheran Church. Instead, white-wine pietists encourage services that end up being cheesy, mid-1970s praise meetings (but without bell-bottom pants) that eclipse the gospel, promote a theology of glory, and teach the congregation that they don’t “participate” unless they’re up front with the white-wine Yuppie “leadership team” doing piano bar music.
   
   
4. The Sacraments are scary.
   White-wine pietists neither promote nor defend growth in and by the sacraments. Why? Because the objective forgiveness of sins in the means of grace is gospel through and through. White-wine pietists drink from the chalice of the law and either turn sacraments into ordinances or downplay their centrality in the Christian life (“once a month is more than enough — and why not do it on Sunday night so it is less time-consuming?”).
   
   
5. Catechesis is for teenagers or intellectuals.
   The new white-wine pietists (like their forefathers) disdain the systematic learning of Christian doctrine. Catechesis, it is thought, smells of Rome, and we all know how little good catechism class does them, right? There is the perception among white-wine pietists in confessional churches that confirmation classes are to be endured and that works like Luther’s Small Catechism are to be thankfully put on the shelf at the end of the eighth grade. The concept of a thorough theological education from the earliest grades through adulthood is gone. Pietism has killed it. White-wine pietists keep the coffin nailed shut.
   
   Vacuous Sunday school curricula that catechizes one in the theology of glory (with no emphasis, of course, on the sacraments) are brought in wholesale and fed to the children. Youth rallies stress the inner spiritual life over objective growth in faith through the means of grace (word and sacrament). Yet no one understands why kids are leaving confessional churches in droves for the evangelical movement as soon as they get to college. Of course, they are! Why stay? Johnny Angel goes to college and soon realizes that the evangelical parachurch organizations and other non-denominational Bible churches do a theology of glory with more enthusiasm and quality. The very churches that bemoan declining membership have set the next generation up for the completely logical next step.
   
   
6. Small groups promote “real” growth and “accountability.”
   I thought I had left the horizontal approach to Bible study back with my white-wine pietist past. Not so. The Relational Bible Study School of Theology is being resuscitated by the new white-wine pietists operating in confessional churches. The result is an erosion of confidence in the value of corporate worship tied in with the worship of all Christians throughout time, in the sacraments and the word as the only sure means of growth in the Christian life, and in the liturgy as both cross- and counter-cultural.
   
   Pietism created The Horizontal School of Theology. That school will never support an emphasis on confessional orthodoxy or on sacramental corporate worship. Small groups within churches that do not foster commitment to corporate worship and thus to the means of grace are enemies of the cross of Christ. The premise of such groups is that word and sacrament are not enough to meet individual felt needs. Everyone is different, so everyone must be met on a different level. Some have daily sins to confess and to be absolved from and some don’t. All have something different they need or want from the church salad bar on Sunday morning. This is a malignant American individualism, and it smells of Lucifer’s droppings.
   
   
7. Doctrinal hymns are elitist, but praise choruses edify.
   As the white-wine-pietist son of a Lutheran minister told me recently, the first priority should be on whether the song can be sung easily and only then should one focus on the text of the song. Since the key is to experience God directly, immediately, and quickly (like an Egg McMuffin), the easiest way is by using the ubiquitous Maranatha praise book dearly cherished at the local McChurch.
   
   It is known among trained musicians that within certain groups simply playing certain chords will immediately elicit the response of closed eyes or raised hands (somewhat like Pavlov’s dogs salivating at the ringing of a bell). It has nothing to do whatsoever with any content that is being sung — it is simply a matter of musical form eliciting a certain emotional response. Because of their abject ignorance of doctrine, the new white-wine pietists disparage the historic hymnody of the church and encourage a musical style that allows them to put one arm around their girlfriend and the other in the air. While Bach signed his works with “Soli Deo Gloria,” the music of white-wine pietism is signed with the godly reminder that it is “used by permission only, Big Steps 4 U Music, License #47528695, copyright 1986, administered by Integrity Hosanna Music, Incorporated.”
   
   The hymns of the Reformation are often theologically dense and difficult to sing. They can elicit an emotional response too, such as contrition, falling prostrate in fear of God, or despairing of the merit of one’s good works. The impression is given that because there is a language and style to learn, and that it is difficult, it is not worth making the effort. If I had listened to this kind of advice during the first year of law school, I would never have become a lawyer. To those who say you can put any content to any praise chorus and get the appropriate result, I respond: Then why don’t we put the content of Luther’s catechetical hymn “From Depths of Woe I Cry to Thee” to the Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun ’Til Daddy Takes the T’ Bird Away”?
   
   
8. The Holy Spirit hates apologetics.
   White-wine pietists despise apologetics, because it deals with rational argumentation, and pietists distrust the mind. The heart promotes worship while the mind just gets in the way. The new white-wine pietists are no different from their sixteenth century predecessors (and Luther’s nemeses) the so-called “Zwickau Prophets,” Carlstadt and Muenzer — they put the head and the heart at war with one another. While we would gladly agree that no human effort (intellectual or otherwise) can ever be attributed as the cause of regeneration or saving faith, Scripture calls us to give a defense of the hope that is within. This takes work, study, and contact with the objections of unbelievers. White-wine pietists don’t do well in these waters, though to their credit they often socialize well with unbelievers. It is easier to attack apologetics as trying to “argue people into the kingdom” than it is to do serious, time-consuming study. Historically, pietism has ignored and disdained apologetics, placing it in tension with the “testimony from the heart.”
   
   The new white-wine pietists, unlike their fundamentalist forefathers, do go into the marketplace to “win the lost.” But their method of winning the lost is presenting a theology of glory based on their “lifestyle of integrity,” their “model family,” or by showing unbelievers how “tight” their “fellowship group” is. Mormons and all other moralists or anyone else with their lives halfway together, however, should be profoundly unimpressed. A reasoned and vigorous (and thus apostolic) defense of the cross is simply gone. In fact, it is arrogantly mocked as a strictly unspiritual endeavor. The “good news” preached by the new white-wine pietists is never really that good, because the bad news of the law is never fully grasped or preached in its awful severity.
   
   
9. Growth in faith comes through obedience to the law.
   This is the central theological sulfur of all strains of pietism. The Reformation in general, and Luther in particular, were emphatic that the prime function of the law was to slay and kill Adam, the first pietist. Growth in the Christian life is a growth in grace — that is, a growth in the life and salvation given by Christ and springing out of the daily forgiveness of sins. A focus on the forgiveness of sins will always push a person to the means of grace, where a holy God promises and delivers that forgiveness. The new white-wine pietist, true to his origins, has an individualistic and pragmatic interest in the church. Pietists interest themselves in the work of the church to the extent that it fosters relationships, love for God, “fellowship,” a growing commitment to small groups, and access to God unencumbered by the means of grace or by liturgy, in favor of more emotional worship.
   

COMING TO BABETTE’S TABLE
The irony of white-wine pietism is that it has so broadly infiltrated into historically orthodox churches, and yet it is hostile to orthodoxy’s emphasis on word and sacrament. Pietism devoured Lutheran orthodoxy in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (it is generally agreed that Lutheran orthodoxy in Europe died for over seventy-five years with the death of J. S. Bach in 1750, an ardent foe of pietism in his day), and now casts its bulbous eyes toward the confessional orthodox churches of America.

Fortunately, a few confessional churches are still faithfully serving Babette’s Feast each Sabbath. Our Lord Christ still comes faithfully to feed his sheep with his own word and with his own body and blood. For those white-wine pietists in our midst who enthusiastically seek to offer up cold cod and porridge, they should be supplied with rowboats and pointed out to sea. They disdain Babette’s Feast. For the confessionally orthodox, however, dinner is served, and the wine is most assuredly red.

Parton, C. (1997). The New White-Wine Pietists. LOGIA: A Journal of Lutheran Theology, VI(1), 33-36.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Mr. Craig Parton, Esq. is a trial lawyer and partner with the oldest law firm in the Western United States located in Santa Barbara, California. He is former Chairman of the Litigation Section of the Santa Barbara County Bar Association. Upon graduation from college, he spent seven years on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ, the last four of which were spent as national lecturer for Crusade. Mr. Parton traveled to over 100 universities and colleges across the country defending the Christian faith through lectures and debates. He received his Master’s degree in Christian Apologetics under Dr. John Warwick Montgomery at the Simon Greenleaf School of Law, an institution devoted to the integration of Christian faith and legal reasoning. Mr. Parton then took his Juris Doctorate at the University of California, Hastings Law School in San Francisco, where he served as Executive Editor of the Law Journal, COMM/ENT. Craig Parton is also the United States Director of the International Academy of Apologetics, Evangelism and Human Rights in Strasbourg, France (www.apologeticsacademy.eu). The Academy meets for two weeks each summer in Strasbourg to provide advanced studies in apologetics to laymen and pastors. He is the author of 3 books, including “The Defense Never Rests: A Lawyer’s Quest for the Gospel”. He has published articles in both law reviews and in numerous theological journals, including Modern Reformation, Logia – A Journal of Lutheran Theology, and the Global Journal of Classical Theology. Mr. Parton has recently contributed articles to Festschrifts for both Prof. Dr. John Warwick Montgomery and Prof. Dr. Rod Rosenbladt. His latest book, just released in August of 2008 by Wipf & Stock Publishers, is entitled “Religion on Trial”.