Called to “Test all things”

Eight days ago, we blogged about the opening of Faith Lutheran Church – a new, independant Lutheran congregation in the Portland, Oregon, area, formed by some 17 Lutherans who were recently compelled to leave WELS for a variety of reasons, and have now chosen to be served by pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). We also mentioned that these Lutherans now also feel compelled to provide a public explanation for their departure from the WELS. Last Monday, we posted the first such explanation: No Longer Alone: Perspective of a Confessional Lutheran Woman. Today, we post the second.

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Called to “Test all things”
by Mr. Vernon Kneprath
The intent and agreement among those who chose to leave our WELS congregation was to leave peacefully and quietly. Concerns had already been expressed to the appropriate individuals over months and years, regarding what was being preached, taught and practiced throughout the synod. Most of those resigning their membership had stopped attending our local congregation weeks or months prior. When our common goal to return to confessional Lutheranism was realized, and a road to that end became available, it was determined to be prudent to resign our membership in our WELS congregation before working toward organizing a new congregation.

A simple, one sentence letter indicated the undersigned were resigning their membership. The letter was sent by certified mail to the pastor and president of the congregation. It was considered by our group to be more kind and considerate to send one letter rather than many, so that those receiving it would not be in a position of wondering when the next letter would arrive.

For nearly two months we generally avoided initiating dialogue. Some of us were contacted by various members and leaders of our local congregation. We listened carefully, and responded respectfully. Out of the communications that occurred during that time, there was a single individual who approached many of us in a respectful manner, and showed genuine care and concern for us.

The previous Intrepid post gave one individual’s reasons for leaving the WELS. While each of us had our own specific reasons for leaving, there were many shared concerns. Therefore, some of what follows may seem redundant. Unlike the author of the previous post, I had been a lifelong member of the WELS. I was instructed and confirmed with the Gausewitz edition of Luther’s Small Catechism, and remain convinced that it properly represents and teaches the truths of Scripture. But it had become increasingly clear in recent years that I was a confessional Lutheran in a Lutheran church body that seemed to no longer appreciate or desire to be confessional Lutheran.

The Bible teaches that we are to point out error where it exists, and to defend the truth of God’s Word at every opportunity.

”Test all things; hold fast what is good.” (1 Thessalonians 5:21 NKJV)

Over time, and with a great deal of attention to what was going on among Lutherans in this country, it became apparent it wasn’t necessary to accept the deliberate changes being made to the teachings and practices of churches within the WELS. There is an alternative.

New Bible translations that glorify man and his wisdom rather than honoring God’s unchanging Word do not need to be tolerated or accepted. There is a Lutheran church body that recognizes the potent efficacy of God’s Word in teaching AND in practice.

Contemporary worship, or blended worship, or whatever the latest worship fad, does not have to be tolerated or accepted. There is a Lutheran church body that unabashedly uses the historic liturgy without change or reservation.

An obsession with money, and a link to Thrivent and Planned Parenthood does not have to be tolerated or accepted. There is a Lutheran church body that focuses on teaching and preaching Law and Gospel, leaving it up to God to determine how and when the saints will be blessed.

Man-made gimmicks to fill the pews and the offering plates do not have to be tolerated or accepted. There is a Lutheran church body that preaches the Means of Grace, and only the Means of Grace, as the way in which God grows the church.

Decisions to remove “Lutheran” from a church name, school or website, or other efforts to distance a church from the Lutheran Confessions need not be accepted or tolerated. There is a Lutheran church body that eagerly teaches the contents of the Book of Concord to its members.

The teaching of objective justification, which proclaims that “everyone has been justified, everyone has been forgiven, everyone has been saved,” does not have to be tolerated or accepted. There is a Lutheran church body that preaches, without hesitation or contradiction, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will be saved.” (Acts 16:31 NKJV)

There is an alternative to a Lutheran church that no longer desires to be confessional Lutheran. The Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America, (ELDoNA) is the Lutheran church that I have found to be unapologetically confessional Lutheran, in teaching AND in practice.


The Lutheran Hymnal - Hymn 260 verse 2 (verse omitted from the WELS hymnal, Christian Worship)

With fraud which they themselves invent
     Thy truth they have confounded;
Their hearts are not with one consent
     On Thy pure doctrine grounded.
While they parade with outward show,
They lead the people to and fro,
     In error's maze astounded.

 

No Longer Alone: Perspective of a Confessional Lutheran Woman

Yesterday, we blogged about the opening of Faith Lutheran Church – a new, independant Lutheran congregation in the Portland, Oregon, area, formed by some 17 Lutherans who were recently compelled to leave WELS for a variety of reasons, and have now chosen to be served by pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). We also mentioned that these Lutherans now also feel compelled to provide a public explanation for their departure from the WELS. Today’s post is the first such explanation.

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No Longer Alone
Perspective of a Confessional Lutheran Woman
I felt so alone. Not from God. God had adopted me into His family at my baptism when I was only days old. My faith had been nourished and strengthened regularly with His Word and the Sacrament of Jesus’ body and blood. I knew God would never leave me nor forsake me. But I missed the fellowship of like-minded believers.

God’s House no longer felt like a sanctuary. It had the look and feel of an auditorium, the altar area dominated by a large screen. A steady stream of “announcements” and “not-so-hushed” conversations over cups of gourmet coffee made it difficult to prepare my heart for worship.

The historic liturgy had been deemed old fashioned. The use of hymnals was considered out of date. Music and text changed weekly, printed in “service folders” of greater and greater length.

It seemed that we had grown uncomfortable with God’s teaching on Holy Communion. So afraid to offend, we chose to forego Holy Communion on Easter Sunday out of fear that the Bible’s teaching of close/d communion would make us “look bad” to visitors.

Mid-week Bible studies became less frequent, then absent all together.

Vacation BIBLE School was marginalized with talk of replacing it with a soccer camp because “that’s what a lot of other churches do.” “The B-I-B-L-E” was replaced with songs about pinching cheeks and other things WE do.

A special “Mafia Night” activity was held for our youth on the night before Easter.

Sunday School was “updated,” and no longer focused on a Bible lesson and the memorization of Scripture. There was no offering basket with which to teach about stewardship.

Some things were worse.

Teaching justification by faith as “just as if I’d never done it” was replaced with the child-friendly terms of “objective justification” and “subjective justification.” If I finally understand it, “objective justification” means that everyone is declared “not guilty” regardless of faith, and “subjective justification” means that I believe I am part of everyone. Of course we need a special term to say that “I” am part of “everyone.” And never mind that this doesn’t fit with Scripture, “IT’S OUR SPECIAL MESSAGE THAT NO ONE ELSE HAS!!”

A special Reformation Sunday School lesson includes the text, “God’s Word says that all people are saved.” Where does the Bible say that?

A gender-neutral translation of the Bible is promoted for use in our churches because “no translation is perfect.” Yes, but some are less perfect than others.

I felt so alone. But I wasn’t silent. With each change, God provided the courage to express my concern to pastors, elders, and presidents of two congregations over the past 15 years. I wish I could say that I received assurance that my concerns were valid. I wish I could say that I was commended for “searching the Scriptures” for God’s will in my life. Instead, I was characterized as old fashioned, too critical, or as one simply refusing to appreciate our “Christian freedom.” The decisions had been made, and there was no turning back.

I felt so alone.

It wasn’t the first time. I had journeyed through the synods, each time moving toward one that was smaller, and in my viewpoint, more consistent in practice with what God’s Word taught. But I was at the end of the alphabet; seemingly, the end of the road. Where else was there? What was I supposed to do?

There are faithful Lutheran pastors who provide sermons and even conduct services online. But I wanted to meet together with like-minded believers. I wanted my children to keep the habit of attending church every Sunday.

God is so faithful.

Sometimes, when your faith is challenged, your eyes are opened to things you would not have otherwise seen. Through some of the issues mentioned above, I became aware of others in my congregation who felt the same. We connected with a group of confessional Lutherans who had traveled the same path prior to our experiences. They reached out with love, encouragement, support, and especially the promises of God’s Word as we organized as an independent Lutheran congregation. Pastors of the group made commitments to fly in for weekends of Bible study, instruction, visitations, and services.

God’s goodness and faithfulness is overwhelming. Thank you, God, for Your infinite grace, and thank You for the pastors and members of the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA).

“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23 (NKJV)

WELS Makes it Official: All WELS congregations shall use NIV2011

If they intend to use the new hymnal, that is.
As pointed out by commenters earlier this week, in our post Washington Post Editorial: “The trick isn’t to make church cool; it’s to keep worship weird.”, by Dr. Jackson late yesterday on his blog, Ichabod, the Glory has Departed, and to me personally by concerned WELS laymen, the WELS Hymnal Project has standardized the new WELS hymnal on the NIV 2011. The Spring 2015 Director’s Update of the WELS Hymnal Project, issued May 10, 2015, by Project Director Michael Schultz, states this directly in the section entitled “Scripture Committee (SC)” – a committee of the Project chaired by Rev. Jonathan Schroeder – in the following words:

[T]he Scripture Committee drafted a translation rubric that was approved at the first meeting of the XC [“Translation Committee” – which is also the “Scripture Committee” according to this update] in September of 2013. Their rubric followed the eclectic choice method which was approved at the 2013 synod convention. The primary working translation of the project is NIV2011, with NIV1984 serving as the backup choice where there are weaknesses or deficiencies that require changes. Since the time that resolution was approved, it has been established that NIV1984 won’t be available as a backup choice, so the committee will be bringing an updated recommendation for a backup translation... The SC reviewed all scripture references or strong scriptural allusions in the CW line of products (not including psalms). Of just under 200 instances, it identified four instances where it recommended replacing NIV2011 with NIV1984. Similarly, the PC has compared both of the NIV translations of all CW/NSS/CWOS/CWS psalmody, marking those places where changes may be necessary.

For those readers wondering what the term “eclectic” might possibly mean when applied to a Synod publication project, the statistic presented here, in Schultz’ Spring Update, ought to make that clear. Firstly, “eclectic” means either NIV2011 or NIV1984. Period. Recall, however, that the NIV2011 was touted by the Translation Evaluation Committee (TEC) – not to be confused with the Translation Committee (XC) mentioned in the Update – as being “92% identical to the NIV1984”; so, one has every right ask “How ‘eclectic’ is it, really, to limit oneself to these two choices?” (and for more helpful statistics on NIV2011 vs NIV1984, look at the Slowley and Dyer links under the ISSUES WITH NIV 2011 resources in the right hand column).

But secondly, “eclectic” apparently requires that, if the balance is cited entirely from NIV2011, only four out of 200 “scriptural allusions” contained in a Synod publication need to be cited from NIV1984. Let’s see... if only (4 ÷ 200) x 100 = 2% of all “scriptural allusions” come from a non-NIV2011 source, even the same non-NIV2011 source, well then, the “threshold of eclecticism” has been reached, and thus also full compliance with the resolutions of Synod in Convention. Yes. Two Percent is, without a doubt, manifest eclecticism according to WELS publishers... And it is very consistent with the “eclectic choice method which was approved at the 2013 Synod convention” – which turned out to be only the first step toward eliminating choices other than NIV2011 altogether. Literally. Five percent is the general threshold of statistical significance. Two percent, however, isn’t statistically significant at all. In fact, it might just as well be zero.

Thus, for those congregations choosing to use the new hymnal (apparently estimated at around 95% of WELS congregations, according to the Update), there will be no way to avoid using “Today’s” NIV2011 as a basis of their worship, even if they want to.

To be fair, the Update didn’t exactly say that only four verses would be sourced from NIV1984 instead of NIV2011, it said that of the 200 verses used in the current hymnal, NIV2011 did such an unacceptable job translating four of them, that, out of the gate, they recommended a different translation be used in those specific cases. They are apparently ambivalent about the rest, so, perhaps, of the remaining 196 verses, maybe they will cite 50% from NIV1984 and 50% from NIV2011. Again, given that NIV1984 and NIV2011 are “92% identical,” how eclectic would a 50/50 split be, in reality?

The Missional Hymnal. It's already been done...

The Update also said that these numbers only accounted for “scriptural allusions” in the hymnal, and specifically excluded the Psalter. Now, this is something worth salivating over. Perhaps they are actively debating the return of the greatest poetry ever published in the English language to contemporary Lutheran hymnals? Perhaps they will shock the Lutheran world by actually rendering the Psalms in the memorable cadences and phraseology of the mighty King James Version? Now THAT would be eclectic, would it not? Perhaps... But, alas!, it shall never be. The Update, under the section entitled “Psalmody Committee (PC),” indicates that NIV1984 and NIV2011 are the only two versions they are inclined to consider for the Psalter:

[T]his review has included looking at all the differences between NIV2011 and NIV1984. Beyond that, the thinking of the Psalmody Committee has been shaped to the point that the members have come to a general consensus as far as their approach is concerned... The PC’s consensus is to [retain] the musically stronger refrains and tones and “[freshen] up” (tweaking or replacing) refrains and tones that have perhaps become tired or haven’t gained much traction.

At the same time, the Update, under the section entitled “Scripture Committee (SC),” suggests that a Psalter may not even be included with the new hymnal:

Something that has not been determined is how much of the scriptures will actually be published in connection with the hymnal project. If a complete Psalter is published... then all the psalms would be in play.

Finally, it should be noted (again, according to the Update), the publication of the new WELS hymnal is planned to roughly coincide with the 500^th Anniversary of the first Lutheran hymnal ever published – a collection of eight hymns, canticles and a Psalm, four of them by Luther – as some sort of commemoration, one would suppose. A hymnal based on a gender-inclusive post-Modern translation of the Bible that cannot be quoted throughout because of its apparent deficiencies. A hymnal that may or may not include a Psalter. A hymnal that will include who knows what else... I guess the Lutheran world will just have to wait and see.

What do you do with a Certified Letter? Here is one idea...

Certified Letter to Faith Church

The following letter was sent, Certified Mail, in response to the receipt of a Certified Letter from a Lutheran Congregation. While such letters are an official way for a congregation to terminate relationships with individuals and families they are releasing from membership, and an entirely appropriate form of rebuke when an estranged member cuts himself off from the congregation and refuses to respond to their overtures of evangelical concern, they are nothing but a callous expedient for the congregation which makes no attempt whatsoever to reach out to its members (who up to that point were supposedly considered their brothers/sisters in Christ) or to otherwise contact the intended recipient ahead of time to determine with certainty what their situation is; thus, such Certified Letters belie the congregation’s evangelical confession. That is what happened to the family, below. So perturbed were they with this callous expedient, that they returned the Certified Letter, unopened, along with a personally handwritten letter of their own that extended nine full pages of legal-sized paper. They had much to say, which they found important enough to deliver to their former congregation via Certified Mail. It is worth reading. As many readers may find it difficult to read human handwriting, rather than posting images of the handwritten letter, it has been transcribed, below (edited, of course, for public consumption).

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Lxxxxx
1234 Anystreet Road
Nowhere, WI 54000

Faith Church
5678 Anyotherstreet Road
Next to Nowhere, WI 54000

To Whom It May Concern:

We received a piece of certified mail from you, postmarked March 11, 2015. We are returning it to you, unopened. We have very little interest in hearing what you may have to say in such a letter, that you could not preface with a demonstration of evangelical concern, or even basic courtesy, by making a simple phone call or sending an email. But, to be honest, it would have been difficult for us to imagine that you would have done otherwise.

At one point in time we were considered by the members of Faith Church to be Christian brothers. At least, we are pretty sure that we were. Feeling welcomed when we first joined, we were immediately drawn by them into the ministry of the congregation and put to work, and labouring closely with them, had established what we had considered to be close and meaningful relationships. This all came to an end after nearly seven years, when, in mid-2007, without explanation, we were shunned by the congregation. It was difficult to discern precisely, at first, as Mr. Lxxxxx was heavily involved with Church leadership, and was in constant communication with many of those who are now counted as our former friends. But by the end of 2007, his final year in any leadership capacity at Faith Church, it had become clear that the only communication being initiated by those “friends” was strictly related to church business. Beginning in 2008, the reality was unmistakable. Not just a few people, but everyone, including the Pastor, remained mysteriously aloof. He waited week after week for his friends to initiate with him some form of personal conversation. Weeks turned into months. Months turned into years. Nothing. All the while, the women of the congregation pretended to carry on as normal with Mrs. Lxxxxx, but she saw very clearly what was going on, and refusing to be socially separated by them from her husband, remained by his side. She was quickly disfavored, as well. By the time Pastor Sxxxxxxxx passed away in 2009, those former friendships were regarded by us as completely severed. As the years continued to pass, however, we once again began to enjoy some social involvement in the congregation, as other marginalized members of Faith Church recognized our situation and reached out to us in various ways. We also enjoyed conversation with new members, who had not yet been fully received into the labours of the congregation.

Accordingly, Mr. Lxxxxx’s last face-to-face meeting with the Rev. Wxxxx was unfortunate, but predictable. Having had to travel for work, he was unable to attend the October 2013 Voters’ Meeting, but discovered some weeks afterward – quite by accident – that there was some concern regarding the issue of Bible translations, and that the Board of Elders had been asked by the congregation to look into it. There was no hint that this was intended as any kind of formal investigation. Nevertheless, having himself been rather notoriously engaged in research and writing on the topic, he forwarded to the Rev. Wxxxx a number of articles and resources for the Board to consider. When, at the following Voters’ Meeting in January 2014, Mr. Lxxxxx was surprised to see that the issue of Bible translations was on the agenda, he enquired of the Rev. Wxxxx regarding the nature of the Elders’ report – as he was again unable to to attend due to business travel. He was stunned to learn that the Elders would not only be reporting their findings, but would move to officially adopt the NIV 2011. “Did the Board study any of the documents I forwarded to you, for them to consider?” he asked the Reverend.

“What documents?” was the reply.

Mr. Lxxxxx, realizing that he had been marginalized yet again, then clarified, “The documents and links I sent to you in an email not long ago.”

“Oh,” then after a long pause, “No. We only considered the documentation provided by Synod.”

“But that documentation was biased in favor of a single conclusion!”

“Yes, I know it was biased. It was biased on its face. But I don’t know why it was biased...”

Now incredulous, Mr. Lxxxxx proceeded to make clear, in sharp and conclusive terms, that he would allow neither himself nor his family to knowingly sit under teaching that proceeded from a document descending directly from post-Modern philosophies known to be perverting human language, and, along with it, human thought patterns; a document which is nothing more than the translators’ paraphrasing of the original languages (paraphrasing which is further edited downstream in the publication process by “readability committees”); a document which deliberately twists thousands of words of Scripture in ways that purposely accommodates liberal theology (feminism, in particular); and a document which, rather than clarifying the Scriptures for English readers, ultimately obscures their meaning by intentionally gutting the Bible of significant vocabulary and grammatical forms found in the original languages – that do have English parallels, if translators care to take into consideration not just the limits of “conversational English,” but the full capacity of the English language to carry objective meaning – making it ever more difficult for the English reader to find and rely on “direct positive statements of Scripture,” and thus also statements that are, by definition, clear. Such translation ideologies gravely endanger the Perspicuity of Scripture in the name of making it accessible for the marginally literate English reader, they threaten to drive the laity of the Church ever deeper into a general illiteracy and intellectual incapacity such as was common in medieval times, and they certainly ought not be vaunted in Christ’s Church as the standard English form of Holy Writ in all teaching and publications.

Nevertheless, Faith Church proceeded to officially adopt the NIV 2011 as the congregation’s translation.

This was not the reason we left Faith Church and the WELS, however; it was merely the straw that broke the camels back.

A few months prior, we were warned by the Rev. Wxxxx to “prepare” our sixth grade boy, who had just entered Catechism, for a discussion of the Sixth Commandment. Finding it a bit ridiculous to rush him through “sex-ed” just to prepare him for Catechism class, we refused to go to such lengths, insisting that such matters need to be handled delicately with children his age, that discussion of sexual activity in any direct terms would be entirely out of bounds, and that there is very little basis for understanding the Sixth Commandment anyway, without a thorough positive grounding in biblical courtship and marriage – deviation from which would itself serve as a glaring example of something that is sinful.

Then we read the catechism that would be used by the Reverend to instruct our young boy, which was written by one Rev. David Kuske. In comparison with the catechism resources we afterward recommended he use instead for the Sixth Commandment lesson (Gausewitz or Koehler), Kuske goes into excessively lurid detail of sexual intercourse, including what kind of sex to have, when to have it, and how enjoyable it should be. The Rev. Wxxxx forcefully rejected use of the alternative resources we suggested (which were, in our opinion, better by orders of magnitude, without all of the direct sex-talk and associated imagery), and when we opted to keep our son home rather than attend his lesson, were indirectly criticized by him for our parenting decisions. In retrospect, given all of the sexual scandals in WELS that have been made public over the past year, and the many more that are roiling just under the surface, we wonder now whether Kuske’s catechism might have something to do with it – whether, in our over-sexed day and age, introducing direct sex-talk with sixth-grade boys and girls is a bit premature for these youngsters, and puts images in their minds that they might otherwise be inclined to struggle against, had their pastor not been the one who put them there using Synod materials that carry the approval of the Church. Given this, it is no wonder the current generation of WELS theologians prefers the NIV 2011’s use of the phrases “make love” (Ge. 4:1,17,25; 29:21,23,30; 38:2; Ru. 4:13; 1 Sa. 1:19; 2 Sa. 11:11; 12:24; 1 Ch. 2:21; 7:23; Is. 8:3; etc.) and “have sex” (Ge. 19:5; Jud. 19:22; 1 Co. 6:9) – phrases and imagery thought in previous generations to be far too indelicate to implant in the minds of pious Christians, who were probably also averse to using such terms for fear that they would indirectly reinforce immoral standards cherished by the world and ignite fleshly desires, against which Christians already struggle.

About a month after Mr. Lxxxxx’s final face-to-face conversation with the Rev. Wxxxx, he was called by the Reverend on the telephone. Mr. Lxxxxx made clear that he meant what he had said in January, and that we were looking for another congregation. He told him that we were, at that time, investigating other WELS congregations, along with LCMS congregations. The Reverend assured him that we remained members in good standing, that if we found a suitable WELS congregation he would be glad to transfer us, and if not, then we would be simply released from membership. We never heard from him again. In all of this time, we were contacted by no one from the congregation out of evangelical concern, or even curiosity, over our extended absence, save one person. We received from the congregation what we had come to expect since 2008: near deafening silence.

We quickly found that there were no suitable WELS congregations within reasonable traveling distance. In the end, we found that among those WELS congregations which seemed intent upon demonstrating their Confession through a wholesome liturgical practice, seemed uncorrupted by ambitions of glory, seemed unwilling to give place to worldly entertainment standards in their worship chambers, seemed confident in the Holy Spirit’s work through the Means of Grace to Call, Gather and Enlighten His Elect, and seemed content to allow Him to work in His way, through His Means, in His time, unaugmented by their own innovations, Faith Church was to be most commended in regard to its NIV 2011 deliberations: where Faith Church actually had the courage to at least publicly identify “Bible translation” as an issue, and to go through the motions of publicly addressing that issue (although, with a predetermined outcome, given that a single source of admittedly biased materials was all that they consulted), all of the other WELS congregations we visited simply started using the NIV 2011 without discussion, without the people even knowing it – when we asked, we learned that the new Bibles just showed up in the pews one Sunday, and no one knew the difference. We could not abide such cowardice.

Of all the other options in our area, there was one ELS congregation and two LCMS congregations that were in many ways very suitable. But we ultimately decided that we were unwilling to dance around the issue of Universal Justification, merely for the convenience of attending those congregations.

“Universal Justification” is the teaching espoused by name in the WELS, and with one name or another by ELS and LCMS, as the centerpiece of Christian teaching – the doctrine on which the Church stands or falls. It asserts that all mankind, including every individual, is righteous before God, and forgiven of his sins, whether he has faith or not. The natural, and fully accepted and confessed, consequence of this teaching is that those who die without faith, though they are righteous and forgiven by God, nevertheless spend an eternity barking in hell – not as punishment for their sins (since no one bears sin before God under the teaching of Universal Justification), but merely for their lack of faith. Thus they are willing to accept the teaching that righteous and forgiven saints spend an eternity in hell. The doctrine of Universal Justification, however, is nowhere named, described, or articulated in the Scriptures. It is a purely derived doctrine, without a single word of direct positive attestation in the entirety of Holy Writ.

In all, however, according to the Rev. Dr. Siegbert Becker in his essay Universal Justification, there are a total of three distinct doctrines of Justification taught by WELS. The first is Universal Justification. The second distinct doctrine of Justification, which is merely a corollary of Universal Justification, is “Objective Justification.” It teaches that God, and not man, is entirely responsible for man’s Justification. Such a teaching is not peculiar to WELS, or to Lutherans for that matter; for even the Calvinists do not deny that Justification is objective in this sense. However, WELS, ELS and LCMS seem to assert that Objective Justification also defines “faith” as “man’s work”, and therefore insist that claiming Justification comes by faith is thus to assert a doctrine of synergism. Normally, Universal and Objective Justification are conflated by them, and referred to as “Universal Objective Justification,” but, Becker makes clear, they are, in fact, distinct doctrines, with Objective Justification merely a happy consequence of Universal Justification.

The third distinct doctrine of Justification espoused by the old Synodical Conference Lutherans is so-called “Subjective Justification” – the only doctrine of Justification spoken of and articulated in the Scriptures, and the doctrine identified in the Lutheran Confessions as the main doctrine of Christianity. Except, the Scriptures don’t name it “Subjective Justification”; the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions refer to this doctrine interchangeably as “Justification” and “Justification by Faith Alone.” According to WELS, “Subjective Justification” is entirely superfluous. All of mankind is already righteous and forgiven before God (they say); Justification does NOT come though faith, since that is man’s work, and to suggest that faith is in any way the cause of Justification (even an “instrumental cause”, as it was defined by Leyser and Gerhard) only robs God of the glory He is due for the work He has already accomplished. Subjective Justification (they say), isn’t “Justification” at all, properly speaking – it’s merely “the reception of faith,” and with it merely “receiving the benefit” of the righteous and forgiven standing they, and all men, have had in the eyes of God since the time of Christ’s death and resurrection. Prior to faith (they say), all of mankind is already Justified – fully righteous and forgiven before God – but individuals are denied “enjoyment” of this Justification until God gives them faith.

According to the Bible and the Confessions, however, “Justification by Faith Alone” is the only doctrine of Justification that is taught; mankind (including every individual) is NOT already Justified before God, he is already Condemned; the unbeliever is NOT already righteous and forgiven before God, but stands before God in the filth of his own sin, in need of righteousness and forgiveness; this Justification was earned by Christ in His Passion, and is now offered to mankind in the Message of the Gospel, via which the Holy Spirit works to produce faith; and a person is said to be Justified when the promise of Salvation has been appropriated to himself through the faith God gives him, and not before.

Frankly, it was a shock to us to learn that WELS, ELS and (it seems) LCMS all believe, teach and confess a doctrine of Universal Justification. This fact was withheld from us during Bible Information Class (adult catechism). The fact is:

• We reject the doctrine of Universal Justification as without a scintilla of Scriptural or Confessional support;
• We reject as Scripturally unfounded and as entirely fallacious reasoning the assertion that Justification must be Universal in order for it to be objective, or to be accomplished entirely outside of man;
• We, rather, fully embrace and confess the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone;
• We, further, confess and insist that the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone is the only doctrine of Justification taught by the Scriptures in direct positive terms, and that it is therefore the only Scripturally defensible doctrine of Justification that Christians may confess;
• We fully reject the assertion that faith is in any way man’s work (the Scriptures directly forbid this notion), and we therefore reject the assertion that Justification by Faith Alone is a doctrine of synergism;
• We reject the assertion that “Objective Justification” is a doctrine of Scripture which is taught in distinction from Justification by Faith Alone, and find it impermissible to define “Objective Justification” as any kind of justification at all;
• We, rather, confess that the objectivity of Justification is a defining attribute of the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, and insist that Justification by Faith Alone does, indeed, constitute a fully objective Justification – that is, our Justification is accomplished fully outside of us, without any merit or participation of our own in any sense;
• We confess with confidence and rejoicing that faith is a gift of the Holy Spirit;
• We reject as flippant hyperbole the assertion that saving faith, under the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone, is reduced to merely “a profound hope that man conjures within himself”;
• We further confess in this regard, that it is fully biblical to speak of faith being active (i.e., receiving, appropriating, trusting, etc.), without it also being considered volitional and thus synergistic;
• We recognize that the doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone is the only doctrine of Justification confessed in the Lutheran Confessions, and was the only doctrine of Justification directly named and taught by the orthodox Confessors and Concordists;
• We further recognize that a form of Universal Justification was asserted by a heterodox member of the Wittenberg Faculty, a teacher whose doctrine was roundly condemned by his orthodox peers, and who was dismissed in 1595 for clinging to his false doctrine – for denying that Justification is restricted to believers;
• We therefore reject as unfounded fiction and utterly preposterous all claims that Universal Justification is “implicitly taught in the Lutheran Confessions,” that it was understood, embraced and taught by the Confessors and Concordists without ever being named or articulated by them, and that it must therefore bind the consciences of any Christian today who would lay claim to an orthodox confession;
• We recognize the introduction of Universal Justification and its corollary teachings in American Lutheranism, as a biblically indefensible innovation of the old Synodical Conference.

Putting the best construction on our experiences, and despite any appearances that might cause some to conclude otherwise, we assume, Faith Church, that you are, in fact, possessed of great evangelical concern over our plight, and though, over the course of a full year, you exerted no effort to find out from us directly, we also assume that you are nevertheless deeply interested to know how we fare today.

We have found a Lutheran congregation. It is a congregation affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA). Of this congregation, we are happy to say:

• They are confessional – that is, they understand the dire need for a clear Christian confession in a sinful world where otherwise well-meaning believers, as victims of sin’s corruption, everywhere misunderstand and pervert the Scripture’s teaching;
• They fully subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions, as articulated in the Christian Book of Concord, not insofar as they are a correct presentation and exposition of the pure doctrine of the Word of God, but boldly confessing before the world and other Christians, that they are so;
  
  in particular:
  
  
  • They positively reject the doctrine of Universal Justification, and instead, believe, teach and confess the single Scriptural and Confessional doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone – the very doctrine for which Luther and his fellow confessors struggled so mightily, risking their lives that it would be preserved to the Church for the eternal benefit of mankind;
  • They do not confuse laity with clergy – that is, laymen are NOT considered Ministers of the Word, and are NOT tasked with carrying out the functions of the pastoral Office;
  • They fully trust the Holy Spirit to work through His appointed Means, and being confident in the efficacy of those Means and content with His timing, do not feel compelled to augment His work with their own innovations;
  • Not merely mouthing the words of their confession, they endeavor to make manifest this confession, maintaining in the Divine Service a wholesome liturgical practice that unmistakably demonstrates Lutheran catholicity, rather than supplanting it with the obnoxious sectarian practices of pop-church evangelicalism.
  
  
• They are conservative – that is, rather than dispose of their Lutheran birthright (which, in order to keep it, requires much honour, trust, patience and a keen awareness of the past) for an immediately satisfying bowl of sectarian and worldly porridge (which, if it satisfies at all, does so merely for the moment, soon afterward requiring the satiation of new and different cravings), they endeavor to carry into the future that great deposit of wisdom wrought of Christian experience over the millenia. Thus they endeavor to conserve the past, rather than discard it as quaint, passé and irrelevant in favor of the wisdom of the day;
  
  in particular:
  
  
  • They reject (as far as we can tell) the post-Modern philosophies of contemporary times, which represent a full frontal attack on the very morality of language itself, mightily threatening the Church, not by changing the words She confesses before the world, but by dramatically altering that Confession in place – altering the meaning of Her Confession by altering the structures of language employed to express it;
  • They have chosen to use and promote a wholesome translation of the Scriptures which not just theoretically, but manifestly honours the doctrine of inspiration, retaining in English as much as practicable, both the grammatical forms and the vocabulary found in the Greek and Hebrew originals, and which honours the tradition of English ecclesiastical thought and expression by maintaining continuity with the English translation Received by English speaking peoples over 400 years ago as the Bible in English, and that continues to this day as a dominant Bible translation preferred by English speakers;
  • They hold that it is wise practice for the Church to maintain a sharp distinction from the world in Her practice, including the use of terminology in their catechesis and during the Divine Service, which maintains a continuity with the past and which reinforces the “other worldly” reality of the believer’s citizenship in the Kingdom of Grace.

And to top it all off:

• They – like Lutherans across the globe (in our experience) – are just plain nice folks.

Unfortunately, this congregation, being a two-hour drive for us, is not very conveniently located. We are not able to attend weekly, as we would like, but endeavor to attend at least twice monthly. When we are unable to attend, however, we do take time to worship as a family in our home, following a modified form of “The Order of Morning Service” from The Lutheran Hymnal (pg. 5), and reading from Luther’s Postils for the Sermon. This works very nicely.

If the truth be told, however, we started this practice of home worship years before finally leaving the WELS. We began to notice that there was a consistent dearth of Law in the preaching and teaching, not only of Faith Church, but in every WELS church we visited. The emphasis on the Gospel was so smothering that the Law, if present at all, was virtually indiscernible. While both of us had grown up within pop-church Evanglicalism and among confessing Pietists, were fully acquainted with the Law, and personally found Law-less Gospel preaching a sufficient (and welcome) balance to the smotheringly Gospel-less Law preaching we had been reared with, the impact on our children, who, over a decade had only become familiar with the Gospel, was unmistakably negative. Having literally no acquaintance with the Law, they failed to place any real significance on the Gospel, taking for granted that they were already forgiven and righteous regardless of what they do, as if they were entitled to it. The result was behaviour issues of various kinds, a general disregard for God’s Word, and a failure to respond to correction which was drawn from it. We appealed at various times to our WELS pastors for more Law in their preaching, so that there would be a more discernible balance between Law and Gospel, but when our requests were dismissed – sometimes with ridicule for being “lovers of the Law” – we realized that there would be no changing their nearly Law-less Gospel preaching. Mrs. Lxxxxx had finally grown so fed up with the fact that our children had not imbibed the Law in any significant way from our association with WELS, that she began taking them through the Book of Proverbs every month, and visiting with them other sections of the Bible that emphasize Law – like the Book of James. This had quite an impact. As the the older children would read the Proverbs, they would stop, read it again, gulp, and say things like, “Oh, boy...” They had no idea. At one point, Mrs. Lxxxxx even suggested, somewhat facetiously, that we leave Lutheranism entirely, and go back to Pietism, just so that our children could be acquainted with the Law through the teaching of the Church, and finally come to appreciate the Gospel. Needless to say, that is not what we did. Instead, we started reading Luther’s sermons for semi-regular family worship, in place of attending Faith Church every Sunday. Luther is very direct in his preaching of the Law, and equally so in his preaching of the Gospel, nearly every sermon being very well balanced between the two. It is unlike any preaching we had heard over the past four decades, including the last fifteen years of association with WELS. Acquaintance with the Law has helped with discipline in the home, too, and improved our family’s appreciation for the Gospel.

Finally – you may be interested to know – there is informal, though very serious, discussion of opening a Lutheran mission congregation in our area (River Falls, Hudson, New Richmond, Baldwin, etc.), of confessional and conservative character similar to the congregation in which we currently enjoy membership. The intent would be to use our family, and perhaps other interested individuals, to seed this mission. Efforts are underway, now, to investigate possible meeting places.

Ta Ta for Now,

Lxxxxx

Bible Readers Prefer ‘Sacred Dialect’ Over ‘Contemporary Language’

Bible Readers Prefer ‘Sacred Dialect’ Over ‘Contemporary Language’
by Mr. Vernon Kneprath

The WELS Translation Evaluation Committee (TEC) put a lot of emphasis on “readability” in their advocacy of the 2011 New International Version Bible translation (NIV). In Forward in Christ, “Evaluating Translations”¹, Professor Wendland made the following statements:

We expect, with Luther, that a translation will communicate in the language of the people, using idioms and expressions that are understandable and in common, current use.”

“We expect that the translation will be aimed at native English speakers who can handle Standard American English at a late primary school or early high school level, people who are neither professional theologians nor biblical illiterates.”

“We believe that a translation should sound good when read aloud.”

In Forward in Christ, “Translation Evaluation Committee Present Two Options”²:

“The NIV 2011 was frequently mentioned as the most polished of the three translations, the one that communicates in the smoothest and clearest way.”

According to the Christian Booksellers Association, the NIV translation continues to hold the #1 position on their CBA Best Sellers list for Bible Translations³. Interestingly, the dated King James Version Bible translation (KJV) continues to be a consistent #2 on the list, and the New King James Version Bible translation (NKJV) is frequently #3. But does the #1 top seller status of a Bible translation identify a translation that people actually read? Two recent reports, “The Bible in American Life”⁴ and “The State of the Bible, 2013”⁵ suggest otherwise.

Consider first “The Bible in American Life.”⁶ Here it was found that among self-identified Bible readers, 55% used the KJV, while 19% used the NIV. Some conclusions regarding the KJV in this report:

“Although the bookstores are now crowded with alternative versions, and although several different translations are now widely used in church services and for preaching, the large presence of the KJV testifies to the extraordinary power of this one classic English text,” Professor Noll commented. “It also raises most interesting questions about the role of religious and linguistic tradition in the make-up of contemporary American culture.” Project advisor Sylvester Johnson also remarked on the peculiar cultural power of the King James Bible, noting that its language seems to function for many Americans as “a type of lingua sacra or sacred dialect.”

“The State of the Bible, 2013”⁷ reported similar findings. Of adults who read the Bible at least 3-4 times a year, the KJV was the translation of choice by 38%, the NKJV was selected by 14%, and the NIV was third at 11%.

These findings, relating to a translation 400 years old, belie the claims that a 30-year-old translation is too outdated to be useful.

In Christianity Today, Zylstra⁸, discussed these findings, and reported yet another interesting piece of information regarding the KJV vs. the NIV:

“The KJV also received almost 45 percent of the Bible translation-related searches on Google, compared with almost 24 percent for the NIV, according to Bible Gateway's Stephen Smith.

“In fact, searches for the KJV seem to be rising distinctly since 2005, while most other English translations are staying flat or are declining, according to Smith's Google research.”

In light of this information, it is unfortunate that the WELS TEC didn’t include the KJV for consideration as the translation for use in WELS publications. The TEC’s great concern with “readability” biased them toward the NIV translation, a translation respectful of human concerns such as gender neutrality. But most Bible readers express a different preference in their choice of a translation that they actually read. In the KJV they have a translation that has stood the test of time for centuries. In the KJV they find a translation with a language that communicates a respect for God and His Word. And finally, but most importantly, with the Holy Spirit working faith through reading of God’s Word, readers of the Bible become mindful that they are reading God’s Word, not the daily edition of a current newspaper.

Endnotes:

1. Paul O. Wendland, “Evaluating Translations,” Forward in Christ, Volume 98, Number 12, December 2011.
2. “Translation Evaluation Committee Present Two Options,” Forward in Christ, Volume 100, Number 3, March 2013.
3. “CBA Best Sellers list for Bible translations” at the hyperlink
4. Philip Goff, Arthur E. Farnsley II, Peter J. Thuesen, “The Bible in American Life”, The Center for Study of Religion and American Culture at Indiana University, March 6, 2014.
5. The Barna Group, “The State of the Bible, 2013”, American Bible Society, 2013.
6. Goff, Farnsley, Thuesen, p. 12-14.
7. The Barna Group, p. 17.
8. Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, “The Most Popular and Fastest Growing Bible Translation Isn't What You Think It Is”, Christianity Today, posted 3/13/2014 11:17AM

Dr. Martin Luther: Christian Unity needs Harmony among Individuals; however, Ecclesial Unity requires that False Teachers be publicly Admonished and Rebuked by Fellow Pastors

In commentary following a recent post by anonymous blogger "Matthias Flach" entitled, A Travesty Examined, Part Nine , it was suggested that "Matthias" contact the President of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), and complain to him about all the problems he sees – the idea being that the Synod President, having enough complainers behind him, would be emboldened to, say, acknowledge these problems publicly, maybe even repudiate them... possibly, like Synod President Matt Harrison of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod (LCMS), even use the publishing power of his office (the only power the WELS SP really has) to consistently expose the errors of false teachers in the WELS Ministerium who are apparently prized, protected and promoted by the entirety of the WELS Praesidium, warn against them, and rebuke those fellow pastors who embrace these teachings and practices.

Maybe such would happen... Assuming the best of the WELS SP, perhaps it can also be asserted that he needs numbers behind him, not for courage, but for factual corroboration. Quite honestly, however, even having the corroboration, I don’t think that any sort of public acknowledgement or admonishment would be forthcoming. At least nothing with any sort of impact that wouldn’t be immediately overcome by a swift, unanimous and well-coordinated action of the Twelve District Presidents who evidently oppose him. One primary reason, in my opinion, is how very close-knit WELS has become. It has grown unhealthy. For instance, when a person names a given WELS pastor, the instinct (in my personal experience) seems to be toward immediately calculating ones degree of familial relation to the man, and then recalling his direct and indirect experience with him. While this is perfectly natural in small old organizations, there now seems to be an inability to distinguish between individual and Office among them. Any just criticism of a pastor’s doctrine or practice seems to be interpreted as an attack against him personally or against his extended family and classmates, an arrogant elevation of the person issuing the criticism, and a disruption of the harmony necessary for unity to persist among them. The example currently found in the LCMS, of pastors exhibiting the courage to name false doctrines and practices among them, and, increasingly, the pastors who embrace and promote those teachings and practices, seems to be a cultural impossibility in WELS, unless it is already a family squabble of some sort, a matter of personal history or conflict between individual pastors going back, say, to high-school, college or seminary, or an internal political issue within the ministerium where lines have already been drawn.

Martin Luther preached, however, that recognizing a distinction between individual and Office is necessary, that Christian duty to cherish and preserve harmony – to be “compassionate and loving as ‘brethren, tenderhearted, and "friendly" or "humble-minded"’” – extends to the manner in which individuals carry on with one another. It is not, however, necessarily characteristic of the Office, the function of which includes the preachment of the Law in a way that cuts to the bone and exposes sin – which, to the person offended by the Law, does not seem like a very friendly thing to do – and as God’s representative, even extends to the withholding of forgiveness from the unrepentant (Matt. 16:19; John 20:23) – which does not seem to the unforgiven to be a very friendly thing to do, either. He preached further that it is a function of the Office, and thus of the pastor who is responsible to “represent not [his] own but God’s dignity,” to admonish and rebuke false teachers – i.e., fellow Office holders, saying:

But if one dishonors the Baptism, Sacrament, or Ministry committed to me by God, and so opposes not me but God Himself, then it is my duty not to be silent nor merciful and friendly, but to use my God-ordained Office to admonish, threaten and rebuke, with all earnestness, both in season and out of season – as Paul admonishes Timothy – those who err in doctrine or faith or who do not amend their lives; and this regardless of who they are or how it pleases them.

All of this – the duty to cherish harmony among Christians, the duty to rebuke false teachers in the Church (which appears disharmonious but preserves pure doctrine, which is necessary for true harmony), and drawing the distinction between these duties – is found in his Sermon on the Epistle Lesson for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity (1 Pet. 3:8-15), pertinent excerpts from which follow:

---

From Dr. Martin Luther’s Sermon on 1 Peter 3:8-15
The Epistle Lesson for the Fifth Sunday after Trinity

On the Duty to Cherish Christian Harmony
No one has a different baptism or sacrament, a different Christ, from mine, or grace and salvation other than I have. And no individual can have another faith than have Christians in general, nor does he hear any other Gospel or receive a different absolution, be he lord or servant, noble or ignoble, poor or rich, young or old, Italian or German. When one imagines himself different from or better than his fellows, desiring to exalt and glorify himself above others, he is truly no longer a Christian; because he is no longer in that unity of mind and faith essential to Christians. Christ with His grace is always the same, and cannot be divided or apportioned within Himself.

Not without reason did the beloved apostles urge this point. They clearly saw how much depends upon it, and what evil and harm result from disregard of the commandment. Where this commandment is dishonored, schisms and factions will necessarily arise to corrupt pure doctrine and faith, and the devil will sow his seed, which afterwards can be eradicated only with difficulty. When once self-conceit rules, and one, pretending more learning, wisdom, goodness and holiness than his fellows, begins to despise others and to draw men to himself, away from the unity of mind which makes us one in Christ, and when he desires the first praise and commendation for his own doctrine and works, his own preaching, then the harm is already done; faith is overthrown and the Church is rent. When unity becomes division, certainly two sects cannot both be the true Church. If one is godly, the other must be the devil’s own. On the other hand, so long as unity of faith and oneness of mind survives, the true Church of God abides, notwithstanding there may be some weakness in other points. Of this fact the devil is well aware; hence his hostility to Christian unity. His chief effort is to destroy harmony. “Having that to contend with,” he tells himself, “my task will be a hard and wearisome one.”

Therefore, Christians should be all the more careful to cherish the virtue of harmony, both in the Church and in secular government. In each instance there is of necessity much inequality. God would have such dissimilarity balanced by love and unity of mind. Let everyone be content, then, with what God has given or ordained for him, and let him take pleasure in another’s gifts, knowing that in eternal blessings he is equally rich, having the same God and Christ, the same grace and salvation; and that although his standing before God may differ from that of his fellows, he is nevertheless in no way inferior to them, nor is anyone for the same reason at all better than or superior to himself.

...

The other virtues enjoined by Peter are easily recognized – compassionate, loving as “brethren, tenderhearted, and ‘friendly’ or ‘humble-minded’.” These particularly teach how Christians should esteem one another. God has subjected them all to love and has united them, with the design that they shall be of one heart and soul, and each care for the other as for himself. Peter’s exhortation was especially called for at that time, when Christians were terribly persecuted. Here a pastor, there a citizen, was thrown into prison, driven from wife, child, house and home, and finally executed. Such things happen even now, and may become yet more frequent considering that unfortunate people are harassed by tyrants, or led away by the Turks [Muhammadans], and Christians are thus dispersed in exile here and there. Wherever by His Word and faith God has gathered a church, and that spiritual unity, the bond of Christianity, exists in any measure, there the devil has no peace. If he cannot effect the destruction of that church by factiousness, he furiously persecutes it. Then it is that body, life and everything we have must be jeopardized – put to the stake – for the sake of the Church.


On the Duty to Admonish and Rebuke False Teachers
The lesson teaches the duty of each individual toward all other individuals, not toward the God-ordained Office. Office and person must be clearly distinguished. The officer or ruler in his official capacity is a different man from what he is as John or Frederick. The apostle or preacher differs from the individual Peter or Paul. The preacher has not his Office by virtue of his own personality; he represents it in God’s stead. Now, if any person be unjustly persecuted, slandered and cursed, I ought to and will say: “Deo gratias;” for in God I am richly rewarded for it. But if one dishonors the Baptism, Sacrament, or Ministry committed to me by God, and so opposes not me but God Himself, then it is my duty not to be silent nor merciful and friendly, but to use my God-ordained Office to admonish, threaten and rebuke, with all earnestness, both in season and out of season – as Paul admonishes Timothy (2 Tim. 4:2) – those who err in doctrine or faith or who do not amend their lives; and this regardless of who they are or how it pleases them.

But the censured may say: “Nevertheless you publicly impugn my honor; you give me a bad reputation.” I answer: Why do you not complain to Him who committed the Office to me? My honor is likewise dear to me, but the honor of my Office must be more sacred still. If I am silent where I ought to rebuke, I sully my own honor, which I should maintain before God in the proper execution of my Office; hence I with you deserve to be hanged in mid-day, to the utter extinguishment of my honor and yours. No, the Gospel does not give you authority to say the preacher shall not, by the Word of God, tell you of your sin and shame. What does God care for the honor you seek from the world when you defy His Word with it? To the world you may seem to defend your honor with God and a good conscience, but in reality you have nothing to boast of before God but your shame. This very fact you must confess if you would retain your honor before Him; you must place His honor above that of all creatures. The highest distinction you can achieve for yourself is that of honoring God’s Word and suffering rebuke.

“Yes, but still you attack the Office to which I am appointed.” No, dear brother, our Office is not assailed when I and you are reminded of our failure to do right, to conduct the Office as we should. But the Word of God rebukes us for dishonoring that divinely ordained appointment and abusing it in violation of His commandment. Therefore you cannot call me to account for reproving you. However, were I not a pastor or preacher, and had I no authority to rebuke you, then it would be my duty and my pleasure to leave your honor and that of every other man unscathed. But if I am to fill a divine Office and to represent not my own but God’s dignity, then for your own sake I must not and will not be silent. If you do wrong, and disgrace and dishonor come upon you, blame yourself: “Thy blood shall be upon thine own head,” says Scripture (1 Kings. 2:37). Certainly when a judge sentences a thief to the gallows, that man’s honor is impugned. Who robs you of your honor but yourself, by your own theft, your contempt of God, disobedience, murder, and so on? God must give you what you deserve. If you consider it a disgrace to be punished, then consider it also no honor to rob, steal, practice usury and do public wrong; you disgrace yourself by dishonoring God’s commandment.

---

Notice that Luther preaches the following:

However, were I not a pastor or preacher, and had I no authority to rebuke you, then it would be my duty and my pleasure to leave your honor and that of every other man unscathed.

This is a note to us laymen. We don’t have the Office of rebuking and correcting. It’s not our job. It is for this reason that I, for one (and I think, perhaps, many laymen along with me), have been very reluctant to name specific situations or pastors, and have preferred to speak in general. IT’S NOT MY JOB! This makes the silence of pastors who see the error and yet remain silent all the more distressing, as it drives the laity, of necessity, to enter in where they would otherwise have no place. And to their shame, they seem content to allow the laity to do it, unaided. IT IS THEIR JOB! But they seem to either be derelict or cowards.

And to those WELS pastors who boldly speak behind the cloak of anonymity – you help no one other than rumour mongers and gossipers. You complain, “What of my family? What of my livelihood! I can’t let anyone know who I am, my adversaries might find out and cause me grief and woe!” But you are more than willing to name them publicly, to cause them grief and woe. Luther preaches above,

“It is my duty NOT to be silent nor merciful and friendly, but to use my God-ordained Office to admonish, threaten and rebuke, with all earnestness, both in season and out of season,”

and in times of persecution,

“body, life and everything we have must be jeopardized – put to the stake – for the sake of the Church.”

Your adversaries have the courage to openly preach and promote falsehood, but you do not have the courage to correct them with the Truth, to act in the interest of preserving their disciples and the Church from the impact of their false doctrine and practice? How strong, then, is your doctrine? Indeed, how eminently valuable is it if you are not willing to sign your name to it? Is it truly Christian Conscience and Confessional Integrity that drives you to “anonymously voice your deep concerns,” or is it sport? Tinged with a touch of schadenfreude?

You saw the hurricane approaching far in the distance, and you’ve waited only till landfall to begin preparing yourselves, your families, and your congregations for the inevitable? You have only yourselves to blame for the disaster you have brought upon them: “Thy blood shall be upon thine own head.” The time to act was in May of 2010, if not before. Where were you? Still deciding to prepare? Where are you now? Just beginning to prepare? Must you “first go bury your father” (Matt. 8:21-22)? I’ve got news for you – it’s way too late now to weather the storm intact. Your Leaders are unanimous: they are busy excommunicating the likes of Rev. Rydecki, while coddling the likes of Rev. Skorzewski and publicly endorsing events like the 2015 Christian Leadership Experience. In my opinion, the only way to survive now with pure teaching and faith intact is to evacuate, to leave everything behind and start anew on higher ground.

Spewing the Doctrines of “Christian Hedonism”

Earlier today, “Matthias Flach” of the blog, Polluted WELS posted an article critical of a Contemporary Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN – Pilgrim Lutheran – its praise band, SON Band, and of lay pastor Dr. Scott Gostchock (WELS), who preaches during the band's worship performances. Says “Matthias”:

Most concerning is a "SON Message" in which Dr. Scott Gostchock (who is not a pastor) preaches a "sermon" in which he states the following:


• It isn't good enough to preach God's Word from the Bible because that's just “words on a page”.
• We must somehow “experience” God's presence apart from those words on a page.
• It's not the job of the church to condemn sin.

The entire “sermon” is pure enthusiasm -- the teaching that one must experience God's presence apart from Word and Sacrament.

Keep in mind that the good Doctor is from the Twin Cities, Minnesota, home of Dr. John Piper (of the former “Baptist General Conference,” which has adopted a “new missional name, Converge Worldwide”) and his theology of Christian Hedonism. We briefly reviewed the theology of Dr. Piper, and its connection to the requirements of Christian worship and Christian experience, in our post, Post-Modernism, Pop-culture, Transcendence, and the Church Militant :

In some circles, however, the pursuit and experience of “pleasure” is a measure of whether a person is saved or not. In Dr. John Piper’s Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, he makes precisely this connection, first noting from philosophy that happiness is not only the deepest longing of human nature,¹ it is also a command from God that we are required to obey,² then suggesting that Scripture could have more poignantly read, “‘Unless a man be born again into a Christian Hedonist he cannot see the kingdom of God’”³ and eventually stating most directly that “The pursuit of joy in God is not optional …Until your heart has hit upon this pursuit, your ‘faith’ cannot please God. It is not saving faith.”⁴ Of course, this non-optional pursuit of ‘the joy that is to be had in God’ is tied to worship experience as well. After first denigrating liturgical worship as “empty formalism and traditionalism... [which] produces dead orthodoxy and a church full (or half-full) of artificial admirers,”⁵ and later reiterating his disdain for traditional worship as “the empty performance of ritual,”⁶ “the grinding out of doctrinal laws from collections of biblical facts,”⁷ and “misguided virtue, smother[ing] the spirit of worship,”⁸ we are informed by Dr. Piper that, in fact, human emotion is the ends for which a worshiper strives; that is, that the worshiper ought to achieve affective experience through his acts of worship: “Happiness in God is the end of all our seeking”⁹; “All genuine emotion is an end in itself”¹⁰; “God is more glorified when we delight in His magnificence.”¹¹ According to Dr. Piper, the worship that true Christians are commanded to engage can be described as follows:


Now we can complete our picture. The fuel of worship is a true vision of the greatness of God; the fire that makes the fuel burn white hot is the quickening of the Holy Spirit; the furnace made alive and warm by the flame of truth is our renewed spirit; and the resulting heat of our affections is powerful worship, pushing its way out in confessions, longings, acclamations, tears, songs, shouts, bowed heads, lifted hands, and obedient lives.¹²

Although I am quite certain that Dr. Piper himself is no card-carrying post-Modernist, the highly charged experiential language used by him, and his use of that experience as a soteriological and axiological point of reference, drives his readers to their own experience as a source of confirmation regarding their own salvation and certainty in living out their faith, and into a post-Modern worldview.

It is not surprising that Dr. Gostchock and “SON Band”¹³ would be echoing Dr. Piper's theology, even if only in some muted and truncated fashion -- I live in the same area, and having friends and relatives deeply involved in the Contemporary Worship scene in the Twin Cities, I know for a fact that (a) the Christian entertainment racket is a fairly close knit group of people¹⁴, and (b) if they have one at all, Piper's Christian Hedonism is their Confessional document. Piper is very influential around here -- indeed, I've long considered the late Rev. Klemet Preus' book, The Fire and the Staff, (whose church was actually fairly near to Piper's), as a highly needed Lutheran rebuttal to Piper's Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist. More rebuttal is necessary, in my opinion.

Dr. Piper's experientialist doctrine of “Christian Hedonism”, like the doctrine preached by the lay pastor Dr. Scott Gostchock (WELS), is not only enthusiasm, as Rev. “Matthias Flach” points out, it is also rank synergism. It is also a fundamental aspect of what seems to be the greatest and most insidious worldly threat to invade the Church in our day, one that attacks objectivity in all forms, and empties language of all definite meaning: Post-Modernism. We've blogged about this in the past, as well:


Experientialism: The post-Modern Church's way of “Becoming the Culture”
(from The Health of the Church has more than just religious significance)
The philosophy of Materialistic Rationalism, with which Western man was equipped as he entered the 20^th Century, was a very optimistic philosophy – the pinnacle of Modernistic thought. Declaring the future equivalent to progress, and limiting reality to the scientifically observable, it confidently identified man's capacity for scientific achievement as the source of that progress, and with this as foundation for the ordering of society, held high-expectations for cultural advancement. Yet, the 20^th Century is on record as the bloodiest in history. Indeed, it took less than two decades for serious doubt to develop, as the destruction and human suffering of World War I simply galvanized the sensibilities of modern Westerners. Man was indeed powerful, yet demonstrated that he was not powerful enough to restrain his own inbred evil. The horrors of World War II sealed the fate of Modernism, and the West has increasingly advanced beyond it, into post-Modernism – an essentially experiential philosophy questioning the adequacy of formal language as a vessel sufficient to carry the message of Truth, which is thus utterly dismissive of objective truth-claims and ambivalent toward the future...

It was stated above, that the Church “has struggled mightily and in various ways against the withering onslaught of man's great enemy – the World – yet has been forced into retreat.” Following this, a litany of false teaching, in which some truth and great struggle is evident, was produced to show how the Church has conducted its struggle: from within the context of having “become the culture.” In point of fact, the recent history of the Christian Church is littered with the theological ruins of Christian movements which have, in a flailing desperation for the “survival of the church,” become the culture, either not realizing, forgetting or rejecting the fact that the World is one of the Christian's Great Enemies. In the modern West, doing so has meant adopting one of two perspectives: that of rationalistic Empiricism or of mystical Existentialism. In reality, neither perspective is acceptable; both place mankind at the center of truth, and argue their way to God and for man's relationship with Him from (a) the intellectual (objective), or (b) experiential (subjective) attributes of man's existence – the historical record of God's Special Revelation of Himself to mankind no longer being relevant for this purpose, by the World's standards...

That the Church must “become the culture” is a lie. That it has increasingly “become the culture” is the manifest reason Western Christianity has slowly disintegrated over the past three centuries. Taking on the culture of the World has produced a vacillating imbalance between emphasis on intellect and emotion in the Church, between reason and experience, objectivity and subjectivity – and not just an imbalance, but a thrashing between these emphases that has drawn the attention of the Church away from the saving events and message of the Gospel, away from the centrality of Christ, and instead upon man and the dual fundamental characteristics of his existence. No, Christianity must not “become the culture” any more than it should it cut itself off from society. No, the Church must not abdicate in the face of its great enemy, the World, either by joining it or by running from it. Rather, as an historical institution, with an historical and saving message, it must stand and face the World on the basis of its confession, it must earnestly contend for the faith (Jude 3), by (a) holding on to the specific and historic truths of Scripture in its doctrine, and (b) defending and proclaiming this truth in its practice...


post-Modern Experientialism and Doctrinal Ambiguity
(from “Pursuing freedom from Scripture's clear teachings, by arguing for their ambiguity, results only in tyranny” – Part One)
Man naturally pursues a “Theology of Glory.” The consequences of this with respect to God’s many gifts to mankind are clearly stated by Dr. Martin Luther, who stated in his 24^th Thesis at the Heidelberg Disputation, “without the 'Theology of the Cross' man misuses the best in the worst manner.” It should come as no surprise, therefore, that where man permits himself the freedom and authority to arbitrate God’s Revelation, he does so with the force and finality of God Himself. It should also come as no surprise that man, according to his nature, does work toward this very end – whether deliberately or quite unconsciously – and that he revels in the glory assigned to him for his efforts.

It seems most charitable to assume that no confessing Christian would deliberately seek a place of judgment over God’s Word, and to leave it at that – remaining oblivious to its likelihood and limiting ourselves to the messy job of first recognizing when it happens and then reacting to it long after the fact. This is, however, a dangerously pollyanna attitude, since the tactic of arguing for the abstruseness of Scripture, in order to deliberately accumulate authority and glory to man, is not unknown in the history of the Church. In fact, this is exactly how, and why, Erasmus, in his Freedom of the Will (a.k.a. De libero arbitrio diatribe sive collatio, or Diatribe), and later supporting works, argued for the ambiguity of the Scriptures – to maintain the freedom and authority of man over against Scripture. And Erasmus’ arguments have remained active as a dominant force in Western Society and, through it, the Christian Church – more so today, perhaps, than ever before.

(from “Pursuing freedom from Scripture's clear teachings, by arguing for their ambiguity, results only in tyranny” – Part Two)
Dear reader, we ought to thank Dr. Nestingen for alerting us to the tactic of asserting Scripture’s ambiguity as opportunity for supposed liberty, and for locating the modern source of this tactic in Erasmus – who opposed Luther in this regard. It seems, in our post-Modern age, when ALL truth and meaning are self-referentially experiential, that the “discovery” of ambiguity in the Scriptures, having become great sport, has accelerated to an alarming rate!


post-Modern Experientialism governs Ideology of Language... and Bible Translation
(from The NIV 2011 and the Importance of Translation Ideology)
As Mr. Peeler pointed out, Dynamic Equivalency (the translation ideology of the CBT) is related to post-Modernism in its understanding of meaning in language as a social construction (“grammar follows usage”) – an understanding which is a very recent innovation. According to it, social experience is the vehicle for, and social context the arbiter of, meaning. Language is merely a social experience by which meaning is conveyed, and it is the immediate social context which dictates both usage and meaning, not the structure of the language itself. As a result, post-Modernism teaches that meaning is always subjective and relative (resulting in a lack of clarity... terms and phrases of otherwise objective meaning become “slippery”). This is why post-Modernists will insist that there is no truth – not because there actually is or is not Truth, but because even if Truth does exist, it cannot be expressed since language is insufficient to convey it.

But what is “Dynamic Equivalency?”

To use a very widely used (and seriously discussed) example, the post-Modern adherent of Dynamic Equivalency will complain that the passage in Isaiah which reads “though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,” cannot be understood by a person who has never seen snow. It has no meaning because it is not part of his experience. As a result, instead of actually using the word “snow” to communicate “white-ness,” a more effective translation for, say, a resident of the Caribbean may be “the sands of St. Thomas Beach.” But that wouldn’t communicate to someone outside the Caribbean, so another translation would be needed for those groups of people who have seen neither white snow nor white sand, but which is common to their unique experience – fields of cotton, for instance, or even milk. These are all naturally occurring examples of the color white, and communicate the idea of “white-ness” just as effectively. It doesn’t matter that the word in the original is “snow.” This is Dynamic Equivalency, and the job of the translator under this ideology is to (a) interpret the meaning of the source language, and (b) choose his own words in the target language that communicate this same idea.

Only, notice in the case of “snow” used above, that the translator, while communicating “white-ness” through the use of alternative words, fails to communicate the idea of a “covering” which descends from above, and also fails to communicate the idea of “cleansing,” which is precisely what snow does for the landscape as it melts (and is also part of the meaning directly intended by Isaiah). Thus, under the ideology of Dynamic Equivalency, the translator, in choosing his “alternative phraseology,” is said to “pick and choose” from the source language what meaning he will include in his translation – not because he is forced by inadequacies in either source or target languages, but because he is ideologically (a) given license to do so in order that he may engage in the task of interpretation, and (b) constrained by his own ideas of what constitutes “meaning” within a given social or cultural construct and of what patterns of words can be legitimately used in association with that meaning...


Experientialism always a Bridge to Open Ecumenism, accelerates in the post-Modern Era under Church Growth Movement
(from The Church Growth Movement: A brief synopsis of its history and influences in American Christianity)
A primary purpose of the Evangelical Movement, as a reaction against Fundamentalism, was ecumenism, and this Evangelical purpose was seriously supported and engaged at Fuller. Enter “Mr. Pentecost,” David J. du Plessis, who had been active through the 1950’s as an ardent proponent of ecumenism on behalf of the Pentecostals, convinced that the Pentecostal “experience” could serve as an effective ecumenical bridge to non-Pentecostals (namely, the historic mainline denominations) and help bring unity to Christianity worldwide.

That “experience” had its modern genesis partly in the Brethren movements of Europe¹⁵ in the early/mid-1800's (the left-overs of Scandinavian and German Pietism), but especially in the practices of the Scottish Irvingites with whom John Nelson Darby (Plymouth Brethren) spent much time during their outbreaks of agalliasis (“manifestations of the Holy Spirit,” which, among the Irvingites at that time and place, included practices such as automatic writing, levitation, and communication with the dead¹⁶) and whose practice and theology (including the foundations of Dispensationalism) influenced him greatly. Passing from Darby to James H. Brooks and Cyrus I. Scofield in America, his teaching has continued to see development over the years and is still disseminated by Dallas Theological Seminary, Moody Bible Institute, Bob Jones University and others.

These experiential practices began finding their way to America at about the same time that a charlatan known as Charles Finney exploited the use of these “New Methods,” as they were called, during America's “Second Great Awakening,” fueling the fever of “revivalism” and captivating Christians with the allure of the “Anxious Bench” as a means of saving souls¹⁷. Widespread use of such practices strengthened the Brethren movements and touched off the Holiness Movements within Methodism (which later developed into [and at Azusa Street, Los Angeles in 1906, was confirmed as] full-blown Pentecostalism). By the mid- to late-1800's, such radical practices defined “American Worship” – and it was precisely these forms that Walther notoriously condemned. Even the Old Norwegian Synod, in the 1916 edition of its Lutheran Hymnary, Junior stated its warning against Sectarian “American Worship” forms... By engaging in such forms, the Old Norwegian Synod insisted, Lutherans will wind up singing their way out of their own Confession. A sound application of lex orandi, lex credendi.

With widespread criticism against these experiential “American Worship” forms, and, let’s face it, their rather shallow substance, infantile antics, and transparently manipulative purposes, such practices fell out of fashion by the early 1900's (as “contemporary” forms have a habit of doing anyway). Nevertheless, Pentecostals continued to cling to them, and continued to develop them alongside their theology. Accordingly, such worship forms have come to mean much of the following:

• the actions of the worshiper are themselves Means of Grace, or means through which the Holy Spirit supposedly comes to, and works in, the worshiper;
• the Holy Spirit's work in and through the worshiper’s actions is generally regarded as a function of the zeal with which the worshiper engages in them;
• the purpose of these acts is human centered, “to draw near to God in the act of worship,” that He would reciprocate by drawing near to the worshiper and experientially confirm for the worshiper that the Holy Spirit is with him, and that he is therefore accepted and loved by God;
• these acts of “drawing near to God” are really acts of man's yearning, tarrying, and striving, of wrestling with God through worship and prayer with the expectation that He give the blessing of spiritual experience in return;
• the assurance of one's salvation is measured by the magnitude of the blessing which proceeds from successfully wrestling with God – in the experience of God Himself through worship;
• such experience of the Holy Spirit's presence in worship or prayer, or “the Baptism of the Holy Spirit,” is public confirmation of an individual's “spiritual anointing,” of his salvation and approval before God, and serves as divine qualification and appointment for ministerial authority in the congregation (creating levels of Christians in the congregation based on relative “spirituality”);
• apart from such visible experiences, the individual is naturally prompted to introspection regarding why God does not bless him with His presence (with the usual explanations being sin or doubt, or not really being saved, or even demonic possession), and is looked upon with suspicion by fellow worshipers as one who is not visibly accepted and blessed by God – both factors leading individual worshipers who lack spiritual experiences to guilt and dismay;
• as a result, many of those who have habituated themselves to the “Pentecostal Experience,” also have a keenly developed ability to whip themselves into a frothy lather (to avoid introspection and the suspicion of others, and to vaunt their spirituality in the eyes of others); if they cannot, or do not, or are unable to reach a pinnacle of spiritual euphoria according to their own expectations, or those of their peers, they just blame it on the band for “not doing it right;”
• worship accompaniment must therefore serve the need of the worshipers to have particular spiritual experiences, by manufacturing those experiences for them;
• and these experiences are referred to as “the working of the Holy Spirit,” even though they are little more than the cooperative effort of human worshipers seeking hard after emotional/psychological “spiritual experiences,” and of human entertainers, mounted on stages in classic entertainment-oriented venues, who are skilled at providing those experiences for their audiences;
• thus, the “Pentecostal Experience,” and all of its derivatives (including contemporary “Sectarian Worship”), are the epitome of anthropocentric worship practice, which, as stated above, remove Christ and His service to man from the center of the Divine Service, and instead place man, his interests and his entertainment needs at the center... and blaspheme God by crediting the results of man’s work, outside of and apart from the direct use of the Means of Grace, to the Holy Spirit..

post-Modern Experientialism, and its experiential language forms, thriving in WELS
(from A Sermon for Sunday of Holy Week, or 'Palm Sunday': “Stand Ye in the Ways, and Find Rest for Your Souls” — Dr. Paul E. Kretzmann)
There is much value in the words of those Christians who've preceded us, particularly these days, as those words come down to us from a time when post-Modernism was unknown, from a time when language still carried objective meaning. In such words, we find the full force of objective conviction and confident passion, words that are chosen for their direct and unequivocal clarity – as well they ought to be, given that the receptor of language is the human mind. This is in contrast to words chosen by contemporary Christian writers and speakers, who are apparently under the illusion that words are not received principally by the mind, but by the entire human body. Words, even the words of Scripture, result not principally in thought from which meaning is derived, but primarily in a human experience from which meaning is derived. One prominent contemporary Lutheran has even stated as much, in writing, regarding the public reading of Scripture:

“We expect that the primary way in which most WELS people experience most of the Bible, most of the time, is by hearing it read in the context of the public worship service.”¹⁸

The speech patterns of post-Modernism are unmistakable in references such as this. The message of the Bible is to be primarily experienced not contemplated; it is more important that the masses have a feeling for what the Bible says, and have a positive experience in relation to that feeling, rather than understand the Scriptures as precisely as possible, especially if the process of understanding is a negative experience of mental struggle.

In the words of Christians who've preceded us, we also find the comfort of discovering that they faced the same issues we face today. Christians have always been concerned about the health of the Church, and, certainly, this is not necessarily a bad thing; but in connection with this concern, they have also been known to take great pride in counting their numbers as a show of growth, as a show of power and influence over others, and as a show of what they've accomplished for Christ...

18: Wendland, P. (2011, December). Evaluating Translations. Forward in Christ 98(12). pg. 29

NOTE: President Wendland is here naming and defending criteria for the choice of a new translation for Synod. This particular criterion plainly trumps the claim that Synod's choice of standard translation is only meant to be the translation used by NPH in its publications, that it does not represent the Synod's recommendation or requirement for use in the local congregation. On the contrary, by establishing this as a relevant and primary criterion, President Wendland directly states “it is expected” that Synod's choice of standard translation will also be the standard translation used in every congregation, will be the translation generally read in public during the Divine Service. It is “expected,” and is therefore a primary criterion in the selection of a standard translation.

Some may be tempted to dismiss President Wendland's emphasis of the term “expectation” in connection with the translation used in WELS parishes, yet, even this month, this point was again emphasized Rev. John Braun, who writes:


“Which Bible should you choose? ...We may prefer to use the translation we have used most often, but which Bible will be the best choice for the next generation? ...My pastor had a good answer to that question. He suggested that we purchase the Bible our children have used in their instruction classes [presumably, he means 'catechism classes' here, but that is a big word that no one uses anymore -DL]. That makes good sense. Passages that were memorized came from that version. Most of today's confirmands have grown familiar with the NIV 1984 in the same way I became comfortable with the King James Version. God willing, they will continue to read their confirmation Bibles and treasure them for the truths of God's Word.”

Braun, J. (2013, March). Translation 103: Which Bible?. Forward in Christ 100(3). pg. 29.

Hence, it is known, indeed, it is “expected,” that the version of the Bible used in catechism materials and other publications distributed by NPH will be the version from which WELS children, and members of all WELS congregations, will be indoctrinated; it will be the version they memorize, contemplate and repeat to one another for the rest of their lives. If Synod in Convention chooses the NIV 2011 this Summer as the “translation used in WELS publications,” then “IT WILL BE EXPECTED” that (a) an egalitarian version of the Bible, that is (b) rendered at the sixth-grade reading level, will be that which our children will (c) “memorize, contemplate and repeat to one another” for the rest of their lives. For the rest of their lives, they will be “memorizing, contemplating and repeating to one another” a translation of the Bible rendered in terms that are (a) twisted to comply with the cultural standards of militant feminism that has been in a state of open war against the Church and Christian teaching from the start, in (b) terms no more sophisticated than a sixth grader.

This is the form of indoctrination that awaits our children, should the NIV 2011 be chosen this Summer by Synod in Convention, and it will impact them long into adulthood. Their thinking in matters of religion, as they will have been taught from childhood, will not equip them for their lives as adults, it will only equip them with the thinking capacity of twelve-year-old child. At the same time, they will receive instruction in the ideas of the world from their schools, colleges and workplaces, and from the acquaintances and friends they meet through their lives, in terms suitable for adults. Moreover, the word patterns they repeat to one another from childhood will prepare them to receive with gladness the false teaching of the feminists. The juvenile thinking patterns taught them by their NIV Bibles will render them impotent against not only worldliness, but from direct attacks of the World. We see it now, among those adults who've been taught to think about their faith in the simplistic terms of the NIV 1984. Indeed, I am convinced that blame for the appalling state of American Christianity today can be attributed, at least in part, to the popularity of the NIV 1984 over the past generation. It's users are notoriously unprepared for anything but an “experiential” religious life, and decry anything that is not a “positive experience” as false, or of the devil. They are helpless, and mostly worthless as defenders of the Truth. What else is to be expected? Clumsily wielding a dull Sword, they're not dependable partners in battle. I've witnessed the shamefulness of their easily-avoided defeat many times. They look like fools, and make all other Christians look like fools right along with them, for the sole reason that they transparently think and reason like fools, they articulate their thoughts with the shallow predictability of children. To prepare children for adulthood, they must be prepared with thoughts and words that will actually serve them in adulthood, as adults. They must be prepared for adulthood by equipping them with words and thought patterns with respect to their religion that are suitable for adults. This is accomplished by having them “memorize, contemplate and repeat to one another” the Scriptures according to the standards of adult literacy -- adult speech and thought patterns, not those of a sixth grader. The difference between childishness and adulthood that is suggested by St. Paul in this regard is stark:


When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. (1 Cor. 13:11)

Likewise, the Proverbs tell us:


Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. (Pr. 22:15)

The Bible says in these verses, and in others, that childish ways and thinking are habits and behaviours which the adult IS EXPECTED to put behind him, not retain throughout his life, and which he must be trained to put behind him from childhood. Training Christians to think and speak like twelve-year-olds for the rest of their lives is no way to prepare them for the rigours of Christian adulthood. The NIV, whether the 1984 or the 2011 edition, DOES NOT ADEQUATELY PREPARE CHILDREN FOR CHRISTIAN ADULTHOOD.

So let's have no more talk of dismissing the importance of Synod's choice “translation used in WELS publications,” as if it weren't intended to have, indeed, if it weren't “THE EXPECTATION” that it have, wider and deeper impact than merely the “translation used in WELS publications.” It is clearly “expected” to be far more than just this. And it undoubtedly will be.

Surrender, Retreat or Die! The Prison of Pedologia that awaits post-Modern Experientialists
(from Impressions from My Visit with ELDoNA at their 2013 Colloquium and Synod – PART V.5 (FINAL))
There were two problems. FIRST, most young adults entering college were totally unequipped to think about their faith in complex or abstract terms – in the same types of terms in which they were absorbing ideas from their college professors, textbooks and other coursework. This was a language problem – and it included students who were raised in conservative Christian homes, who studied their Bibles on a regular basis. They certainly had the raw ability to think about their faith in such terms – they just had no training or practice. But not everyone was so ill-equipped. There was one major difference between those of us who were practiced at thinking about our faith in complex or abstract terms, and those who were not: for the most part, we had been reared on Bibles having a faithfully complex grammar and vocabulary.

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I was a little boy when my father started teaching me how to shoot. He refused to put a “child's gun” in my hands: “A gun is a man's tool. It is not a cute child's toy, but a tool that requires the utmost responsibility, a man's responsibility, to use safely and effectively.” He put a man's shotgun in my hands, never allowing me to think of a gun as anything other than something for adults. It was heavy, at first. I could hardly hold it up, and when I fired it I entirely missed, and my shoulder hurt. But over time, with practice and maturity, I grew into it. By the time I had entered adulthood, I was proficient in its use, ready to independently take on the adult responsibilities that go along with the use of a tool meant for a grown man. It was never a toy in my mind, it was always very serious business.

The same was true of my Bible. When I became a proficient reader, I was given an adult's Bible – the NASB. It was too big for me. Too heavy. I didn't know how to use it right. But with practice and maturity, I grew into it, and by the time I had entered adulthood I was proficient in its use. I was able to reason alongside the author as he developed his point, and, understanding a given teaching from the standpoint of the various nuances that went into its development (many of which are grammatical), I was able to apply it, or aspects of it, to challenges that faced me, and to use the form of reasoning taught me by the inspired authors to engage in more complex patterns of thought on my own. My parents, in choosing to put an adult Bible in my hands, preserved me from a lifetime of Christian pedologia. The majority of Christians I met while at college (and since) have not been spared this fate.

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That was the case with most of us who were practiced at thinking about our faith in complex or abstract terms. Most used the NASB or the NKJV, some used the RSV, and only a couple still using the KJV. But many of us knew that when someone showed up to Bible study with an NIV or with a Living Bible, they were much more likely to struggle with Biblical concepts, and were going to have greater difficulty using their Bibles to respond to the complex challenges hurled at them by the secular World that surrounded us. This was because, reading the NIV or the Living Bible, they never had the opportunity to struggle through the text to understand the nuanced teachings of Scripture – they had no practice at it; they had never learned to follow the complex reasoning of the inspired authors, and to think alongside them. All that the text offered was simplistic prose, stripped of nuance, reduced for readers of the sixth grade level. Let me tell you, there isn't a single translation of Hegel, Marx, Darwin, Kant, Hume, Descartes or any of the other great thinkers of World history, that has been reduced for a sixth grade reader! And when a college student sets his NIV or Living Bible next to one of these authors, or even next to one of his recently published textbooks – which also aren't rendered for sixth graders! – he sees that his Bible is just what his classmates and professors tell him it is: a book of children's stories invented to scare people into submission. Bibles like the NIV or the Living Bible certainly aren't books for adults – not like the books they are reading in college, which, instead of the Bible (unfortunately), are the books that are teaching them to think and reason as adults for the first time.

And so this is the problem with equipping children with children's Bibles, instead of adult Bibles. I know. I witnessed it. I was there. For over ten years. When the enemy is swinging a Claymore over your head, you better have something more substantial than a butter knife to parry it with! If you don't, you are left with two alternatives: (a) surrender, or (b) turn tail and run. And the NIV, along with the Living Bible, has – in the heat of battle when it really counts – shown itself to be little more than a butter knife. I was never so thankful for having been trained in my faith, from childhood, using an adult Bible, than when I was in college and had to use it to combat complex false ideas and defend the simple truth. I even tried using the NIV for awhile in college, but threw it away fearing that my mind would get flabby from using it. Many fellow students switched to adult-grade Bibles, too – mostly on their own, after studying their Bibles, but we did have a couple of Bible study methods that I think provided some indirect encouragement toward that decision, as well.


Rev. Dr. Martin Luther on the Meaning of Christian Experience
To be fair, Dr. Martin Luther DID preach about the impact of “Christian Experience”, but hardly devoid of the Word, at the expense of the Word, or as a necessary addition to it. In his Epistle sermon for the Eighth Sunday after Trinity on Romans 8:12-17, he preaches of the experience of comfort from the objective message of the Gospel (the mere words on a page denigrated by the lay pastor Dr. Scott Gostchock [WELS], above), teaching that the experience of this comfort reinforces what the Word already teaches and the knowledge that we can rely on divine assistance when we call on Him in faith:

“The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16)

That we are children of God and may confidently regard ourselves as such, we do not learn from ourselves nor from the Law. We learn it from the witness of the Spirit, who, in spite of the Law and of our unworthiness, testifies to it in our weakness and assures us of it. This witness is the experience within ourselves of the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word, and the knowledge that our experience accords with the Word and the preaching of the Gospel. For thou art surely aware whether or no, when thou art in fear and distress, thou dost obtain comfort from the Gospel, and art able to overcome thy doubts and terror; to so overcome that thy heart is assured of God’s graciousness, and thou no longer fleest from him, but canst cheerfully call upon him in faith, expecting help. Where such a faith exists, consciousness of help must follow. So Saint Paul says, Romans 5:4-5: “Steadfastness worketh approvedness [patience worketh experience]; and approvedness, hope [and experience, hope]: and hope putteth not to shame.”

WELS has quite evidently become a voice-box for full-throated post-Modernism. There is no discernible level of protest, much less concern, over the adoption of these ideologies and the governing authority they have attained. WELS schools seem to be fully vested in the philosophies of this world, and the leaders fully captive to them. Most of the parishes seem to uncritically accept whatever is handed down to them. True, one hears squeaks and gurgles of protest from time to time, but I've come to believe that these are just the noises made as the chest of a dying body heaves its final gasps of air. But I have a feeling this one isn't going to go peacefully, and anticipate violent spasms as the end draws even nearer.

Endnotes:

1. Piper, J. (2003). Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian hedonist (2003 ed.). Sisters, Or: Multnomah Publishers. pg. 19.
2. Ibid. pp. 9, 24-25.
3. Ibid. pg. 55. (emphasis mine)
4. Ibid. pg. 73. (emphasis mine)
5. Ibid. pg. 81.
6. Ibid. pg. 94.
7. Ibid. pg. 100.
8. Ibid. pg. 98.
9. Ibid. pg. 90.
10. Ibid. pg. 92.
11. Ibid. pg. 97. (emphasis mine)
12. Ibid. pg. 82.
13. Why does the name “SON Band” remind me of the band SONSEED (top video)... ?
14. Many of the Sunday-morning entertainment groups, especially if they have been around for awhile, know, or know of, each other, jam/worship together, exchange bandmates and gigs, practice on each other justifying their own existence, etc... In fact, there was a minor flap a few years ago involving WELS contemporary worship entertainers practicing with/gigging with/standing in for musicians from non-WELS bands -- the issue with practicing together being that the Evangelicals usually combine practice with some sort of group prayer and study of the Scriptures...
15. Gerstner, J. (2000). Wrongly Dividing the Word of Truth: A Critique of Dispensationalism, 2^nd Edition. Morgan, PA: Soli Deo Gloria Publications. pp. 17-59.
16. Please see following works:
    MacPherson, D. (1980). The Incredible Cover-up: Exposing the Origins of Rapture Theories. Medford, OR: Omega Publishing.
    MacPherson, D. (2000). The Rapture Plot, 2^nd Edition. Simpsonville, SC: Millenium III Publishers.
17. For more information on the errors of Charles Finney, see the following article written by Michael Horton almost two decades ago:
    Horton, M. (1995). The Legacy of Charles Finney. Modern Reformation, 4(1), 5-9.