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JMJ4
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Deacon Latif -
Thank you for the book recommendations on Martin Luther. I really appreciate it!
Thank you for the book recommendations on Martin Luther. I really appreciate it!
Dear JonNC:Hi Latif,
What are some of the deficiencies that you see in the JDDJ? While it is certaily limited in its scope and intentions, it has always seemed to me to be quite in agreement with the Confessions as far as it goes. It seems to me, having read through the LCMS repsonse, that the doocument could have been agreed to, while issuing a clarification statment about what was not covered, much like Rome did.
I look forward to your thoughts.
Jon
Not a problem. I’m still curious as to Jerry’s statements about the LCMS view of Justification. I hope he will elaborate, or at least provide a link. His brief description seems such an anti-Lutheran view of Justification.Dear JonNC:
Honestly, I want to review it before commenting in any substantive way. It’s been a while since I read through it. I’m not even at home right now. I will try to get back with you on this, however. Thanks for asking.
I for one accept the truth of this doctrine, properly understood anyway. It is also more than bizarre that you have reconciled in your mind the Lutheran Confessions (you call them the “blessed Lutheran Confessions”) and the RC position on Justification. They are not identical. One day they may be reconciled through patient and studious dialog, but that has not happened yet.Catholics should be aware that supposedly conservative Lutherans accept such rubbish and, wrongly so, in the name of the blessed Lutheran Confessions!.
Pax, Jerry Parker
Jerry,Latif and Jon,
I’ll try to find a link for you two (and other interested C.A. Forum readers) where the pros and cons of the Synodical Conference U.O.J. (“universal objective justification”) and S.J. (“subjective justification”) teaching are debated clearly. It was this horrid doctrinal paradigm that alienated me, once for all, from Lutheranism. At 66 years old now, I just cannot bring myself to pinch my nose shut from this malodourous, sickening doctrinal rot and to get involved in arguing about it again. Catholics should be aware that supposedly conservative Lutherans accept such rubbish and, wrongly so, in the name of the blessed Lutheran Confessions!.
Pax, Jerry Parker
Thanks, Jerry, for the info and links. I wish you His blessings in your move to the Catholic Church.Jon N.C.,
*You had written: ** * I’m still curious as to Jerry’s statements about the LCMS view of Justification. I hope [that] he will elaborate, or at least provide a link.
You and some of this C.A. Forum wish to know more about the quasi-Lutheran soteriological paradigm called “universal objective justification”/“subjective justification” (U.O.J. and S.J.). I’ll refer you to other sources to do the job. I just do not have the time and energy to unravel for you in my own words the tiresomely complex matter of U.O.J. and S.J. as the L.C.M.S., W.E.L.S., and other Lutheran groups teach this noxious heresy.
The WWW is replete with pablum defending the American pseudo-Lutheran error of “universal objective justification” (more commonly denominated more briefly as “objective justification”) and of its corrollary “subjective justification”, the distinctive teaching of the denominations which formerly constituted the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America, especially the wealthy and media-savvy L.C.M.S. (Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod). Larry Darby is a Lutheran layman who has published some book-length studies on the subject of U.O.J./S.J., but although Darby’s writings are quite learned, they are, in the end, rather obtuse and ill-focussed; Darby unsuccessfully and rather quixotically strives both to refute U.O.J./S.J. while attempting to salvage the soteriological speculations of U.O.J./S.J. found in the writings of Franz August Otto Pieper, the L.C.M.S. dogmatician who most notably developped the teaching of this false doctrine which his L.C.M.S. predecessor, George Stoeckhardt, had formulated and propounded prior to Pieper’s better known and more influential doctrinal writings.
The best resources on this subject which counter the U.O.J./S.J. paradigm are the printed ones, especially those by Independent Lutheran pastors, David Hartman (whose writings have appeared in numerous, rather limitedly distributed brochures) and, more learnedly, Gregory L. Jackson, who has published in more permanent form, including his excellent monograph, Thy Strong Word: the Efficacy of the Word in the Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions (Martin Chemnitz Press, 2000, 643 p., ISBN 0-9649354-4-9), which is an exposition of truly Confessional Lutheran doctrine and a firm refutation of the many aberrent doctrinal, exegetical, and liturgical trends in North American Lutheranism. Jackson, very adroitly skilled in computer technology, fortunately has a WWW presence. There is information on the subject of U.O.J./S.J. on his WWW resource, Ichabod: the Glory Has Departed (ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com);click on the link, then type, in the blog’s search feature, the words “objective justification”.
Jackson, as usual, uses far more quotes than really are necessary to support his arguments and he also tends to be rather distractingly discursive, but the reader who bears with his deeply scholarly writing, whether in print or computer-readable form, can learn much about the problems of modern-day Lutheranism, including U.O.J./S.J., and about genuine Lutheran teaching as the magisterial Lutheran Reformers formulated it. I reviewed G.L. Jackson’s book cited above, Thy Strong Word, for Amazon.com, and it is available from the American Amazon WWW site. At the time of reviewing that book, I still consciously identified myself as an Independent Lutheran layman, so what I wrote for Amazon is rather different than what I would have to say now that I have arrived at more Catholic conviction, but yet I continue to defend most of what Jackson writes in this work and I still commend it to the curious reader, the more so as the book is available to a greater extent than most other writings which refute systematically the erroneous teaching of U.O.J./S.J.
Good luck to those who really do care to investigate this thorny and convoluted matter!
Pax, Jerry Parker
Hi Jerry,Jon N.C.,
There is information on the subject of U.O.J./S.J. on his WWW resource, Ichabod: the Glory Has Departed (ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com);click on the link, then type, in the blog’s search feature, the words “objective justification”.
Good luck to those who really do care to investigate this thorny and convoluted matter!
Pax, Jerry Parker
I remember that song, but did not know that was one of the lyrics!I have a question that has bothered me for many years.
In the Paul McCartney song “Let 'Em In,” why is Martin Luther one of the people knocking at the door?
Could the sound possibly be, rather than knocking, the sound of hammering his 95 theses to it?
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Someone’s knockin’ at the door
Somebody’s ringin’ the bell
Do me a favor,
Open the door and let 'em in(repeat)
Sister Suzie, brother John,
Martin Luther, Phil And Don,
Brother Michael, Auntie Gin,
Open the door,let 'em in.
I am not sure why you would not want the source of your morale direction to get involved with morale issues? Would you want them to let intrinsic evil rule without any objection? Would you concern yourself if your state decided that you must live by Sharia law, or would you want your Church to fight back? Would you allow your religious freedoms to be sacrificed for a religion that would NOT give you the same freedoms?The ELCA has a Social Statement on Abortion adopted in 1991. You can find it here:
elca.org/What-We-Believe/Social-Issues/Social-Statements/Abortion.aspx
I am not very enthusiastic about the Social Statement. I don’t think that it covers the subject very well and that is too ambiguous in many places.
At the same time, I don’t want the church to be involved in political debates about abortion or in seeking to criminalize abortions. However, I think the church has a responsibility to emphasize and to teach moral values including the sanctity of the gift of life and the proper place of sexual (and reproductive) activity – within the bonds of matrimony.
While Luther did hold to those views, he never advocated that they be considered *de fide *revealed dogma that Christians are required to believe in order to be in union with the visible church. There are Lutherans today who hold to some of the Marian doctrines like perpetual virginity.With his beliefs on the immaculate conception, Confession, perpetual virginity, Contraception and other non LCMS beliefs do you think that if Martin Luther lived today he would be a Lutheran, Roman Catholic or Orthodox?