Steadfast Lutherans- your neighbourhood Lutheran Pub?

I often listen to music while I work and I wondered off to Issues Etc.

The episode I was listening had a few seconds sound grab from Steadfast Lutherans (sic)(Waltherian/Antinomians).

Here is what the sound advertisement said, I quote...

Imagine SteadfastLuthearn.org as the Internet version of a Lutheran Pub. Your neighbourhood Lutheran Pub, that is, where the finest Lutheran conversation is going on in every table and at the bar, sometimes contentious but always informative... we are only serving Wittenberg ale...etc.

Are you a bit unimaginative? Why would you use the motif of a pub to advertise your religious website? Don't you have any other ideas you can use to attract listeners to your website? Is that the best you could do? Can you not use other analogies to get the listeners interested in your website?

I did not realise there is such an animal called a Lutheran Pub. This reminds me of my Pentecostal years. You go to a "Christian" barber, a "Christian" butcher, a "Christian" mechanic, a "Christian" this and that.

Unless of course, being Lutheran is understood to have the propensity to be imbibed; and that advert shows your desire to be relevant, relational and even missional. Unless of course, you understand that it is tradition and normal for a Lutheran to be a bit tipsy and that is just being Lutheran! Not to be like that is just unLutheran.

Well of course, if you are a UOJer, God has forgiven you even before you repent and believe and that includes before you got intoxicated also. You are of course proud of your lack of sanctification and no big deal if those Evangelical pietists get offended. The main thing is you show off  your liberty in your "Gospel". You need to take pride in your justification, your "freedom" (from the Law, if you asked me).

Don't get me wrong, over here, I have been to the pub about 10 times. One time I worked in a country town and I went to the pub to buy lunch; over here, the cheapest lunch meals are found in a pub.

Don't get me wrong either, I often have a glass of wine with my meal specially in special occasions, like yesterday. I went to a wedding and I enjoyed the finger food with a glass of white. It made the food delicious.

But please do not slap me in the head because of those. Rather, kick me in the head for my lack of deft when it comes to imagination.

Walther: The closer to Luther the better the theologian...unless

I have been looking over the Net on some striking Walther quotes.

How many times have I heard the famous C. F. W. Walther quote - the closer to Luther, the better the theologian?

Walther is held up as a guru by Synodical Lutherans; this pastor even said that the closer one is to Walther, the better is the theologian.

There is one example of fanatic if you ever want to find one.


During Walther's controversy on the doctrine of election, learned men frequently quoted to Walther the fathers of the Lutheran church.  Here is what Walther said, you can find the full quote in here.

The principal means by which our opponents endeavor to support their doctrine, consists in continually quoting passages from the private writings of the fathers of our Church, published subsequent to the _Formula of Concord_. But whenever a controversy arises concerning the question, whether a doctrine is Lutheran, we must not ask: "What does this or that 'father' of the Lutheran Church teach in his private writings?" for he also may have fallen into error;


Those words of Walther are an epitome of the quip - take my advice, I am not using it.

In reality, what Walther really meant in practice was - the closer to Luther, the better the theologian, unless, the theologian teaches against me (because the said theologian must be in error).

The words in red are my interpretation of his behaviour on how he handled criticism. In fact his UOJ followers have the same attitude towards their critics... they must be wrong.

When a person falls for a fallacy, one does not stop at swallowing just one fallacious argument. The person invariably swallows the next one and the one after that and so on and on.

Here is another Walther quote from this site and IMHO, shows that Walther and Huber were cut from the same cloth.

We are not reconciled to God when we believe, but we are already redeemed, are already reconciled to God, so that we believe.  This is also true regarding justification.  The whole world is already justified in Christ.  Faith is not the condition under which we are justified but the way and means by which we become partakers of the justification which God has long ago given us

There is the fallacy of misreading Romans 4:25.

A fish is caught through its mouth.

Happy Bachday to you

March 31st was the day when J. S. Bach was born. So happy bach-day to you.

Sometimes I listen to Lutheran Public Radio, Sacred Music to the World. Some of the hymn versions they play lately leave me depressed.  I am sorry for the fans of this Internet station, that is just honestly how some of the hymn versions they have been playing affect me. For example, the tempo of those versions do not match the lyrics of the hymn. It somewhat undermines the truth found in the hymns.

This is not my experience with Bach's cantatas. It is hard to be gloomy even if the music had a somber message. In 2009, my eldest daughter gave birth to a disabled boy. He has cerebral palsy. Each morning as I went to work (I had a software development contract then), I had to struggle getting out of bed. When I get to work, I would play Bach's music again and again as I worked. It got me out of depression and mind you I had experienced some serious ones in the past.

Have a listen to this BWV75

Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan,
What God does ,that is done well,
Dabei will ich verbleiben.
I shall keep to this thought.
Es mag mich auf die rauhe Bahn
It may be that on the rough road
Not, Tod und Elend treiben;
I shall be driven by distress, death and misery;
So wird Gott mich
yet God will
Ganz väterlich
just like a father
In seinen Armen halten;
hold me in his arms;
Drum lass ich ihn nur walten. (Samuel Rodigast 1674, Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan.)
therefore I let him alone rule over me.

Bach, I get ya and thank ya

The church I go to has a Bach foundation and it sponsors Bach's cantatas in the divine service. They have cantatas at a minimun I think 6 times per year.

A few weeks ago I went with my missus even though I had to wake up quite early in the morning, it was worth it. Now, as you know, I must not name the church because I am like Peter Parker, the Spiderman; those who are associated with me could get hurt. The people I criticise can be nasty.

The cantata for that Sunday was BMV 40.  I am listening to it as I type.

In Scripture we read,1 Corinthian 14

¹⁶ Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?

Well it was a blessing that they printed the cantata both in English and German.  Since I can sight read music, I could follow the singers as they sang. The music was in the bulletin. I understood what was being conveyed by the cantata, as I looked at the English translation.

I tell you I was extremely edified and my heart was bursting in praise to God. It was beautiful, Bach was indeed a genius, the words and music as it were dropped down from heaven. I do not mind saying  even in a facetious way, I got a "religious experience".

Many years ago, when I was getting my degree in Religious Studies, my Greek professor said to me that doing scholarly work in the original Biblical Languages requires one to learn either German or French. If you confine yourself to English, you will miss the other results other scholars from other countries have discovered, since there are lots of scholarly work in those languages.

I am toying learning German so I can read Bach's music and Luther's writings but I only have 24 hours in a day, so what to do?

Bach, I get ya, and I thank God for ya. You are a good Lutheran contribution to the world.

The semester is on next week and so blogging will be slow.

UOJ - the source of antinomianism

UPDATED:
I have Evangelical friends in USA. I felt their shock when I told them I have become Lutheran.
What I know horrified them was the thought I have become antinomian. These friends of mine seeing Lutherans in their midst and how they behave, believe that Lutherans are antinomians.

To them, they are "anything goes" Christians. Well of course, anything will go. For if you have been taught that God has ALREADY forgiven you before you were born, before you even believe and before even the Sacraments got applied to you, why won't anything go? Why won't anything go if you are forgiven even before you could repent and even believe? What sin is there that would make you uneasy when that sin has already been forgiven even before you commit it? Nothing.

UOJ does not produce trust, or Biblical faith. Rather it produces assent similar to what the Devil has, an agreement. Notice how UOJers malign faith. Sometimes, I sense their real hatred for the concept.

Since UOJ does not produce faith and since it is to them believing already what is there, it does not bring a change in the one who has "faith". So by Biblical teaching, the faith they speak of does not justify and since there is no justification and there is no consequent sanctification. Hence antinomianism.

If there are American Lutherans who are bothered by the antinomianism in their camp, they should look at the tree,  and examine its fruit.

UPDATE:
Let me categorically say that lest you think antinomianism is my MAJOR objection to UOJ, then you are absolutely wrong about me. My MAJOR objection to UOJ is simple - it is CONTRARY to the Scripture and the Confessions. Antinomianism is just one of the fruits of a MAJOR error. For as can be expected false doctrine leads to false behavior.

Jack's weird definition of debate

Dr. Jack Kilcrease complains (or so thinks) that Rev. Rydecki does not want to debate him. Now how did Jack Fallacious come up with that conclusion? Well folks, it is.because Pr. Paul does not post comments in his blog to answer his fallacious claims. How weird is that definition of non-debate?

There must be something wrong in his comprehension if he did not see some of the points Rydecki enumerated in Faith Alone Justifies.

Jack made the same claims that I do not debate him directly. But why do you think that? Well I stopped posting my rebuttals in his blog because he does not publish them. Other times I am too busy to take bad arguments seriously. Answer not a fool according to his folly, so the Scripture says in Proverbs 26:4.

I got a life outside the Internet. I know a year or so ago, I encountered LC-MS UOJ defenders at Steadfast Waltherians. As a result of that I got banned from posting. Do not make a mistake we do not debate.

So what do people like me or Rev. Rydecki do? We publish our rebuttals in our own blogs. Apparently for Jack, this is not called debate?

You might say it is not a live debate but we are debating you Jack. In as much as we have been posting rebuttals in our blogs, this is as much debate as there is one in the Internet world. There is a time to speak and so sometimes I do answer a fool according to his folly Proverbs 26:5.

Jack, I know you are reading this blog, and you know well I do not moderate my blog as a general rule. I only step in when I see profanity in the post. Please do not be ridiculous to claim we do not debate you because we do not post comments in your blog, that is another fallacy which you manufacture. The posts we have in our blogs are rebuttals to UOJ and your defense of it.

Americans singing a Filipino folk song

Just to take a break from the fight, here is something cross cultural.
It is a song about a field butterfly. They sang it really good, they gave me goose bumps.

I am amazed, they pronounced the words so well. They sang it like Filipinos do.

Well done!