There We Stood: Against the Rising Trust in Man

Part I of 4

You are already full! You are already rich! You have reigned as kings without us—and indeed I could wish you did reign, that we also might reign with you!

I will assert several things in this article:

1. There has already begun a Second Reformation of the world Christian Churches, and the legacy of the visible/state Lutheran churches have missed their opportunity to lead it.
2. The Second Reformation can also accurately be termed, the Third Great Awakening.
3. There are many implications, but the immediate lesson for the churches of the Augsburg Confession is to inculcate, as prudently as possible, the acceptance that unconfessed heresies, including, and, especially heresies of inter-Christian fellowship,  otherwise called “heterodoxies,” do not necessitate the damnation of the hearer, nor the weakening of his faith, while the inverse is equally true, that is, outward marks of orthodoxy do necessitate the presence of the Holy Spirit.

The faithful are always among the crowds. Always. This Augsburg VII/VIII enshrine as wisdom for the Church of the Kingdom of Jesus. We cannot control where the Spirit pleases to blow, and if he is not blowing on us but on others, then we have much to ponder. 

We do well to repent first, and ask questions later. From there, Psalmic prayer and Proverbial daily consideration in the Name of Jesus are highly in order. 

The fact of American Christianity’s public and accepted ownership of the mantle of Protestantism, combined with the soulless, greedy, self-destruction of all but a superminority of symbolic “Lutheranism,” under the framework of the heritage toll taken by the American casino, brings the final result that Lutherans are a people who are “not a people.” Sasse’s “Lonely Way” is only the pious half of it. Communing alone, my wife and I only, in the wilds of Australia, does it ensure a martyr’s proper stance. 

This is to say, the First Reformation’s ongoing and administratively successful ejection of Luther’s authentic disciples of the Word from the public Mouth House of his legacy is nigh on complete. 

“Lutheranism” is more than a cultural mess, undefinable as a modern “theology,” and filled with a plethora of spirits more eager to rage at error than to salve a wound. 

“You have forgotten your first love.”

This is no reason for despair. We shall reign again. “Here we stand,” the actual last generation of “Lutherans.” And we, you and I, are going to do a lot more than take this wave sitting down. 

“Follow Me.”

In Him, For You, and Till Next Time
@ינתן