Where Twentieth Century Lutheranism Went Wrong

[@DrJordanBCooper]

The full talk can be found here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZmiQaHylqK52rsUsi=knrJwBCrCW4lljHC

[@scordova98]

Excellently said, the LCMS needs to hear this more because every time I say this people think I'm strange but its true!

[@bradleymarshall5489]

I'm hoping theologians like you will help set Lutheranism back on a path toward Orthodoxy and to look back to the Orthodox Lutherans who came before

[@shana8055]

The timeliness of this video! I’m the only Lutheran in a book club reading “After Virtue” by Alasdair MacIntyre and I’ve been struggling with his critiques of Protestantism. I need to remember that Enlightenment philosophy made its way into our tradition in the last few decades, and that the Reformation itself isn’t to blame for Enlightenment thought. Maybe I need to revisit some of your other videos, Dr. Cooper. Thank you for this one.

[@alexwr]

Why isn't the Spirit keeping Pope Francis from teaching some form of pluralism? Why isn't the Spirit stronger than the awful megachurches that teach prosperity gospel? The same criticism could be said for literally any denomination. This is not an argument that says anything worth saying. Where are you going with it CP?

[@shana8055]

@@Catholic-Perennialist Hey I’m not sure what the purpose of your question was, but I am not at all interested in debating denominational differences in a KZbin comments section. I see Catholics as my brothers and sisters in Christ. A virtual argument wouldn’t persuade anyone; it will just be fruitless infighting that won’t bring glory to God. There are reasons why you choose to be Catholic just as there are reasons I choose to be Lutheran, but at the end of the day, we both love Christ and want to follow the truth.

[@Cymbals231]

@@Catholic-Perennialist God hasn't promised that the Spirit will guard us from *all* error, *all* of the time. Error and sin, even heresy, are constantly creeping into the Church--and part of the Church's vocation is to fight it. Look at the epistles of the NT--there were problems in doctrine, and the apostles needed to hash things out. That doesn't mean that the Spirit is weaker than heresy or anything like that; it just means that God uses the Church to fight it.

[@Cymbals231]

@@Catholic-Perennialist It's not a question of what "could work"; it's a question of what's actually the case. Even as early as the first century, there were heretical ideas that needed to be ironed out. A bad idea existing doesn't mean that the Spirit is weak, or isn't operating. I could reword your question and ask, "why is the Spirit not stronger than a silly German monk who supposedly ruined everything?" Bad question.

[@Cymbals231]

@@Catholic-Perennialist Okay, then say what you mean. What is your position?

[@ministeriosemmanuel638]

One of the big mistakes that the Lutheran Church did was abandoning the Episcopate. But I still think there is a chance to restore it.

[@DrGero15]

Anglicans would probably be happy to help.

[@SeanusAurelius]

How's the Episcopal church doing? Or the Church of England? Or the Methodists?

[@ScroopGroop]

I've been fighting for this for ages. The Missouri Synod laity are *so* opposed to it, and *never* provide a good reason to be so against it.

[@ministeriosemmanuel638]

@@ScroopGroop An influence of American Evangelicalism sadly. I’m glad that there are those who want the Church to stay faithful to tradition!

[@SolaFide-q2b]

@@SeanusAurelius What’s the problem with them?

[@kingnothing2161]

I am in the WELS and I'm not sure exactly why our body and LCMS aren't considered to be in fellowship. As far as I can tell we share our confessions and teachings, but I really hope we could bring about change that reunites ELCA(after some damage control), LCMS, WELS/ELS and more. Your youtube channel and podcasts have been a huge blessing for me personally.

[@StuartCarmichael-r4r]

When our Lutheran Pastors marry homosexuals, when Lutheran Pastors do not preach against abortion , when Lutheran Pastors abandon the SCRIPTURES that is no longer the church of Christ I can follow. Period.

[@Dilley_G45]

Liberalism Relativism Feminism

[@peacengrease3901]

Don't forget antinomianism also

[@bobbobberson5627]

Scholasticism Rationalism

[@rocio8851]

What an admission! Thank God for honest people like you, Dr. Cooper!

[@joelreinhardt2084]

Quite fascinating that you identify mystical union as the departure point and that the last real reference is 1930. That is the same year that the Lambeth Conference redefined marriage by negating full nuptial union as fundamental to marriage. Nuptial union is the image of mystical union and the two traditions, Anglican and American Lutheran, took a very similar trajectory after that point, but with LCMS consolidating in America in a way that Continuing Anglicanism didn't, until more recently with the formation of ACNA. The bare "biblical authority" position you note in LCMS is also the same in ACNA, currently.

[@hismajesty6272]

I’m not Lutheran but I hope the Lutheran Church can restore itself. Hopefully we see restoration in the mainlines.

[@Brad-mc7ut]

I'm possibly considering the Lutheran church, but did watch one of your videos where Lutherans really don't promote their church. It's definitely true now that I look around at Lutheran churches in my area.

[@alexdunholse6529]

Lutherans are bad about it. I say that as an lcms. That's why you need to join! I plan to do evangelism for my local church.

[@tedbadje3430]

Ok, I hope to hear more about philosophy at the time of Luther and the early Lutheran Church, and an explanation of Mysticism as Luther saw it as opposed to Roman Catholic Mysticism in the Middle Ages. Thanks, Pastor.

[@scordova98]

Where can I view the rest of this?

[@TheologyVisualized]

m.kzbin.info/www/bejne/ZmiQaHylqK52rsU A talk he gave last year. This is from 30:50 - 33:50

[@TheReader6]

Christians were unprepared in the past 100 years to deal with the underlying issues. We’re decent at addressing topical issues, but not deeper philosophy.

[@CotnerMD]

Where's the rest of this talk?

[@CJ2345ish]

He placed a pinned comment with it!

[@amcasci]

Where is the rest of this study?I would like to know more about theosis in Lutheran theology

[@stanislaw_sk]

Dr Cooper, would you be willing to interview Dr Simeon Zahl from University of Cambridge? His book The Holy Spirit and Christian Experience offers quite an impressive and unique case for the Lutheran understanding of justification by faith.

[@DrGero15]

Where can I see the rest of this talk?

[@anthonyhilton4168]

This is exactly the case, the acceptance of the spiritual grandchild of the German theologians of WWII, (Radical Lutheranism), demonstrates the extreme infiltration of the LCMS by their philosophy. Probably 2/3rds of the Synod’s pastors base all theology, (practical or otherwise) off of the existentialist question… “how does this (the law in general), make you feel?” Of course the answer is “bad.”, and the Pastor has a ready response “oh well then you need the gospel”, and immediately floods the person with a gospel that the person is not ready for, because the law was meant to be applied specifically and the response needed before the gospel is applied is “guilty, I feel convicted of my sins”, (or words to that effect) Unrepentant hearts are poor ground for the gospel to actually take root and produce fruit. There are many Pastors in the LCMS that are doctrinally true, they have worked hard to balance out the influence of that spiritual grandchild, but they do not understand what it looks like to win, their only hope is that they have so many more children than the quasi Radical Lutherans among the LCMS as well as to retain those children in the Church and place enough of their sons in the ministry that when the demographic collapse has occurred in 20ish years, they will be left holding the reins of the what remains. That isn’t really winning is it? It’s a pity they didn’t ask for my assistance, I could have been a help to them.

[@macduff16]

I would be interested in learning more about the development of Lutheran thought. When Lutherans tell their story, they skip from the death of Martin Luther to the 1800s. But how was he interpreted by later generations? What happened with questions that Luther didn't address or that he answered vaguely?

[@alexdunholse6529]

Pietism. That was the first main controversy. Second mainly being liberalism in the 1900s. Bonhoeffer (I'm sure I butchered his name) has a good book called the cost of discipleship addressing nazism in the German church.

[@elKarlo]

I find it increasingly amazing how the liberal or whatever you want to call it, rot, really can be traced back a hundred years.

[@WaterMelon-Cat]

We need the episcopacy back.

[@cateclism316]

Keep the Lutheran faith Lutheran!

[@AmillennialMillenial]

The strongest, most common evidence that we just adopt the philosophy around us is the prevalence of women lectors in the LCMS. How can we claim to take the Bible so seriously when ignoring such a clear prohibition of scripture? The excuses for it aré stupid.

[@johnritter5951]

I'm glad the Enlightenment was mentioned here. (Personally, I call it the Endarkenment.) However, it (the Enlightenment) was not just a force that created problems for Lutheranism ... but rather, all mainline (now sideline) Protestantism. To receive the approval of secular academia, church leaders subjected Christianity's "Constitution" (the Bible) to the secular priesthood for "surgery" much like today's radical transgender surgery. The neutered Bible that was handed back to the Church, was/is infertile, incapable of bearing offspring. And that is just what it has done, or rather, not done, bear offspring. Thus, the relative disappearance of mainline Protestantism. It would seem that, when one saws off the limb one is seated upon, one goes down rather swiftly. Two items: (1) I am a '81 MDiv graduate of the Gettysburg Lutheran Seminary, so I've been there, done that. (2) I would suggest the book by a former Harvard prof (forget his name just now) entitled: "Without God, Without Creed: the Origins of Unbelief in America." His opening words set the stage by pointing out that, when he began his book, he fully expected to discover that the loss of Christian belief was due to secularism in the culture, but was shocked to discover that, indeed, the church leaders were the ones who "adapted" the Church's teaching to be more user-friendly to the culture. They were "saving the church" from rejection by the culture, they claimed. In short, folks, your church leaders wanted acceptance into the good ol' boys' club of secular academia. So, they lifted the skirts, as it were, of the Church, and told their secular counterparts to "have at her." Suffice it to say, as in the Book of Revelation, the Lord has removed the lampstand of liberal Protestant mainline denominations. Moreover, they continue unrepentant in the darkness that rushed in, as their lampstand was rushed out.

[@ellen823ful]

Baptized in the Lutheran tradition. Confirmation. Love 💗 the sung 2:42 liturgy. But, the people are MEAN! They’re very tribal. And they eat their own…

[@mirando100]

Great

[@evanhow1388]

Dr Peterson, can you please consider doing a critique of this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/n6O7oYl4rrp8i5osi=ekrldar85It0mdWT I have been learning lots from your podcasts about the Ausburg Confession, and that has helped me to understand some of the ways they have misunderstood Luther's views on faith and justification, but your direct critique would be extremely helpful and more widespread. Thanks for your work, and God bless.

[@jarms40]

Ooh ohh call on me! They followed 16th century Luther?

[@guyparker1749]

What year hatched this egg...how do you spell Presbyterian..

[@aussierob7177]

Why are denominations so confusing ?

[@hamie7624]

Because they're all fake. Christ founded the Catholic Church, which is not a mere denomination, but the true Church of Jesus Christ.

[@clivejungle6999]

Because humans are fallen and make fallible institutions. Unfortunately some humans try to say that their institutions are infallible and that creates even more problems.

[@Thatoneguy-pu8ty]

Because Christianity is 2000 years old

[@lifematterspodcast]

Because there is One True Church and the rest shouldn’t have started

[@mysticmouse7261]

Theosis is not confessional . Nothing to do with American history.

[@mikaelrosing]

Not using incense for one. And secondly not enough chants. 3rd preaching about daily life which is ok but sometimes too political Denmark btw.

[@pomer8912]

I was at a Catholic funeral the other day and the incense at the end was so intense people were covering their noses and mouths. I don’t understand why this is done. Not nice for lots of people. And the chants …they get old week after week. I grew up with it and it’s so repetitive after a while it has no meaning. That’s how I observe it anyway!

[@AnonymousPHofficial]

Hello,👋

[@langreeves6419]

The 20th century was great for Lutherans! After centuries, we finally got the ELCA. Thanks and praise to the Trinity!

[@fantasia55]

Lutheranism is collapsing as the internet enables Lutherans to read the writings of Martin Luther.

[@derrickbonsell]

No, Lutheranism is suffering for the same reason every other denomination, including the Roman Catholics, are suffering in the western world. Biblical liberalism may have started among German Protestants but it's infected everyone from non-denominational Baptists to the Eastern Orthodox.

[@Athabrose]

You have a point. I joined and left the LCMS from reading Luther. He would not have been allowed in the LCMS.

[@Lemone262]

@@Athabrose So what would be the main theological differences between Martin Luther and today's LCMS? I am not Lutheran so idk..

[@Athabrose]

@@Lemone262 It would be hard to articulate everything here but in general…the LCMS modern fundamentalist reading of scripture and many interpretations from that. The fear of mysticism, theosis, and mystical union within the LCMS and the inability to look outside of LCMS tradition to other viable traditions. The LCMS is very insular. The lack of emphasis on daily following Christ and the spiritual life. The LCMS is constantly defending, fighting, and always identifying what they are not compared to others. When the focus is always fighting liberals or others, room for spiritual growth is lost. This is why the average LCMS member is age 60 and all the kids are gone. Everything is head knowledge with an almost idolatrous emphasis on the Book of Concord (which was after Luther) and confessional documents. Luther viewed the Word as Christ and not the modern idea of inerrancy of the Bible as the LCMS does. Luther was not afraid of mystics and the spiritual life was very important to him. He also held catholic beliefs that the LCMS ignore. The only Luther they like to use is what fits in with the LCMS. There are good people in the LCMS but in large part it is a dead orthodoxy. There are other smaller newer Lutheran denoms that I think are doing it better. NALC for example.

[@Edward-ng8oo]

​@@Lemone262I replied a couple of days ago below a different video on this channel where I commented on where Luther is in disagreement with so-called confessional Lutheranism, so it's easy for me to just to copy it and repeat it here: With respect to the notion that Luther discouraged feeling and that his whole enterprise was to get people out of themselves and away from personal feelings this is entirely mistaken and the opposite of what Luther taught. The origin of our feelings of being saved and loved by God comes from outside of ourselves in that it's only through Christ that we can be saved, but faith in Christ must result in us feeling saved or else we don't have any faith. Faith is trust of the heart that Christ is one's Saviour so if a person has this trust it's impossible that he doesn't feel that he trusts in Christ. The following passage is from What Luther Says (Concordia): This is the fruit of His Passion: He justifies and saves from death and sin and frees from the power of the devil. Such is the office of this Servant, He is to serve us in His Passion. How are we justified? How and in what way do we come by the fruit and the purpose of this work? In no other way and manner than by its soul (anima) or the knowledge (notitia) of it. Thus Peter explains it, and correctly so: "Grow in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 3:18). . This knowledge is faith itself, not only a historical faith, which the devil also has and with which he confesses God as the heretics do, too. It is rather a knowledge which rests on experience, and faith. This word "knowing" means as much as: "Adam knew his wife" (Gen. 4:1 ) , that is, he "knew" her by the sense of feeling, he found her to be his wife, not in a speculative or historical way but by experience. A merely historical faith does not act in this way. It does not add the experience of feeling and the knowledge that is a personal experience. To be sure, it says: I believe that Christ died and that He did so also for me; but it does not come to this personal feeling, this experimental knowledge. (1387) So true faith is more than simply believing with the intellect that Christ died for one but is an experiential knowledge where one feels that it's true. It's apparent to me that the majority of those who identify as confessional Lutherans don't have this experiential knowledge because they've never been converted in the first place. And therefore they just deny that being a Christian has anything to do with one's feelings and that somehow they’ll be saved by some unfeeling faith in Christ. It doesn't make sense but then when they're also believing in the nonsensical doctrine of single predestination I suppose one more nonsensical thing is easily assimilated. Looking at confessional Lutheranism from the outside I see an illogical belief system revolving round the mistaken belief that the Holy Spirit endeavours to convert everyone through the Word. It combines logically contradictory positions: everyone is depraved and resistant to God but conversion is resistible; some people are predestined to be saved but God doesn't irresistibly convert them; God doesn't predestine anyone to be damned but people choose to be damned by resisting conversion; the elect are free to reject being converted but they can't fail to be converted and saved. None of it makes any sense. If Luther was alive now he would go absolutely ballistic at the insanity being propagated in his name. One only has to read The Bondage of the Will to see how utterly logical what he wrote is. He argued that God has willed, foreknown and predestined everything that happens by His hidden will, that everyone is predestined to be either saved or damned, that the elect are irresistibly regenerated and the damned are left in their sins, that there's no free will to accept or reject being saved or damned, and that God desires the salvation of everyone only through His revealed will. It's all beautifully logical and Scriptural. By contrast what the Formula of Concord teaches is nonsensical, unscriptural and untrue.

[@michaelthomas6280]

Protesting the Catholic Church

[@Thatoneguy-pu8ty]

Until she reforms 👍

[@michaelthomas6280]

@Thatoneguy-pu8ty If you understood how demons attack the Church, maybe you’d think differently. We have someone who can potentially be called an infiltrator at the top right now, but that doesn’t take away from Eucharistic miracles and Marian apparitions which reveal undeniable truths to people willing to listen

[@lifematterspodcast]

@@Thatoneguy-pu8ty the Church humbly admits that there are sinners, but the faith & morals are unchanging and perfect

[@bobthebuildest6828]

well it all started 500 years ago with the rebellion against God....*start flashback *

[@ntlearning]

Didn’t the Orthodox reject Rome first?

[@derrickbonsell]

The Vatican does not teach that Lutherans and other Protestants are not Christians, and the Pope isn't God either.