Forde: “Precisely the proper distinction between law and gospel limits and humanizes the law.”
See Forde below on 1) Christian freedom.
See Forde below on 2) Reason.
Please click here for the full PDF document, including tables.
Category: Posts
Canadian Anglicans: No members, attenders, or givers by 2040
Big news from Canada: There will be no members, attenders, or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040. The Anglican Church of Canada is declining faster than any other Anglican Province other than The Episcopal Church, which has an even greater rate of decline.
The decline of these churches matters for ELCA Lutherans because the ELCA voted in 1999 to change its constitution to require the threefold sacramental priesthood of The Episcopal Church. The process of building an Episcopal priesthood within the ELCA is not yet complete, although it continues apace.
Why say “no” to transgender pronouns: Concerning St. Olaf College’s religion professor, PJ Johnston
Dr. PJ Johnston, a religion professor at St. Olaf College, has written to request that we correct a March 2018 post we wrote about her and what her hiring says about St. Olaf College.
We apologize for getting her name wrong: She is PJ not PT, as was posted on the St. Olaf faculty webpage at the time. PJ, who identifies as transgender, also asked us also to use male pronouns for her.
We respectfully decline her request. While there may be personal situations in which such a request might be honored, there are good reasons not to comply. After all, she is asking us to deny science and interject lies into our language.
The new book, The Essential Forde, is pseudo-Forde (5)
“God and the scriptures are two different things, as different as Creator and creature,” wrote Luther in his response to Erasmus. Luther dared to stress the distance: two different things—like Creator and creature. This assertion distinguishes Luther from the biblicism of his day and ours. The implications of this assertion are developed in Luther’s thesis on the clarity of scripture.
Seventeenth century Lutheran orthodoxy mistook this thesis as a claim to scriptural inerrancy. The twentieth century Luther renaissance rediscovered the proper understanding of this thesis. Forde’s theology, what he called post-liberal Lutheranism, is representative of this rediscovery and its importance. He held that there could be no compromise between inerrancy and the law/gospel method. The stakes could not be higher: “We are fighting for the restoration of the gospel.”
The new book, The Essential Forde, is silent about Forde’s lifelong battles against inerrancy. Yet his Lutheran Quarterly editors, Steven Paulson and Mark Mattes, imply that they share with Forde a common view of the clarity and proper use of scripture, even as they promote inerrancy, law as an eternal moral order, and a third use of the law, as the following chart shows: