1. Attended a workshop session led by Pastor James Skorzewski (who goes by "Pastor Ski") of The Core (WELS) in Appleton, WI. Attended worship at The Core with my family the following evening. (March 2010)
2. Felt inspired by the experience. Have since been serving at my own congregation, Divine Savior (WELS) in Shawano, WI, with the aim of having it be more like The Core in terms of atmosphere and function. ("Atmosphere" = welcoming to people from outside of the congregation specifically and from outside the Christian faith in general; "function" = trying to make our worship at church and our work in the community more engaging for our members)
3. Discovered the blog Ichabod, The Glory Has Departed, authored by Dr. Gregory Jackson, about a month ago (October 2010). This blog speaks very strongly against certain leaders within the WELS. Among those named specifically are Pastor Ski.
Since then I've been attempting to understand the doctrinal issues that Jackson has with WELS leaders. This has not been easy for me, but I'm trying. Jackson's tone tends to be sarcastic and mocking, and he's attacking a guy whose preaching I really like. However, I'm striving to be impartial about the merits of his points, and not just dismiss him because of his style, and the fact that he's calling one of my favorite preachers a false teacher.
One of the first issues I'm trying to clear up in my own mind is that of universal objective justification (UOJ). Here's how I understand the term: UOJ says that God forgave the world when Jesus died, and that we all are forgiven whether we believe or not. Jackson, by my understanding, is anti-UOJ because it implies that heathens are saved even if they don't believe.
What seems to be called for here is agreement on what exactly is the meaning of several different terms, such as forgiveness, belief, and faith. I'm going to fall back on one of my favorite teaching tools, the analogy, to try to lay this all out in terms that I myself can understand. I realize that analogies are inherently imperfect, because they aren't the actual thing you're talking about, but merely like the thing you're talking about. Nevertheless, I'm going to plow ahead with a lottery ticket analogy. I certainly don't mean to trivialize the gift of salvation by comparing ti to a lottery; I'm merely attempting to put things in terms I'll be able to understand.
So, heaven (being saved, having eternal life with God) would be the lottery prize. Let's say that we can share in the prize if we have a lottery ticket, but it's not like a traditional lottery ticket in that probability enters into it. Let's say it's more like a ticket to a show or concert (now that I think of it, that's a much better analogy!) You don't have to match a random number, you simply have to possess the ticket, and you're in.
Now, you don't have to choose to buy one of these tickets to the show - if you had to choose to buy the ticket, that would mean that our being saved is up to us, and it is not. So to make my analogy better fit what I believe, I'm going to say that everybody gets a ticket. One morning everybody in the world goes to their mailbox, and there they find a ticket to the show. Everybody gets a ticket, whether or not they feel they deserve it, whether or not they believe the show is actually going to happen, they get a ticket.
Is this a valid analogy for universal objective justification (forgiveness of sins)? Justification and forgiveness of sins are the same thing, right?
The next part of the analogy is, what do each of us do with the ticket that we already possess? I can't choose to possess it - I already do possess it! However, I can choose to throw the ticket away. This compares to how we, with our free will, can choose to not believe; we can't choose to receive the ticket, but we can choose to throw it away.
So all are forgiven (have a ticket), but not all are saved (saved = use the ticket).
Here's where it gets tricky for me: are faith and belief the same thing? In my analogy, no one chooses to receive a ticket, but some choose to not use the ticket. If you can choose to not use the ticket, doesn't this imply that it's also possible to choose to use the ticket? Which would imply that we can choose to believe? I think this is really where my analogy breaks down.
So to summarize where I'm at: justification (forgiveness) is given to all, salvation can be forsaken by those who choose to forsake it.
I'm sure this is not the end of the development of my understanding of these issues. I pray that God will help me to understand, and that He will use me to help others to understand.
