Gerhard Forde: instructor to today's LCMS (2 of 2)

[2020-02-24: added reference at bottom to old blog]
     In Part 1, it was shown that the theologian Gerhard O. Forde questioned the foundational Christian doctrine of the vicarious satisfaction.  Forde's theology is thereby anti-Christian and unLutheran.  One would think that a synod claiming to be truly Lutheran would completely avoid Forde's theology because of this but that is not the case with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.  Their new seminary textbook, to update Pieper's Christian Dogmatics, quotes him approvingly in many places, offering only minor warnings, e.g. on his Third Use of Law.

Forde in Samuel Nafzger's/LC-MS textbook Confessing the Gospel

      The following is my tabulation of the references to the works of Gerhard O. Forde, an ELCA theologian, in the new (2018) LC-MS textbook Confessing the Gospel:

Samuel H. Nafzger General Editor	Confessing the Gospel	Concordia Publishing 2018
Chapter title	Primary Contributor(s)	#  Forde references
Prolegomena	David A. Lumpp	5
Anthropology	Jerrold A. Eickmann, Jerald C. Joersz, Thomas E. Manteufel, Daniel L. Mattson, Joel P. Okamoto	5
Work of Christ	Henry A. Hamann	8
Christian Life	Milton L. Rudnick, Martim C. Warth	5
Election	Robert Kolb	3 =========== Total: 26

There are approximately 26 references to Forde's writings in this 2-volume textbook for seminarians.  Most references offer no warning against his theology but rather quote him with approval.  All of these contributors are either ignorant of Forde's error on the fundamental article of the Christian faith, or what is more likely, they are, to borrow Siegbert Becker's words, "deliberately and culpably blind" to it – they are willing to overlook Forde's teaching that the Vicarious Satisfaction "creates more problems than it solves".

      But the ultimate tragedy of the praise of Forde's theology comes particularly in the last chapter "Election" by primary contributor Dr. Robert Kolb.  In the 2018 CPH book Walther's Works: Predestination, [2020-09-01 see also this post] it is repeatedly pointed out that one cannot hold the proper doctrine of Election of Grace without holding to the Lutheran doctrine of Universal, Objective Justification, or what is the same, the Vicarious Satisfaction.  While the author of Nafzger's textbook chapter (Kolb or Nafzger?) quotes both C.F.W. Walther and Franz Pieper in his attempt to set forth the Lutheran doctrine of "Predestination" or "Election", he then amazingly immediately follows these quotes with the following (p. 1255-1256):

"The most important North American Lutheran to articulate the doctrine of election in the late 20th century was Gerhard O. Forde (1927-2005).… Forde thereby seeks to drive home for troubled consciences the comfort that comes from knowing that before the world began God chose those to whom he has delivered his promise in Jesus Christ, and those in whom he has created faith through that same promise."

Forde demonstrates his "smokescreen" vocabulary by supposedly offering "comfort for troubled consciences" while questioning the Vicarious Satisfaction, an impossibility – as the CPH Walther's Works book demonstrates.  For Drs. Robert Kolb and/or editor Samuel Nafzger to hold up Gerhard O. Forde in the face of Walther and Pieper (and Stoeckhardt) is to join in Forde's duplicity, and thereby sadly exposes the author/editor's mixed, confusing theology.

      It is even sadder that Prof. (emeritus) Thomas Manteufel, in a recent article for Summer 2019 CHIQ, attempts to justify the Nafzger-Kolb textbook by highlighting its references to Walther and Pieper, while ignoring the travesty of its reference to Gerhard O. Forde in the same writing! – I am truly sorry for the seminarians that now are taught with Nafzger's textbook, and more sorry for the Lutheran congregations who will have their future pastors taught under its "Lutheran approach", instead of Walther and Pieper. — For the reader interested in a in-depth debate on "Predestination" that clearly distinguishes truth from error, the 2018 CPH book Walther's Works: Predestination is the best there is. (2020-02-24: see also this blog)