The following post was prompted by 2 factors, the first of which was my previous blog post “W-Ltrs3: When to leave a church”. The second is covered by this blog…
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It was quite a surprise for me – that when searching for a recent picture of Rev. Paul T. McCain, up popped his Obituary († Nov. 25, 2020) from the LC-MS Reporter with their photo of him at right (LCMS/Erik M. Lunsford). He was 58 years old. I had blogged a year ago about his name becoming less visible on CPH's website in recent years. (A commenter assured me that he was still CPH Publisher.) — I chose the LCMS Reporter's picture to represent him, which shows him holding up an old CPH Luther German Bibel.
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What made his passing especially surprising for me was that I had received a public comment from him on my blog 2 months prior to his passing, on September 27, 2020. I had not published that comment… until today as I had decided at that time that I had responded sufficiently to him (here and here) on his earlier sharp rebuke and warning over 8 years ago. What did he say to me, and my blog Back To Luther, back in 2012?
That rebuke was stinging for me, but I knew in my heart that what I wrote was true, even if it was a stinging polemic against the LC-MS. Since 2012, my blog had received no more comments from Rev. McCain (CPH Publisher)… until September 2020. What did Rev. McCain comment on my Part 16 of Hochstetter's History, Chapter 12?
Sir, if you are not attending a congregation and receiving our Lord's gifts of forgiveness, life and salvation through the absolution, the sermon, and the Lord's Supper you are placing yourself in a horrendous situation of the risk of eternal damnation.
Take action on this, now.
If you have, wonderful news.
It seemed to me at first that he was offering the same sharp warning all over again. I drafted a harsh response in a blog post… but never posted it. However, over the weeks that I let his comment languish without my publishing it, it occurred to me that his most recent comment was quite different from his 2012 comment, which condemned my blog as “useless”. Also missing was his ultimate rebuke to “Repent and return to Christ.” No, Rev. McCain seemed genuinely concerned for my eternal welfare, and was not necessarily discrediting my blog. After all, how could he condemn the blog post that was Hochstetter's great history of the Predestinarian Controversy? — Another matter concerned the timing of his comment, 5-1/2 weeks after the date of that blog post of August 16, 2020. Was he in failing health at the time of his comment, as the date of his passing was only 2 months away? I do not know the answer to this.
I have now answered Rev. McCain's strong counsel in my last blog post using Walther's counsel. — One of his best blog posts (cyberbrethren.com) was his exposure of the errors of the (Robert) Kolb/Wengert Book of Concord. It offers one of the strongest reasons why his “Reader's Edition” of the Book of Concord is dependable – it was based on the venerable Concordia Triglotta. And his last best legacy is his promotion of a “reader's edition” of Luther's sermons: A Year in the Gospels with Martin Luther.
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I would add the following translation of a short blurb by C.F.W. Walther in Der Lutheraner to honor the book that Rev. McCain is holding in the obituary picture of him – the Heilige Schrift, the Holy Bible. (Der Lutheraner, March 15, 1873, p. 95):
The Book of all books.
A French rationalist, Réville by name, tells the following:One day, in a meeting of serious-minded men, the question was raised: which book would a man condemned to life imprisonment have to choose, who would be allowed to take only one book into his cell. But there were Catholics, Protestants, philosophers and even materialists, who believe neither in God nor in an immortal soul, together in that society. Which book, do you think, dear reader, will have been suggested by this motley company as the one that one could research daily and yet not explore, with which one could occupy oneself day and night until one's death and yet not get tired of it? — All agreed that the choice could only fall on the Bible! — And do you, dear reader, know any other book? — Think of it! — Certainly, even if you were not a Christian, you would not know any other. What daily bread is to the human body, that is the Bible to the human soul. Happy is he, therefore, who would not only choose this book of all books for his lonely dark prison as his only light and take it with him, but also lets it be the ‘lamp unto his feet and a light unto his path’ [Ps. 119:105] outside the prison! W. [Walther]
