Biermann, Piepkorn and… Jehovah's Witnesses? (Part 3)

[2024-11-06: added note below to compare with Synodical Conference essay.]

      This continues from Part 2 in a series (Table of Contents in Part 1) on the teaching of Concordia Seminary's Prof. Joel Biermann in relation to Holy Scripture. — When listening to Prof. Biermann's lecture, one is taken back 50 years, to the 1974 "Walkout" professors and their sympathizers. All of them had given up the Lutheran reliance on Holy Scripture. So let us listen to these two Concordia Seminary professors, then and now:

Prof. Arthur Carl Piepkorn († 1973)	Prof. Joel Biermann
Concordia Theological Monthly,  vol. 25, 1954, p. 739: “We have thus to differentiate this type of Verbal Inspiration from the Verbal Inspiration of the "Hard-Shell" Baptists, contemporary Fundamentalists, and such sects as Jehovah's Witnesses.”	Systematics III 05, lecture on YouTube 48:50:  “Because if you do [read the Bible apart from “tradition”], what are you going to come up with, who knows, you come up with … [Charles] Taze Russell and be a Jehovah's Witness, thank you for that! Or Joseph Smith, and you come up with Mormonism. What Bible did he read? Ours. What Bible did Jehovah's Witnesses read? Ours.”

Both Piepkorn and Biermann attempt to scare and shame Lutherans into thinking that reading the Bible will turn them into Jehovah’s Witnesses or other non-Christians. Biermann goes even further and adds Mormonism to the list. Both men tend to group “Fundamentalism” with these heretical sects. Both men would have Lutherans not solely depend on their Bible for their assurance of faith. This is essentially negating the Lutheran Confessions which confess the Holy Scriptures as their sole source of doctrine. [2024-11-06: Compare Biermann with the old Synodical Conference here.]

      Are there any LC-MS professors today who would not walkout now, given the same circumstances as those of the Walkout of 1974? What active current LC-MS professor today is openly critical of Piepkorn in this matter?

      For me, as a Lutheran, I believe in Christ and His Word, the Holy Scriptures. And I run from the wolves, like Professors Piepkorn and Joel Biermann! God help us from the likes of of these two professors.

[I have transcribed most of Biermann's lecture and may present this with further information on its content in future blog posts.]