WHY LUTHERAN CONFIRMATION STUDENTS, TAUGHT THOROUGHLY ABOUT INERRANCY AT THE EXPENSE OF EFFICACY, BEGIN DROPPING OUT AT A RAPID RATE ON THE FIRST SUNDAY AFTER CONFIRMATION

After four years of high school education, many students cry out: “Finally, I am finished! No more high school classes to attend!”

 

Except for occasional returns as alumni to high school homecomings and other alumni events, these high school graduates feel 100% certain that, whether they received A’s, B’s, C’s, or D’s, the education they had received in the high school classrooms is all they would need to carry them through life.

 

In very much the same way, children are frequently catechized in the Lutheran church with a strong emphasis on inerrancy, reliable data which stresses primarily reliable Biblical information as found in God’s Word. This information is critical for the Christian faith. “These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that by believing you might have life in His name” (John 20:31); however, if this reliable information, God’s Word, is taught without also thoroughly educating children that God’s Word is living and efficacious, students at confirmation, like high school graduates, will be convinced that they have adequate spiritual information, or religious data, to carry them through life. These young people, Lutheran confirmands, will then be totally open and exposed to the work of the devil.

 

On the other hand, if Lutheran confirmation students are thoroughly educated in the Biblical teaching of the deadly and incurable spiritual disease that Scripture says works deep within them—Original Sin—and, if they then realize their desperate need for an antidote, or medicine, to prevent this demonic power from undermining and destroying their faith; and, and if they are then thoroughly taught that God’s efficacious Word gives miraculous power to Baptism, Absolution, and Holy Communion—to forgive their daily failures and to strengthen them for the week ahead “against the world forces” (Ephesians 6:12)—these confirmands will want to return again and again, not to merely receive a refresher course simply on religious data, but rather they will seek and hunger for the Lutheran church which will be their drugstore, or hospital, where they get their fix. “Then they [the Lutheran confirmands] cried out to the Lord in their trouble; He saved them out of their distress. He sent His Word and healed them” (Psalm 107:19–20); “The Law [Word] is perfect, restoring the soul” (Psalm 19:7); “O Lord, my God, I cried to You for help, and You healed me” (Psalm 30:2).

 

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