“Houston we have a problem.”
UberYude: “No we don’t, and hold my beer.”
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Amazingly, when you take a break from Twitter, you have time to do other things! Thanks for taking the time to read this post.
As a Christian nationalist by conviction, I will admit that my experiences with the Operation Valkyrie people have been mostly unpleasant.
First, we have a rather strong and stark disagreement over the contentious matter of the new edition of Luther’s Large Catechism (the Large Cataclysm), as well as the fallout from that affair involving, among others, Ryan Turnipseed.
Regarding some of the new Large Catechism’s harshest critics, Operation Valkyrie itself – not just UberYude – says of these attacks:
“Not only [are they] loathsome, hateful, proud, and divisive, but [the] attacks on the Large Catechism [here] are based on outright heresies: beliefs that place a believer outside of the fundamental creeds that define Christianity… to say nothing of being outside the Lutheran Confessions.”
On the other hand, I’ve made the following claims and statements about the same:
Also, given that I tersely challenged some of the UberYude’s tweets right from the beginning when he began publishing articles with the group – after having read only small parts of his articles and immediately seeing major theological problems – I am guessing the feelings are mutual. Operation Valkyrie people’s experiences with me have also been mostly unpleasant.
That said, I have a little bit more time these days and after the UberYude tweet shown above, I thought it might be good for me to try listening to the Operation Valkyrie podcast he was on, reading his articles with a fine-tooth comb, and getting more specific about some of the theological problems I had noticed when I quickly looked at one of his articles on the site.
As is probably not surprising to any, I do not have the impression that this kind of feedback is desired on my part (I did decide to reach out privately first to no avail), and so I will keep my comments about the problems relatively brief and relegate any important context from the articles to the extensive footnotes of this post which can be found here (if you want specific quotes and links to the articles, you’ll need to go there).
That said, before listing my concerns, some key thoughts to share.
First, these posts I am critiquing are in turn critiquing the livestream from Ryan Turnipseed based on his infamous Twitter thread that laid into the new edition of Martin Luther’s Large Catechism. I continue to submit that Ryan Turnipseed, whose story continues to gather attention, deserves our respect and thanks. This is something even secular Jewish publications seem to recognize, and LCMS Pastor Larry Beane has also noticed the insight and even wisdom that this very young man possesses.
That said, the overall intention of this post is not to defend Ryan Turnipseed – even as the careful reader of UberYude’s posts and this one will note that a defense of Mr. Turnipseed is indeed an indirect result of challenging and correcting UberYude’s errors.
And that is a very good thing, for we owe Ryan Turnipseed our care. The Operation Valkyrie blog started with a bang, as it was actively promoted on one of the world’s top-rated religion podcasts many of us have known and loved, Issues ETC. The question then arises as to why no prominent voices in the LCMS in particular have brought the problems I mention below into the light. My guess is that these posts from UberYude came a few weeks after the announcement was made on Issues ETC, so it is likely that many people did not see his articles. At the same time, UberYude does claim that before making his critique of Ryan Turnipseed’s live stream public he checked his work with four LCMS pastors, so it seems to me just as likely that many of our pastors either agree with, or simply cannot detect, these errors.
So the tragic situation compounds itself. Mr. Turnipseed may be a highly capable young man, but as a relatively new Lutheran convert from the Baptists, ideally Lutheran pastors who are on Twitter would have made it a priority to make sure that there was an excellent theological response versus his harshest critics – instead of letting the bad theology (and the accusations of guilt by association) stand.
Perhaps I missed something important here. In any case, I am glad that I could finally make time to try to do the matter some justice.
Second, in agreement with one of UberYude’s main points, I too want to emphasize that it is immensely important to teach that Christ was tempted in every way that we are, yet without sin (Heb. 4:15). I think the old Expositor’s Greek Testament says this exceptionally well, as it unpacks the Hebrews passage:
“The writer wishes to preclude the common fancy that there was some peculiarity in Jesus which made His temptation wholly different from ours, that He was a mailed champion exposed to toy arrows. On the contrary, He has felt in His own consciousness the difficulty of being righteous in this world; has felt pressing upon Himself the reasons and inducements that incline men to choose sin that they may escape suffering and death; in every part of His human constitution has known the pain and conflict with which alone temptation can be overcome; has been so tempted that had He sinned, He would have had a thousandfold better excuse than ever man had. Even though His divinity may have ensured His triumph, His temptation was true and could only be overcome by means that are open to all. The one difference between our temptations and those of Jesus is that His were χωρὶς ἁμαρτίας. Riehm thinks this expression is not exhausted by declaring the fact that in Christ’s case temptation never resulted in sin. It means, he thinks, further, and rather, that temptation never in Christ’s case sprang from any sinful desire in Himself.”
Furthermore, insofar as any temptation to sin arises partly out of a desire for real affection or love we would simply be fools to say that God in Christ is unable or unwilling to sympathize with our weak – and yes, evil – fallen human nature.
That said, one can go too far in what one claims about Christ’s temptations as well. And unlike Jesus, we regularly will commit sins when tempted, God is just, and all sin damns. We are told in the book of James, for example, that if a person breaks one part of the law they have broken the whole law. And the book of Romans asserts that all, without exception, fall short of the glory of God… (Rom. 3:23). Suppress it though they may, all men know in their bones that the wages for their sins is death (Romans 1:32, 6:23). Furthermore, if a man has not begun, by the Holy Spirit and Christ’s blood (which washes the sin out of even our good works!), to fear, love, and trust in God rightly, he has not begun to do this at all!
Even so, with all this said and proclaimed, where did the idea that all sins are equal (and show real equal evil) come from? Would any claim Martin Luther claimed this somewhere? I grew up in the LCMS and I certainly remember hearing things like this when I was young – and so in fact used to believe it. But again, where did this novel idea come from? It is definitely not in the Bible and I do not see it in Luther.
Onto the critique.
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In brief, UberYude is sadly quite typical in his early 21st century and late 20th century Lutheranism, heavily influenced by the Fake Lutheran “Radical Lutheranism”.
His articles contain a number of embarrassing as well as insidious errors…
- UberYude rejects the historical understanding of Matthew 7:1-5, the passage that says “Judge not” and speaks of the log in one’s own eye and speck in one’s neighbor’s. Even as Martin Luther had much more to say about this passage, part of his foundational understanding of it is nevertheless rooted in the fact that “the way of the world [is] everywhere; the log judges the speck, and the big villain condemns the little one…. They are all full of demons and blindness, while they mourn over other people’s specks…” If not outright rejecting the church’s historical understanding that logs are more serious sins than the motes or specks, today’s LCMS at least increasingly downplays this, and UberYude goes much further, as we will see.
- UberYude, contrary to all reason, suggests that those who would insist on temporal punishments for certain sins and not others are being unforgiving and unmerciful. A new “Uganda law that prescribes the death penalty for homosexual acts with minors and homosexual acts knowingly carried out with the risk of HIV infection” comes to mind. In line with the evaluation of the politician Ted Cruz, is such a law not only unforgiving and unmerciful but “an abomination” and “a human rights abuse”?
- He believes that unless the Bible specifically says one sin is more serious than another, this is not something that we can determine from natural law. It is true that it takes special, that is Scriptural revelation, for one to know that rejecting Jesus Christ as one’s Lord and Savior is the greatest sin (Hebrews 10, Luke 12, John 16). That said, should we assume that understanding the critical importance of protecting and taking care of one’s own family is the only thing pagans might excel at such that Christians need to be reminded by their example? (I Timothy 5:8) One would think we should all realize that the pagan world doesn’t need Genesis 9 or Genesis 19 in order to determine that murder is more serious than stealing a sweet or that there is something particularly heinous about the desire of men to rape other men! Nevertheless, the fact that something like heterosexual desire was created by God – and hence the one-flesh union is a created good that results in blessings like children while only evil can be said to result from homosexual acts – does not seem to be of any significance for UberYude. Martin Luther in the Smalcald Articles of the Lutheran Confessions even stated that some manifest sins, like adultery, murder, and blasphemy certainly drove out God’s Holy Spirit in the believer. How much more then acts of sodomy or even pedophilia? Again, the grace of God is applied to all sins equally, in that it is able to bring any sinner, no matter how heinous their sin, into heaven. That, however, does not mean that some sins do not have more severe temporal consequences, personally, socially, naturally, and, ideally, legally.
- Contrary to Luke 12:47, which states that “[the] servant who knows the master’s will and does not get ready or does not do what the master wants will be beaten with many blows,” UberYude denies not only levels of hell (perhaps reasonable!) but “worse eternities” (unreasonable). See also Matthew 11:22-24.
- Contrary to the witness of the Scriptures, St. Augustine, etc., UberYude believes that it is wrong to say that our nature is created by God and hence good, while nevertheless simultaneously infected and corrupted by sin. This is known as the Flacian error, and is also condemned in the Lutheran Confessions that true Lutheran pastors subscribe to, specifically in the 1580 Formula of Concord.
- Following 2) and 3), even though he shows awareness of the content of Romans 1:27, which is used to illustrate the perversion of man, he, again, nevertheless believes that it is wrong to say that sins against or contrary to our nature are more detrimental, or worse, than sins that are committed according to our fallen nature in general, and that, significantly, the person who asserts such a thing is necessarily being self-righteous. On the contrary, Lutherans like Turnipseed and one of his interviewees, Askleladd, are not wrong to note a general kind of paralysis that occurs here on the part of Lutherans eager to avoid self-righteousness. After all, who are we to judge? And yes, while the Christian’s new man understands the Apostle Paul when he rhetorically asks if we should go on sinning that grace may abound, the old man says “…if you are already an adulterer when looking at a woman with lustful intent, why not go the next step and enjoy yourself a little bit?”
- Following 6), he believes that it is wrong to say that temptations against or contrary to our nature necessarily entail sin, that is, a disordered desire that either creates or simply welcomes and is receptive to such temptations. On the contrary, such modes of sinful desire, concupiscence, can and should in some sense be distinguished from, for example, excessive or adulterous heterosexual desire, heterosexual desire which is by nature good but infected with sin. See 2 and 3 above.
- Worse still, following 6), he claims that a desire for, e.g., homosexual activity, prostitution, and even bestiality is not sinful in itself. Of course, the Scriptures and Lutheran Confessions make it clear that it is not only the desire for these kinds of practices but also illicit heterosexual activity that is sinful in itself. As the Apology of the Augsburg Confessions in the Lutheran Confessions says, such “concupiscence”, such “inner desires” flowing from the “innate evil” or “hereditary disease” of original sin, are most certainly sins: they are “evil inclinations”, “wicked’, and “worthy of death”.
- In fact, UberYude not only states that homosexual activity is not sinful in itself but also that God makes people into homosexuals. The false teaching that things like desires for homosexual activity are penalties or punishment for sin – instead of concupiscence/sin itself – is directly countered by the Apology of the Augsburg Confession: “But [the Roman Catholic theologians who authored the Confutation] contend that concupiscence is a penalty, and not a sin. Luther maintains that it is a sin.”
- Finally, and most shockingly, on the basis of Hebrews 4:15-16, he claims that “we must routinely look to our cross to find grace in dealing with the sins of others that do NOT tempt us, for they HAVE tempted Christ” and insists that Christ Himself must have not only experienced the temptation to participate in homosexual activity, but equates this temptation with Jesus feeling these [evil] desires or passions. Evidently, this is an essential part of Jesus’ work and to reject this is to do damage to His saving message.
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In the first and only Operation Valkyrie podcast, UberYude says the livestream from Ryan Turnipseed “did nothing wrong apart from slander, bearing false witness, rebellion, racism, promoting divisions, and reviling” later adding “misrepresentation, gossiping, [and] reviling” as well. I firmly disagree with this assessment, and also, contrary to Operation Valkyrie’s assertions, point out once again that Ryan et. al didn’t start the fire.
Given the kind of theology on display in UberYude’s Opertaion Valkyrie posts, it is not too difficult to accurately identify the kind of theology that started the fire. Again, I recommend that everybody reading this post actually watch the controversial livestream if they haven’t already.
I also note with some relief that the Operation Valkyrie blog has not posted in almost 4 months and they stopped after their first podcast around that time as well. Is it possible that wiser heads at the operation perhaps had a premonition that they had done more harm than good in not only posting these articles, but even endorsing them from within the articles themselves, even with effusive praise like this?:
“When an anonymous account, immune to the Mahlerite threats to dox the women and children around him to silence his critique, took on Ryan Turnipseed playing sidekick enabler to Corey Mahler and Treble Woe’s attacks on the church visible, everything fell apart.
It. Was. Glorious.”
They also went so far as to say:
“Operation Valkyrie continues its reposting of Twitter user (((RedeemedUberYude))) as he gives Ryan Turnipseed and the Mahlerites as thorough of an examination as they pretended to give the Large Catechism, but without the demagoguery and a lot less slander.”
On the other hand, maybe they are still rather gung-ho about their efforts (if they are, I hope the LC-MS will not follow, cutting off their nose to spite their face).
Still, given the amount of embarrassing claims and theological errors so obvious on the face of it, I, for my part, was concerned some might think my article added insult to injury, essentially kicking them while they are already down, seemingly spent and out of commission. That was not my intention. I simply thought it was necessary to address a number of the theological errors there because, once again, it is a good example of the kind of Fake Lutheran thinking that has infested large parts of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod.
Repentance is needed.
So let us all heed the words of Luther, which while pertinent to all of our lives, especially hold true when it comes to the need for each of us to be concerned to uphold the true doctrine:
“Paul, Rom. 7:14-25, [shows] testifies that he wars with the law in his members, etc.; and that, not by his own powers, but by the gift of the Holy Ghost that follows the remission of sins. This gift daily cleanses and sweeps out the remaining sins, and works so as to render man truly pure and holy.”
FIN
theology like a child 