Does Lutheran theology destroy souls?

A recent discussion on Fr. Gregory's blog focused on "why Lutherans go East". One participant named Drew shared his experience of being a Lutheran. Drew's main argument is that the Lutheran teaching of simul justus et peccator ("Righteous and at the same time a sinner") destroys souls.

Drew stated:

"I left Lutheranism for Orthodoxy because I was enslaved to some extremely serious sins -- the kind of sins that lead unto death -- and the Lutheran 'gospel' left me powerless. Harsh words, I know, but that was my experience -- and not only my experience, but the experience of my other Lutheran friends as well. We were all students of staunchly Confessional Lutheran teachers and pastors, so the blame cannot be laid on the fact that we received teaching that wasn't truly Lutheran.

The simul iustus et peccator notion as it is popularly taught is an insidious doctrine that destroys souls.

… The simul iustus et peccator doctrine is grounded in the extrinsic -- and that is the operative word here -- nature of the Lutheran understanding of salvation. I had it hammered into my thinking time and time again: 'The whole Gospel is extra nos; it is outside of you!' While this teaching might have some psychological benefits at times, it truly is spiritually destructive, especially in a culture such as ours that is saturated by carnal sensuality.

There were times, especially when I had spent the Saturday night before church the next morning engaging in serious sexual immorality, where this message, preached so eloquently from the pulpit, did in fact calm my troubled conscience. But that's exactly where the true danger, the satanic delusion operates, I think; the extra nos leaves one thinking they are 'right with God' when in fact, they may not be -- as in my case. 'Do not be deceived. God is not mocked.' See Galatians 6. I was sowing in the flesh, and therefore reaping corruption, but I was led to believe I was justified before God, righteous in His eyes, because I believed that Christ had died for my sins, and because I received the Sacrament of the Altar trusting that it was 'for me'.

…The extrinsic nature of the Lutheran gospel fits hand in glove with monergism, or monoenergism: we do not participate in anyway in our salvation. God had baptized me, he was forgiving my sins, and He would see me through to the end no matter what I did in my life, as long as I kept believing that Christ's work was 'for me'. So I could go on living a duplicitous life, a life characterized by anything but 'the Spirit', and I was 'justified' given my trust in Christ's atoning death on the cross. I had no continual or substantial life of prayer. I let my thoughts, my logismoi in Orthodox parlance, run the show. The only thing that set me apart from other non-Christians was the fact that I would give an intellectual defense of Christianity if needed, the fact that I would show up to church on Sundays, and that I read a bunch of theology. But my will and my heart were not Christian.

My understanding of the Christian life was that is largely centered around the passive reception of Christ's forgiveness through Word and Sacrament. And passive is really the key here. I cannot recall ever hearing a sermon preached on the dynamic change that life in the Spirit brings to the Christian. In fact, I specifically remember time and time again hearing that Christians were really no different that non-Christians in terms of how they lived their lives. The sins of the Corinthians was used as a proof text for this. Now maybe this was just for rhetorical purposes, you know, to drive home the point that Christians must not see themselves as 'superior' to non-Christians or something like that. Nonetheless, hearing this sort of thing from the pulpit only pampers the flesh, and definitely does not lead to true repentance.

The boogeyman of 'works righteousness' will always haunt the Confessional Lutheran. Anything that looks even remotely close to 'works righteousness' is shunned. Just bring up fasting around Lutherans and witness the debate that ensues. In fact, exhorting the Christian to do anything (besides the passive reception of Word and Sacrament) often leads to debate as well. Just go read about the Lutheran debates centered around the so-called 'third use of the Law'.” (emphasis mine)