Norm Teigen Officially Denies

From Norm Teigen's Blog:

more on Church and Change - a MEA CULPA for Norman?

A very reliable source has informed me that my ELS pastor friend has withdrawn from his participation in Church and Change.

This source writes: "I could find no official tie between Church and Change and WELS. From what I could find, Church and Change may 'report' to WELS, but there's nothing official. They are not listed as an organization on the WELS website."

My conclusion is that I may have misinformed myself on this issue.

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GJ - My first impression - the fur is flying and Wayne Mueller's denying. Pass the word - there is no connection between Church and Change, Fuller Seminary, Leonard Sweet, Kent Hunter, and WELS. None. Period. Nada. If you think so, you have broken fellowship with WELS/ELS just by letting that thought poison your mind.

OK. Deep breath. I will look it up on the WELS.net website. Hold on. I will be right back.

I'm back. I have the WELS site listed in my Lutheran folder, in a sub-folder labeled Pests.

The jumpword index, as of this moment, still lists Church and Change:

Jumpword -
churchChange Church and Change

That is pretty official, almost a nilhil obstat and imprimatur from the Love Shack Curia.

Listen to this - when I clicked on Church and Change, on the official WELS.net website, I got this link, which is not outside of the WELS website, but inside. Look at the address:

https://www.wels.net/cgi-bin/WELSForms.pl?&dir=churchChange

"Note well," as Father Mapple said in Moby Dick - WELSForms. WELSForms sound officially WELS, or am I reading too much into the word WELSForms? I may have misinformed myself.

I might listen to the denials if the link were outside the website, but the link is inside and protected (https = secure). It looks like I can sign up for this Church Growth hootenanny and pay for it. Too late to cancel if you have qualms. There is a $50 fine for dropping out after September 14th. Who says WELS has no doctrinal discipline!

In conclusion, WELS is lying...again.

GA works, my friends. Lying is institutionalized in WELS, just like some of their church workers have been (for murder, for molesting children, for having a fling with a minor girl).

Bouncing Back and Having Fun

Someone asked about bouncing back from ill treatment from one's peers, one's synod, and pseudo-pious laity. I told one pastor, "If you want a friend in the Lutheran Church, get a dog."

Our loyalty must remain with the Word of God and the Confessions. I do not include synodical documents created by theological illiterates and voted upon by convention to be authoritative. I was once chastised for "showing contempt for synodical resolutions." Guilty as charged. The sect president covered up the criminal behavior of his brother-in-law. A regular Dershowitz, this churchman. Which synod? you ask. I can think of three where I have direct knowledge of cover-ups, some felonious.

If God wants to move someone, Patton's Third Army will not keep him in that position. If God does not want him moved, Patton's Third Army will not budge him. It is a great mistake to conspire with apostates to keep oneself in false security by adulterating the Word of God.

The enemies of God's Word will engage in any disgraceful act to ascend to power and to keep it. Unfortunately, many accept the PR releases as truth, but that number is fading.

When God allows His faithful to endure the cross, we should not resent a slight version of what His Son bore for us. We get only a glimmering of what Our Savior endured for our sake. He was innocent. We are not.

As Luther said, our Old Adam rebels against this treatment. "You can tie a hog to a tree, but you cannot keep him from squealing." So it is with our fallen human nature. In time, the cross purifies our faith as we realize how useless security is. God gives us more than we could ever hope for, pray about, or wish.

Why do children laugh so freely? Luther said, "You have as much laughter as you have faith." Children have boundless faith and seldom rationalize the way adults do. We want to balance the equation, but God does not work that way. He lets Satan and unbelievers (many in synodical and congregational leadershp positions) have their way. But His Holy Spirit is so powerful that He can turn the worst evil into the greatest blessing, as He did on Good Friday.

Best Synod for Pastors

If I had to recommend a synod for a pastor, I would definitely favor the LCMS.

WELS is a tyrannical cult. The worst part of it is this - the defenestrated feel wrongly that they have been excluded from the Kingdom. The Kingdom of Satan, perhaps, but not the Kingdom of God. Consider it a divine favor.

The ELS is no better under Pope John the Malefactor's Reign of Terror. The ELS is really a franchise, like WELS, a franchise owned by a few families. Nothing is so bad that it will damn a pastor, if he is related to the right people. A seminary professor can bray about his affection for the most blatant false doctrine and yet be spared. The best pastor can be ousted by papal edict, by papal threats to the congregation. They do not like their rowboat tossed about by discussions of doctrine.

ELCA is a joke, except for those gaining power from the Lavender Mafia.

Missouri is apostate, as everyone knows, but there is more congregational autonomy than most people realize. More than one ELS or WELS pastor has found a soft landing in the LCMS ministry. Moreover, there are many circles within LCMS. Anyone can find a circle and join it, much like the Roman Catholic Church:
1. Those who worship Walther and Pieper, called Bronze Age Missourians.
2. Those in training for the Catholic priesthood, developing Marian piety and obsessing about clerical finery, incense, and exotic titles.
3. Baptist-Pentecostals, trained at Fuller Seminary or Willow Creek, fired up to transform their victims through Management by Objective, tacky marketing, and graphs (unless the offerings go south).
4. Those who adore every European theologian except Luther.
5. Luthean pastors.

All the synods are coming undone. People do not want to fund tyrants who try to create panic and then divert funds for themselves. Synodical doctrine is so deceitful that a seminary professor will critique Reformed doctrine in one classroom while another professor promotes it next door.

Another Perspective on Removing the Liturgy, the Name Lutheran, and Lutheran Doctrine

Trouble in Paradise has some good comments on Church Growth trends in the ELS and WELS.

Luther on Justification by Faith, II

Martin Luther, on Justification by Faith, Book of Concord

J-590

"For neither you nor I could ever know anything of Christ, or believe on Him, and obtain Him for our Lord, unless it were offered to us and granted to our hearts by the Holy Ghost through the preaching of the Gospel. The work is done and accomplished; for Christ has acquired and gained the treasure for us by His suffering, death, resurrection, etc. But if the work remained concealed so that no one knew of it, then it would be in vain and lost. That this treasure, therefore, might not lie buried, but be appropriated and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed, in which He gives the Holy Ghost to bring this treasure home and appropriate it to us. Therefore sanctifying is nothing else than bringing us to Christ to receive this good, to which we could not attain ourselves."
The Large Catechism, The Creed, Article III, #38, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 689. Tappert, p. 415. Heiser, p. 194.

J-591

"It is a faithful saying that Christ has accomplished everything, has removed sin and overcome every enemy, so that through Him we are lords over all things. But the treasure lies yet in one pile; it is not yet distributed nor invested. Consequently, if we are to possess it, the Holy Spirit must come and teach our hearts to believe and say: I, too, am one of those who are to have this treasure. When we feel that God has thus helped us and given the treasure to us, everything goes well, and it cannot be otherwise than that man's heart rejoices in God and lifts itself up, saying: Dear Father, if it is Thy will to show toward me such great love and faithfulness, which I cannot fully fathom, then will I also love Thee with all my heart and be joyful, and cheerfully do what pleases Thee. Thus, the heart does not now look at God with evil eyes, does not imagine He will cast us into hell, as it did before the Holy Spirit came...."
Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 279. Pentecost Sunday. John 14:23-31.

J-592

"But outside of this Christian Church, where the Gospel is not, there is no forgiveness, as also there can be no holiness [sanctification]. Therefore all who seek and wish to merit holiness [sanctification], not through the Gospel and forgiveness of sin, but by their works, have expelled and severed themselves [from this Church]."
The Large Catechism, The Creed, Article III, #56, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 693. Tappert, p. 418. Heiser, p. 195.