WELS Apostasy Proven

Issues in WELS Official Mascot

I was at a WELS gathering, after the dedication of a church building, around 1991 or so. I wore my Fuller Seminary sweatshirt, so I would fit in better. That made many of the pastors uneasy. Later, Northwestern College students borrowed the sweatshirt to wear around campus. More unease.

I told the son of Oscar Naumann, "WELS is a liberal denomination."

He said, "Why do you say that?"

I responded, "The liberals are rewarded and the conservatives are punished." He left the room. His father began the Church Growth Movement in WELS by approving of The Evangelism Life Line, that tacky little newsletter started to promote the cause of the CGM. Ron Roth, Bob Hartman, and Paul Kelm all promoted CG through TELL and found themselves promoted.

Where are the WELS false teachers now?

Ted Hartwig is the champion apostate. He was exposed for advocating the Historical-Critical Method. Nothing substantial was done. He continued to teach at MLC (nee Dr. Martin Luther College). Hartwig remained very influential in WELS and introduced the feminist creed in Charismatic Worship to WELS, in the journal and the magazine.

Larry Olson went to Fuller Seminary for a D.Min. and became the Waldo Werning Professor of Church Growth at Martin Luther College. Paul Kelm earned a D.Min. at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and worked his way down through the ranks. Now he is a pastor at one of WELS' largest and most ridiculous congregations. President-in-Waiting Wayne Mueller got in trouble over doctrine at Mequon, so he was put in charge of Parish Services, then elected First VP of the sect. Joel Gerlach got in trouble about doctrine while teaching at Mequon and remained influential in WELS.

Slick Brenner, the father of Mequon professor John Brenner, told me about Wayne Mueller and Joel Gerlach.

David Valleskey went to Fuller as a parish pastor and became the president of Mequon, something little noted nor long remembered, but significant for the sect's growing passion for Reformed doctrine and marketing savvy. His friend Frost Bivens went to Fuller as a parish pastor and became a Mequon professor.

James Huebner went to Fuller and is now a synodical VP, which may mean next to nothing, but it is a post no opponent of CG will ever have.

No one even minds that WELS works with ELCA on a wide variety of ecumenical efforts, from worship to evangelism. Sure, WELS cared enough to lie about Snowbird, the Joy radio show, the multi-cultural project, and some other events. But no one is going to fuss too long or too hard.

The Michigan District passed a resolution about having Martin Marty lecture at Wisconsin Lutheran College. (He already had at Orlando, at a joint WELS-ELCA-LCMS evangelism event, but so what!) That resolution is still celebrated as The Moment of Spine...in the Michigan District. WLC thumbed its nose at Michigan (gave it the finger, according to Pastor Guy Purdue) and had Marty speak anyway. No one said anything about the Roman Catholic Archbishop and pedophile Weakland speaking (with other priests) at WLC. After all, that fulfilled one of the multi-cultural goals.

Archbishop of Canterbury, Apostate

Satire Turns Into Reality as the Archbishop of Canterbury Denounces the Christmas Story

It's all a Christmas tall story Three Wise Men

by Ruth Gledhill, Religion Correspondent
The Times
December 20, 2007

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, dismissed the Christmas story of the Three Wise Men yesterday as nothing but "legend".

There was scant evidence for the Magi, and none at all that there were three of them, or that they were kings, he said. All the evidence that existed was in Matthew's Gospel. The Archbishop said: "Matthew's Gospel doesn't tell us there were three of them, doesn't tell us they were kings, doesn't tell us where they came from. It says they are astrologers, wise men, priests from somewhere outside the Roman Empire, that's all we're really told." Anything else was legend. "It works quite well as legend," the Archbishop said.

Further, there was no evidence that there were any oxen or asses in the stable. The chances of any snow falling around the stable in Bethlehem were "very unlikely". And as for the star rising and then standing still: the Archbishop pointed out that stars just don't behave like that.

Although he believed in it himself, he advised that new Christians need not fear that they had to leap over the "hurdle" of belief in the Virgin Birth before they could be "signed up". For good measure, he added, Jesus was probably not born in December at all. "Christmas was when it was because it fitted well with the winter festival."

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A special baby is the integral part of the tale

He said the Christmas cards that show the Virgin Mary cradling baby Jesus, with the shepherds on one side and the Three Wise Men on the other, were guilty of "conflation".

But in spite of his scepticism about aspects of the Christmas story, as told in infant nativity plays up and down the land, he denied that believing in God was equivalent to believing in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy.

"The thing is, belief in Santa does not generate a moral code, it does not generate art, it does not generate imagination. Belief in God is a bit bigger than that," the Archbishop said.

Dr Williams was speaking live on BBC Radio Five to the presenter Simon Mayo when Ricky Gervais, star of The Office and a fellow guest, challenged him about the intellectual credibility of the Christian faith.

He said he was committed to belief in the Virgin Birth "as part of what I have inherited". But belief in the Virgin Birth should not be a "hurdle" over which new Christians had to jump before they were accepted.

He hinted that decades ago he was not "too fussed" with the literal truth of the doctrine of the Virgin Birth. But as time went on, he developed a "deeper sense" of what the Virgin Birth was all about. And he went on to do a literary-critical analysis of the traditional Christmas card that features, as often as not, a Virgin Mary cradling a baby Jesus wrapped in swaddling clothes, with shepherds on one side, the Three Wise Men on the other and oxen and asses all around. Sometimes the stable is depicted with snow falling all around, and often with a bright star rising in the East.

Most of it, the Archbishop said, could not have happened like that.

One of the few things that almost everyone agreed on was that Jesus's mother's name was Mary. That is in all the four Gospels. It was also pretty clear that Jesus's father was called Joseph.

Dr Williams was not saying anything that is not taught as a matter of course in even the most conservative theological colleges. His supporters would argue that it is a sign of a true man of faith that he can hold on to an orthodox faith while permitting honest intellectual scrutiny of fundamental biblical texts.

The Archbishop admitted that the Church's present difficulties, with the dispute over sexuality taking the Anglican Communion to the brink of schism, were off-putting to outsiders. "They don't want to know about the inside politics of the Church, they want to know if God's real, if they can be forgiven, what sort of lifestyles matter more and they want to know, I suppose, if their prayers are heard."

Dr Williams's views are strictly in line with orthodox Christian teaching. The Archbishop is sticking to what the Bible actually says.

A special baby is the integral part of this tale

The essential part of the Christmas story is the baby. God came to us in human form, as part of creation and absolutely integral to it. That is the heart and essence of it. This is why the last reading at the service of Nine Lessons and Carols held in churches throughout Britain at this time of year is the first few verses of John's Gospel, about the incarnation of the "Word". This culminates in that spine-chillingly wonderful declaration: "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." Without that, Christmas would be a rather vague festival.

In carols we sing about a baby, sweet and mild, one that "no crying makes". This is wishful thinking, along with other parts of the story.

But some of it cannot be challenged, such as Mary, or in Greek, "Theotokos", literally "God-bearer". Her willingness to be part of God's plan is central.

There seems little doubt that Jesus was born in a stable. The Bible says "outside the house", and this was probably because the house was full. If it was a stable, there could have been animals at the birth of Jesus. We are also told that there were witnesses from the fields, shepherds taken by surprise by the news from the angels, rushing down from the hillsides, wondering in awe and then going back to their sheep, transformed by the coming of the baby.

The Wise Men were witnesses of the opposite kind. They were careful, calculating, educated men who think that they begin to discern God's imminent arrival and who blunder their way across the region until they find what they think they've been seeking. They, too, go back transformed.

These are the really important bits of the story.

- The Rev John Jennings is a Church of England clergyman and adviser to the Archbishop of Canterbury

***

GJ - As a long-time reader of The Episcopalian, the American tabloid newsletter of the denomination, I can vouch for the anything-goes-theology of the group. As I recall, the English Archbishop was ordained as a Druid pagan priest just before he was installed in his post, appointed by the Queen.

Not all the Episcopalian leaders are so fatuous. Some conservatives are Roman Catholic in their perspective. Others are Evangelical. Obviously they cannot live with leaders who attack the most basic Christian doctrines. As Rush Limbaugh said today on the radio, the doctrine of the Virgin Birth is not negotiable.

Likewise, how can WELS and LCMS leaders work with ELCA leaders? Apostates have no trouble working with apostates. I leave it to Missouri and WELS to prove they are not apostate by breaking with ELCA on all projects, however they are defined.