Norm Teigen and other blogs have noticed the growing furor in the LCMS over the Kieschnick administration's latest folly.
But now the Wall Street Journal has made it a feature story. I have copied a few sections only from the story, to avoid being sued by R. Murdock.
On its last show, on March 17, listeners learned about the life and faith of St. Patrick; scientific and philosophical arguments in defense of the human embryo; the excommunication of two Roman Catholic women who claimed ordination; and the controversy surrounding the sermons of Barack Obama's pastor, Jeremiah Wright.
Despite the show's popularity, low cost and loyal donor base, Mr. Wilken and Jeff Schwarz, the producer of "Issues, Etc.," were dismissed without explanation on Tuesday of Holy Week. Within hours, the program's Web site -- which provided access to past episodes and issues of its magazine -- had disappeared. Indeed, all evidence that the show ever existed was removed.
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GJ - The Church Growth gurus cannot stand having their pet false doctrines criticized. WELS reacted the same way when I exposed their doctrinal apostasy by quoting their so-called evangelism material. Much of it was supplied by WELS pastors who refused to do any heavy lifting themselves. The CLC (sic) - ditto.
More from the WS Journal:
Since Mr. Kieschnick narrowly won election in 2001, the church has embarked on a program, called Ablaze!, that has the admirable goal of "reaching 100 million unreached and uncommitted people with the Gospel by 2017," the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. Historically the church kept statistics on baptisms. Now, however, it keeps a tally of what it calls "critical events." On March 17 a man reported discussing Jesus with his waitress -- and the Ablaze! count went up by one.
One congregation near St. Louis took a $25,000 Ablaze! grant and used it to put up billboards with kitschy statements purporting to come from the devil (e.g., "JeffersonHills Church Sucks," signed "Satan"). A Michigan mission congregation replaced the historical message of Lent with a speaker series on sex. Following marketing principles, neither congregation uses the word "Lutheran" in its name or advertising campaign. While "Issues, Etc." never criticized Mr. Kieschnick or his colleagues, its attacks against shallow church marketing included mention of some approaches embraced by the current leadership. It opposed, for instance, the emergent church -- an attempt to accommodate postmodern culture by blending philosophies and practices from throughout the church's history -- and the Purpose Driven Church movement, which reorients the church's message toward self-help and self-improvement.
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GJ - I recall many LCMS, WELS, and ELS pastors standing by, refusing to say anything against the Church Growth Movement. They saw it in their own denomination but wanted the easy road for themselves, too. There is no larger fraternity than the clergy who whisper their dissent during coffee and silence themselves in the actual meetings.
Paul McCain, MDiv, three years of parish experience, continues to pose as a confessional Lutheran, but the Barry-McCain administration was one of appeasement and compromise. The only people treated rudely were the conservatives who elected Barry. In fact, the only way to view the friendly side of McCain is to read his posts at the ELCA-centric American Lutheran Publicity Bureau's blogsite.
Al Barry, the LCMS savior, according to the politicians, did nothing against the Church Growth Movement and said nothing against it. McCain was furious when I pointed that out to him in the Purple Palace. Thus another infallible reign took over from the infallible Bohlmann. The papacy has nothing on the Missouri Synod. The Church of Rome admits to having heretic popes. Missouri, WELS, and the Little Sect on the Prairie do not.
McCain spent 9 years in the Purple Palace doing nothing about Benke (except granting him absolution) and nothing about St. John, Ellisville, a few miles away. I hope we hear no tongue-clucking from McCain about this latest episode. He is the midwife of apostasy, the enabler of Church Growth and Purpose-Driven nonsense. If you seek McCain's monument, look around you.
Yes, I can hear the Wisconsin and Norwegian tongues clucking from here. "The LCMS suppresses the name Lutheran? How terrible!" All their market-driven congregations-- like CrossWalk, CrossTalk, CrossRoads, CrossPurposes, and DoubleCross--will not notice because they do not read Lutheran news anyway.
Rolf Preus (Rolf Synod) will shudder, in print. His father got the Church Growth degree program going at Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne.
Jay Webber, ELS, will suffer acute bouts of telephonic Schadenfreude, forgetting perhaps his studied silence on these topics for decades now.
