How often can sensible Lutherans point to one man who exemplifies the insanity of the Lutheran Church today? God bless DP Benke for serving that role. He is the true ecumenical leader of the Lutheran Church, loving every denomination except his own. He is also a good reminder of those who have humbly served in the same function, not seeking their own glory, but only the glory of unionism.
Lately Benke is making waves for meeting with the Antichrist.
John Lawrenz, (WELS) president of their portable Asian seminary, met with JP II in the Ukraine already in 2001. The Ukraine Catholic Church once featured a photo of Lawrenz in a state of mystical adoration, meeting with the Antichrist.
Wisconsin Lutheran College (WELS) invited the noted homosexual predator and Archbishop, Rembert Weakland and his Catholic priests to speak at a series for the ovine public in Milwaukee. Weakland was one of the few clerics canned by the Vatican for his scandalous behavior, pursuit, and pay-offs to a young man. Weakland is also honored among pedophiles for stating that children were looking for sex with adults. Members and clergy of WELS and the Little Sect on the Prairie were utterly silent about this event, showing they were far ahead of Benke in their ecumenical sensitivity.
Bethany Lutheran Seminary (Little Sect on the Prairie) invited a Roman Catholic (a former bishop, no less) to march with them in a religious procession and join in their Lutheran worship service - where he spoke! Rolf Preus, the Archimandrite of the Church of Defenestration, denounced me on LutherQuest (sic) for questioning the ELS pioneering effort. Erling Teigen arranged the service, so Rolf said, "Teigen doesn't have an ecumenical bone in his body, and you know it."
Norman Teigen has left a new comment on your post "God Bless DP Benke":
I wasn't at Bethany during the convocation which you mention in your post, but it is possible that you have been misinformed. I have been reliably informed that the chapel service was clearly ended before the academic convocation began. Thought you might like to have a second opinion on this. I know that Bethany is very careful not to give offense on these matters, which, incidentally, mean more to the college than they do to me personally. I have become much more tolerant on these questions as I have grown older. I now find the fellowship questions which you find so important to be somewhat amusing.
Norman Teigen
ELS layman
GJ - I am very reliably informed by an eye-witness at the event. I have a vivid description of the Roman Catholic priest (once a priest, always a priest, even if married, in the Church of Rome) marching in the religious procession with the Bethany "Lutheran" seminary faculty. To say one part of the service was religious while another was secular is pure Talmudic hair-splitting. I find it amusing that Bethany bragged about the bishop in the local paper and then hid the details in the Bethany College yearbook. That is the Fuller syndrome, so familiar in WELS/ELS - brag among the apostates and hide the facts among the traditionalists. My greatest amusements come from bouts of ELS/WELS bouts of telescopic orthodoxy. A WELS person on LutherQuest (sic) will shout - "Look at those evil LCMS liberals, playing kissy-face with the pope." Meanwhile, the facts show WELS did it seven years earlier.
As they say in DC, "It's not the unionism. It's the cover-up."
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Sometimes an eyewitness doesn't always get things right. I know that from my work as an insurance claims adjuster that one witness does not a story prove. I would suggest that you not report the Bethany story as fact.
Norman Teigen
ELS layman
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GJ - My eyewitness was not related to the perpetrators of this event, had no interest in a cover-up, and reported the event dispassionately as fact. I am shocked, shocked that the ELS would brag about the worship service in the Mankato newspaper and then act as if it never happened.
I am not shocked that the seminary faculty would participate. They watched in dumbstruck awe as the ELS entered into a continuing relationship with Fuller Seminary and the perfidious Church Growth Movement.
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Paul Teifel (aka Teufel) and David Koenig (Church of the Lutheran Confession - sic) promoted Roman Catholic piety in their laughably bad While It Is Day newsletter. Reminding their cult-followers of how much they learned from WELS, the CLC leaders said, "That newsletter no longer exists." When the current newsletter was quoted extensively, the CLC promptly circled the wagons to support their ecumenical leaders, Teifel and Koenig, perhaps for providing comic relief at their surly, demented, hair-splitting conventions.
The CLC leaders did not know this was going on, even though the newsletters were circulating freely at their homespun college in the woods. Stories changed frequently to provide cover for the naughty duo, foreshadowing the whoppers told by Obama about his spiritual mentor, pastor, and Leonard Sweet student, Jeremiah Wright.
