Sorry - No New Service

I am sorry. I tried to get a new service recorded but I did not have enought time to do so before our trip. We will have our next live Sunday service (and adult study) on August 3rd.

Recorded files are at the link for Bethany Lutheran Worship.

Self-Perpetuating Synod Worship

L P Cruz has left a new comment on your post "Not Dead Orthodoxy, but Synod-Worship To Blame":

Pr. GJ.

Thank you and spot on for saying the most obvious which no one in Lutheran blog is saying..

Unfortunately, Walther instigated the biggest problem of all - worship of the synod

Absolutely correct, I come to this observation too by reading some blogs and how they quote their dead teachers - my point is that they do not argue or quote by what Scripture says or by what the BOC witnesses, instead they argue/quote by what Walther said.

They have no more capacity to be self-critical. That is when fanaticism I am afraid comes in.

LPC

***

GJ - Each Lutheran sect perpetuates its own worship. Walther began it. He gloried in the success of the Missouri Synod, which another group began. The Loehe missionaries were written out of LCMS history.

Amercan sect self-adoration must seem odd to Lutherans in other countries. As Jack Preus observed in his Chemnitz biography, European countries accept the Book of Concord while American Lutherans have an issue with the Lutheran Confessions. So each sect is the judge of its own worthiness.

There are certain unspoken rules about discussions in each sect. The main one is the defense of Holy Mother Sect. Holy Mother is spotless, incapable of error, always moving forward in a glorious way, even when gross errors and criminal activity take place. Roman Catholics call it the indefectibility of the Church. Lutherans call it synod history.

QED - the message is always a comparison between sects. "What does your synod teach?" It might be better to say, "What does your sect teach today?" The supposedly non-fellowshiping Missouri, Little Norwegian, and Shrinking Wisconsin sects are jubilantly working with ELCA at all levels, from the congregation (via Thrivent) to the national (via Thrivent). True, national is a silly term when dealing with 1-4 state sects.

Changing the rules of discussion will always create cries of pain. The apostate leaders do not want to discuss the ruling norm of Scripture. They are allergic to and ignorant of the ruled norm of the Confessions. Simply raising those issues is an act of theological suicide.

Knowing they must press themselves close to the bosom of Holy Mother Sect, many clergy are establishing little conventicles where they can obsess over insignifant matters. Watch these turn into fractures and little groups sinuflecting to Rome.

The power of Rome's evil is chiefly derived from its attraction to so many different types.

Some of you are saying, "Now, wait. How can these little lobbyists for this and that turn to Rome when they are obsessing about matters Lutherans and dead leaders known only to Lutherans having the same DNA strands?"

Aha. The answer is simple. Their devotion has been turned to a veneration of Holy Mother Sect. All they need is a Richard J. Neuhaus figure to say, "We love our dear Mother Church too, but the real Church behind these little groups is Infernal Rome, I mean, Eternal Rome. Return to your True Mother." And they will go to Rome because they started the final stage of the great Apostasy when they made the synod their idol.

Here is another LCMS pastor who went to Rome.

Richard J. Neuhaus was invited to give this Come Back to Rome talk at Concordia Seminary, Ft. Wayne (aka The Fort) where about half the clergy in the room nodded in agreement. There was no uproar. People still defend The Fort as a great place for Lutheran studies.

Pride Goes Before a Fall

Posted on Michelle Malkin's blog.

Obama World Tour

Posted on Michelle Malkin's blog

A Good Reason To Blog

The quotations are getting around. Here they are posted in The Boy's Own Journal.

News from the Church of England's Big Love (Not) Fest

PB Jefferts-Schori: "You believed that promise about the property?
Your bad."

Virtue Online:
Bishops and their spouses (we don't call them wives) are unable to sleep together. The rooms are too small at the University of Kent, so it is separate bedrooms for the next 20 days. This might be the longest running story about enforced celibacy in modern ecclesiastical history. Who knows, it might be just enough pressure to help them come to a decision about sodomy.

*****

Officials of the Lambeth Conference recently disclosed that 230 of the 880 bishops in the worldwide Communion were staying away from the Lambeth Conference. The entire Anglican provinces of Uganda, Rwanda and Nigeria and at least four bishops from the Church of England are boycotting the event. There is a token Kenyan, which the Lambeth conference is trumpeting as a victory for their side. But it's nonsense of course. One bishop out of 34 means only that the Kenyans want a first-hand account of what is happening here, and not the spin from the left. Makes sense to me.

*****

A VOL reader went to Salisbury Cathedral to hear the Primate of TEC, Katharine Jefferts Schori field a forum on the issue of ordaining homosexual bishops. To justify their practicing sodomy, she used the passed-its-sell-by date mantra of "science has shown that homosexuality is as genetic as left handedness and red headedness." And she claims to be a marine biologist! Even Peter Tatchell rejects this pretext.

"The session commenced with Jefferts Schori talking with her usually heavy and seductive drawl, about the word "conversation" and its Latin root (to give gravity to what we were about to listen). She then guided us to the conversations that took place in the Garden of Eden and between Christ and his father at the time of his baptism: "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." She then asked us all to close our eyes and meditate on how God "is well pleased with us." Following this getting in touch with our inner selves, she then went round the assembled devotees asking them how they felt. By this time my frustration had become unbearable. I raised my hand and asked permission to ask a question, which seemed momentarily to break the spell.

"Talking of conversations I reminded her of the promises she had made in Dar el Salaam not to confiscate the church properties of those ECUSA congregations who realigned with African bishops and how she had reneged on this promise. For example, in the case of the Falls Church, Virginia (George Washington was on its building committee, decades before the diocese existed) who had made an agreement with their bishop, Peter Lee, in exchange for a substantial sum of money, to realign to the Province of Nigeria, she acting beyond her authority, had overturned this protocol, suing the congregation for trespassing on their own property. Was this the kind of conversation she was going advocate in Britain for those congregations wanting to take refuge with GAFCON?

"She gave a rational explanation as to why those churches and their assets should be repossessed (and I suppose left empty, to be sold as Kentucky Fried Chicken outlets and carpet warehouses). This explanation was warmly received by the assembled grey, silver-haired and bald worshippers and I briefly wondered how the bishops and medieval knights lying in their tombs, just a few feet away, would view Salisbury Cathedral being turned into a Mosque?

"There was one other person, a clergyman who challenged her on her assertion that there are many routes to God, in spite of clearly biblical passages to the contrary. Again, we had the extraordinary flim flam, with references to the Christ like Dalai Lama and again with the enthusiastic applause from the damned."

Claims to a Pedigree Most Have Never Noticed

rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Amusing, Snide Comments from a Constant Reader":

Those in the WELS who have a pedigree chart or are WELS-connected often get worked up into a dander when one criticizes holy mother synod. One of my former co-workers was of this ilk. He often spoke of his long rap sheet as if it were something to be proud of -

"I know Huebner", "I know Kruschel", "I know Jeske the elder", "my daughter belongs to Jeske the lesser's congregation", "three of my daughters are married to pastors".

He always reminded me that his wife was a teacher and that got him in to the WELS inner circle where he ran with the big dogs. On the flip side, he would complain about the foreign missionaries who "went over to the dark side" and became pentecostal. He bragged about his connections, but he could never make the right connection. Unable to look past the end of his nose, he just couldn't figure out that the WELS pastors who had defected were just taking their training from the sausage factory to its logical conclusion.

I have witnessed what happens to laity who swallow the Church Growth bird, feathers and all. The first thing that they start doing is grumbling about empty pews, lack of zeal among members, and of course, not having enough money in the coffers. Then, they look to Geneva or the pentecostal circus tent down the road and begin to make comparisons. Their solution is some sort of law motivation to raise the level of involvement. Without knowing it, they diminish the importance of sound doctrine and trust only what they see at the end of their nose.

Various Comments

LCMS Pastor:I bought your book Thy Strong Word, and found some of your internet stuff.

In short, thanks and keep it up. I'm the pastor at St. Paul Ev. Lutheran Church in __________. LCMS. Your part-time student and Ichabod lurker.

A Laywoman, about the Book of Concord series, Internet broadcast:

Excellent Lutheran church history lesson!

From A. Nony Mouse:

If this isn't proof you're off your rocker, I don't know what is! Keep it up, Greg. I know several who like to view your blog to get their daily laughs!

(GJ - I wonder if those several belong to the same Twelve-step Program.)

76 Paul Kelms

76 Paul Kelms
(apologies to Meredith Wilson and his classic 76 Trombones)

Seventy-six Paul Kelms led the big parade,
With a hundred and ten Parlows close at hand,
They were followed by rows and rows of the Fuller gloriosos,
The stars of every Luthrun band.

Seventy-six Pietists signed at Willow Creek,
With a hundred and ten Wernings right behind,
There were more than a thousand cells springing up like Hell,
There were horns of every demon kind.

There were silver-plated false prophets in limousines,
Making goals, marketing, all along the way,
Doubled-chinned, fat phonies, in their leisure suits,
Leisure suits woven in neutral gray.

There were fifty mounted leaders in WELS Church and Change,
Feminists, womenists, louder than before.
Martinets of every size and capons who'd improvise
A full octave higher than the score.

Seventy six Ron Roths hit the counter point,
While a hundred and ten Olsons played the air,
To the rhythm of 'Sell this plan!'
All the sheep began to lamb
And they're still reproducing right today.

Not Dead Orthodoxy, but Synod-Worship To Blame

Church Growth Kitty at Work

The critics of Luther's doctrine, like the Minister of Audio-Video at Victory of the Lamb, like to blame dead orthodoxy.

C. F. W. Walther preferred the term orthodoxism, since orthodoxy is not dead.

Unfortunately, Walther instigated the biggest problem of all - worship of the synod. The Missouri Synod has been in love with itself from the beginning, and that has spawned a number of weak sisters (ELS, WELS, and the nano-sects) who also adore their own institutions and their recently dead teachers. Some are not even dead yet but are revered nevertheless as Equal to the Apostles (Constantine's favorite term for himself).

As Westcoast, a WELS pastor, said, "We went too far with this UOJ business. Now we are too proud to admit it."

The Lutheran Infallibility doctrine holds that no dead professor can be wrong about anything. He is infallible ex cathedra, or perhaps ex crypta. The professors with a smattering of Latin can die happily, saying with the Roman emperor, "Puto ut deus fio. (I think I am becoming a god.)" The greater the error, the more it is honored.

That does not mean the synod escapes criticism. No, not at all. The expert graduates of Fuller Seminary are allowed to criticize the synod whenever it is right, Luther whenever he is right, all past teachers whenever they are right. But woe, thrice-woe on anyone who points out the obvious - that the Lutheran sects have embraced the Spirit of This Age and rejected the Means of Grace.

Amusing, Snide Comments from a Constant Reader

Fresh from his refresher course at Hazelton, one reader has sent a series of anonymous messages, some unprintable, trying to deal with his inner rage and loss of self-esteem.

I would be more inclined to publish his monologues, which may be therapeutic for him, but the lack of a name inhibits me. I have so many signed rants to copy and paste into Ichabod. Why bother with someone so mousy, so chicken, that he cannot add his name to his fulminations?

One characteristic of Reformed Pietists--especially the nominal Lutherans--is the need to claim good works and question the good works of others. For instance, the chattering NML agent quoted below brags he is descended from a synodical treasurer. An electric thrill ran up and down my leg and I considered his true-blue Welsian blood. Unfortunately, most Lutherans do not know what the Wisconsin sect is.

Many who do know the Wisconsin sect are unimpressed. David Jay Webber, who may be known to the anonymous source, called WELS - "Our Weak Evangelical Lutheran Sibling" and taught his son to chant about breaking fellowship with WELS. Such are the precious bonds of fellowship between WELS and the Little Sect on the Prairie.

The Church Growth fanatics, whether sober or juiced up, want all their victims to list a series of evangelism good works. Since the CG drones have no trust in the Gospel, they conduct audits on everyone else. They are not concerned that they have turned Moses into the Savior. The CG Enthusiasts prattle on and make people feel guilty about what they have not done.

They are like Catholic priests: "Have you done enough to deserve salvation? No, you have not! Purgatory is a blessing for the likes of you."

They are like Pietistic preachers: "Look at what God has done for you. What have you done for Him? Nothing! Grovel, you swine."

Church Growth Apostates Scorn the Means of Grace

Baa-a-a-a-h. I am harmless, soft, meek. I can help. Ignore my feral eyes. Now, that is better isn't it? Come a little closer for a big huge... I mean, big hug.


I think it is ironic that in these blogs and such it would appear that the WELS is just repleat (sic) with all this liberalism in CG and all you need to do is talk to someone who is involved in it whole heartedly (sic) and I can tell you. The WELS is 99% full of nothing but crusty old traditionalist boogers who sit on their hands, can't handle change, and won't evangelize...like the many here who only believe in the Holy Confessions that were verbally inspired by Martin Luther...the true Lutheran god.

Tim Niedfeldt, Northwestern Mutual Life

Victory of the Lamb Lutheran Church (WELS)
Web/AV ministry