Church Growth-->Freedom From Religion

The future of Church and Change.

Missing atheist sign found in Washington state

By Mallory Simon
CNN

(CNN) -- An atheist sign criticizing Christianity that was erected alongside a Nativity scene was taken from the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington, on Friday and later found in a ditch.

The Freedom from Religion Foundation had a placard up in the Legislative Building in Olympia, Washington.

1 of 2 An employee from country radio station KMPS-FM in Seattle told CNN the sign was dropped off at the station by someone who found it in a ditch.

"I thought it would be safe," Freedom From Religion Foundation co-founder Annie Laurie Gaylor told CNN earlier Friday. "It's always a shock when your sign is censored or stolen or mutilated. It's not something you get used to."

The sign, which celebrates the winter solstice, has had some residents and Christian organizations calling atheists Scrooges because they said it was attacking the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth.

"Religion is but myth and superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds," the sign from the Freedom From Religion Foundation says in part.

The sign, which was at the Legislative Building at 6:30 a.m. PT, was gone by 7:30 a.m., Gaylor said.
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GJ - Confidential to Joe Krohn and all the folks at WELS Church and Chicanery -

Your mentor Curt Peterson was once a WELS Church Growther too. Now he is publishing with this outfit - Freedom From Religion, as posted earlier on Ichabod. I wonder how he got on the WELS world mission board, right after colloquy from Missouri. Valleskey influence, maybe?

"Curtis A. Peterson holds a B.A. from Concordia Senior College, Ft. Wayne, Indiana, and a M.Div and STM (l966 and l983 respectively) from Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri.

In almost 30 years in the ministry in both the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods, he was an activist with many published articles supporting the orthodox Lutheran cause in the "Battle for the Bible" in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, and author of several articles in the Wisconsin Synod between l987 and l995. He also delivered several essays at pastoral conferences during those years.

He served congregations in Burlington, N.C., Rock Falls, Ill., Garland, Tex. and Gretna, La., in the LCMS and in Milwaukee, Wis. in the WELS.

A Foundation member, he is now retired, resides in Wisconsin and calls himself a humanist and a freethinker."

Another one of your heroes, Mark Freier, now performs atheist and Hindu weddings (for money, of course). His former WELS congregation is now Evangelical Covenant.

And where are Kelly Voigt, Randy Cutter, and Rick Miller?

All the senior Church Growth leaders ought to take a look at their soul-destroying work. The leaders made a lot of disciples--which is what CG is all about--but their disciples drifted even farther away from the faith.

It Came from Fuller Seminary

Read this article and follow the link.

Fuller is the favorite seminary of ELCA, LCMS, WELS, and ELS pastors. The results are obvious.

Demographic Winter: Decline of the Human Family

This video is worth the time it takes to watch.

WELS 2009 Yearbook Published

Some people like to market the idea that I hate WELS and WELS hates me. One poor soul named Tiefel used to do that in the CLC. He was always trying to protect WELS from me. At the time, Martin Luther College made a point of welcoming me and telling me about their book give-aways at the library. The MLC library also bought my latest books from me.

NPH is selling Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant. I did not even know that until I looked for Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure, which was in print for about 15 years. Wally Oelhafen, Fred Adrian, and Roger Kovaciny hated the "Cure" chapter, when I gave it as a conference paper. Until then I had no cure for Liberalism. Thanks to them, I did.

I am happy to promote worthwhile books. Today our book is the new WELS Yearbook.

Some readers are thinking, "You must be daft."

Not at all. I am a firm believer in data-mining, collecting as much information as possible. The most interesting tidbits are found in the nooks and crannies of official documents and websites. For instance, as of last night, Wayne Mueller was still the First VP of WELS, according to WELS.net. And Janke was still the DP of the Arizona-California-Las Vegas District.

I have had great fun mining the Church and Change website, watching information disappear. Ski's bio disappeared, as soon as I took notice of him. No photo. Stealth! By Googling various names I was able to find how they fund each other's programs.

My best source runs rings around me in this department. I would like to give credit where it is due, but some people are shy.

The pastors probably order the Yearbook as a matter of routine. The laity should order it so they can voice their opinion about the direction of the synod. Phone calls and letters are effective because only 10% of the people who want to do something actually carry it out.

Liberals are very political. They line up supporters so they can appear to be dominant. They are not. They just make more noise.

Readers know the names and the basic information. Now they can write and phone. The pastors would rather pussyfoot. The COP? They have done nothing for 30 years.

I Know This Guy

A. Nony Mouse often writes to share his doctrinal ignorance.

From Bailing Water:

Anonymous said...
John,
Are you still stuck on these same three topics? I quit your blog a while ago because of its repetitious arguing in circles. Now, I stop back in and sure enough, its the same old, same old. I'm starting to suspect your readership turnover is large and you constantly rehash the same points to newcomers, who then eventually tire and leave.

If I could imagine God right now, I'd imagine him to be rolling his eyes at the stupidity of his children just like I did with mine when they were about 8-10 yrs. old.

"I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.

1 Cor. 1:10

December 4, 2008 11:18 PM

Anonymous said...
"If I could imagine God right now, I'd imagine him to be rolling his eyes at the stupidity of his children just like I did with mine when they were about 8-10 yrs. old."

And now you think you impress him?

December 5, 2008 7:46 AM


John said...
1 Cor. 1:10 ..December 4, 2008 11:18 PM


So you don't like to visit this blog yet you do. You don't want divisions yet you offer no suggestions..hmmm.. Can't we all just get along.

You quote 1 Cor. 1:10 and I will turn this on you. Why did the Church and Changers start their organization? I will contend that it was started to cause division by its very name as someone once said.

If you don't want to read what is discussed here don't come back. If you want to create dialogue on issues of concern and conscience by all means post here or start a blog.

If we use your logic about rehashing old issues we should not discuss the confessions are the thoughts of Martin Luther.

December 5, 2008 10:25 AM

[GJ - The complainer is probably Joe Krohn, 51, who has his own blog to defend UOJ, Church and Chicanery, and Doebler's Rock and Roll Church, where he is the bass player:

http://randrchurch.blogspot.com/

Tell us it ain't so, Joe.]

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GJ - I often get comments like this. Recently, from Anonymous - Repent at once or I will never read your blog again. A few hours later - I see you still haven't repented. He promised me he would stop reading it.

The Church and Chicanery people like to invoke Jesus and Paul.

God said:

KJV Deuteronomy 4:2 Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the LORD your God which I command you.

KJV Nehemiah 1:9 But if ye turn unto me, and keep my commandments, and do them; though there were of you cast out unto the uttermost part of the heaven, yet will I gather them from thence, and will bring them unto the place that I have chosen to set my name there.

Jesus said:

KJV Luke 8:15 But that on the good ground are they, which in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.

KJV John 8:31 Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed;

KJV John 14:23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Paul said:

KJV Galatians 1:8 But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.

KJV 1 Corinthians 11:19 For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.

In Paul's farewell speech:

KJV Acts 20:29 For I know this, that after my departing shall grievous wolves enter in among you, not sparing the flock. 30 Also of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them. 31 Therefore watch, and remember, that by the space of three years I ceased not to warn every one night and day with tears.

Peter wrote:

KJV 2 Peter 2:1 But there were false prophets also among the people, even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction.

Every time their false doctrine is challenged, the Church and Chicanery people yell "Slander!" They declared war on Lutheran doctrine about 30 years ago, with the appointment of Ron Roth as editor of that pathetic little TELL magazine. I have no idea who made that decision, but obviously there were influential people who could get a Church Growth publication going at The Love Shack, with the endorsement of the Synodical Pope, Naumann. Roth was the first openly Church Growth staff member, but there had to be others.

The Church Growth people strutted and preened, as I have shown from my database many times. They brought up CG all the time in various periodicals. They got the world mission and American mission people trained at Fuller Seminary. They got Valleskey in at The Sausage Factory and Paul Kelm (his student helper at Apostles) as the new secretary of evangelism. So the Means of Grace were discarded in favor of marketing and making fun of Lutheran worship.

Missouri and ELCA and the ELS did the same things, but I will focus on WELS.

Not content to promote Enthusiasm, the WELS CG people got the synod to fund trouble-makers who went to congregations and forced CG on those parishes. Some are called Parish Assistants (trained at Fuller and Trinity). Some are called Mission Counselors. They all have the same mandate - install CG and get rid of Lutheran worship.

Under SP Gurgel--in reality--over SP Gurgel, Wayne Mueller installed all his CG buddies at The Love Shack. The CG people created the job of Administrator, Parish Services, for Wayne. When CG promoted Wayne to VP of the Synod, another CG guy became boss. If there are any doubts, note that the Parish Services Adminisrator is also a board member of Church and Chicanery. They brag about it on their website.

And this Parish Services Administrator, Bruce Becker, secretly and defiantly, had Paul Kelm come back to The Love Shack as a Parish Assistant. Church and Chicanery people immediately began denying that Kelm was called without the knowledge or approval of the Synodical Presient, Mark Schroeder.

Paul Kelm turned 64 this month. He has spent his entire career promoting false doctrine, mostly at The Love Shack.

Parlow Kelm's numbers at St. Mark, Depere:

By The Numbers
f.y.i.
Weekend attendance (October 19): 1231 (October 26): 1058 (November 9): 1141

To Date (July 1, 2008 - October 31, 2008) Actual expenses (year-to-date) - $573,912.63 / Actual contributions (year-to- date) - $583,816.05 (60% of total LES tuition collected)

Other items of interest: Received to date for 3-year pledges (June 1, 2007-May 31, 2010) for Building Fund - $915,480.68 (61% received) / Expenditures from Building Fund - $1,487,939.34/ Line of Credit with Thrivent - $581,000.00.

Stealthy Lutherans - What Is Their Real Confession of Faith?

Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "To Sing at the Ed Stetzer Church and Chicanery Con...":

Martin Luther to George Major:

"It is by your silence and cloaking that you cast suspicion upon yourself. If you believe as you declare in my presence, then speak so also to the church, in public lectures, in sermons, and in private conversations, and strengthen your brethren, and lead the erring back to the right path, and contradict the contumacious spirits; otherwise your confession is sham pure and simple, and worth nothing. Whoever really regards his doctrine, faith, and confession as true, right, and certain cannot remain in the same stall with such as teach, or adhere to, false doctrine; nor can he keep on giving friendly words to Satan and his minions. A teacher who remains silent when errors are taught, and nevertheless pretends to be a true teacher, is worse than an open fanatic and by his hypocrisy does greater damage than a heretic. Nor can he be trusted. He is a wolf and a fox, a hireling and a servant of his belly, and ready to despise and to sacrifice doctrine, Word, faith, Sacrament, churches, and schools. He is either a secret bedfellow of the enemies or a skeptic and a weathervane, waiting to see whether Christ or the devil will prove victorious; or he has no convictions of his own whatever, and is not worthy to be called a pupil, let alone a teacher; nor does he want to offend anybody, or say a word in favor of Christ, or hurt the devil and the world."
Martin Luther, quoted in Bente's Historical Introduction, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 94.

Reu:

"We find this attitude of tolerance quite frequently among unionists. It is often used to assuage a troubled conscience, one's own as well as that of others; for the unionist declares that every one may continue to hold his own private convictions and merely needs to respect and tolerate those of another. This attitude is totally wrong, for it disregards two important factors: (a) in tolerating divergent doctrines one either denies the perspicuity and clarity of the Scriptures, or one grants to error the right to exist alongside of truth, or one evidences indifference over against Biblical truth by surrendering its absolute validity; and (b) in allowing two opposite views concerning one doctrine to exist side by side, one has entered upon an inclined plane which of necessity leads ever further into complete doctrinal indifference, as may plainly be seen from the most calamitous case on record, viz., the Prussian Union."
M. Reu, In the Interest of Lutheran Unity, Columbus: The Lutheran Book Concern, 1940, p. 20.

In Christ,
Brett Meyer

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