75] And since our election to eternal life is founded not upon our godliness or virtue, but alone upon the merit of Christ and the gracious will of His Father, who cannot deny Himself, because He is unchangeable in will and essence, therefore, when His children depart from obedience and stumble, He has them called again to repentance through the Word, and the Holy Ghost wishes thereby to be efficacious in them for conversion; and when they turn to Him again in true repentance by a right faith, He will always manifest the old paternal heart to all those who tremble at His Word and from their heart turn again to Him, as it is written, Jer. 3:1: If a man put away his wife, and she go from him and become another man's, shall he return unto her again? Shall not that land be greatly polluted? But thou hast played the harlot with many lovers; yet return again to Me, saith the Lord.
FC, Election, Book of Concord
Every Christian denomination claims to be Gospel-centered, but the non-Lutheran confessions of faith reject the efficacy of the Word. The Book of Concord is consistent with Luther in making the efficacy of the Word the foundation for all statements about the Gospel.
The Church of Rome offers herself as the objective proof of salvation, all denominations defective without the glory of the Antichrist. A Roman Catholic can be confident of landing in Purgatory for thousands of years of torture...perhaps. Heaven awaits but a heavy price must be paid by man.
Deformed theology talks about the Scriptures and the Gospel, but they imagine both are dead without man's improvement upon them. As Luther observed, they talk about Christ but destroy the bridge to Christ, the Biblical Means of Grace.
Lutheran unionists want to ignore the chasm between orthodox Lutheran doctrine and heterodoxy, because ecumaniacs hate their own confession of faith.
For three decades, the Lutheran unionists have promoted fear to encourage their brothers to abandon the faith.
"Doom has come upon us all. Studies have shown - We are going to lose all our young people, so we have to have a modern hymnal with feminist lyrics and creeds." WELS lost their youth anyway, by being faux-mod to the point of hysterical irrelevance.
"Everyone hates those Germanic funeral dirges. We need something snappy to attract the young and unchurched Joe. Nevermind granny. We will lose a few to gain a kingdom." Exit Dorothy Sonntag for ELCA - guess that did not work.
"I think we can learn a few practical tips from those people. Look at how much they have grown while we are dying." C. Peter Wagner, the Valleskey Professor of Church Growth at Fuller Seminary, admitted - "Church growth principles do not work." Normally I ignore Pentecostals, but Wagner is right about this. Fuller has hollowed out the Evangelicals and Pentecostals while corrupting the Lutherans - with no gains in numbers and huge losses in actual Christian influence.
Long ago, the Little Sect on the Prairie stood up to Missouri's backsliding, but they could not muster enough faith-based courage to knock the skin off a pudding when WELS stuffed Church Growth into everything they did. Gaylin Schmeling told the ELS convention that they should break with WELS if Wayne Mueller became Synod President. Orvick scowled, as he should have. Wayne Mueller was Synod President, in everything but name.
The unthinkable has become the norm in the old Synodical Conference. Women teach men. Women usurp authority over men, a foretaste of women's ordination - just around the coroner. Open communion is endorsed and promoted. The unionistic, Deformed NIV is quoted without blushing. The Gospel-centered liturgy is left hanging on a hook in the coat closet, to be used only under duress.
As one Shrinker said, "I will use the liturgy once a month, but I will go outside and puke afterwards." The poor little puker was let go, but Paul Kelm counseled him back into the good graces of Holy Mother WELS.
Ski and Bishop Katie enjoy monthly trips to Enthusiasm Conferences, noting with glee how many other WELS workers are there. Can anyone imagine a Fox Valley pastor announcing monthly trips to Bella Vista, blogging about the great worship experience here, and not having the Doctrinal Pussycat show his claws at last? Yet those two are simply a node of the cancerous tumor.
District VP Patterson organized a trip to the Exponential Conference, cut salaries to hire Gurgle, and wants to be Synod President! Easter egg hunts will expand rapidly when Kudu Don takes office.
Witte was a founder of Church and Change. After getting a DMin from Gordon Conwell, writing a windy if not flatulent paper on WELS (hardly a dissertation), Witte accepted a call to the Asian Mission Board. Who says WELS has no discipline? Maybe the calling board knows Witte hates Asian food.
I can imagine Kelm going next to Witte's parish, because no one else is taking the call.
The loud, obvious Shrinkers are not the real leaders. Notice how Huebner has played the role of traditional worship leader while participating in the Gang of Three, the traveling Pasadena Pestilence tour: Kelm, Olson, Huebner. They studied at Fuller together, to be "church consultants."
The stealthy Shrinkers are the real leaders. Like Jungkuntz of old, they let their pals go out on the limb and take the hits. "Way to go, you really told them. You have guts. Keep it up." The loud and proud Shrinkers are weather-vanes, who ultimately point to the source of their energy. Mequon is a Kelm-enabler. Jeske is a Ski-enabler. Etc.
