ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
| Pastor Randy Hunter |
| Minister of Worship, Kristen Koepsell - MLC Lady Pastor Speaker |
| Minister of Spiritual Growth, David Hochmuth |
| Vicar, Alex Groth |
Apprising Ministries has been warning you about the Growing Gay Agenda In Evangelicalism; therein you will see heretical theologian Tony Jones, unquestionably a leading spokesman for the sinfully ecumenical Emerging Church de-formation of the Christian faith aka Emergent Church—that’s now morphed into Emergence Christianity (EC)—speak of “a shift” toward full inclusion of GLBTQ people within evangelicalism.
* Gender: Male
* Location: Madison : WI : United States
About Me
I'm attending UW Whitewater for the Fall 2010 semester, most likely continuing my Education degree, but I wouldn't mind majoring in business either I guess.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Plagiarism Is a Disease of the Left":
I love to read Ichabod. As one who was schooled in the Synodical schools and grew up in the Michigan District, I know the cast of characters. Most of what I read on this blog only validates what I already knew. Keep shining the light on it, Pastor Jackson.
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GJ - Izzat you, DP Seifert?
Some Shrinkers from this class of stars are: Paul Jahnke as DP protected Jeff Gunn (CrossWalk), cosy classmates; Mark Freier helped start CrossRoads, now Evangelical Covenant; Joel Fredrich endorsed the Great Commission as "manufacturing disciples," the Reformed view; James Mattek - WLCFS; Bruce Becker, Perish Services, Chicanery Board, Jeske Inc.; Peter Pan-denominational promotes The Simple Church, another Babtist fad. CrossWalk in Phoenix copies CrossRoads in Michigan - similar name, similar confession of unfaith, classmates.
The class of 1983 featured such Shrinker heroes as Lawrence Olson(DMin, Fuller), Mark Birkholz, Rich Krause (DMin under Larry Olson), Robert Fleischmann, Al Sorum, Dapper Don Pieper.
Wayne Mueller and David Valleskey were in the faculty line-up for the first time 1985, so CG advocacy preceded their teaching. Gerlach was last seen in the 1977 graduate photo. He was pushed out for Reformed teaching, according to Slick Brenner. Sparky Brenner happened to graduate that year.
In contrast, the class of 1981 has a number of known Confessional opponents of the Shrinkers.
Which professors started these guys on the road to perdition? The most likely candidates are Sig Becker, an Enthusiast (UOJ and Receptionism) and Ernie Wendland, from world missions. Fuller began their first assault on all denominations by training the world missions leaders, because McGavran and Wagner were from that field.
Their second assault was focused on American mission people. That is when Norm Berg, Joel Gerlach, Valleskey, Kelm, Bivens, and the Home Mission Board people of WELS were trained.
The ones listed above are simply the ones I know most about. Knowing how conformists the graduates of the Sausage Factory are, I have to assume they were carefully trained for the journey to apostasy.
TELL began already in 1977, with Ron Roth, so it is clear the Shrinkers had a little influence already at that time. Seminary training was clearly Reformed by 1982, judging by the well known results.
Inept Copycats
Bad plagiarism has been the saga of the last 33 years of WELS. I have shown copious evidence of WELS and Missouri copying their insights from Fuller and Willow Creek. (The ELS and CLC (sic) - ditto.) Kelm, Bivens, Valleskey, Huebner, and Olson have made careers out of echoing what they learned at unionistic, Pente-babtist training sessions.
In Missouri, WELS, ELS, and the CLC (sic) - the more they copied, the more they were advanced in their synodical careers. A drive-by DMin empowered apostates to call themselves Dr. and assume teaching roles to spread the cancer.
Mary Lou College and Mequon continue to be franchises of Fuller, Willow Creek, and Trinity Deerfield. Rich Gurgle shares his Trinity Deerfield insights with WELS/ELS clergy.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Money Changers - A History of Bad Plagi...":
Fredrich?
Did you even read all 78 pages of his essay... or just scan it? I don't see any evidence of the former in your comments about him.
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GJ - You disagree? You have to read all 3500 posts before you can disagree. "Making disciples" is the foundation of Church Shrinkage Pietism. That essay was another example of inept plagiarism.
I have nothing against plagiarizing Luther. Inept plagiarism involves echoing the Zwinglians, Calvinists, and Babtists.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Money Changers - A History of Bad Plagi...":
To put 1981 and 1982 into perspective, the Kokomo Statements debacle was in 1979. In other words, by 1982 the seminary may have been hardened into enthusiasm after the Kokomo affair.
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GJ - UOJ (Kokomo Justification) has a strange effect on people. Ministers first react to its absurdity. Once their brains are thorough washed, rinsed, and spun dry, they are eager to pounce on anyone questioning justification without faith.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Money Changers - A History of Bad Plagi...":
"Wayne Mueller and David Valleskey were in the faculty line-up for the first time 1985, so CG advocacy preceded their teaching."
Mueller and Valleskey still remain culpable. Do not give them a get-out-of-jail-free card.
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GJ - What? I am trying to find the Ur-Church Growth leaders, not all of Shrinkers who taught at the Sausage Factory. Valleskey and Wayne Mueller are obvious. Who got things going? I think Joel Gerlach and Ernie Wendland were the seminal apostates, the bad seed. Wendland wrote favorably about CG in 1974. Gerlach wrote to Otten and me that he was trained at Fuller Seminary. I will look up the Wendland quotes and publish them a little later today.
Fuller's strategy was to start with world mission leaders in all the denominations. They had such a roaring success at fooling them bozos that they moved to the home mission drones, who were equally gullible spendthrifts. WELS and all the other denominations (Catholics, Unitarians too) sent their clergy to Fuller and similar beehives.
The Enthusiasts of WELS, Missouri, and the ELS felt right at home at Fuller. They could greet their ELCA pays they knew from joint AAL-LB religious efforts. Those programs used to be called unionism, but under the new thinking they were called "using the money so's nobody else got to it."
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Anonymous WELS Pastor from Appleton has left a new comment on your post "One/Third Million Page Views in Last Year":
So what if a lot of people read this! In the words of the great proponent of confessional Lutheranism (and foe to anything that smacks of CGM) former Dean Ed Lindemann, these readers are nothing more than a bunch of "malcontents and whining puppies."
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GJ - I met Dean Lindemann at NWC and talked to him once. He opposed the closing of the school. Did that make him a "malcontent and whining puppy?" The NWC faculty wrote a letter opposing amalgamation. I sent it to Christian News for them. Did that make them "malcontents and whining puppies?"
I am not sure of the purpose for quoting Lindemann. I do not think he was speaking about Ichabod. If he was, let me know, give it a date, and include your name, your mother's maiden name, and last 4 numbers in your social.
I am the only one who can say "so what" about the numbers. I did not start the blog to reach a lot of people. Gurgle and Wayne Mueller were still co-presidents when I turned the doctrinal newsletter into a blog. I expected about 20 regular readers.
When people claim "no one reads Ichabod" and thousands do read it, the Shrinkers are the liars.
The funniest deceptions are "Ichabod has no effect" and "so what!" A regular flow of comments claiming no effect is de facto an effect. God's Word blinds and enlightens, hardens and converts. His will and Word are united, so the results belong to Him alone.
I ignore most blogs because they have so little to say. I do not write daily anonymous comments to them. I do check on the fake once a day to see if he is out of detox or done talking to his parole officer. I hope it is helping him with his personal demons, which are legion.
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Pastor Fred Guldberg has left a new comment on your post "Hope for a Pietistic Future in WELS: Church and Ch...":
GJ, Thank you for finding this post. The article sounds great, though from your couple of comments it sounds like you don't appreciate it. I would love to hear more of your thoughts - for entertainment purposes.
(Ty, congrats! You have arrived, my boy! How did he find you?)
GJ - I just started Blogg'n too. Please examine my work for doctrinal clarity - there must be something for your to correction, rebuke, or instruction. I'm not sure what we would do without your watchful eye keeping our Synod from going off the deep end.
Fred Guldberg
Star of Bethlehem Lutheran Church
www.wswelstar.org
His blog is a contribution to Lutheran knowledge.
Digital technology is changing publishing, so a volume like this can be made available to everyone who needs to have the text available.
I will try to convert the text of the newsletter a little later today.
Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "When Kelm Taught Reformed Theology at Wisconsin Lu...":
An English District for WELS? I noticed an article on John Berg on Bailing Water. I looked up the website for his church in Fremont, CA. I notice that his church is a member of the English District, LCMS.
The LCMS has this non-geographical district into which to send all its oddballs, liberal and conservative. Maybe it's time for WELS to add a non-geographical "English District." WLC could be its women minister training school, MLC is worker training school, Jeske its chaplain, Kelm is missionary at large, Patterson its president, etc. We could call it the Willow Creek District or the Fuller District.
WELS could re-open Northwestern College as its worker training college.
The only question is which would be larger, the Twelve Districts of WELS or the Willow Creek District.
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GJ - I have met the Berg brothers. Their father, Norm Berg, promoted Church Growth through his position as head of Home Missions in a WEF. Norm would dictate the number of toilets in a WELS, veto an AC unit in a sub-tropical area like Columbus, Ohio, and ban a free fireplace because "it violated mission code." The only thing he did not micro-manage was doctrine.
I liked Norm as a person but thought he was ill-suited to be in charge of missions. His ideology was right for the Love Shack. That mattered most of all.
No one should be surprised that growing up Fuller would make the Berg brothers high church. I am not sure whether DP Janke or DP Marcus Nitz got rid of John Berg. WELS managed to lose a church at the same time.
WELS California was always a safe place for the Shrinkers like Valleskey, Kelm (Valleskey vicar), Bivens, Rick Johnson, and many more of the same.
Jim Becker WELS has left a new comment on your post "From Appleton - The Entertainment Capital of WELS ...":
KATY PERRY AND RUSSELL BRAND TO LIVE TOGETHER?
Jan 20 2010. Posted by Adam
* katy perry
* russell brand
Katy Perry and Russell Brand
KATY Perry and her fiance Russell Brand have fueled speculation they’re set to move in together — after they were seen paying a visit to Bed, Bath & Beyond in Hollywood earlier this week.
The I Kissed A Girl singer and the British comedian got engaged on New Year’s Eve after a whirlwind romance.
Russell — who owns a $3 million home in Los Angeles and recently put his North London pad on the market — was pictured loading up a trolley with the kind of necessities most couples would require when they move in together.
The trolley contained items such as a Bialetti Moka Express 9-Cup Espresso Machine priced $39.99; a Cuisinart Griddler Panini and Sandwich Press, $49.99; and a Cuisinart Stainless Steel Microwave Oven, priced at $149.99.
Katy recently revealed that she and Russell are yet to set a wedding date.
“We love each other and we desperately want to be with each other, so we’re going to take it as we come,” she said.
“I think the right time will be the right time.”
Guess Ski's evangelism efforts toward Katy Perry were fruitless.
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GJ - The efforts of Ski and Glende were not entirely fruitless. They made themselves the poster boys for WELS Church and Change, the public face of private apostasy.
Both of them finally hid their infamous poses with the half-clad Perry. They cannot hide their in-your-face attitude, which manifests itself in so many ways.
People expect teen-aged boys to be awestruck and proud that they got to pose with Miss Perry, who apparently forgot to finish dressing that day. But no one expects middle-aged men with wives and families to remain emotionally frozen in the teen years, especially when the pastors offer themselves as youth leaders.
"Avoiding the appearance of evil" is for chumps, Church and Change says.
I am glad Church and Change chose this pair to show everyone what the organization could do. A lot of money was spent in Columbus, Ohio, to show what Church Growth could do. Glende knows because his big, old non-WELS congregation went along with it. Shrinker Stolzenburg did his work and the church is much smaller than it was in the past.
The question is how long members and pastors will put up with the DPs running interference for these louts.
Remember the Church and Change playbook:
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WELS Church and Money Changers Fail To Convert Kat...":
We have not made the world more Lutheran, but the world has made us more worldly.
That's what happens when you try to copy what the rock stars are doing.
Here's and example from the evangelical camp at large: Contemporary Christian Music. I remember 30 years ago when it was their aim to be a bridge to the lost. The lost would heard the message in music that they liked. 25 years ago Amy Grant came out with "Crossing Over" with very little if any "Gospel" message in the music. It was to be a bridge to bring people to a comfort level that would perhaps lead them to checking out the scriptures. Amy's legacy as a purely pop star is well known. Now you have "God is my girlfriend" type music that is hard to differentiate from any other secular pop.
There is no longer any message in the music. But boy does it sell!
It seems the Ski and Glende types have taken lessons from they folks described above. Now their banal and insipid attempts at being "real, relavent" has left them with a bag of nothing.
But, man are they cool.
Where's the message?
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "WELS Church and Money Changers Fail To Convert Kat...":
Thank you for your comments Mr. Jim Becker. We are all glad so see lay-leader(elder?) men taking an outspoken stance against apostasy.
Ski and Glende middle-aged? Those guys are under 40! Fifty-two is the new middle-age. My pastor was born a fuddy duddy; however, he did go through the ages of 12 and 20. Pastors are supposed to be squares, it comes with the job description. The Bible says that pastors are to be ABOVE REPROACH. I pray for the poor wives. Give it six months, a year at most, at least one wife from that circle will go ballistic.(always happens)
I remember the CCM from 30 year ago. Amy Grant went through a divorce. Sandy Patty had a little trouble with the 6th commandment. Showmanship is a far cry from just singing in the church choir.
In Christ,
from WELS church lady
