Thrivent - Just Gathering Money for ELCA To Spend on Their Agenda

"Application denied, dearie."


Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Government Subsidies for WELS Schools":

Talking about taking money from Thrivent and its forbears (as was noted in other posts on this blog), now Thrivent is going to a checklist system similar to United Way's. Not only is the Boys Scout troops (affiliated with LCMS congregations) off the list, but reportedly synodical schools and local churches will not be listed. In other words, only liberal-approved causes are on the list. Just how liberal? One of the Thrivent board members is a lesbian. Notice how they get all the conservative on board, and then they tilt the program liberal, depowering and defunding conservative groups.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Thrivent - Just Gathering Money for ELCA To Spend ...":

It is time to turn Thrivent from a "fraternal" organization into an insurance company. Let them pay taxes like any other insurance company. At least the federal budget funds some things conservatives agree with, even under the Obama regime.

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GJ - Thrivent has played WELS-ELS-LCMS for suckers, making their company seem like a service to conservative Lutherans when so many premium dollars are drained away to fund Habitat For Humanity and ELCA.

Thrivent could become a mutual company and share its profits with the mutual policy holders. There are tax advantages for a mutual company as well.

Thrivent has become the corrupting leaven which leavens the entire lump.

Government Subsidies for WELS Schools

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Money for Kelm, Not To Finish Degrees":

Hi Jim Becker WELS,

I'll tell you exactly why the WELS is getting into pre-school. Ever hear of state-funded 4-year-old Kindergarten and state-fund childcare? Here's how it works. The state pays for 4th grade Kindergarten in many place regardless of parental income, and they allow for an optional devotional time that parents can opt their children out of.

In addition, there's a pool of children/parents that qualify for childcare/pre-school based on low income.

Similarly, but for older students, the WELS has several school-choice "charter" schools such as Jeske's St. Marcus school, in the vicinity of failing public schools.

The thing to watch out for is whether the state pays enough, because otherwise these schools can become a drain on church resources if the church or some religious foundation(s) have to kick in a thousand dollars per student, as is the case in Milwaukee WELS school choice schools. That's what's occurring in Jeskeland.

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California Lutheran Orphan has left a new comment on your post "Government Subsidies for WELS Schools":

So what else is new? Government money for WELS schools was a big issue way back in the 70's when when WELS' lay members' protests resulted in expulsions in Milwaukee area, and one of several reasons for termination of this California Lutheran Orphan who agreed with the protesters who were labeled the "Milwaukee Nine". WELS statment of doctrine at the time stated."We reject any attempt on the part of the Church to seek the financial assistance of the state in carrying out its saving purpose". (THIS WE BELIEVE pg.23) When it was pointed out that it was understood that WELS schools existed for the church's saving purpose, government grants were defended with WELS leaders saying that the school didn't "seek" the government grants, they were "offered" to them. The more things change the more they stay the same.

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GJ - The same thing happened with insurance money and joint meetings with ELCA and Missouri (Snowbird). WELS engaged in one religious activity after another with the other four-letter synods because the money was thrown at them. If they did not spend it, someone else would. Didn't want all that loot going to those nasty, unionistic liberals! QED - all AAL-LB-Thrivent programs were good, wholesome, and anointed by the Holy Spirit.

My favorite of all the lies told was the denial of working with ELCA on the Joy radio show. When ELCA put out their news release on the first joint project with Missouri and WELS, the Wisconsin Synod said ELCA was lying. (Sound familiar? It does to me.) So I followed Matthew 18 and phoned the ELCA person named. He was shocked because "Barber was at all the meetings." The ELCA official asked, "Do you believe me?"

Mischke sent a letter saying it was not true but that WELS was called in as consultants. Does that sound like GA, alumni of the Sausage Factory? It was not true but it was true in the way they said it was true, in a limited, ambiguous but purely innocent way.


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Jim Becker WELS has left a new comment on your post "Government Subsidies for WELS Schools":

When I posted concerning my comments to WELS President Mark Schroeder a month ago admonishing the Synod in advance for sanctioning the behavior of Pastors Glende and Skorzewski (see Ichabod "Write a Letter") ,I indicated that Schroeder's comments regarding WELS involvement with Thrivent were also forthcoming. Considering the subjects under discussion here, I felt his remarks to be timely now.

Given ongoing fellowship issues with Thrivent's close ELCA ties and new information brought to light on this blog (e.g. matching funds for Thrivent employees to Planned Parenthood and favorable mention of Thrivent as a gay-friendly employer by a Minnesota LGBT publication), I further admonished Synod for its continued violation of our unit fellowship doctrine by continued involvement with Thrivent Financial. Schroeder's reply was thoughtful and empathetic. He shared nearly all of the moral concerns I listed and gave me the impression that if he thought our Synod was directly involved with Thrivent he would have some real misgivings.

"I agree completely that the Thrivent organization has adopted policies and principles which are clearly not in keeping with biblical teaching...we do not regard Thrivent as a church or church-related organization. We regard it purely as a business and as a financial services organization that, according to its own business model, serves primarily Lutheran clients. Unfortunately, even though Thrivent would not claim to be a church or to engage in work normally done by the church, it often acts and speaks in a way that gives the opposite impression...Thrivent's social views are also areas in which we have no common ground.

"Having said that, I must also say that WELS has absolutely no direct involvement or relationship with Thrivent. We are not represented on their board of directors. We do not consult with them on their business or charitable efforts, nor do they provide any input or advice on our synod's mission efforts. The only connection we have with Thrivent is the annual block grant Thrivent donates to WELS...Thrivent does, of course, have more direct dealings with individual congregations through their local chapters or whatever they call them today. In those cases, it is my prayer that pastors and congregations are being careful to keep the relationship as a purely business relationship, not one in which the line between the role of the church and the role of Thrivent becomes blurred."

Pastor Schroeder went on to say that he would forward my concerns, which he said deserved to be taken seriously, to the Conference of Presidents, and asked for prayer on behalf of those who deal with these issues at the synodical level.

He added that Synod has admonished Thrivent for its involvement in Habitat for Humanity. I also notice just this week that Thrivent is matching funds ($1 for every $2 donated, up to a million) for members of the WELS Committee on Relief working with the Haitian situation.

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GJ - Has anyone admonished Mark and Avoid Jeske for his involvement in Habitat for Humanity? He is far more a member of WELS than Thrivent is.

The basic problem is depending on outside sources to support the church: foundations with their agendas, Thrivent, Schwan, and the govmint. The Golden Rule prevails - "Whoever has the gold makes up the rules."

The Jackson Corollary is - "Having extra loot from the outside impoverishes the church while prostituting it." For obvious reasons, my corollary has never caught on among church bureaucrats.

 

Thrivent takes WELS-ELS-LCMS money

and makes massive grants to

Jimmie Carter's favorite charity - HFH.

Rent-a-Rev Jeske does the dedication ceremony.
Left-click the picture to see the details.

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Government Subsidies for WELS Schools":

Good news! It appears that not all schools are hurting for money after all. In the February edition of Forward In Christ A Lutheran Voice, there is an ad in the bulletin board section:

"Business professors-The business department of Wisconsin Lutheran College, Milwaukee, Wis., is seeking names of people qualified to teach in the areas of accounting, finance, and investments,marketing, and management. Potential positions are full and part time and require at least a master's degree."

Now that Kelm is no longer with Parish Services, he has time to teach marketing and serve as chaplain. Hey, I bet Kelm has some "friends" that know a little bit about finance and investments.

In Christ,
from WELs church lady

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GJ - The ex-SP is a whiz at finance. He knows how to find designated funds to float the shortage, how to find someone to take the blame, and how to have a pleasant vacation afterwards, with pay. They need him for an MBS program at WLC.

"Who Picked Your Shirt - Ray Charles?" and Other Schuller Mistakes

"Who picked your shirt, Junior? Ray Charles?"

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Crystal Cathedral - Home of Church Growth Movement...":


The 80-year-old Schuller demoted his son when the offerings went down, but I think that was a way-bad call on the senior's part. It had nothing to do with the son, but just bad economics, and their established flock was getting older and was quickly dying off.

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GJ - The lesson - All the big Evangelical media ministries of the 1980s are fading fast. I remember the mainline leaders being enraged that any given TV ministry was taking in more money annually than their national, centuries old denomination. They raved against D. James Kennedy, Billy Graham, Robert Schuller, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, and a few others. Pat Robertson was in TV early and has made a bundle with his talk show, entertainment style format. His son is carrying on the show, and it is even harder to believe under his guidance.

The WELS-LCMS-ELS gurus are pursuing the fads of the moment. Andy Stanley the covert Babtist is so cool that the foxes of Fox Valley are studying his book on how to be just like him. Glende and Ski are channeling so many Schwaermer leaders that one can hardly pick the number one false teacher they are following.

Shoveling snow today, I concluded that getting even is the biggest single motivation for CG in WELS. The guys started out with doctrinal problems and got biffed around for it. Other dysfunctional types found comfort and security in a secretive anti-establishment group. They rejoiced that they could advance one another's careers while icing their more able peers'.

So follow the megas of WELS-ELS-LCMC and buy up their assets in a few years, 10 cents on the dollar, max.

I have always wanted to broadcast with 20 sub-woofers behind me, popcorn machines popping, soda fountains giving up mounds of ice cream, Coke on tap.

Mrs. Ichabod said that one is leased.

Never mind.

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dk has left a new comment on your post ""Who Picked Your Shirt - Ray Charles?" and Other S...":

Hey professor

I think that under the entry "Gurgel" in the Ichaslang lexicon there oughta be a second meaning:

2. verb, to gurgel, gurgling:

The vocal affectation or mannerism a person acquires when pretending to be Confessionally Lutheran. This behavior often may be associated with...(fill in the blank)

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GJ - I spell his name "gurgle" because that was the sound of WELS going down the drain during his inspired leadership. He was the conservative dream candidate originally. Really. No kidding. He was against merging NWC and DMLC, then led the deception that resulted in a fading, failing MLC. As he said, "Denying that he had the gifts of leadership would be false modesty."

May he do for Patterson what he did for WELS.

Money for Kelm, Not To Finish Degrees

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Two ELCA Problems Parallel WELS, LCMS, and ELS":

I know this comment is in the wrong place, but did not see a recent post on Wimpy Little College (WLC).

I am surprised that no one has yet commented that WLC rather recently cut some major degrees from their curriculum, leaving some students high and dry. Now they have money for Paul Calvin Kelm as a second campus pastor to work with other pastors' members, maybe do a little WELS sheep-stealing among the non-WELS churched students, and I suppose to make WLC a "mission arm" of the "church" among their unchurched students.

Whence this sudden wealth at WLC to add a "pastor" after cutting curriculum so recently? It must be living proof that a fool and his money are soon parted. Why support a college that leaves students high and dry while pampering a retired reject with a cushy call?

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GJ - A few seconds ago I was thinking, "Nobody cares about this extra call." I heard from a parish pastor that people dismiss it as WLC going its own way, Kelm wanting a college call when he qualifies for Social Security and Medicare. The same parish pastor says that people on campus think the college needs zero chaplains, not two.

The published description of the call shows that the apostate board--drawn from MLC and CrossWalk Phoenix--wants to promote the failing Church Growth methods of Pietism. Bones would say to Kirk, above, "It's dead, Jim."

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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Money for Kelm, Not To Finish Degrees":

WELS provides NO financial support to WLC. It is not a synodical school.

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GJ - Wade a minute. WLC collects donations as a Wisconsin Synod institution, Brigadoonish. When Martin Marty (ELCA) or Archbishop Weakland (Church of Rome) lectures there, it is not WELS. When raising money from the Schwan Foundation, it is WELS. The faculty is WELS, many of them trained at Marquette, which I understand is Roman Catholic. The board is WELS but not Lutheran.

I guess I won't get any fund-raising letters in the mail.


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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Money for Kelm, Not To Finish Degrees":

"A 4-year, private, co-ed, Christian liberal arts college affiliated with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod."
* * * * * * * * * * *
This is a quote from the college's website. They sure don't get to be affiliated with the WELS without funding, finance, and support.

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GJ - Certain there is a cost based on the synod's connection to WLC. No staff time? Please. The funny thing is - this is used to justify their dabbling in Roman Catholic ecumenism, CGism, and Martin Marty-ism. At those precious moments they are not WELS but totally, seriously independent.

How many millions have gone from the Schwan Foundation instead of MLC or the seminary or the preps? That is not a cost?

Brigadoon.

Why It's Almost Like Being in WELS!

Maybe Marv Schwan gave me the pow'r,
For I could swim Michigan and be home in half an hour.
Maybe the beer gave me the drive,
For I'm all aglow and alive.
What a day this has been! What a rare mood I'm in!
Why, it's almost like being in WELS!
There's a smile on my face for the big Kelm disgrace!
Why, it's almost like being in WELS!
All the music of life seems to be like a bell that is CCMing for me!
And from the way that I feel when that funding appeals,
I could swear I was joining, I would swear I was joining,
It's almost like being in WELS.

Two ELCA Problems Parallel WELS, LCMS, and ELS

 

Her Goofiness, the Big Nasty at Episcopal Headquarters,

may have set the ELCA prisoners free.

Lo, the religious empires are crashing: 

1. Church Without Walls has its expensive walls in foreclosure;
2. D. James Kennedy's Coral Ridge is selling off assets;
3. Schuller cannot even sell property on his main campus;
4. Time of Grace is shopping for a bigger, richer synod;
5. ELCA went through another round of staff firings as congregations leave.

Katharine Jefferts-Schori pushed the limits of radicalism and began suing the congregations for daring to leaver her feminist-pan-sexual paradise. With entire sections willing to leave the Episcopal corporation and face their day in court, ELCA congregations--velcroed to these high-church Unitarians--have found their way to the exit doors. ELCA Congregations from my hometown of Moline are engaged in the same disputes. They used to be Augustana Synod: Augustana, as in Augsburg Confession.

The content of the departing ELCA members and pastors indicate how they are struggling to leave behind what was once familiar and comfortable. Two areas should be familiar to WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect on the Prairie:

A. Reading material.

B. Trusting God's Word.

Reading Material

The ELCA members and pastors have been directed away from good theological reading for over 50 years. Instead of reading their own substantial material from the past, they get the latest publications coupled with warnings against the evils of dead theologians. Under a pile of books, they became illiterate about Lutheran doctrine. Are WELS, Missouri, and the ELS any different? They were handed Fuller and Fuller-cloned materials for decades while training at their sausage factories veered into making the Lutheran Church safe for Enthusiasm. "They have so much to teach us, those Babtists and Pentehowlers and occultists."

If the ELCA members and pastors had stuck to Lenski, Schmid, Jacobs, Krauth,  and Schmauk, they would have remained closer in doctrine to the Synodical Conference. 

If WELS, Missouri, and the ELS had featured a few good theologians in their training and publications--Luther, Chemnitz, Gerhard, Gerhardt--they would still be Lutheran. 

ELCA is closest to Missouri in going Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, closest to WELS-ELS-LCMS in promoting the Enthusiasm of Missouri.

Trusting God's Word

The revolution in the Episcopal Church shows that the Word is efficacious, even in the midst of apostasy. A core group has found the new thinking completely alien, so they have nothing left to trust but the Word of God. They are emphasizing the Scriptures instead of culture and tradition.

Stan Hauerwas always liked to say at Notre Dame, "The Lutherans are always a day late and a dollar short." I am waiting to see a Lutheran bishop take his entire district out of ELCA, following his peers in the Episcopal Church.

Meanwhile, LCMS-WELS-ELS clergy and laity need to get over their lockjaw and start speaking out on doctrinal issues. Some will pay a price for this, which is called bearing the cross. There are also intangible rewards, which are great, because tangible rewards do not transport well after death.

Every doctrinal debate is a victory, even if there is a short-term setback. The apostates in the Lutheran Church do not want a debate. They accuse, following the pattern set by their Father Below. They scream:
1. You are criticizing Holy Mother Synod!
2. You dare the attack one of our Great Ones?
3. You are an evil, evil person.
4. All we want to do is make things better.

They want a political battle, because they always win those. Look at Wayne Mueller being voted out of office, or Gurgle voted in!

They fear a doctrinal battle, knowing they have nothing to offer and plenty to hide.

Every Church and Changer "has issues with Church and Change."  And yet, they are posting on the secret listserve and galloping off to each Schwaermer conference.

They hate having their secrets exposed. They hate being quoted verbatim, almost as much as they hate traditional Lutheran quotations.

They even hate cute kitteh pictures. That should seal their fate once and for all.