Pietists Turn Into Tree-Huggers Like These

Sure, some of you are saying, "There he goes again." Even Beavis and Butthead laughed at them.

Pietistic movements always turn into Unitarian feel-good projects, finally into freaky replacements for worshiping the Holy Trinity.

Here is ELCA's latest eructation.

I rest my case.

The Roman Catholic Difference

Lutherans use their media money
to promote anti-Lutheran doctrine.

I went to school with Roman Catholic priests, nuns, and brothers (as in Christian Brothers, the teaching bunch). They are never as ardent as the converts. In fact, many of the Roman religious are secret Lutherans.

However, when people want to know about religion, the Catholic Church uses a vast network of apologists, recruiters, websites, and books to immerse people in the alleged truth of Roman Catholicism. They also have professors, at such seminaries as Concordia Ft. Wayne and Concordia St. Louis, who will start people on the road to Rome, even if they have to take a bypass through Constantinople.

The so-called conservative synods (LCMS, ELS, WELS) imagine that evangelism means learning from Fuller, Trinity, Mars Hill, Willow Creek, Saddleback, Granger, Groeschel, and Stanley. So these synods teach that:

1. Lutheran doctrine, worship, and practice are dead wrong.
   
2. Pietistic cell groups are essential.
   
3. Women should be pastors, teach men, and usurp authority.

Given those facts, which no one can refute, what will the results be?

The results will be exactly what we see today:

1. Conservative Lutheran clergy are joining Rome.
   
2. Lutheran laity are leaving the visible Lutheran church.
   
3. Roman Catholicism is growing and thriving.

---

rhs (http://rhs.myopenid.com) has left a new comment on your post "The Roman Catholic Difference":

All of the so-called conservative synods (LCMS, ELS, WELS) have their bad apples and renegade pastors like Jeske. That does not mean they deserve to be painted with the same broad brush, nor ascribed the same bad practices.

***

GJ - I toss bad apples out.

A little leaven, to change the metaphor, leaveneth the whole lump.

In the Arizona-California-Nevada district of WELS, six pastors were yanked by the previous DP.

And yet, Jeff Gunn has been promoted to the board at Wisconsin Lutheran College, along with two members, one who is now the president. Kelm has a newly invented job there.

But Gunn has not been disciplined at all, because he is the darling of Church and Change. Rich pals have subsidized his folly, just as Arizona Lutheran Academy (WELS) has provided a home.

The best way to judge a denomination is not from its documents but from its actual practices, which reveal its heart-felt doctrine.

ELCA's latest plunge into gay lib is a perfect example.

Another Ichabod Convert - To Romanism!

One reader who fought against Church Growth in WELS began talking about joining the Roman Catholic Church. I hope I talked her out of it.

Another reader loved all the quotations I provided. He had long discussions and debates with various UOJ advocates. He loved Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant - and he phoned to tell me he joined the Catholic Church as the "one true church."

Third Case
I saw this posting on the Internet and recognized the author, Jerry Parker, as a Lutheran who went to the Kokomo conference, held at the farm where one family received the Left Foot of Fellowship for denying the Kokomo Statements. The other family was also there.

Jerry Parker is a retired librarian. We exchanged many emails over the years, but none for quite a long time.

I was just thinking today that many people are being driven away from the Lutheran Church by UOJ, Receptionism (Calvinism in disguise), and Church Growthism. This is another case.

This is one more case, in my opinion. The ELS, LCMS, and WELS no longer have a Lutheran voice, but they will not admit it. The leaders have not tried Lutheran doctrine and found it wanting. They have hardly tried it at all.

And they have proven hundreds of times that someone is promoted for studying at Fuller Seminary, defenestrated for questioning Fuller. The results are exactly what anyone would expect.

But the denial continues. The Lutheran Church leaders of this era have much to answer for the souls they have destroyed, the marriages they have broken up with their adultery, and the children they have abused.

Holy Mother Church in Trouble: Catholic Child Abuse Stories Across Europe

Many church leaders, Lutheran and Catholic,
ought to be wearing these clerical robes.


DUBLIN – It often starts as a voice in the wilderness, but can swell into an entire nation's demand for truth. From Ireland to Germany, Europe's many victims of child abuse in the Roman Catholic church are finally breaking social taboos and confronting the clergy to face its demons.

Ireland was the first in Europe to confront the church's worldwide custom of shielding pedophile priests from the law and public scandal. Now that legacy of suppressed childhood horror is being confronted in other parts of the Continent — nowhere more poignantly than in Germany, the homeland of Pope Benedict XVI.

The recent spread of claims into the Netherlands, Austria and Italy has analysts and churchmen wondering how deep the scandal runs, which nation will be touched next, and whether a tide of lawsuits will force European dioceses to declare bankruptcy like their American cousins.

"You have to presume that the cover-up of abuse exists everywhere, to one extent or another. A new case could appear in a new country tomorrow," said David Quinn, director of a Christian think tank, the Iona Institute, that seeks to promote family values in an Ireland increasingly cool to Catholicism.

Quinn noted that stories of systemic physical, sexual and emotional abuse circulated privately in Irish society for decades, but only moved above ground in the mid-1990s when former altar boy Andrew Madden and orphanage survivor Christine Buckley went public with lawsuits and exposes of how priests and nuns tormented them with impunity.

Floodgates opened for Irish complaints that have topped 15,000 in this country of 4 million. Three government-ordered investigations have shocked and disgusted the nation, which has footed most of the bill to settle legal claims topping euro1 billion (nearly $1.5 billion).

"A lot comes down to: When does that first victim gather the courage to come forward into the spotlight?" Quinn said. "It seems to take that trigger event, the lone voice who says what so many kept silent so long. That's basically happening now in Germany. It could happen next in Spain, Poland, anywhere."

In January, an elite Jesuit school in Berlin declared it was aware of seven child-abuse cases in its past and appointed an outside investigator, Ursula Raue, to seek testimony. Within weeks, she had gathered stories of long-suppressed woe from more than 100 ex-students abused by their Jesuit masters, and from 60 molested by parish priests.

"I always thought that at some point the wave would reach us," said Petra Dorsch-Jungsberger, a commentator on Catholic affairs and retired University of Munich communications professor.

She credited heavy German media coverage of the latest Irish abuse scandal — a November report into decades of cover-up in the Dublin Archdiocese involving approximately 170 priests — with inspiring similar soul-searching in Germany.

"Once the door had been opened, then many others felt they were able to step up and say: That happened to us too," she said.

In recent weeks, new German abuse claims have surfaced on a near-daily basis and spread to Pope Benedict's Bavarian heartland and the Regensberg boys' choir long directed by the pope's brother. Benedict was Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger of Munich from 1977 to 1982, and questions now focus on what role, if any, the pontiff, played in handing pedophile priests to new parishes rather than to the law.

A Swiss abbot said in an interview published Saturday that 60 people have reported being victims of abuse by Catholic priests in Switzerland.

Abbot Martin Werlen of the Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln told Swiss daily Aargauer Zeitung that the allegations were reported to the Swiss Bishops Conference, which is investigating them.

The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland, and contended he has long confronted abuse cases with courage.

In separate interviews, both the Holy See's spokesman and its prosecutor for sex abuse of minors by clergy sought to defend the pope.

"It's rather clear that in the last days, there have been those who have tried, with a certain aggressive persistence, in Regensburg and Munich, to look for elements to personally involve the Holy Father in the matter of abuses," Vatican spokesman the Rev. Federico Lombardi told Vatican Radio.

It's inevitable that all bishops of the day, including Ratzinger, handled abuse complaints against priests in-house, said the Rev. Fergus O'Donoghue, editor of the Irish Jesuit journal Studies.

"The pope was no different to any other bishop at time. The church policy was to keep it all quiet — to help people, but to avoid scandal. Avoiding scandal was a huge issue for the church," he said. "Of course there was cover-up," he added. But worse was "the systematic lack of concern for the victims."

In the Netherlands, a former Catholic boarding-school abuse victim is leading a campaign for accountability. Bert Smeets, 58, has formed Mea Culpa, a victims group that has collected testimony from hundreds of abuse victims and is mulling a class-action lawsuit against the Dutch church.

The church has apologized to the victims and set up an inquiry headed by a former government minister, a Protestant. Smeets dismisses that effort as "a typical Vatican cover-up." He said the pressure on the church came from aggressive investigations into abuse in Ireland and the U.S.

In other predominantly Catholic areas of Europe, child-abuse scandals have tarnished individual priests and even a Polish archbishop, but have not mushroomed into a mass movement. In Spain, more than a dozen priests have been convicted of child abuse in recent decades and two potentially larger-scale cases are attracting attention.

Ireland was until relatively recently the most enthusiastically Catholic country in Europe. Its half-dozen seminaries exported priests worldwide. All but one of those seminaries is closed now, illustrating the rapid falloff in Mass attendance as the economy has advanced and secularism has spread.

Quinn, the Dublin think-tank director, noted that a few Irish dioceses are openly warning that they're struggling to pay bills stemming from abuse claims. In the southeast diocese of Kells, the archbishop's house has had to be remortgaged.

"The church is asset-rich but cash-poor," Quinn said, noting that it's the biggest property owner in Ireland but has comparatively little cash in the bank. He said the Vatican, too, has less money on tap than resides in the endowment fund of a typical top-tier U.S. university.

***

GJ - The Roman Catholic Church is getting the press coverage because they are so large and the victims' groups are well organized. People like to blame the celibacy rule, which has always been winked at in the past.

Lutherans have no celibacy requirement but all the synods have the same stories and the same criminal cover-ups. When Gaylin Schmeling was a mere parish pastor (Bethany Seminary president now), he said he did not like these things coming out, because "It hurts the face of the church."

I was in the audience, so that was Schmeling's way of denouncing me in front of others. I previously gave him the documentation about what was happening in Columbus, thanks to the criminal cover-up of WELS and the supine attitude of the Michigan District pastors.

The odd thing about Schmeling's comment in his so-called adult class was that he said the opposite privately: "If half of this is true, we are in real trouble." I replied, "All of it is true."

No one ever got promoted in WELS or the ELS by dealing honestly with problems. The more severe the scandal, the greater the reaction in denying all of the facts.

The ELS chose to remain silent and even took over the WELS scandal on their own, adopting Floyd Luther Stolzenburg and his Masonic congregation as their own love-child, as long as he sent money their way. Jay Webber, John Shep, and Roger Kovaciny were happy to work with Floyd and Floyd bragged about his world missionary work.

I used to send Floyd's boasts around, so people could read the story in his own words. Someone was sending me Floyd's church newsletter, and the church website told the same story, with photos provided.

The ELS hushed it up and the newsletters went silent. The website pages disappeared. Like the Roman Catholic Church, they could say, "What problem?"

The lawsuits are starting to catch up with these dignitaries. Perhaps the prosecutors will also catch up with the facts.

Picking Out Hims

B-16's usher picks out hims for himself.


The Vatican has been thrown into chaos by reports that one of the Pope's ceremonial ushers, as well as a member of the elite Vatican choir, were involved in a homosexual prostitution ring.

The allegations came to light after Italian newspapers published transcripts of phone calls recorded by police, who had been conducting an unrelated corruption investigation.

The tapes appear to record Angelo Balducci, a Gentleman of His Holiness, negotiating with Thomas Chinedu Ehiem, a 29-year-old Nigerian Vatican chorister, about men he wanted brought to him for sexual purposes. Balducci was allegedly paying 2,000 euros ($2,714) for each man he met, according to the Irish Times.

Balducci is recorded describing precise physical details of the men he wanted. The transcripts record that during five months in 2008, Ehiem procured for Balducci at least 10 contacts with, among others, "two black Cuban lads," a former male model from Naples, and a rugby player from Rome.

A report by the Italian Carabinieri on the case said: "In order to organize casual encounters of a sexual nature, he availed himself of the intercession of two individuals who, it is maintained, may form part of an organized network, especially active in [Rome], of exploiters or at least facilitators of male prostitution."

The police probe into corruption resulted in Balducci and 4 others being arrested. Allegations of prostitution were only revealed later, and have resulted in Ehiem's dismissal from the Vatican choir.

Balducci held a high position within the Vatican and carried the coffin of Pope John Paul at his 2005 funeral. He has now lost his position as a Gentleman of the Holiness. His trial for corruption is still pending.

Pope Benedict Finds the Abuse Scandal at His Front Door Now

B16


VATICAN CITY – Germany's sex abuse scandal has now reached Pope Benedict XVI: His former archdiocese disclosed that while he was archbishop a suspected pedophile priest was transferred to a job where he later abused children.

The pontiff is also under increasing fire for a 2001 Vatican document he later penned instructing bishops to keep such cases secret.

The revelations have put the spotlight on Benedict's handling of abuse claims both when he was archbishop of Munich from 1977-1982 and then the prefect of the Vatican office that deals with such crimes — a position he held until his 2005 election as pope.

And they may lead to further questions about what the pontiff knew about the scope of abuse in his native Germany, when he knew it and what he did about it during his tenure in Munich and quarter-century term at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

Benedict got a firsthand readout of the scandal Friday from the head of the German Bishop's Conference, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch, who reported that the pontiff had expressed "great dismay and deep shock" over the scandal, but encouraged bishops to continue searching for the truth.

Hours later, the Munich archdiocese admitted that it had allowed a priest suspected of having abused a child to return to pastoral work in the 1980s, while Benedict was archbishop. It stressed that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger didn't know about the transfer and that it had been decided by a lower-ranking official.

The archdiocese said there were no accusations against the chaplain, identified only as H., during his 1980-1982 spell in Munich, where he underwent therapy for suspected "sexual relations with boys." But he then moved to nearby Grafing, where he was suspended in early 1985 following new accusations of sexual abuse. The following year, he was convicted of sexually abusing minors.

The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement late Friday noting that the Munich vicar-general who approved the priest's transfer had taken "full responsibility" for the decision, seeking to remove any question about the pontiff's potential responsibility as archbishop at the time.

Victims' advocates weren't persuaded.

"We find it extraordinarily hard to believe that Ratzinger didn't reassign the predator, or know about the reassignment," said Barbara Blaine, president and founder of SNAP, Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests.

Already, the scandal was inching closer to Benedict after allegations of abuse surfaced at the prestigious choir that was led by his brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 until 1994. Ratzinger has repeatedly said the sexual abuse allegations date from before his tenure as choir director and that he never heard of them, although he acknowledged slapping pupils as punishment.

The pope, meanwhile, continues to be under fire for a 2001 Vatican letter he sent to all bishops advising them that all cases of sexual abuse of minors must be forwarded to his then-office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and that the cases were to be subject to pontifical secret.

Germany's justice minister, Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger, has cited the document as evidence that the Vatican created a "wall of silence" around abuse cases that prevented prosecution. Irish bishops have said the document had been "widely misunderstood" by the bishops themselves to mean they shouldn't go to police. And lawyers for abuse victims in the United States have cited the document in arguing that the Catholic Church tried to obstruct justice.

But canon lawyers insisted Friday that there was nothing in the document that would preclude bishops from fulfilling their moral and civic duties of going to police when confronted with a case of child abuse.

They stressed that the document merely concerned procedures for handling the church trial of an accused priest, and that the secrecy required by Rome for that hearing by no means extended to a ban on reporting such crimes to civil authorities.

"Canon law concerning grave crimes ... doesn't in any way interfere with or diminish the obligations of the faithful to civil laws," said Monsignor Davide Cito, a professor of canon law at Rome's Santa Croce University.

The letter doesn't tell bishops to also report the crimes to police.

But the Rev. John Coughlin, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame Law School, said it didn't need to. A general principle of moral theology to which every bishop should adhere is that church officials are obliged to follow civil laws where they live, he said. [GJ - Except in WELS/ELS]

Yet Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore in Northern Ireland, told a news conference this week that Irish bishops "widely misinterpreted" the directive and couldn't get a clear reading from Rome on how to proceed.

"One of the difficulties that bishops expressed was the fact that at times it wasn't always possible to get clear guidance from the Holy See and there wasn't always a consistent approach within the different Vatican departments," he said.

"Obviously, Rome is aware of this misinterpretation and the harm that this has done, or could potentially do, to the trust that the people have in how the church deals with these matters," he said.

An Irish government-authorized investigation into the scandal and cover up harshly criticized the Vatican for its mixed messages and insistence on secrecy in the 2001 directive and previous Vatican documents on the topic.

"An obligation to secrecy/confidentialtiy (sic) on the part of participants in a canonical process could undoubtedly constitute an inhibition on reporting child sexual abuse to the civil authorities or others," it concluded.

In the United States, Dan Shea, an attorney for several victims, has introduced the Ratzinger letter in court as evidence that the church was trying to obstruct justice. He has argued that the church impeded civil reporting by keeping the cases secret and "reserving" them for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

"This is an international criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice," Shea told The Associated Press.

***

GJ - Church officials think they are above the law because of their special status. DP Robert Mueller complained of the burden of checking out pastoral candidates for abuse. If he and Paul Kuske had done their jobs or told the truth, the Columbus situation would not have happened. The ELS knew all about it because I informed Gaylin Schmeling, Jay Webber and others, providing the documents. What did they do, those pious condemners of WELSian laxity? The ELS adopted Floyd Luther Stolzenburg for their very own, with Archbishop John Shep's approval.

The free vacations and expensive trips they got were very impressive, just another way these leaders bear the doublecross for Holy Mother Synod.

---

By FRANCES D'EMILIO, Associated Press Writer Frances D'emilio, Associated Press Writer – 5 mins ago

Update

VATICAN CITY – The Vatican on Saturday denounced what it called aggressive attempts to drag Pope Benedict XVI into the spreading scandals of pedophile priests in his German homeland.

It also insisted that church confidentiality doesn't prevent bishops from reporting abuse to police.

The Vatican's campaign to defend the pope's reputation and resolve in combatting clergy abuse of minors followed acknowledgment by the Munich archdiocese that it had transferred a suspected pedophile priest to community work while Benedict was archbishop there.

Benedict is also under fire for a 2001 church directive he wrote while a Vatican cardinal, instructing bishops to keep abuse cases confidential.

Germany's justice minister has blamed the directive for what she called a "wall of silence" preventing prosecution.

Skeptical about the Vatican's handling of abuse, a U.S.-based advocacy group for abuse victims, Survivors Network of those Abused for Priests, urged faithful to bring candles and childhood photos to vigils outside churches, cathedrals and German consulates across the U.S. this weekend to remind people to "call police, not bishops" in cases of suspected abuse.

ELCA Bishops Mention Traditional Marriage To Keep Their Congregations

According to ELCA, Olson was "raised on an Iowa diary (sic) farm"!
He would have learned more on a dairy farm.


ELCA NEWS SERVICE
March 11, 2010

ELCA Conference of Bishops Comments on Ministry Policy Revisions
10-088-JB

ITASCA, Ill. (ELCA) -- The Conference of Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) offered its counsel on revisions to churchwide ministry policy documents before they are sent to the ELCA Church Council, which is expected to consider them for adoption next month.

The ELCA Conference of Bishops is an advisory body of the church, consisting of the ELCA's 65 synod bishops plus the presiding bishop and ELCA secretary. It met here March 4-9.
The bishops commented on and offered a few amendments to four documents:
+ "ELCA Candidacy Manual," used by synod committees to help guide ministry candidates on behalf of the ELCA from the time they consider a call to the ministry through their seminary years
+ "Vision and Expectations: Ordained Ministers," a document that outlines the ELCA's expectations of its clergy
+ "Vision and Expectations: Associates in Ministry, Deaconesses and Diaconal Ministers," a similar document for professional lay workers
+ "Definitions and Guidelines for Discipline," which explains grounds for discipline of professional leaders.

Revised drafts of each document, incorporating the bishops' suggestions, will be posted by March 16 at http://www.ELCA.org/ministrypolicies on the ELCA Web site, said the Rev. Stanley N. Olson, executive director, ELCA Vocation and Education.

Revisions to each document are needed as the result of decisions made by the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. The assembly approved proposals that would create the possibility for Lutherans in committed, publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA clergy and professional lay leaders. The revised documents are intended to spell out policies consistent with the assembly's action. Several unrelated updates are also being proposed.

Bishops suggested some specific amendments to Vision and Expectations (V&E). The Rev. James F. Mauney, bishop, ELCA Virginia Synod, Salem, asked that a line be inserted in the text that stated: "This church is committed to the sanctity of marriage." The document uses the term marriage to refer to marriage between a man and a woman.

"I would find that as an extremely helpful tool in going back to my synod. Using that phrase allows many in the life of our church to walk with us and stay with us," he said.

***

GJ - Sure, bishop, if you say so. A nod to traditional marriage will bind those congregations to ELCA, after 23 solid years of lobbying for an alternative clergy and wearing those rainbow stoles at the August 2009 convention.

---

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "ELCA Bishops Mention Traditional Marriage To Keep ...":

Does the document actually spell out marriage as being "between a man and woman," or is that just the media's and bishops' take on the document? I'd say if it's not explicit, the bishops are just trying to pull a fast one.
------------
"The document uses the term marriage to refer to marriage between a man and a woman."

---

Norman Teigen has left a new comment on your post "ELCA Bishops Mention Traditional Marriage To Keep ...":

Good job, GJ, on the proofreading. Don't you just love those typos? Dairy, diary.

***

GJ - As Norman knows from this blog, we all make mistakes. But I am struck by ELCA not noticing that howler for a long time. They canned 47 staffers recently. Perhaps one was the proof-reader.

Norman edits my work for free. The Shrinkers used to jibber and shout when I posted a typo, but now they refrain from posting altogether, once I switched to OpenID.

Missouri's Shrinkers

3.11.2010 LCMS News THE LUTHERAN CHURCH Missouri Synod March 11, 2010 .................... LCMSNews -- No. 24 COP explores post-church culture, hosts AALC reps By Roland Lovstad While the institutional church wrestles with worship forms, a new generation is just as likely to consider "church" to be coffee at Starbucks or a breakfast gathering with members of their tight-knit Christian community. Those emerging Christians seek to be disciples of Christ, but don't always see it necessary to walk through church doors to do it, said Rev. Anthony Cook, who spoke to a session of the LCMS Council of Presidents (COP) during its Feb. 20-23 meeting in St. Louis. Cook said that many emerging Christians have "a lot of apathy for institution and hierarchy" and regard institutional forms of the church to be ineffective and unworkable. As part of its "Ecclesiastical Leadership in a Post-church Culture" working theme, the COP heard Cook, an assistant professor of practical theology and director of distance curricula at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, and a presentation by staff of Carmel Lutheran Church in Carmel, Ind., which has planted four congregations and formed two satellite ministries since 1989. The council also hosted four pastors from the American Association of Lutheran Churches (AALC) and continued its discussion of worship. The COP heard reports on the Synod restructure process, an instrument for clergy assessment, and pending recommendations on licensed deacons. During the first day of its meetings, the council reviewed fundamentals of employment and intellectual property law, in a session led by staff from Thompson Coburn LLP, the Synod's legal counsel. A "Gen X-er" born in 1968, Cook said that while the church continues to reach out to Baby Boomers, it also needs to speak to the next demographic in the "mixed economy" of post-modern Christianity. "The next generation isn't non-religious, just religiously different," he said. This new generation of emerging Christians is interested in deep personal relationships, ancient traditions, mystery, and cultural relevance -- and they are interested in matters of faith, he added. "Instead of using objective truth and denominationalism as the first part [of your conversation], you stand back," Cook advised. "Start where we are -- as men and women who have been impacted by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead of reasoning from the objective to the subjective, do it the other way around. It is a matter of relying on God to be God." Cook said rapid change cannot be an excuse to do nothing. "Our institution is about to hit the iceberg," he added. "If we allow this generation to be lost, no one is going to visit you when you are sick. If you haven't cared about my faith, will there be anyone to care for you?" Cook offered several challenges to the council: find ways to reach small groups of believers even if they may never become an organized congregation; create a new "scorecard" for acknowledging new forms of "church"; invest in indigenous expressions of faith; embrace spiritual over institutional leadership models; explore a network model of church organization; form "safe places" to talk about personal faith; put the Body of Christ before the denomination; and make the institution "support the people and not the other way around." In describing their church-planting model, the staff of Carmel Lutheran Church, led by Rev. Luther Brunette, said the congregation undertook a process to answer, "What can we be the very best at?" It arrived at discipleship -- "bringing people from where they are to be the very best at being like Jesus." The congregation's voters meeting adopts a "blueprint for ministry" annually. Brunette said, "When you are constantly teaching and preaching about it, it helps give the vision of where we want to go." In addition to planting four congregations in the region, Carmel Lutheran added a second worship facility on its campus for "a church within a church" with intentional contemporary worship. This fall it will begin a campaign to form a satellite congregation in a nearby community, as well as partnering with one of its "daughter" congregations to begin a ministry in a redeveloping area of Indianapolis. Rev. Daniel Schumm, who leads the discipleship ministry, said the congregation refocused from membership to discipleship. He said membership can lead to an "attitude of entitlement" or "having arrived" and an excuse to do nothing. By emphasizing discipleship, the congregation builds an attitude that the believer serves Jesus and others while continuing to grow spiritually. Schumm said the congregation emphasizes worship, Bible study, and service. "Disciples are asked for a two-hour weekend commitment -- an hour of worship and an hour of Bible study," he said. Brunette added that two-thirds of those who attend worship also attend one of the 10 weekend Bible studies. Every person takes a discovery inventory, which helps to connect them to service ministries in the congregation and in the community. Dr. Glen Thomas, executive director of the Board for Pastoral Education (BPE), reported to the council on progress of the Perceptions of Ministry Inventory (PMI). The inventory is a project of the COP, BPE, and the two LCMS seminaries to gather congregational leaders' perceptions of ministry activities offered by pastors who have graduated from the seminary two and five years previously. This spring, the project will send the inventory to 850 congregations where the pastor and seven congregational leaders will complete the PMI and provide additional data designed to validate the PMI for future use. The inventory results in 19 different scores of knowledge, skills, and interpersonal traits. It is nearly identical to the Vicarage Evaluation Instrument that has been used to provide perceptions of more than 2,000 vicars at both LCMS seminaries over the past 12 years. Results of the PMI will inform the seminaries' pastoral formation processes and assist pastors in identifying their perceived personal strengths and areas for growth. Thomas said additional studies of data accumulated during the coming years may identify characteristics that contribute to effective ministry in various kinds of parishes. Thomas also reported the progress of a task force that is studying the current situation of licensed deacons, who provide ministry in situations where a pastor is not available. Requested by the 2007 LCMS convention, the task force will issue its report and recommendations to the convention that meets this July. In comments to the COP, AALC Presiding Pastor Rev. Franklin Hays reported that the church body is working with approximately 70 congregations that have voted to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America after its convention vote to allow gays and lesbians who are in committed same-sex relationships to serve as pastors. Hays said he expects six to 10 congregations will join the AALC before its convention in June. Accompanying Hays were three of the church body's five regional pastors -- equivalent to LCMS district presidents. The AALC was formed in 1988 by congregations that chose not to join the newly formed ELCA. The AALC and LCMS declared altar and pulpit fellowship at their respective conventions in 2007. Hays spoke of the AALC respect and appreciation for LCMS theology, saying, "We are blessed to have an association with you." He added that the LCMS has the ability "to make a difference" in North America. "You've got to carry the ball," he said. In formal action, the COP adopted guidelines for congregations that want to interview seminary candidates before placing a call for associate/assistant pastors. The council also approved the placement of 43 Ministers of Religion-Commissioned candidates, five pastoral candidates, and six vicars. The district presidents reported 279 congregations calling for sole pastors, 36 for senior pastors, and 58 for assistant or associate pastors. They reported 342 permanent vacancies and 219 congregations that were temporarily not issuing calls for a pastor. Roland Lovstad is a freelance writer and a member of Immanuel Lutheran Church, Perryville, Mo.

***

GJ - The Barry/Otten/McCain legacy is impressive. Otten did publish articles against Church Growth, but he also endorsed the worst book promoting it - Valleskey's. Christian News is against unionism, unless it sells more papers. That is why the paper plays to the Baptist audience. Name change for a bigger audience? Lutheran News became Christian News long before Missouri and WELS thought of such tactics.

For nine years, Barry/McCain threw the occasional spitball at Church Growth, but devoted their time to appeasing the Left in Missouri. Thus appeased, they took over.

Some may think people are fighting over a corpse, whether Missouri or WELS, but they are contending for the money involved. Money equals cushy jobs. The bigshots do not want to preach every Sunday and teach catechism. They want to sit around tables at luxury locations, discussing deep topics, eating the best danish, planning how to reduce their synod to cinders. So far, they have done a good job of that. Their clergy know there are two answers - flee to Rome or to Fuller.

Please send a comment when the battle becomes overtly doctrinal and DPs start reading the Book of Concord.

Get Out Your Hankies: Ski Can Empathize with Welfare Recipients - He Is One Too

Kelm joined the aging jobless in December, but grabbed two calls at once by walking Plank Road with this clever sign.


Cheryl Anderson

One Sunday about three months ago, a homeless man went up to the teen manning the after-worship snack table at The Core in downtown Appleton and asked for a Ziploc bag. She obliged then watched the man dump a bowl of cookies in the bag, as well as grab a box of tea.

When the teen told the Rev. Jim "Ski" Skorzewski about what had happened, the pastor knew there had to be a story behind it. The story continued three weeks after that incident with three guys who waited after Sunday worship to talk to Skorzewski.

"They just kind of poured their heart out to me about bad choices they made in their lives … and one of the guys who was crying says, 'We love being here, but we have dinner at the shelter at 5:30 on Sundays. So we have to decide, 'Are we going to eat dinner or are we going to come here?' I said, 'I would eat dinner.' He said, 'What you don't understand is this is the one place we hear hope and are treated like real people.'"

Skorzewski said he cried all the way home that night, and soon gathered the leaders at The Core, who came up with a plan to serve dinners at 4 p.m. before worship.

"When you're in ministry, you usually want to help with the physical needs first and then apply the spiritual," said Tom Medema, who serves on the executive board at The Core and is a member of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Appleton.

"These people were foregoing their meals to come to church. Where have you heard that happen before? That just touched all of us, including myself. It makes you want to do something, and we did."

"We don't do dinners because of the homeless people," Skorzewski said. "We do dinners because it's a great way to bring people together and it just happens there's a need."

Skorzewski said those who attend the meal also are expected to stay for the service.

What began as small-group ministries at The Core rotating to fund and prepare a meal has grown to include members who want to pitch in to feed the 150 to 160 people who attend, which includes 30 to 40 people from the Fox Valley Warming Shelter and the Emergency Shelter of the Fox Valley who come for dinner and stay for worship.

***

GJ - It takes a strong man to read this without bursting into laughter.

---

Sent via anonymous email:

Regarding your infantile comment after the Core Dinner article you posted this morning, I can only respond in the words of Buzz Lightyear: "You are a sad, strange little man and you have my pity."

***

GJ - That sounds like one of Buzz Lightyear's fans.

Three Infinitives

LCMS Preacher Marva Dawn

KJV 1 Timothy 2:11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. 13 For Adam was first formed, then Eve. 14 And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. 15 Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety.

This passage is clear, with Paul using two infinitives to explain what he does not allow, one to show what he does allow.

12 But I suffer not a woman
to teach,
nor to usurp authority over the man,
but to be in silence.

This passage is more encompassing than women reading the Scriptures in church or other examples where WELS/ELS/LCMS feminists take baby steps toward women's ordination.

The apostates like to fuzz up the discussion by introducing all kinds of phony exceptions, such as women teaching children in Sunday School (men? where?) and women playing the organ (does that usurp authority?).

I saw where Missouri was going in the 1980s, before Al Barry was elected. At the Trinity (ELCA) seminary library, the women students bragged in their vicarage reports about working in LCMS congregations, preaching and baptizing and consecrating Holy Communion. Paul McCain almost had a cow denying this was going on and did not want to hear another word about it.

Missouri has made a lot of progress since then. So has WELS.

It will not stop there.

WELS has women pastors already.

We Are Measured by What Offends Us

I heard from a cheerful reader that this blog offends some people. He is not offended, but his friends are.

I set up the Bethany blog for sermons and quotations alone. I created it at the same time as Ichabod.

Ichabod has 500 to 1000 readers per day.

The Bethany blog has about 100 readers per day.

I began Ichabod for one purpose only, to expose and denounce the corruption in the Lutheran Church and to reveal the same rampant apostasy in other church bodies. I am not sure how to soft-pedal the news. Perhaps I should keep everyone in the same drowsy, summer on the back porch, almost asleep in a rocking chair mode they have enjoyed the last few decades.

I am quite deliberately provocative, in the hopes of waking a few people up. One WELS leader called it "his morning entertainment."

There are precedents for humor in the Lutheran Church. I have quoted Luther in papers, watching people burst into laughter because of the truth of what he wrote. Chemnitz had a delightful way of deriding the folly of Romanism and distilling a few jokes in the process. No wonder Chemnitz was dubbed the Most Villainous Lutheran.

The sourpuss Pietists who are so careful to guard the fastness of their synodical sinecures are not amused. I simply propose that

When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace: but when a stronger than he shall come upon him, and overcome him, he taketh from him all his armour wherein he trusted, and divideth his spoils. (KJV Luke 11:21-22)

To take away the armor and spoils of the Evil One, believers will need to trust in the Sword of the Spirit, the Word, rather than the gimmicks of Church Shrinkers.

Lutheran clergy and laity alike should be offended by:

1. Whoopee entertainment supplanting liturgical worship.
   
2. Pastors who are not man enough to conduct a worship service themselves, letting a woman or women do their work.
   
3. Lutherans running off to be trained by people who despise and mock Lutheran doctrine and worship.
   
4. Open communion, semi-open communion, and demi-semi open communion.
   
5. Hiding communion because it might hurt attendance by non-Lutherans. Wake up chickee-poo. If you feel that way, you are all non-Lutherans anyway.
   
6. Gutless Doctrinal Pussycats who exercise discipline against faithful Lutherans while letting apostates run wild.
   
7. Gutless Doctrinal Pussycats who pretend they are going to do something against apostates while doing nothing except talk.
   
8. Dmins from whack-job schools deserving an axe, a torch, or a set of Luther's Works.
   
9. Pastors who cheat on their mistresses.
   
10. Seminary professors who lead from the rear, sitting on their posteriors while their own synod rots away.
    

A conservative hates you for telling a lie.
A liberal hates you for telling the truth.

Now That WELS Has Women Pastors, Watch What Comes Next

GJ - First this Iowa district of ELCA questioned the August 2009 vote. Next the bishop got the district council to rescind that dissent from ELCA. Afterwards came this Final Solution for anyone who dared to join a straight lobbying group:

Source:

Resolution from the Upper Iowa River Conference Spring Assembly, February 14, 2010

Whereas the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is a constitutionally governed organization served by constitutionally elected leaders at both the synod and church wide levels, and

Whereas the stated purposes of the organization known as Lutheran CORE are to 1) bring forth a proposal for a new Lutheran church body governed by a new constitution for those who choose to leave the ELCA, and 2) to plan for the continuation of Lutheran CORE as a free-standing synod for all Lutherans, and

Whereas it is an inherent conflict of interest for individuals who are members of CORE to fully and wholeheartedly support the ELCA constitution,

Be it Resolved that: 1) all rostered and lay leaders who are members of CORE and are currently serving in elected positions in the NE Iowa Synod be required to resign from those positions, and that 2) all rostered and lay individuals currently holding membership in CORE be disqualified from election to positions of leadership within the NEIA Synod.

Submitted by the Upper Iowa River Conference of the NEIA Synod — ELCA Voted on at conference assembly, February 14, 2010.

***

GJ - In 1987, I spoke with a Reformed Church in America pastor who had been Presbyterian. When Presbyterians voted for women's ordination, they said the pastors who disagreed would be left alone. Later, this man privately expressed his doubts to the district executive, who immediately said, "I have to remove you from the ministry."

The Presby minister said, "I will never express my views in public."

The executive said, "That does not matter now. You are off the list."

Do not be shocked. Pope John the Malefactor (ELS) did the same. So did Dan Fleischer of the mini-micro Church of the Lutheran Confession (sic). Ditto, many others of small brain and large waist.

The point is that once a new apostate doctrine or application is adopted, all dissent must be liquidated.

ELCA is marching its straight clergy to the metaphorical gas chambers. Diversity is for dopes.

WELS will do the same with women's ordination. They already have women pastors. Ordination is not the issue because all true followers of Walther's Pietism know that ordination is an adiaphoron. How do we know? Because Walther said so.

The Biblical issue is "women usurping authority" and "women teaching men." WELS, the Little Sect on the Prairie, and Missouri have been violating those clear Biblical principles for decades now. All they need to do now is study the issue and publish a report confirming that they have a new revelation from Holy Spirit. They will ordain women as a matter of Biblical and Confessional principles - just you wait.

A few years later, Perez Hilton will be the anointed Prophet of WELS.

Does this hat make me look odd?

Only dah Sausage Factory Graduates Do Not Know German Either

Kelmed from Joseph Schmidt.

Parochial versus a University Education

Yale's Sterling Library

LP Cruz was astonished Jay Webber had such a poor grasp of academics. Many Shrinkers have shown the same ignorance in different forms.

All this comes from a parochial education, which is why one WELS leader would like all the parochial schools shut down.

Parochial is synonymous with "close-minded" for a reason. As I mentioned to LP, each Lutheran seminary teaches its students to worship the fill-in-the-blank synod. ELCA too! May God have mercy on those who question the synod, because no one else will.

In the ELS and WELS, the only requirement to teach is an MDiv from their unaccredited seminary. Pope John the Malefactor did not even have an MDiv or a bachelor's degree when he was hired to teach New Testament at the Little School on the Prairie.

Joe Krohn and his bunch howl that I studied at Yale and Notre Dame. But a real university does not seek to convert someone overtly or force a student to share the same concepts as the instructors. That often happens because many graduate students never leave school and gladly follow the easiest path. However, Ralph Bohlmann's claim to fame was a PhD at Yale where he examined the theology of the Lutheran Confessions. They did not ask him to become a Congregationalist or worse.

Likewise, I had Hauerwas (Methodist) and Yoder (Mennonite) and Gleason (Roman Catholic) as doctoral advisors at Notre Dame. They were interested in whether I did a thorough job in research, not in rebaptizing me as Methodist, Mennonite, or Catholic. Was I harmed by having world-famous theologians as teachers? I think not.

I enjoyed discussing Lutheran doctrine in a room full of Catholic students, with two liberal professors leading the class. They were often far more receptive to Luther's doctrine than the ELS, Missouri, and WELS clergy I have known. One priest from that program, a PhD in liturgy, reminds me annually that he is still reading the set of Luther that I gave him.

Those who suffer from a parochial education never get over their need to find security in the canons of their own little group. WELS rests its confidence on the essay files at the Sausage Factory. One essay, on Church Growth, is by an avowed atheist. Another is by New Age theologian Mark Jeske.

The Little Sect on the Prairie (ELS) likes to act superior to WELS, more confessional, etc. They engage in the same tactics.

I have discussed this with several laymen, who scratch their heads over the obvious inconsistencies in ELS/WELS/LCMS arguments for UOJ. That does not matter to the Stormtroopers, because questioning UOJ is the deadly third rail of synodical politics.

"He denies UOJ!" is the ultimate accusation among these poor, deluded, confused Enthusiasts.

Stepping outside their little circle is doom in their eyes, because doom is good for their income.

The clergy are socialistic. If they can reduce their numbers, they have a greater chance to get the plush non-pastoral jobs. "Ah, no more catechism class. No more preaching, except the same sermon over and over as a guest. No more home visitations. Instead, people will visit ME and bow down in humility."

Stormtroopers do not admit they read Christian News.

---

Tim Felt-Needs:

"On Contemporary Lutheranism
In terms of contemporary Lutheranism there is nothing new out there to speak too (sic)."

Debate: Reagan versus Obama

ELCA Follows WELS Pattern of Back-door Ordination: Wauwatosa Lives!

News Releases


ELCA NEWS SERVICE
March 9, 2010

ELCA Bishops Reach Consensus on 'ELM' Pastors, More Review Needed
10-086-JB


ITASCA, Ill. (ELCA) -- The Conference of Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) reached a consensus March 8 on a draft proposal for a rite that would bring onto the church's official clergy roster those pastors who were ordained and are on the clergy roster of "Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM)." ELM "expands ministry opportunities for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the Lutheran church," according to its Web site.

The ELCA Conference of Bishops is an advisory body of the church, consisting of the ELCA's 65 synod bishops plus the presiding bishop and ELCA secretary. It met here March 4-9.

The draft proposal, "Reception onto the Roster of Ordained Ministers," recognizes and affirms the ministry of ELM pastors. It is not the rite of ordination, though it uses patterns and texts adapted from the authorized ELCA rite, including the laying on of hands and prayer by synod bishops. It is intended for use with "individuals who have experienced an ordination that this church has not yet recognized," according to the draft.

The draft proposal will now undergo internal and external review, said the Rev. Robert G. Schaefer, executive for worship, ELCA Worship and Liturgical Resources. After review conference members will be consulted about final form before the proposed rite is sent to the ELCA Church Council for consideration, he said. The council, the ELCA's board of directors and interim legislative authority between assemblies, could consider a final proposed rite at its meeting in Chicago next month.

Schaefer explained that such a rite would have a specific, restricted, limited use. The conference was told that there are 17 ELM pastors who could seek to be on the official ELCA clergy roster.

Under the draft proposal, ELM candidates would be received onto the roster of the ELCA after fulfillment of all requirements needed for approval by an official clergy candidacy committee within a synod, said the Rev. Margaret G. Payne, bishop of the ELCA New England Synod, Worcester, Mass. Candidacy committees help guide all clergy candidates on behalf of the ELCA from the time they consider a call to the ministry through their seminary years. Pastors who were not ordained in the ELCA also work with candidacy committees, though the process may be shorter.

"After formal approval these people would be received at a service of worship, (with) the laying on of hands and prayer by a synod bishop," Payne said on a behalf of a committee of bishops appointed to prepare the draft rite following a preliminary discussion by the conference March 6.

"All of us without exception felt it was utterly important and essential that there be the laying on of hands and prayer as a part of a rite," she explained. "We know there are some people who would like to use the word ordination -- we are not saying the candidates will be ordained -- but we are suggesting that we use words in the authorized rite that replicate the promises of ordination, and will in fact be words from the ordination rite."

The conference took up the ELM issue as part of its work following decisions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis. That assembly approved proposals that would create the possibility for Lutherans in committed, publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA clergy and professional lay leaders.

ELM pastors follow the same educational process and credentialing procedure that ELCA clergy follow. Many are serving congregations, anticipating the possibility of becoming ELCA pastors when the church changed its policies regarding professional service in the ELCA.

The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, recommended the draft proposal to his colleagues. He explained that the draft proposal needed to meet specific criteria. One was a desire for reconciliation with ELM pastors "who long to be fully recognized as ordained ministers of the ELCA." Another was that the draft proposal needed to be recognized by the Lutheran World Federation "as consistent with our understanding of ministry as we have understood it in the Lutheran confessions and history." Third, he said it was important that the draft proposal honor the ELCA's six full communion agreements.

The ELCA maintains full-communion agreements with the Episcopal Church, Moravian Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America, United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church. Full-communion agreements provide for mutual recognition of each other's ministries, provide for exchange of clergy in certain circumstances, and encourage sharing of ministries by the churches.

***

GJ - I am trying to figure out exactly what ELCA wants to do. They seem to want quasi-ordination because ordination would go against their concept of a second ordination. At the same time, they want to insert these people into the roster of ELCA with a patina of respectability. This will only increase the number of congregations exiting ELCA, which is good.

I call this Wauwatosa theology because the same justifications have been used to promote the ordination of male teachers and the crypto-ordination of women. Everyone is a minister in WELS. The Wauwatosa claim is - the Gospel creates its own forms.

An elderly layman put it this way: "This is an adiaphoron. That is an adiaphoron. Pretty soon everything is adiaphora." (Hint for Mequon students: adiaphora means "matters of indifference.") In two words, Wauwatosa means "Anything goes!"

WELS has a woman organizing and conducting a worship service at Latte Lutheran. The women "staff ministers" consecrated and distributed Holy Communion, yet the fake blogger howled that I was lying about women pastors in WELS.

The Shrinkers always howl when I hit the target. Of course, that is like hunting cows with a bazooka.

I think Jay Webber, MDiv, is on the ELS doctrine board. He warns people against paying attention to what I write. But the ELS and WELS could not even condemn the crypto-ordination of women. They only asked for a moratorium, a delay!

That is how ELCA worked out their issue. They backtracked and winked at what was going on in many different congregations, publicly stating they were "under discipline" while confessing later they were working with those congregations as equals all along. All the studies and statements were a delay until they could muster the votes needed. They also wanted a few elderly bishops out of the way.

Suspicions Confirmed - Satan at Work at Antichrist's Home Office

From Times Online

March 10, 2010

Chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth says Devil is in the Vatican

Richard Owen in Rome

(Giulio Napolitan/AFP/Getty Images)

Don Gabriele Amorth is the chief exorcist at the Vatican

Image :1 of 2

Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that "the Devil is at work inside the Vatican", according to the Holy See's chief exorcist.

Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican's chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as "cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon".

He added: "When one speaks of 'the smoke of Satan' [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia."

He claimed that another example of satanic behaviour was the Vatican "cover-up" over the deaths in 1998 of Alois Estermann, the then commander of the Swiss Guard, his wife and Corporal Cedric Tornay, a Swiss Guard, who were all found shot dead. "They covered up everything immediately," he said. "Here one sees the rot".

Related Links

• Abuse scandal may be Pope's defining moment

• Pope's brother: I hit choirboys

• Vatican secrecy ‘let abusers go unpunished’

A remarkably swift Vatican investigation concluded that Corporal Tornay had shot the commander and his wife and then turned his gun on himself after being passed over for a medal. However Tornay's relatives have challenged this. There have been unconfirmed reports of a homosexual background to the tragedy and the involvement of a fourth person who was never identfied.

Father Amorth, who has just published Memoirs of an Exorcist, a series of interviews with the Vatican journalist Marco Tosatti, said that the attempt on the life of Pope John Paul II in 1981 had been the work of the Devil, as had an incident last Christmas when a mentally disturbed woman threw herself at Pope Benedict XVI at the start of Midnight Mass, pulling him to the ground.

Father José Antonio Fortea Cucurull, a Rome-based exorcist, said that Father Amorth had "gone well beyond the evidence" in claiming that Satan had infiltrated the Vatican corridors.

"Cardinals might be better or worse, but all have upright intentions and seek the glory of God," he said. Some Vatican officials were more pious than others, "but from there to affirm that some cardinals are members of satanic sects is an unacceptable distance."

Father Amorth told La Repubblica that the devil was "pure spirit, invisible. But he manifests himself with blasphemies and afflictions in the person he possesses. He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, transform himself or appear to be agreeable. At times he makes fun of me."

He said it sometimes took six or seven of his assistants to to hold down a possessed person. Those possessed often yelled and screamed and spat out nails or pieces of glass, which he kept in a bag. "Anything can come out of their mouths – finger-length pieces of iron, but also rose petals."

He said that hoped every diocese would eventually have a resident exorcist. Under Church Canon Law any priest can perform exorcisms, but in practice they are carried out by a chosen few trained in the rites.

Father Amorth was ordained in 1954 and became an official exorcist in 1986. In the past he has suggested that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were possessed by the Devil. He was among Vatican officials who warned that J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels made a "false distinction between black and white magic".

He approves, however, of the 1973 film The Exorcist, which although "exaggerated" offered a "substantially exact" picture of possession.

In 2001 he objected to the introduction of a new version of the exorcism rite, complaining that it dropped centuries-old prayers and was "a blunt sword" about which exorcists themselves had not been consulted. The Vatican said later that he and other exorcists could continue to use the old ritual.

He is the president of honour of the Association of Exorcists.

Ask a Former Calvinist

Extra Nos

Lastly, Brett's point about Election and the quote of Romans 8:28-30 is relevant, of which I thought about this morning. If justification has already occurred for all, outside of faith as OJ teaches, then justification has occurred prior to calling. This contradicts the chain of redemption passage, to wit... whom he foreknew, he predestined, whom he predestined, he called, whom he called, he justified...etc.

If people are justified already, then the order says, whom he predestined, he justified, whom he justified he calls.

Have you studied Calvinism yourself? In Calvinist theology, justification or being saved(along with regeneration) occurs prior to faith. What Walther said - saved to believe.

This is why I respectfully say - as an ex-Calvinist, the way UOJ/OJ is articulated and what it implies is really operating on the paradigm of Calvinism.

Calvinists equate justification with atonement, seeing that justification is particular and since the two are the same, pulls the atonement on the justification side, hence, they conclude atonement must be limited.

UOJ does the same above, but since atonement is universal and since it is equal to justification pulls justification to the side of atonement and hence, justification is universal.

The point I make and why I am in consternation is that UOJ is doing the same effectively as what Calvinism is doing.

I left Calvinism! I do not want to go back to its way of thinking.

LPC

ELCA - The Only Religion Left Is Green

I was speaking to a Jewish engineer once, and he said, "The only religion left is green." That was 20 years ago.

He might have said, "The only Left religion is green."

ELCA has proven that concept.

Lent and Easter, according to ELCA, are all about the environment!

Welcome to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Lenten e-mail series, Living Earth: A 40-day Reflection on our Relationship with God's Creation. This year’s theme, “Joining the Hymn of All Creation” reminds us that our relationship with our neighbors, our world, and all creatures, great and small, is a gift of communion given us by God from creation’s beginning. In Genesis we hear the call to “tend and keep” the earth (Genesis 2:15), but in our sin we have turned our backs on the call to be God’s stewards and have rejected the gift of living as part of one whole, healthy earth community. As Lutheran ethicist Larry Rasmussen notes “[w]e are most ourselves when we are most intimate with the rivers, mountains, forests, meadows, sun, moon, stars, air, soil, rocks, otherkind, and humankind.”[1]

ELCA has been unusually concerned with otherkind lately. And yet they overlook the nature-based argument against their latest policy change. They should spend more time down to the farm.

Humpty Dumpty As UOJ Theologian

The UOJ Enthusiasts have taken their cue from this literary figure:
"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less."

See Extra Nos for evidence.

Mid-Week Lenten Service, Because We Are Not an Emerging Church, 7 PM Central

By Norma Boeckler


Mid-Week Lenten Vespers


Pastor Gregory L. Jackson

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bethany-lutheran-worship

Bethany Lutheran Worship, 7 PM Central

The Hymn # 436 The Lord’s My Shepherd 1.3
The Order of Vespers p. 41
The Psalmody Psalm 23 p. 128
The Lection The Passion History

The Sermon Hymn #149 Come to Calvary’s 1.5

The Sermon – Confession and Betrayal

The Prayers
The Lord’s Prayer
The Collect for Grace p. 45

The Hymn #161 Hosanna 1.8



Confession and Betrayal

In the lesson for tonight, from The Lutheran Hymnal’s Passion Harmony, we have the contrast of confession and betrayal.

Overall the disciples display their human weakness in being afraid, timid, silent, and ready to run. That should not be alien to us, because we all go through the same experiences in various ways, especially in relationship to the faith.

The disciples were not lost to Jesus. They were strengthened and sent out after His resurrection and ascension. There is a difference between them and Judas.

Judas lost his faith altogether. Various motivations are offered for Judas, including his desire to force a Messianic battle between Jesus and the Romans. His secondary name “Iscariot” may be a clue. There was also a “Simon the Zealot.” A lot is made of those associations with the future revolt against Rome.

Such ideas make for interesting books, but no enough is known to say the disciples included potential members of the Zealot revolt. We do know the Jews clobbered the Romans in one battle, and that made them think they could drive Rome out of Israel. The final result, about 40 years after the resurrection, was the destruction of Jerusalem, followed by another revolt and destruction many decades later (Bar Kochba Revolt).

The key spiritual issue is the loss of faith by Judas. He became an unbeliever and betrayed Christ for some silver coins. Ever since the name of Judas has been associated with betrayal of a friend. Everyone knows a Judas is a someone who will betray his own friend for money.

A Judas goat is the animal trained to lead sheep up to the conveyance that will take them to the slaughterhouse. The Judas goat walks up the ramp and down again. The sheep walk up and wonder what happened to their friend the goat.

The disciples were weak in their faith, but that is true of us all. Weak in faith does not mean lacking in virtue, lacking in merit. It means not trusting God in all things. Jesus said, more than once, “O you of little faith!” And yet, even a weak faith receives the blessings of the Gospel.

Someone who is weak in faith may be strengthened by many different trials.

The worst are those when a supposed friend is willing to be a Judas for a better position in the church. Or that person may gain the approval of others for behaving that way. There is a reason we are compared to sheep so many times in the Scriptures. “All we like sheep have gone astray, each to his own way.”

If we give up on the Gospel because of the weakness of man, we are even weaker than those who seem to be belly-servers (Romans 16:25) at the time. The Gospel has such a powerful effect that the moment it takes root and provides a blessing to people, Satan rushes in to exterminate it and drive the flock away.

Wolves from the outside and the inside scatter and devour the flock. But there are remedies.

Church leaders are often wolves rather than shepherds. Their job is to drive the predators away from the flock and feed the flock with the Word. The Gospel Promises are the green pastures (Psalm 23) but the Word is also a sword and shield, protection against the evil foe.

Lupine leaders do not do their jobs. Oddly enough, the big, old, mainline churches call their leaders “bishop,” a good title, and fit them with a shepherd’s crook, a perfectly good symbol of the office. They parade as overseers (bishop in Greek) and shepherds (pastor in Latin) but they betray Christ in their daily conduct.

The ELCA and Episcopal bishops are busy suing their own brothers in the ministry, although some Episcopal bishops are willing to risk everything and leave their apostate group. No serving ELCA bishop has done this, so far.

The betrayal of those people over there should be no comfort to us over here. The same tendencies are found everywhere.

When people trust in gimmicks rather than the Gospel, is that not also a betrayal like that of Judas? When they silence anyone who questions their betrayal, is that any different from the leaders who shouted “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!”?

There is an enormous gap between being weak in faith and showing our sinful timidity and being bold in denial of the truth. Those who deny the Gospel even while they claim the Gospel, are always bold, proud, stubborn, and unwilling to bend.

The weak in faith “tremble at God’s Word” instead of the bishop’s crook. They know their shortcomings and confess them. They ask for guidance. They seek and find comfort in the Word of God and His promise of forgiveness in Christ.

Jesus came to seek the lost, to heal the wounded, to lead His flock, those who hear His voice and rejoice at its sound. He knows His own and they know Him. He leads them to the paths of righteousness, through faith in Him.