One of My Favorite Photos - From 41 Years Ago Today

The crown is a Swedish tradition. Augustana College had a gold and a silver crown for brides to wear.
They were loaned - not given away.
Mrs. Ichabod (nee Christina Jackson, nee Christina Ellenberger).

Fuller and Missional Questions from 29a

Be sure to read about Fuller Seminary here.

Becoming Missional is a Good Thing. The old ways are bad, so the goal is BM.

Becoming Missional is a blog to read to find what is hotter than Georgia asphalt in BM-land.

BMs are considered good for the visible church, because everyone is afraid of their church dying. That is why WELS Pastor Tim Glende plagiarizes Groeschel each week.

BMs can be identified by their sloppy clothes in church, their spikey hair, their hatred of the liturgy and the confessions.

BM heroes are Ed Stetzer, Andy Stanley, Mark Driscoll, and Leonard Sweet. There are more. They all have that crazed, just-met-Buddha-on-my-way-down-the-mountain look.

I would ask Don Patterson about the best BMs in his experience. He took a bunch of church workers to the Exponential Conference in Orlando. That would be the best collection of BMs in one place.

Steljes went there and got his spikey hair-do after that. I was going to do a Photoshop before and after, but there is a captivating show on QVC I would rather watch.

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Ed Stetzer - Ed has planted churches in New York, Pennsylvania, and Georgia and transitioned declining churches in Indiana and Georgia. He has trained pastors and church planters on five continents, and holds two masters degrees and two doctorates. He has written dozens of articles and books, including Planting New Churches in a Postmodern Age, Perimeters of Light: Biblical Boundaries for the Emerging Church (with Elmer Towns), Strategic Outreach (with David Putman), Planting Missional Churches, Comeback Churches, and most recently Lost and Found: The Younger Unchurched and the Churches that Reach Them (with Richie Stanley and Jason Hayes). Ed served for three years as a seminary professor at the Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and has taught as (sic) fifteen other seminaries. He is currently the President ofLifeway Research and Lifeway's Missiologist in Residence.

Seminary curriculum: Fuller Theological Seminary « Churchmouse Campanologist

Seminary curriculum: Fuller Theological Seminary « Churchmouse Campanologist

Seminary curriculum: Fuller Theological Seminary

November 22, 2010 in Evangelical, pastor, Protestant | Tags: emergent church,Evangelical, Fuller Theological Seminary, pastor, Protestant, Rick Warren, seminary curriculum

So far in the series, we have examined an Episcopal seminary, Virginia Theological Seminary and Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary.

Today, we look at an Evangelical institution,Fuller Theological Seminary, which has influenced not only non-denominational churches but aspects of mainline Protestantism as well.

Fuller’s main campus is located in Pasadena, California.  Undoubtedly, its location makes it a magnet for seminary students from all over the world who wish to study near iconic Los Angeles.  For Americans who wish to stay closer to home, Fuller has regional campuses in several other locations in the western US and Texas.

Charles E Fuller (1887-1968) was a native of Los Angeles and spent his life in southern California.  He was a graduate of Pomona College then worked in the fruit packing industry.  He then attended the Bible Institute of Los Angeles (now known by its acronym, Biola) and dedicated his life to the ministry.  He rejected Presbyterianism as did Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  Fuller became a Baptist minister in 1925.  In 1937, he began his 30-year radio ministry, The Old Fashioned Revival Hour, on the Mutual Broadcasting System initially, followed by the ABC Radio Network.  It was broadcast nationwide.  Jack Chick, of the cartoon Gospel tracts, says he was saved while he was listening to the programme in 1948.

The previous year, Fuller had founded his eponymous seminary in partnership with Harold Ockenga, who was the pastor of Park Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts.  His dream was to make it a ‘Caltech of the evangelical world’.  The idea was to reform American fundamentalism, turning it into what became known as neo-fundamentalism in the 1950s.

Today, its famous alumni include Rick (The Purpose-Driven Life) Warren, Rob (Sex God) Bell, John (The Me I Want to Be) Ortberg, Robert A Schuller (son of the Crystal Cathedral founder) and Bill Bright (founder of Campus Crusade for Christ).  The seminary is now known for advancing the emergent church, missiology, spiritual formation and the church growth movement.  These affect Lutheran, Anglican and Calvinist churches alike.

Past faculty members whose names you might recognise include C Peter Wagner (church growth proponent), Richard J Foster (Quaker mystic) and John Wimber (founder of the charismatic Vineyard Movement and former director of the Charles E Fuller Institute of Evangelism and Church Growth).

Faculty come from all continents and denominations.  Richard J Mouw has served as Fuller’s President since 1993.  He is also Professor of Christian Philosophy.  Coming from a Reformed background, he has a particular interest in the Calvinist concept of common grace (a providential modicum of goodness in mankind which holds society together).  He is also committed to social justice and ecumenism.

Overall impression of Fuller Theological Seminary: Be careful out there.  Between church growth, the emergents, the missiological, the ecumenists and the mystics, these guys have a lot of influence.  Their charm attracts fans from outside the evangelical world and could well be coming to a church near you, if not already.  There is no doubt that Fuller prepares its  students well.  Too well, perhaps.  Too many people from mainstream denominations have been taken in by honeyed words, new concepts and practices that go beyond or against what Scripture says.  I would be surprised if today’s Fuller is quite what its founder had in mind.

Verdict: Be Berean and test against the Bible — your soul might be at risk.

Women candidates for ordination: Yes

Pietism / Healthism index: Nothing about tobacco but a bit of a lecture aboutalcohol

Notre Dame Football Scandal Cover-Up:Sounds Familiar To WELS, LCMS, ELS, ELCA

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/abbott/101122

November 22, 2010

Is another Notre Dame scandal brewing?

By Matt C. Abbott

A female student who attended St. Mary's College committed suicide after she was allegedly sexually attacked by one of Notre Dame's football players — and the university has seemingly swept it under the rug — according to a Nov. 21 story in the Chicago Tribune.

Click here to read the story.

Noted Catholic scholar Charles E. Rice, professor emeritus at Notre Dame Law School, has issued the following statement (slightly edited) in response to the Tribune story and the scandalous actions of Notre Dame's president, Father John Jenkins, in recent times:

Notre Dame is obliged to report any serious accusation of sexual assault, or other on-campus crime, to the county police and prosecutor. We await further revelation of facts as to whether this obligation was fulfilled in this newly-disclosed case of Elizabeth Seeberg. One gets the impression, however, that little confidence can be reposed in the Notre Dame administration to fulfill its obligation of simple candor in prosecutorial matters. Consider, for example, the continuing prosecution of the ND88, the pro-life protestors who, on the complaint of Notre Dame, were arrested at the graduation events of 2009 at which President Obama received Notre Dame's highest honor. The criminal prosecution of those ND88 continues because Notre Dame refuses to request that it be discontinued. Father John Jenkins, Notre Dame's president, claims that Notre Dame cannot ask the prosecutor to dismiss the charges because the university treats all demonstrators equally. William Dempsey, president of the Sycamore Trust, demonstrated in extensive correspondence with Father Jenkins and Dennis Brown, his spokesperson, in February and March 2010, that Notre Dame had declined to prosecute gay-rights and anti-ROTC demonstrators as recently as 2007 and there were no contrary examples up to the time of the Obama commencement. Despite the careful and irrefutable demonstration to Father Jenkins by Mr. Dempsey of the non-prosecution of those gay-rights and anti-ROTC demonstrators, Father Jenkins later restated forcefully on April 30, 2010, that 'the [u]niversity cannot have one set of rules for causes we oppose, and another more lenient set of rules for causes we support. We have one consistent set of rules for demonstrations on campus — no matter what the cause.' That statement is untrue. And, unless he has the excuse of delusion, Father Jenkins had to know it was untrue. If we are dealing with a knowingly and unequivocally false statement by Notre Dame's president on a subject seriously affecting Notre Dame, that is an extremely grave matter for which resignation or dismissal is the only remedy. Notre Dame, in reliance on the patently false claim that it treats all demonstrators equally, continues to subject the ND88 to legal prosecution and serious costs that it never imposed on politically correct gay-rights and anti-ROTC demonstrators. There was a day when a Notre Dame administrator's word could be taken to the bank. But that was 'back in the day.' This is, today, a university governed by academic ruling class 'wannabes' who have made political correctness, in dominant respects, the official religion of Notre Dame. So: Pray for Elizabeth Seeberg and her family, as well as her alleged assailant, as we ought to pray for Declan Sullivan, another victim of university fault, and for his family. Pray for the ND88, who deserve the respect — rather than the prosecution — of the university. Pray for Notre Dame and its administrators. And, while you're at it, pray for our country.

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http://bleacherreport.com/tb/b79Dw

A 19-year-old Northbrook woman died of an apparent suicide nine days after telling University of Notre Dame police that she had been sexually attacked by a football player in a dorm room, the Tribune has learned.

Elizabeth "Lizzy" Seeberg, a freshman at neighboring St. Mary's College who had battled depression, apparently overdosed on prescription medication in her own room during the third week of classes in September. The player, meanwhile, has remained on the field.

More than two months later, Notre Dame refuses to publicly acknowledge the case, and what actions university officials have taken to investigate her allegation remain largely unknown.

Campus authorities did not tell the St. Joseph County Police Department investigating Seeberg's death about her report of a sexual attack, county officials said. Nor did they refer the case to the county's special victims unit, which was established to handle sex offenses, according to prosecutors.

WELS Homosexual Videos Are OK, But Ordination Is a Problem

The history of the Lutheran church in America is long and tangled. Starting before the American Revolution, Lutheran immigrants brought their faith to these shores and sought out other Lutherans to form synods and associations of pastors and congregations. From the start, however, there was never a single Lutheran church body in America. Germans, Swedes, and Norwegians sought out others who shared their language or place of origin in Europe. Other groupings were shaped by the theology and practices they brought with them. There were Lutheran pietists, Old Lutherans, True Lutherans, and Lutherans who had kept the name but little else. As the years passed, there were mergers and splits, fellowship relationships declared and terminated.

A diagram illustrating the history of the various Lutheran bodies in the United States over the years contains dozens of alphabet-soup names, merging and diverging lines, and numerous explanatory footnotes. It nearly makes your head spin just looking at it.

Last August, a new Lutheran church body was added to the list. Responding to the decision of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to permit practicing homosexuals to serve as pastors, a significant number of ELCA congregations voted to leave their church body and establish a new Lutheran denomination called the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). The NALC views itself as being in the "center" of American Lutheranism. It retains, however, most of the beliefs and practices of the ELCA, except for ordaining homosexual pastors.


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GJ - But WELS is the ONLY college in the ELCA, LCMS, ELS, etc with a homosexual video - not to mention a special Facebook page promoting "Party in the MLC."


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Martin Luther College's proud contribution to gay videos can be found on various homosexual websites around the planet.

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "The history of the Lutheran church in America is l...":

Concerning the attraction of Byzantium and Rome to those who (would) go native and semi-pope and pope, it's interesting that one gay priest said that the smells and bells, gold leaf and colorful vestments enthralled him since childhood and during his career. Perhaps that's an unexplored reason that some people go high church, or wear colorful and gaudy vestments, and even transition out of Protestantism to Orthodoxy and Catholicism:

Interview With Gay Theologian David Berger: 'A Large Proportion of Catholic Clerics and Trainee Priests Are Homosexual', 22 Nov 2010

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,730520-2,00.html

excerpts: ...the church never lost its attraction for me. The Tridentine Mass was like a gateway drug for me. When I was 17, I was with the Pius Brothers in Lower Bavaria. What I saw there was a fascinatingly aesthetic baroque dream of leaf gold and Brussels Bobbin lace. I couldn't get away from it. It only became clear to me later what I had got involved with, and the dream turned more and more into a nightmare.

...Through my enthusiasm for the traditional mass and for conservative theology

Berger: Many gays are attracted by the clear hierarchies of the male world of Catholic rituals. Among clerics I discovered extremely effeminate behavior of the sort I knew well from certain gay scenes. People give each other women's names and attach very high importance to clerical robes in all colors. Just think of the nicknames Bishop Walter Mixa (who recently stepped down amid accusations of violence and financial irregularities) and his housemaster friend gave each other: "Hasi," or "bunny," and "Monsi," short for monsignore.

Berger: I hope that the church will at last confront the issue of homophobia. It must recognize that a large proportion of the Catholic clerics and trainee priests in Europe and the United States are homosexual.

Ichabod; The Glory has Departed…But The Show Must Go on. « Acidri's Blog®

Ichabod; The Glory has Departed…But The Show Must Go on. « Acidri's Blog®

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GJ - The Calvinists get it, but the "conservative" Lutherans do not.

How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Fuller?
How ya gonna keep 'em away from Driscoll
Jazzin around and paintin' the town
How ya gonna keep 'em away from harm, that's a mystery
They'll never want to see a B O C
And who the deuce can parleyvous Lenski?
How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm
After they've seen Fuller?

Quotations from Ichabod: the Glory has Departed « The New Anti-Jacobin

Grr-r-r-r-r-r.
Baaaaah.


Quotations from Ichabod: the Glory has Departed « The New Anti-Jacobin: "Quotations from Ichabod: the Glory has Departed
From Pastor Gregory Jackson’s Web Journal, Ichabod : the glory has departed:

A Pastor Smites Wolves

“It is not enough that we preach correctly, which the hireling can also do; but we must watch over the sheep, that the wolves, false teachers, may not break in, and we must contend for the sheep against the wolves, with the Word of God, even to the sacrifice of our lives. Such are good shepherds, of whom few are found.”

~~Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 34. Second Sunday after Easter. John 10:11-16.

Spineless Conservative Pastors Are Wolves

“For nothing can feed or give life to the soul, which is not the doctrine of Christ. Although the hireling does not himself slay and destroy, he does not restrain the wolf. Therefore, because you neither point out nor teach this shepherd, you shall not and ought not to be heard, but you shall be shunned as a wolf.”

~~Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed., John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983, III, p. 58f. Second Sunday after Easter. John 10:11-16."

False Teachers and the Colored Filter

“They [the false teachers] fared like a man who looks through a colored glass. Put before such a man whatever color you please, he sees no other color than that of the glass. The fault is not that the right color is not put before him but that his glass is colored differently, as the word of Isaiah 6:9 puts it: You will see, he says, and yet you will not see it.”

~~Martin Luther, What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols.,
ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, II, p. 644. Isaiah 6:9.

Adiaphora and Confessional Crisis

“We believe, teach, and confess that at a time of confession, as when enemies of the Word of God desire to suppress the pure doctrine of the holy Gospel, the entire community of God, yes, every individual Christian, and especially the ministers of the Word as the leaders of the community of God are obligated to confess openly, not only by words but also through their deeds and actions, the true doctrine and all that pertains to it, according to the Word of God. In such a case we should not yield to adversaries even in matters of indifference, nor should we tolerate the imposition of such ceremonies on us by adversaries in order to undermine the genuine worship of God and to introduce and confirm their idolatry by force or chicanery. It is written, ‘For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.’ (Galatians 5:1).”

~~Formula of Concord, Solid Declaration, Article X, 10-11, The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1983, p. 612. Galatians 5:1.

Luther and Fellowship

“Dr. Luther, who understood the true intention of the Augsburg Confession better than any one else, remained by it steadfastly and defended it constantly until he died. Shortly before his death, in his last confession, he repeated his faith in this article with great fervor and wrote as follows: ‘I reckon them all as belonging together (that is, as Sacramentarians and enthusiasts), for that is what they are who will not believe that the Lord’s bread in the Supper is his true, natural body, which the godless or Judas receive orally as well as St Peter and all the saints. Whoever, I say, will not believe this, will please let me alone and expect no fellowship from me. This is final.” [WA 54:155, 156]

~~Formula of Concord, Epitome, Article VII, Lord’s Supper, 33, The Book of Concord, ed. Theodore G. Tappert, Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1959, p. 575.

Spoiling the Egyptian Garbage

“Is it possible that one who has such models as Luther, Walther, Stoeckhardt, Lochner, Sieck, C. C. Schmidt, and Wessel, etc., etc., should leave these rich pastures to feed upon such garbage heaps as those from whom I have quoted?”

~~Martin S. Sommer, Concordia Pulpit for 1932, St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1931, p. viii.

“It is the purpose of this volume to aid in displacing books of Reformed preachers. We would encourage the cultivation of distinctly Lutheran preaching. Therefore, we now appeal to our brethren always to consult Luther when preparing to preach. Quo propior Luthero, eo melior theologus! Let us who are called Lutheran preachers be sure that in every one of our sermons we preach God’s Word and Luther’s doctrine pure. It is that preaching which God demands of us, 1 Peter 4:11. It was that preaching which conquered the Roman Goliath, Revelation 12:11. By that preaching we shall truly build the walls of Zion, not with hay, straw, and stubble, but with such stones as all the powers of hell shall never overthrow, Luke 21:15.”

~~Martin S. Sommer, Concordia Pulpit for 1932, St. Louis:
Concordia Publishing House, 1931, p. ix.

Proper Use of Love

“In like manner we will also do to our princes and priests; when they attack our manner of life, we should suffer it and show love for hatred, good for evil; but when they attack our doctrine, God’s honor is attacked, then love and patience should cease and we should not keep silent, but also say: I honor my Father, and you dishonor me; yet I do not inquire whether you dishonor me, for I do not seek my own honor.”

~~Martin Luther, Sermons of Martin Luther, 8 vols., ed.,
John Nicholas Lenker, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1983.