ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Cold Snaps and Snow Are a Bonus for Bird Watchers
My wife has noticed a resemblance.
Sassy and I do bird-feeding chores every day now. First of all, we want to keep the corn feeder full for Mr. Squirrel and his extended family. Watching them swirl around the tree trunk for the chance to eat is worth the effort.
Second, we take the mixed seed bag around to all the feeding areas. Outside the garage is one zone. The front door planter is another one. Mixed seed is not a bargain, so I am scattering it where birds can pick out what they want. Some goes among the dry rocks. Several handfuls are thrown in the planter. I also have very cheap feeder up front which tiny birds use because the perch fell off into the holly bushes. I am not looking for that perch until I have a Hazmat suit on.
The bedroom window sill is quite low, but surrounded by holly bushes. The birds love all the protection they have. Cardinals enjoy the window sill and also the main feeder.
We have chickadees, cardinals, woodpeckers, red polls, titmice, and nuthatches feeding. Blue jays have been absent, but they are plentiful in the summer.
The result of spending a little money and a little time is a constant flow of birds around the house. The front of our home looks like O'Hare Airport during fair weather.
Birds will stay under cover during a storm but feed immediately before and after the low pressure zone moves through. We have no snow or ice, so the larvae are still easily accessed on trees and among bushes. However, cold weather requires more fuel, so birds are happy to have extra food to supplement their diet.
When one of the worst storms was bearing down on Minnesota, the weather was unusually warm, 60 degree weather. Hunters noticed enormous flocks of birds heading away from it. Many men were trapped in the woods because they did not realize the birds were fleeing a deadly blizzard. Here is the video about the Armistice Day Blizzard, 1940. Around 50 died from the sudden weather change.
even though she is missing one hind leg.
Photo by Norma Boeckler
A good way to handle suet, if you don't like the greasy feel, is to freeze it in your freezer before handling it, or leave it outside when it's cold. If you want chunks for a tray, slice it into cubes before freezing it, which can be done without touching it since it grips whatever it lies on well enough to stay put. I always have a full suet cage because I insert chunks where the birds have eaten. This only became an issue lately since 3 species of woodpeckers have had it in for my suet: downy, hairy and red-bellied woodpecker, named for the light pink hue on its belly. I think the names are quite inaccurate for all these woodpeckers since none of them are very downy, hairy or red-bellied! It's similar to how the red-throated finch is called a purple finch. Go figure!:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Finch
Synod Planners Must Have Designed the Minneapolois Deflatable Stadium
Which stadium is subjected to the most hostile weather? Minneapolis!
Which one has a balloon for a roof? Not just any balloon, but a very expensive balloon.
Watch it collapse again here.
Groundkeepers were going to shovel away the snow before it accumulated. That is like melting down an iceberg with a hair dryer. The blizzard sent them empty away.
"The Metrodome roof has previously deflated in 1981, 1982 and 1983, each time due to tears caused by heavy snow."
"Hey boss, I have a great marketing idea. We host the Snow Bowl this year."
ELCA and the Syn Conference Pietists Agree
On Justification without Faith.
UOJ Gone Wild
Security! Security!"
Everyone is piling on the ELCA, suddenly discovering that the Lavender Mafia was running things.
ELCA teaches forgiveness without faith. So does Missouri, WELS, and the rest. The only difference is where they are on the Pietism time-line. ELCA is just a little more advanced and obvious, but they have not published a Party in the Fire Island Pines video. In that respect they are a little behind WELS.
Some of us doing research on UOJ wondered what happened to Knapp's theology. That is quite clear. He was a mainline theologian for America, thanks to the Woods double-justification translation. Tholuck dropped the second justification, SJ, and became an open Universalist. The mainline groups did the same thing. They all dropped justification by faith, so that Gospel means universal absolution for them.
The Syn Conference is on the Pietism apostasy train, just a little farther behind, as Sasse observed a long time ago. UOJ is another name for ELCA's Gospel reductionism. Everyone is forgiven, so there are no issues.
WELS can be ecumenical with any group because everyone is forgiven without faith. When challenged, they rail against faith the same way ELCA raves against anyone dissenting from their program.
In spite of all their yakking about which synod is better, they all work with ELCA through Thrivent and follow ELCA's agenda. The reason is that they agree about doctrine. They are all apostates together.
The synod leaders are united in being greedy for money, so the lowest common denominator rules. They are not offended that Thrivent (a Lutheran benevolence society) gives away millions to Habitat for Humanity. The idea of a mutual benevolence society is to return money to members (Lutherans) in exchange for tax benefits from the government. Thrivent has turned Lutheran money into a goldmine for Habitat for Humanity and the Salvation Army.
For all those reasons, the Lutheran sects are broke and failing. They rob the seminarians, sending them into debt prison for the lottery chance of winning a call. (Your chances are doubled if you do post-grad work at Fuller!) The so-called benevolence money goes toward synod attorneys, which are either defending legitimate lawsuits against them or suing congregations to steal their property.
I love you, Evangelical Covenant* Methodist Disciples-of-Christ Craig.
Say hello to Ski and Glende for me."
*The E. Convenant Church began in Lutheran Pietism.
Confessions in the Syn Conference Sects - Missing in Action
A family of children raised in WELS schools offered this opinion about the Book of Concord - "Could that be a manual for the Concord jet?"
Various reports from around WELS, the CLC, the Little Sect, and Missouri tell me the same thing - The Book of Concord is a no-show in all doctrinal discussions. The ruling norm (norma normans) is not the Word of God but the publications of the Synodical Conference. The ruled norm (norma normata) should be the Book of Concord, but it is judged irrelevant and boring. Lutheran pastors are too lazy and poorly trained to teach the Book of Concord and use it in sermon preparation.
Now that the CLC (sic) has weighed in on UOJ, we can see that 100% of Lutheran organizations have turned against Luther and the Book of Concord. The recent eructations of UOJ tell me that the guardians of heresy are growing frantic that their foundational error is under assault.
- Texas WELS had a UOJ conference.
- The Wisconsin Sect has published more UOJ baloney recently, resurrecting Church Growth leader Wayne Mueller to deliver another universal absolution article in FICKLE.
- WELS Meditations had another UOJ post, disguised as Justification by Faith.
- The WELS Intrepids (sic) thought they could balance on the Third Rail, and succeeded in admitting there was an issue. Given the Wisconsin propensity for lying and covering up, that was a real break-through.
- LCMS SP Harrison's new translation work suggests that the quest for unity will begin and end with some 19th century Midwestern Pietists.
Introduction - The Church of the Lutheran Confession - On UOJ
The Church of the Lutheran Confession (sic) is even worse than WELS in its doctrinal discernment. Proof comes from the following essay.
The opening salvo on Romans 5:12ff. takes issue with Luther--see this post--without bothering to identify the conflict. Stranger than that, Blank uses clear justification by faith passages to defend his initial assertion about universal forgiveness without faith.
The underlying theme, popping up like a muskrat in a creek, diminishes faith. Blank finds faith as number three on a list, so the Book of Concord is another UOJ document.
Fulminating UOJ advocates concede three essentials:
- Justification in the New Testament means justification by faith - exclusively.
- The Book of Concord only teaches justification by faith.
- General Justification, Objective Justification, and Universal Objective Justification are terms that came up late in the life of Lutheranism.
The Blank essay is nonsense, from beginning to end, revealing no grasp of the Holy Spirit working through the Word to convey God's grace to us.
CLC UOJ Essay - Pages 1-4.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)