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.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
What Sasse Says: A Confession Is Nothing, Unless It Is Confessed
What Sasse Says: A Confession Is Nothing, Unless It Is Confessed
A Confession Is Nothing, Unless It Is Confessed
… In every church there can be and exists error, and even heretical opinions may occur. Every church is confronted with the problem how to deal in an evangelical way with such errors. What matters is, whether or not a church is prepared to maintain its doctrinal standard, whether it regards its confession as a real confession, and not only as a statute valid before men. I can assert a confession only if I believe it. …Training future pastors belongs to the highest ecclesiastical functions. The confessional obligation of the faculty of St. Louis is obviously different from that of Upsala where the chair of church history was occupied by a Methodist, to take only this example. Here lies for me the root of all differences between Missouri and the LWF churches. For you a confession is nothing, unless it is confessed…
Hermann Sasse, in a letter to Dr John W. Behnken, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, March 1, 1958.
HT Rev. Matthew Harrison
http://mercyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/12/sasse-to-behnken-for-you-confession-is.html
Hermann Sasse, in a letter to Dr John W. Behnken, President of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, March 1, 1958.
HT Rev. Matthew Harrison
http://mercyjourney.blogspot.com/2010/12/sasse-to-behnken-for-you-confession-is.html
Push Back Means Blow Back, Too
The ELCA bishop's office got their version from Faith in Moline, purely by mistake. They were not amused.
rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Controlling the Masses with Biblical Deception":
The result of WELS push-back has been some blow-back. Many in the WELS will not play this game of follow the leader. They have figured out that talking to the leaders first about public sin, i.e. false doctrine, is an exercise in futility.
They will either remain silent, grumble amongst themselves, or seek another outlet, like Ichabod. The lack of accountability and the implied infallibility of WELS leadership drives many in the WELS bonkers. I have witnessed much better ethics in the secular workplace. At my employer, we have access to a third party whistle blower for extreme cases of ethical violations. We can remain anonymous to all parties involved, without rear of retribution. Ichabod is our third whistle blower. When we go public here at Ichabod, we can say - "come and go after us now, for we now have a multitude of witnesses".
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GJ - Notice that Glende continues to blog "anonymously" while using the 8 and 18 bait and switch.
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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Push Back Means Blow Back, Too":
They want to close the schools to get rid of our doctrine
Justification, the central article of Christ's doctrine, the one doctrine which confessed correctly makes a person a Christian and condemns a person if confessed incorrectly, has been perverted within all Lutheran synods as their official teaching promotes Universal Objective Justification. The doctrine is already gone. The majority of the few left, who do reject UOJ and confess Justification by Faith Alone as Scripture clearly teaches and the Book of Concord correctly explain and confirm, are too timid to openly defend Christ's doctrine and stand firmly and publicly for the Truth of God's Word.
The New Age Emergent apostates don't need to close the schools to get rid of unwanted doctrine. They need to close the schools to funnel the available money to further their aims at boiling the frog and ushering in the New Age of Ecumenical cooperation under the Antichrist. The laity are financing this right now at the expense of their spiritual wellfare and that of their children.
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bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Push Back Means Blow Back, Too":
Ichabod is the Crime Stoppers of the WELS. By the way, other organizations have an independent judiciary, ombudsman, comptrollers, inspector generals, the RCC Office of the Inquisition, etc., who are are supposed act somewhat independently, i.e., serving the interests of the cause or justice rather than serving the interests of the hierarchy. The WELS has, outside its hierarchy, only the 8 & 18 switch and Ichabod:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ombudsman
http://www.csiworld.org/
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GJ - Who disciplines the Doctrinal Pussycat in WELS? The Circuit Pussycats do - and the DPs appoint them. I have seen several cases where the CP is on the staff of the DP's congregation. What are the chances that any CP is going to do anything about the DP?
John Seifert was a CP when he urged me to press charges against DP Robert Mueller. He thought it was worthwhile, as long as someone else did it. However, he made sure Mueller and Kuske knew he was on their side. But Seifert stepped onto the throne when Mueller decided to leave the office and country for a year.
The political are rewarded for being political.
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WELS church lady has left a new comment on your post "Push Back Means Blow Back, Too":
Let me tell you something! Do NOT listen to Glende or ANY of the Church And Change leadership. These guys worship mammon and not the Risen Savior who lived a perfect life. There is NO salvation outside of Jesus Christ. The devil and the grand architect cannot save you from your sins. Mark Jeske is just another TV preacher. Her is not, IS NOT our spokesman for Confessional Lutheranism. Jeske's buddy Bruce Eberle is a right-wing money producer for his Washington guru friends. They want to close the schools to get rid of our doctrine. There is no money??? Hey, these cats are gazillionaires! They got more money than you can shake a stick at. The interreligious people want to get rid of closed communion. Remember, Jeske mocked closed communion in the Concordia Mequon speech. Long story short, these guys are dangerous. I am leaving out a WHOLE lot. It will have to be continued. You have to pray for those people.
In Christ,
from WELS church lady
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GJ - The DPs and SP Schroeder look past the sins of Jeske and see instead the glorious moneybags of the Daddy Warbucks.
Kelmed from Pastor Tim Glende's Anonymous Blog
The Groeschel plagiarizer even kelmed the name of my blog.
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GJ - This is too comical for words. No wonder an attorney in his congregation had to write an enormous letter detailing all the wrongs done by Glende as an inept, bullying and plagiarizing false teacher.
This is the beginning of the letter about Glende's "stewardship of the mysteries of God." He has not been found faithful.
Mrs. Ichabod was on the phone with a friend when I went out to feed the birds with Sassy, the three-legged wonder dog. I heard her say, "St. Francis is feeding the birds." I came back in and created a Photoshop, which amused people with a sense of humor.
The attorney's letter about Glende had no effect. WELS is adept at one thing - letting things get worse and worse. Apparently SP Schroeder's secretive emails assure people he is working on it - the 30 year plan.
Meanwhile, Church and Change continues to run the synod. Fox Valley may be the sewer of WELS, but the sewer is the font of every blessing. Church and Change founder Steve Witte (Gordon Conwell drive-by D.Min.) is now the president of the portable Asian seminary while Changer John Lawrenz advises him.
PS - Good news, Tim. You now have about 2,000 page reads today, about 100 times your normal rate. I know you love Twitter, so I tweeted the page, too.
This reads like your swan song, Tim. Most pastors cannot follow someone who was there forever (Ron Ash) and is still hanging around.
We haven't commented on this blog for some time because Greg Jackson continues to spew the same old slander on "Ichabod, the Glory Has Departed." If you dig deep enough through the garbage, you can find a gem of truth every now and then. For example, this "independent Lutheran pastor," who really is not a pastor at all because he has no call, reveals what he really thinks of himself by posting this picture of St. Gregory of Arkansas.
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GJ - This is too comical for words. No wonder an attorney in his congregation had to write an enormous letter detailing all the wrongs done by Glende as an inept, bullying and plagiarizing false teacher.
This is the beginning of the letter about Glende's "stewardship of the mysteries of God." He has not been found faithful.
Mrs. Ichabod was on the phone with a friend when I went out to feed the birds with Sassy, the three-legged wonder dog. I heard her say, "St. Francis is feeding the birds." I came back in and created a Photoshop, which amused people with a sense of humor.
The attorney's letter about Glende had no effect. WELS is adept at one thing - letting things get worse and worse. Apparently SP Schroeder's secretive emails assure people he is working on it - the 30 year plan.
Meanwhile, Church and Change continues to run the synod. Fox Valley may be the sewer of WELS, but the sewer is the font of every blessing. Church and Change founder Steve Witte (Gordon Conwell drive-by D.Min.) is now the president of the portable Asian seminary while Changer John Lawrenz advises him.
PS - Good news, Tim. You now have about 2,000 page reads today, about 100 times your normal rate. I know you love Twitter, so I tweeted the page, too.
This reads like your swan song, Tim. Most pastors cannot follow someone who was there forever (Ron Ash) and is still hanging around.
Controlling the Masses with Biblical Deception
and they opened another can of 8th Commandment on me.
And Matthew 18."
As all the readers know, WELS has no trouble with criminal defamation. The synod leaders and pastors practice it all the time. They do not even answer when addressed privately and personally. They are immune from the Eighth Commandment and do not need to respond to Matthew 18, because they are WELS.
The corporate world calls this push-back. If someone thinks a mistake has been made, the response is to find out what is wrong with the whistle-blower. A clever switch is made. "Yes, of course you are right about this concern, but you have gone about it the wrong way." Someone who persists will discover going about it the wrong way is a felony while the mistake was a misdemeanor - if that. Fortunately there are procedures in the secular world that limit the harm done, unlike church organizations.
For instance, push-back with plagiarism can mean, "How do you know?" and "Do you have proof?" and "Do you have copies of the proof with you?" Push-back can also involve, "She is close to graduation," and "She has connections with the staff."
If pursued in a court case, where a student sues for his diploma, in spite of his blatant plagiarism, the issue of intent is raised. There is no way to prove the individual intended to plagiarize (so they claim). I had one of those rare cases, someone who just did not know, due to lazy public school teachers. I worked with her for five weeks, and she was able to pass a writing course and learn how to avoid plagiarism.
Cheating is so prevalent that every assignment submitted (both schools) must be run through a nifty plagiarism checker. A 20% score is the max, but only if it includes properly cited sources. I have seen 83% scores, meaning the student actually added a few words to what was copied verbatim. Wikipedia is a favorite source. Sometimes the Wiki codes (citation needed) are left in the copied material.
Since deliberate plagiarists are liars and cheats, they rail against anyone who catches them in the act. One woman said angrily, "I changed a few words." Another one said, "I did not know it was wrong. I changed the order of the quotations." So I said, "Then you knew it was wrong, because you were trying to hide the evidence." One man came up with 12 very intellectual points on one slide, 12 parallel points on the next slide. Surprise, they were right off the Net. They do not just fuss and fume - they make up stories too. (Imagine that, WELS victims!) My favorite invented story was having the class watch a pro basketball game from the Net - for four hours. Two witnesses shot that one to pieces, because normal organizational structure allows for the facts being heard.
That does not happen in a crooked, corrupt, false-teaching synod.
The plagiarists in WELS are rewarded with multiple calls and serve as featured speakers at synodical events.
I have seen the latest examples of WELS push-back. One blogger lost all his sources. Another one confessed that he did not go to the false teacher first, although many people had already done that, without any result. End of blog number two. The Intrepids were warned, "You have questioned the clear teaching of the synod."
Ski does his own push-back. He called up one layman and pressured him for daring to disagree with his copied Groeschel false doctrine. WELS Pastor Tim Glende published a number of anonymous blogs, but he stopped when identified. "A watched man watches himself."
Anyone who knows the Book of Concord realizes that WELS/LCMS/ELS leaders are lying when they cry "Eighth Commandment!" about rebuking false doctrine. According to their own Confessions (Book of Concord, Large Catechism, The Ten Commandments), the Eighth Commandment does not apply to public false doctrine. Their accusation of "Slander!" is yet another lie, showing they are servants of their Father Below - or so inept that they should leave the ministry.
When they say, "You should have gone to him privately first," the synod leaders are switching between private sin and public false teaching. Matthew 18 would apply when someone sees the pastor shop-lifting (or appearing to do so) and asks him about it privately, rather than going public.
Notice how adroitly the synod leaders pile error upon error. First they cry "Slander and Eighth Commandment!" when someone objects to a pastor proclaiming false doctrine from the public. Next they use Matthew 18 to confuse the members, as if it is a terrible sin to confront error in any way.
But here is the ultimate, the master-stroke in their demonic doctrine. These same synod leaders slander people (behind their backs, of course) to anyone who will listen. In the hardness of their hearts, they get even - not only with the original dissenter, but anyone in his family and any friend as well. They have no problem with breaking up a marriage, ruining family relationships, destroying friendships.
These synodical felonies are not limited to WELS or the Little Sect or the Missouri Sect. ELCA and earlier bodies practiced them with a little more smoothness.
If an ELCA congregation wants to leave the Lavender Mafia, the ELCA bishop insists on coming to the church and preaching the sermon for that Sunday. The Iowa bishop preaches on the love chapter, I Corinthians 13. That conjures up images that may lose the argument, but it lays a foundation for saying to anyone, "You are not being loving. A loving person would allow for various opinions. A loving person would not condemn an alternate lifestyle. A loving person would not push people away."
Love can be used to condemn a lot of people, but love is not a fruit that grows on the tree of apostasy.
One person said I should stop "bashing WELS" for Advent. All I do is teach doctrine and that includes rebuking false doctrine. I know a lot of very nice people in Lutherdom, not just in WELS or the ELS. They are aghast that the synods are so poorly led by such weak, vacillating, uncertain men. As a result, they suffer from the results of pastors teaching against the Word of God.
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Daniel Baker has left a new comment on your post "Controlling the Masses with Biblical Deception":
To be fair, the push back isn't what stopped me from blogging. Ultimately, after realizing that there is false doctrine much closer to home than Appleton that needs dealing with, I'm focusing my efforts on my local congregation for the time being.
Having said that, I'm contemplating listening to all of Ski's sermons for the past 3 months (and perhaps beyond) to determine a pattern, but I just haven't been able to subject myself to that kind of torture yet. Perhaps after the semester is over I'll have a chance to get on that.
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GJ - A few WELS laymen have shown what can be accomplished by publishing a factual article about doctrinal error, plagiarism, and Whoopee Worship. Do not write a letter - publish a letter.
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