Intrepid Lutherans: Dear Pastors Jeske and Ski: You are clearly in the wrong

Intrepid Lutherans: Dear Pastors Jeske and Ski: You are clearly in the wrong

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2011

Dear Pastors Jeske and Ski: You are clearly in the wrong

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(Both Pastor Mark Jeske and Pastor James Skorzewski have been sent the link to this letter. It is not intended to be gossipabout them, but a loving, public rebuke to them, according to the pattern of Paul’s rebuke to Peter in Galatians 2:11-21.)

Dear Pastors Jeske and Skorzewski,

Having seen the brochure advertising the “Change or Die” conference publicly displayed at the  Siebert Lutheran Foundation website, we are compelled out of love for the Lord Jesus, for you, for our Wisconsin Synod and for the world, to offer this admonishment.

First, let it be said that we do not question your motives. We assume that you sincerely wish to see churches grow, and that you think this conference will help to achieve that goal. We further assume that you think you are acting in line with confessional Lutheran doctrine and practice, and that you do not intend to lead the Church astray. We question neither your motives nor your intentions. But we do consider your participation in this conference to be wrong.

1) The premise of this conference – and therefore your involvement in it – is wrong.

“Change or die” is not a Scriptural concept. It is certainly not a Scriptural mandate or counsel either to the Church as a whole or to a particular visible gathering of confessing believers.

The Lord Jesus does say, “Repent or perish!” (“Unless you repent, you too will all perish” – Luke 13:3). Likewise, he says in his Revelation to St. John, “Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place” (Revelation 2:5). Also, Jesus says in Matthew 18:3, “Unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” If the admonition to “change” or face the consequence of “death” were a reference to repentance for rebellion against the Lord, then we could accept it.

***

GJ - The rest of the article is at the link.  I suggest that you read it in its entirely and comment there. Comments here are welcome,  but "no one reads Ichabod" and I have "no credibility." I have just written about this since 1988 - with my name signed to the articles and books.

Change or Die! is a good motto for Missouri, WELS, and the Little Sect. If they keep leasing their birthright to Thrivent for small change, there will soon be nothing left to betray.

I would definitely go hear the prez of Thrivent explain how successful he is. AAL was hitting the skids so fast that they had to change their books. They lost 10% of their income per year, three years in a row. Change meant merging with Lutheran Brotherhood and altering the books. I like that kind of  creativity. 

Thrivent is not ashamed to gather premium dollars from "conservative" Lutherans to market themselves to ELCA. 

Jeske is my #1 hero in Change or Die! land. His congregation is not self-supporting. He has sugar daddies from all over WELS and courts Missouri as well. He is up to his neck in government bail-outs and foundation loot.  He is the General Motors of Lutherdom, bound to fail when the money runs out.

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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Intrepid Lutherans: Dear Pastors Jeske and Ski: Yo...":

Interesting comment attached to the Intrepid post:

A person could look at the "Change or Die" brochure and come to the quick conclusion that the WELS is now working hand-in-hand with the LCMS and ELCA.

Rev. Stephen Kurtzahn

(W)ELS has been working with the LCMS and ELCA for years. Was Jeske's dual membership such a Secret Squirrel maneuver that no one noticed? Did anyone in the (W)ELS publicly address Time of Grace gaining RSO status with the LCMS? No. The (W)ELS administration doesn't deal with public error in open and public ways so that the laity and clergy remain well fed mushrooms.

Someone should share with Rev. Kurtzahn that (W)ELS is also working with Baptists, Methodists and New Age Occultists (Reggie McNeal and Leonard Sweet).

***
GJ - Kurtzahn should take care of his own district, which is a major support for WELS apostasy, with many fine examples of such in his own backyard. The Fabulous Four--the State of Wisconsin DPs plus Minnesota's--are the ones backing all this up. Grace Inaction is in Minneapolis, etc.

Another Post for St. Catharine's in Ontario, Eh?

bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Modest Proposal":

All conservative Lutherans in America should be supporting St. Catharine's Lutheran seminary because it is affordable enough for younger seminarians to attend--not just second career students and retirees. Who wants a geriatric ministerium? Besides, no one should recommend a seminary that a student couldn't possibly afford.

Even if a church chips in, say $2,000, each year towards his seminary education, that's just loose change compared to the seminary bill and cost of living. Moreover, these churches often don't give any money during the vicarage year thinking that the seminarian is employed, but yet the pay is so very low that during that year the seminarian runs up great credit card debts.

He might enjoy the seminary while he's there, not thinking about how many experience crushing debt and penury afterward, especially if the seminarian doesn't receive a call. (The reasons for not receiving a call a myriad, and often quite petty.) That's no reason to put any seminarian at risk. Just recommend St. Catharine's to be on the safe side.

***

GJ - Bruce C. is right.

The synods should say, "This seminarian is from your congregation. We expect you to pay a substantial part of his education." Perhaps there is a more diplomatic way to say it, but that is the main point.

I Can Hardly Wait!

Unforgivable grammar!

There is a God has left a new comment on your post "JP Meyer's Prophetic Statement":

And the winner is?

Stay tuned for the announcement of the winner of the 2010 hymnwriterchallenge.com "Why Objective Justification Matters." A winner will be announced at the end of February.

Don't neglect to read the fine print: This contest is neither sponsored nor endorsed by WELS or (sic - neither, nor; either, or) by the WELS Commission on Worship.

Annual Page-Reads Are Approaching 600,000

The statue is Photoshopped from the Concordia Seminary, St. Louis websty - Our Lady of Sorrows.

If the daily page-reads stay at 1700, the annual total will be around 600,000. However, some of you neglect Ichabod during vacation, even though I remain steadfast at my post.

Therefore, the annual page-reads could be 500,000, given the occasional neglect of certain, unnamed Lutherans.

Looking at the most read posts for the week (left column) will give the reader an idea about the interests of the readers.

The most read since June of 2010 (when the new system started) is at the bottom of the page. The most read post of all is usually the post about the most read posts. The long-term list shows that people are looking into the archives, probably using Google, to find the stories they want to read.

Usually the first comment I hear from friends is, "I like the posts on birds." They will continue.

Reading with Discernment:Lenski, Pieper, JP Meyer, Luther, Chemnitz

Mark and Avoid Jeske is the bartered bride in a tragic love triangle.
Will he elope with Missouri or stay faithful to WELS Enthusiasm?
It is good that he never tagged a sidewalk or he would kicked out pronto.
Happy Valentine's Day, Mark, Mark, and Matt.
Matt was not available for this Photoshop.

Various people amuse me by taking an all or nothing approach to various theologians.

Lenski
Mequon graduates all own their Lenski set, and he is probably valued equally in the LCMS and the Little Sect on the Prairie. The ALC pastors bought Lenski, too. One essay called the Lenski set "the long green line in every pastor's office." I am not sure everyone reads Lenski. He was prolific. His daughter, Lois Lenski, was also a writing machine - in the area of of children's art and literature.

The Lenski New Testament commentaries are a great contribution to Lutheran scholarship, but they are a bit uneven in their quality. For example, Lenski fell for the game of figuring out the original NT manuscripts, based on the questionable, convenient "discoveries" of Tischendorf and the ridiculous theories of Wescott and Hort. Lenski deserves a cuff on the back of the head for that, but it is a minor part of his vast scholarship.

Lenski also tries to establish a middle ground in the UOJ fracas, which was caused by the UOJ faction imposing their weirdness on WELS and Missouri, seeking to displace justification by faith. Although many of Lenski's statements on this issue are wise insights on the New Testament, he also has some others where he tries to establish compromise language based on juggling words, such as talking about an objective and a subjective reconciliation. Lenski's efforts remind me of Byzantine Empire attempts to solve their Two Natures battles, which were truly violent and bloody. Each new compromise forged made the conflict worse and led ultimately to the triumph of Islam in 1453.

The WELS talking point (the only one!) about Lenski is: "he is not good on justification." My Lenski set had its Romans volume, bought from a WELS pastor, still in brand new condition, and the WELS pastor was dead. To be honest, WELS should say, "He teaches justification by faith, based on the grammar and historical context of the NT documents. We hate that."

Lenski also has an unusual grasp of all the Lutheran dogmaticians. Mequon graduates also think they are such experts on the Bible that they do not need commentaries. No wonder they quickly turn to plagiarism, with their Doctrinal Pussycat's smiling approval.

Francis Pieper
I no longer own Pieper's Dogmatics, but I appreciated what I learned from them. The best part was about the Two Natures of Christ, which led me into reading Chemnitz on the Two Natures. I think of Pieper as the Cliff Notes version of Chemnitz.

One Lutheran seminary student began shunning me because I "criticized Pieper." I am a Luther-an, not a Pieper-an. Nevertheless, Luther needs to be read with discernment too. I forgot - I am now Church of the Augsburg Confession, which is what the Book of Concord editors called themselves - theologians of the Augsburg Confession. Luther did too. I like the term because it avoids the baggage of ELCA, WELS, LCMS, ELS, CLC.1, CLC.2, LCR, etc. etc.

American Lutherans should read Pieper but not get stuck there, because he influenced the Syn Conference so much - and still does. His Enthusiasm explains the inroads of Receptionism, Church Growth, and the New Age Movement.

Luther
Luther remains the great theologian, preacher, and Biblical exegete of the Christian Church. I like What Luther Says but Luther's sermons should be the regular reading of all Lutheran pastors and laity.

The trouble today is - no one reads Luther. The high church faction of Ft. Wayne, best represented by ELDONA, skips over Luther and Chemnitz in favor of authors previously unknown in America. Their haphazard reading habits support their dabbling with Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy. They must sense that too much Luther would expose their pathetic grasp of Biblical doctrine.

Melanchthon, Chemnitz
Syn Conference Lutherans are quick to point out the timid nature of Melanchthon. He faced potential death and imprisonment after Luther died and the Emperor came back from the Islamic wars. Given the number of Syn Conference pastors who would betray their own mothers for a better call, I have to credit Melanchthon for courage in spite of his eager-to-please nature. He lived through a terrible time of violence and persecution.

Melanchthon, with his long years of training pastors, was perhaps more influential among pastors than Luther. He started younger and lived just as long as Luther - 63 years.

The difference in temperament was good in several ways. Luther valued Melanchthon's irenic nature and his theological abilities. I recall Robert Preus saying in a lecture that Melanchthon was better than Luther on justification - at one point. We were discussing forensic justification, which Melanchthon believed and taught with clarity.

Although Melanchthon's compromising nature set up significant conflicts, his student Martin Chemnitz had the intellect and nature to bring together the warring factions on the basis of genuine confessional doctrine. That is entirely lacking today. Chemnitz united the humor and polemical skills of Luther with the gentleness of Melanchthon.

Luther wrote that the Holy Spirit is so powerful that He can turn the greatest evil into the greatest good. That was true in the crucifixion and also in the Lutheran split after Luther's death. Out of that conflict came the leadership of men like Chemnitz, Chytraeus, Selnecker, and the best single volume of theology and Biblical commentary - the Book of Concord.

Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz remain the three greatest theologians of the Christian Church, so we should major in the majors instead of the minors. They are my Scriptural teachers - not the essay writers of the Syn Conference.

JP Meyer's Prophetic Statement

J. P. Meyer was a long-time professor at The Sausage Factory, Mequon.


Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Dog Notes from The Sausage Factory (Mequon, WELS)":

J.P. Meyer noted a prophetic statement regarding the (W)ELS headlong stumble into full blown New Age Emergent apostasy:

2) Failure to understand this doctrine [Justification] will dull spiritual understanding so that ultimately even the difference between Christian and pagan religion becomes obliterated.

Explains their incorporating pagan New Age Religious practices such as Reiki, Contemplative Prayer, Taize and the New Age doctrine of UOJ.

As I read through these notes it becomes very clear there is no excuse for J.P. Meyer to have perverted the Scriptural and Confessional doctrine of Justification by Faith because so many faithful statements stand in direct and glaring contradiction to his unfaithful and false doctrines noted.

Doctrinal discord divides Lutherans

The frog in the kettle does realize when the water is too hot and jumps out.
The Church Growth and lavender ecclesiastics have the same plan, to boil him into unconsciousness.


Doctrinal discord divides Lutherans

Unlike the creation story in the Book of Genesis from which it takes its name, Genesis Lutheran Church had a more secular beginning. It was birthed by a small group of people who left Piedmont Valley Lutheran Church over their growing disaffection with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s  policies on homosexuality.

Genesis is the first Rapid City-based church to be affiliated with the newest Lutheran denomination, the North American Lutheran Church.

Churches vote to leave

Leaving

Nineteen South Dakota congregations voted to leave the ELCA in 2010.

• Lands Lutheran, Hudson, March 7
• Trinity Lutheran, Platte, March 15
• Trinity Lutheran, Hudson, March 28
• East Lake Andes Lutheran, Armour, March 28
• First American Lutheran, Tripp, May 9
• Bethlehem Lutheran, Pierpont, May 12
• American Lutheran, Castlewood, May 16
• Hope Lutheran, Delmont, July 11
• Ladner Evangelical Lutheran, Ladner, July 14
• Little Missouri Lutheran, Capitol, Mont., July 25
• First Lutheran, Philip, Aug. 29
• Trinity Lutheran, Midland, Aug. 29
• Our Savior Lutheran, Long Valley, Aug. 29
• Deep Creek Lutheran, Midland, Sept. 5 
• Shepherd of the Hills, Lead, Sept. 26
• Immanuel Lutheran, Whitewood, Oct. 10 
• St. Peter Lutheran, Armour, Oct. 10
• Christ the King Lutheran, Newcastle, Wyo., Dec. 19
• Trinity Lutheran, Lake N