Most Lutherans Are Closer to Rome than They Realize.Another Layman, 29A, Predicts Lutherans Will Apologize, Ask Forgiveness in 2017

The Holy Spirit does not allow him to err. At least, that is what he claims infallibly.
WELS is also infallible.
Question Pope John the Malefactor - whoosh. Gone.


Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Fellowship with Everyone:Let's Not Forget Thrivent...":

LWF, LCMS Directors Affirm Shared Lutheran Identity, Urge Further Mutual Dialogue
Emphasis on Joint Intervention in Overcoming Church Tensions

GENEVA, Switzerland, 24 January 2008 (LWI) - Representatives of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS) and the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) meeting at the LWF secretariat in Geneva, 21-24 January have affirmed the need to establish direct communication between both organizations in order to mutually benefit from their common heritage in the Reformation.
http://www.lutheranworld.org/News/LWI/EN/2163.EN.html

On the occasion of the first “World Interfaith Harmony Week” (1-7 February 2011) designated by the United Nations General Assembly last October, Rev. Elizabeth McHan spoke with ELCJHL Bishop Dr Munib Younan, also president of The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) about the significance of this week for the Holy Land faith communities and for the global Lutheran communion.
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To the global human community this week?
My appeal is this: that religion be the source of harmony, justice, and reconciliation in this world. Find from the holy writings that which builds this world in the love of God and love of neighbor, not what divides it. Find from the holy writings the common values of our shared humanity. Thus, we will live in harmony.


http://www.lutheranworld.org/lwf/index.php/president-younan-urges-diligence-in-promoting-religious-co-existence.html

VATICAN City, Vatican/GENEVA, 16 December 2010 (LWI) – The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) President Bishop Dr Munib A. Younan has invited Pope Benedict XVI to work together with the Lutheran communion in realizing an ecumenically accountable commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

“For us there is joy in the liberating power of the gospel proclaimed afresh by the reformers, and we will celebrate that,” said Younan in a message today, when he led a seven-member delegation in a private audience with the Pope. He underlined the need to recognize both the damaging aspects of the Reformation and ecumenical progress.
“But we cannot achieve this ecumenical accountability on our own, without your help. Thus we invite you to work together with us in preparing this anniversary, so that in 2017 we are closer to sharing in the Bread of Life than we are today.”
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Younan presented to the Pope a gift from Bethlehem, a carving depicting the Last Supper. Referring to this image, he said, “Each of us can bear witness to the importance of this sacramental meal in nurturing our own Christian lives. Each of us also knows the yearning for the time when we will be able to celebrate this feast together,” said the LWF president.

http://www.lutheranworld.org/lwf/index.php/younan-pope-500th-anniversary.html

Fellowship with Everyone:Let's Not Forget Thrivent

Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "ELCA Provides Input for Federation Regional Commit...":

At last count, the LCMS is in fellowship with either nine or ten bodies who are LWF members. Naturally, the answer we trouble-makers receive is that "membership" doesn't equal "fellowship." LWF apparently doesn't agree with the LCMS, since they plainly state that membership in their organization declares altar and pulpit fellowship.

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Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Fellowship with Everyone:Let's Not Forget Thrivent...":

http://www.lutheranworld.org/lwf/index.php/who-we-are

Grey Goose Makes More Sense Waiting for the Dishwasher Than the Assembled Wisdom of the Seminary Faculties.Change and DIE!

Dude, lose the robes. You need wrinkled, faded jeans.
Pull your old shirt out over the jeans.
Look earnest.

There are, I think, a couple of reasons for the migration to Rome or EO.  One is stability.  The organization will place the incoming where there is an income, probably priest or not.  Leaving one set of political problems for another is not much of a deal.  The high church types, as Fenton was, go because of the ceremony, of which they are most fond.  In all the cases, there is apparently little interest in what their new home is teaching.  "Few are chosen" needs to be believed and understood. 

If good hymns are important, and decent liturgy is important, then The Lutheran Hymnal is the only available book.  Its spoken Propers all use the good old terms, titles and lessons.  They might be called adiaphora but if one is long in those things, they are what one wants.  How many times have I both heard and said, "I have not left the church.  The church has left me."  Since LBW, many have expressed that sentiment.  If the synod leadership -- SP, DP, CP or Pastor -- has not heard the conviction of some of the membership, then some will look for the old and familiar.  As those folks age, they want to remain with the familiar.  Changeless, unchanging. 

I haven't heard any sermons during my lifetime that were given in King James English.  That does not mean the KJV should go away.  It only means it should be well taught and explained.  There is the KJ21 version that could work.  Its format is bookish and its highlighting can be difficult to get used to, but it is still the King James.  Look what has happened when misguided men offer 'modern' translations.  There is no Word left in sermons.  Many are not even given in Good American English.  As far as I am concerned, all that new stuff is the true adiaphora.  I think Luther said if someone calls the good old stuff adiaphora he should have a fight on his hands. 

Excuse my prattling on while waiting to empty the dishwasher.  This old guy prefers a certain stability.  The "Change or Die" conference should be titled "Change and Die".

This is liturgical attire for the What's Happening Now Entertainment Center.
Don't dream it, be it.

CNS STORY: Defend doctrine, but don't attack others, pope says at audience

CNS STORY: Defend doctrine, but don't attack others, pope says at audience

POPE-AUDIENCE Feb-9-2011 (460 words) With photos. xxxi

Defend doctrine, but don't attack others, pope says at audience

Pope Benedict XVI acknowledges pilgrims during his general audience in Paul VI hall at the Vatican Feb. 9. (CNS/Paul Haring)

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Even in the midst of the upheaval of the Protestant Reformation in Germany, St. Peter Canisius knew how to defend Catholic doctrine without launching personal attacks on those who disagreed, Pope Benedict XVI said.

St. Peter, a 15th-century Jesuit sent on mission to Germany, knew how to "harmoniously combine fidelity to dogmatic principles with the respect due to each person," the pope said Feb. 9 at his weekly general audience.

The pope was beginning a series of audience talks about "doctors of the church," who are theologians and saints who made important contributions to Catholic understanding of theology.

In St. Peter Canisius' own time, more than 200 editions of his catechisms were published, the pope said, and they were so popular in Germany for so long that up until "my father's generation people called a catechism simply a 'Canisius.'"


More from the Antichrist at this link.

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GJ - Catechisms matter. I use plain old Luther's Small Catechism. The old WELS Gausewitz catechism did NOT have UOJ in it, but taught justification by faith. The Kuske Catechism and the Conference of Pussycats This We Believe made UOJ canonical.

The old German LCMS catechism did NOT have UOJ in it. Knapp's double justification scheme was taught by Walther, but it did not find official documentation until the Brief Statement of 1932 (F. Pieper, Walther's chosen disciple).

The Muhlenberg tradition (ULCA, LCA, roughly half of ELCA) taught justification by faith and the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace, until the unionistic modernists took control of the seminaries.

The Preaching Office (Predigamt) Has a Comment

Predigtamt has left a new comment on your post "Icha-Air-Rescue":

Thesis: Teaching the WELS doctrine of Universal Objective Justification (WELS UOJ) leads to a decrease in church attendance. Teaching the Augsburg Confession doctrine of Justification by Faith Alone (AC) leads to an increase in church attendance. A Question and Answer might go like this:

Q (WELS UOJ parishioner): Why should I go to my WELS church to worship if I was already forgiven when Christ died on the cross? Isn’t it enough for me to think about Jesus at home? Aren’t sermons and the sacraments only to assure me that my sins were already forgiven? Since I don’t feel the need for forgiveness, why should I go to church?

A (Augsburg Confession Lutheran pastor): Scripture teaches that you are a sinner in need of forgiveness: “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us” (1 John 1:8). And: “So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall” (1 Corinthians 10:12)! The forgiveness Christ won on the cross is not yours unless and until hearing the gospel the Holy Spirit creates and strengthens faith in your heart to believe it. Paul is crystal clear on this: “Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). It is not enough to only think about Jesus, the cross, and forgiveness. You need to hear the preached gospel and receive the visible gospel in the sacraments. It is not just the assurance of forgiveness, but it is also and especially the actual forgiveness of your sin that you receive through the audible and visible Word of God preached in the sermon and received in the sacraments.

Here is something Luther said that might help you:

“We treat of the forgiveness of sins in two ways. First, how it is achieved and won. Second, how it is distributed and given to us. Christ has achieved it on the cross, it is true. But he has not distributed or given it on the cross. He has not won it in the supper or sacrament. There he has distributed and given it through the Word, as also in the gospel, where it is preached. He has won it once for all on the cross. But the distribution takes place continuously, before and after, from the beginning to the end of the world. …. [So] if now I seek the forgiveness of sins, I do not run to the cross, for I will not find it given there. Nor must I hold to the suffering of Christ,…in knowledge or remembrance, for I will not find it there either. But I will find in the sacrament or gospel the word which distributes, presents, offers, and gives to me that forgiveness which was won on the cross.” (Against the Heavenly Prophets - 1525)

See you Sunday!

Missouri's SMPs and WELS Staph Ministry

This link describes the unbearable lightness of the LCMS SMP program. One would never know that Missouri took farm boys and turned them into pastors who read Hebrew, Latin, and Greek.

I saw the books left to the Mequon library by pastors who died. They left such works as Hoenecke in German, Schmid's Doctrinal Theology (condemned by Tim Glende), and many other scholarly classics of Lutheran orthodoxy. Many of the books were in German, so the class of 1987 did not want them. One senior translated Eins ist Not as "One is nothing." Great try - "One Thing Is Needful." I laughed out loud. Many of them said, "You read German?" I asked, "You don't?"

Larry Olson, DMin (Fuller), heads the staph infection program for WELS, at Mary Lou College. His degree consisted of four courses at Fuller, some transferred credits, and a paper. Nevertheless, he tells his Church and Change disciples and the gullible WELS members that he is a "doctor." All the Changer leaders have DMins from Schwaermer schools, and they all call themselves DR:
Dr. Rich Krause (union seminary program, Ohio, Larry Olson, supervisor).
Dr. Paul Calvin Kelm (Our Lady of Sorrows, St. Louis.)
Dr. Steve Witte (Gordon Conwell).
Dr. John Parlow (Denver), who was listed in three different denominations at one time - Denver graduates, the Willow Creek Association, and WELS.

The point of these programs and other alternative programs is - turn the synod into a clone of Fuller Seminary. The people who head them and manage them hate Lutheran doctrine, but the synod membership pays for it.

Source for Lutheran Hymn Writer Biographies and Pictures

Lutheran mom reacts to church promoting their Money Business.

I decided to feature this blog for a time, because the author (a member of the ever-growing Preus clan) has so much information about Lutheran hymn-writers. Look at the right column of that blog and read how many are featured.

Hymns are often confessions of faith written during a time of crisis. For that reason, the most significant verses are often butchered or omitted. "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" was changed by liberal editors so that people no long sang "offspring of the Virgin's womb." The new words, still found in many print editions, became "offspring of the chosen one." Methodists did that to their own founder's hymn.

Lutherans would never omit or change hymns by Lutherans, would they? WELS did that in spades, especially with doctrinal verses. Compare the great old hymns with the Christian Worship version. I guess CW was DUI - Designed Under the Influence.

The notorious Iver Johnson was another big asset on the CW team, in case they needed special hymns for The Counseling Shepherd, like "Embracable Ewe."

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Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Source for Lutheran Hymn Writer Biographies and Pi...":

"Now Praise We Christ the Holy One" (TLH #104)is missing from the LSB. Too bad, because it's a beautiful hymn. We wouldn't want too many hymns by Luther in a Lutheran hymnal.

Narrow-minded Lutheran has left a new comment on your post "Source for Lutheran Hymn Writer Biographies and Pi...":

I have to issue a semi-correction. TLH #104 didn't make the cut for the intermediate LW either.


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Daniel Baker has left a new comment on your post "Source for Lutheran Hymn Writer Biographies and Pi...":

The one that upsets me the most in CW is "What is the World to Me?" They took out the best verses of the hymn.

"Jerusalem the Golden" is also missing about 80 verses, but that started in TLH, so you can't really blame CW as much.

About Sound Doctrine

Sound Doctrine

"Since now, in the sight of God and of all Christendom [the entire Church of Christ], we wish to testify to those now living and those who shall come after us that this declaration herewith presented concerning all the controverted articles aforementioned and explained, and no other, is our faith, doctrine, and confession, in which we are also willing, by God's grace, to appear with intrepid hearts before the judgment-seat of Jesus Christ, and give an account of it; and that we will neither privately nor publicly speak or write anything contrary to it, but, by the help of God's grace, intend to abide thereby: therefore, after mature deliberation, we have, in God's fear and with the invocation of His name, attached our signatures with our own hands."

            Thorough Declaration, Of Other Factions and Sects, Formula of Concord, Concordia Triglotta, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1921, p. 1103.

"'If there ever was a strictly conservative body, it surely is the Missouri Synod. Nevertheless, this growth!...It is a mark of the pastors and leaders of the Missouri Synod that they never, aye, never, tire of discussing doctrine on the basis of Scripture and the Confessions. That is one trait that may be called the spirit of Missouri. People who thus cling to doctrine and contend for its purity are of an entirely different nature from the superficial unionists who in the critical moment will declare five to be an even number. God will bless all who value His Word so highly.'"

            (Dr. Lenski, Kirchenzeitung, May 20, 1922)

            cited in W. A. Baepler, "Doctrine, True and False," The Abiding Word, ed., Theodore Laetsch, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1946, II, p. 515f.

"We should not consider the slightest error against the Word of God unimportant."

            What Luther Says , An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, II, p. 637.

"Error and heresy must come into the world so that the elect may become approved and manifest. Their coming is in the best interests of Christians if they take the proper attitude toward it. St. Augustine, who certainly was sufficiently annoyed by wretched sectaries, says that when heresy and offense come, they produce much benefit in Christendom; for they cause Christians industriously to read Holy Scriptures and with diligence to pursue it and persevere in its study. Otherwise they might let it lie on the shelf, become very secure, and say: Why, God's Word and the text of Scripture are current and in our midst; it is not necessary for us to read Holy Scripture."

            What Luther Says, An Anthology, 3 vols., ed., Ewald Plass, St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1959, II, p. 639.

“You cannot of a truth be for true doctrine without being unalterably opposed to false doctrine. There can be no 'positive theology' where the God-given negatives have been eliminated from the Decalog."

            Norman A. Madson, Preaching to Preachers, Mankato: Lutheran Synod Book Company, 1952. Preface.