Dapper Don Pieper Responds With the Unloving Card

Don has left a new comment on your post "Try To Make Sense of This WELS Sermon:Dis-Graceful...":

Yes, it is disgraceful if that is what Pastor Schewe or Voss preached in Trinity Lutheran, Des Moines this Sunday.

It is always dangerous to hear ony (sic) bits and snippets of a sermon.

The preacher also said earlier of Jesus, "He revealed himself as the Servant and Savior sent from the Father, and promised forgiveness and salvation to those who confess their sins and put their faith in him." This is not universalism.

He also mentioned the desertion of many of Jesus' followers, a desertion that caused the Savior great pain (why, if they were all saved?). This is not universalism.

A cursory glance may accuse the preacher of making a questionable statement, "God the Father reveals here that all people are saved on equal status before him through the Savior." But this follows the presentation that the Jews have no "first dibs" (my wording) on God any more.

And the final statement of the sermon brings in the role of faith, "May our minds be blown away that God has loved us so much. And may our faith in him be strengthened as we see what he has planned for us!" God's love calls forth and creates faith in us.

Jesus said he who is forgiven little, loves little. And the Apostle said, "love covers a multitude of sins."

Perhaps Mr. Meyer loves so little he covers up material in this sermon which would give your readers a balanced perspective.

Don Pieper--and please, use my name.

***

GJ - First of all, linking the sermon is not covering up. All my sources link material because people need to read everything in context and judge for themselves. That approach is much better than vague accusations about "a certain blog" that remains nameless and unlinked, with nothing specific to answer.

Don, you would be shocked at the number and variety of sources from WELS. I remember someone having a meltdown on the phone because I said, "All of it comes from WELS pastors and members." I would have to add now - "former members and pastors, too" - because so many have given up on the sect. Mostly, they have been driven out.

From the sermon itself, verbatim:
As we sit as a fly on the wall, we see that God the Father will have the last word, as he brings about the salvation of all people and exalts his Son to his rightful place as King!

The salvation of all people is Universalism.

I have studied this for over 10 years now and read countless books related to the subject, so I am not spitting out talking points from one mentor or another. The Syn Conference fragments try to rescue themselves from the charge of Universalism by adding a little about faith. That gets forgotten soon enough, so some of your best and brightest (according to WELS PR) have become atheists or Pentecostals.

Look at your hero Jungkuntz. He advocated UOJ, misled people about his Biblical beliefs, and worked his way down to ELCA. He finally became the ELCA parson he always was, to paraphrase Father Neuhaus.

The foundational pratfall in UOJ is merging the Atonement with justification, and that is quasi-Calvinism.

DP Jon Buchholz denied, in a conversation with me, that anyone teaches Universalism in WELS. I reminded him of the recent WELS evangelism campaign, featuring banners with this message for the whole community, "I am saved, just like you."

The sermon quoted is from Buchie's previous congregation. So there are two examples of Universalism.

WELS is so deep into UOJ now that pastors cannot even think in terms of Lutheran doctrine. I know this is currently being taught at The Sausage Factory (Mequon) and Mary Lou College in New Ulm - "Hitler is a guilt-free saint."

I think Universalists would be deeply offended by Hitler's sainthood. The assertion by WELS is an example of getting deeper into hyperbole with each generation.

WELS pastors are disgusted with UOJ, but they remain in the silent minority, as far as I can tell. Perhaps many of them simply think of UOJ as a synonym for the Atonement. Pastor James Heiser, ELDONA, thought so. I did as well, until WELS laity pointed out what the documents really say.

Unlike the knee-biters in WELS, I have provided as many quotations from both sides of the debate as I could muster, in Thy Strong Word, which is available free from Lulu.com. In fact, one person trying to provide UOJ for his doctorate is using Thy Strong Word, because of its extensive documentation.

To spell it out again - UOJ is from Halle University, not from the Bible or the Book of Concord. Double-justification is found verbatim in English in Knapp's theology book in 1831, but he was lecturing on it long before that, and his book remained a major tome for the entire 19th century. Knapp is still in print today.

UOJ is Calvinism via the Pietism of Halle University.

Justification by faith (absent UOJ) was taught in the Gausewitz catechism of WELS and the old Missouri catechism in German.

UOJ was not taught among Lutherans before the era of Pietism.

I can tell Dapper Don has a poor argument, delivered off the cuff, when he ends with a typical WELS eye-poker like this:

Perhaps Mr. Meyer loves so little he covers up material in this sermon which would give your readers a balanced perspective.

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Don has left a new comment on your post "Dapper Don Pieper Responds With the Unloving Card":

Judge from the sermon, and not from your extensive experience. Find another dog to flog.
Don Pieper

Try To Make Sense of This WELS Sermon:Dis-Graceful

"And your problem with this is?"


Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Predigtamt Brings Up Outmoded Book of Concord":

The Universalism of Objective Justification rules the day in the (W)ELS.

Faith is but another aspect of the Law when it's required of those God has already declared justified, forgiven of all sin and righteous by the body and blood of Christ.

As we sit as a fly on the wall, we see that God the Father will have the last word, as he brings about the salvation of all people and exalts his Son to his rightful place as King!

As we come to the end of this remarkable conversation, our minds might be spinning. After all, that happens when God gives you a glimpse of what he’s thinking. What can we take away from this conversation we have heard? There are great mysteries here in these words from Isaiah, but what is the biggest mystery of all? The biggest mystery is that God has done all this for you. 

Why would he do that? Why would he show grace to you? As a wayward child, why would he do it? As one who needs to be cut down by the sword of the Spirit for your sin, why would he do it? God has shown remarkable love and grace in his plan to save you. Why?

We don’t have the answer to that question in this conversation we have listened in on. As a fly on the wall, we don’t hear that answer.

http://www.htlc-wa.org/home/140004986/140004986/140047070/Microsoft%20Word%20-%20022011%20Sermon.pdf

(W)ELS laity are left to spin in the wind, the rope chaffing their necks and ears tickled by the siren song of their New Age Emergent leaders.

***

GJ - I wondered if this was a sermon from Buchholz, but this is a January, 2011 sermon, as you can see from the entire document.

I recall DP Buchholz denying Universalism in WELS. The salvation of all people, highlighted in red, is Universalism. More on that in a minute.

Who else taught the same thing? Karl Barth - who offered pastoral counseling to the lovely Charlotte Kirschbaum while she wrote the Dogmatics for him. They shared a cabin alone every summer, but I am sure nothing untoward happened. But look up her photos. He was an old fuddy-duddy Commie. She was HAWT!

Charlotte was so needy that Karl moved her right into his family home, with his wife Nellie and his growing sons. Iver Johnson and WELS/ELS would have been proud. They share the same concept of Universalism.

Universalism in the Syn Conference comes from Universal Objective Justification, because they start with everyone being forgiven (justified) before birth. They try to rescue UOJ from Universalism by saying people have to decide to believe in this universal absolution. However, as Schleiermacher and Tholuck have shown, when one starts with universal absolution, the "believe it" part drops away.

UOJ simply eliminates every article of faith, every aspect of worship. Sin more that grace may abound! As the Shrinker adulterers have demonstrated in abundance, universal absolution defaults to Antinomianism. There is no Law of God.

UOJ is ELCA's doctrine too.

Predigtamt Brings Up Outmoded Book of Concord

Melanchthon is obviously from another era, so his Augsburg Confession is considered obsolete and irrelevant, especially by the Schwaermer who publish FICL - Lutheran on the outside, Babtist on the inside.


Predigtamt has left a new comment on your post "Canon Law in WELS - Pretend Not To Be Naming Names...":

Teaser for the March 2011 issue of Forward in Christ:

"Biblical word pictures - Four words help us understand our Christian faith more clearly" by Mark Lenz

Except for the subtitle, there is no mention of faith, even and especially under the word "Justification." - Nothin'. Nada. Zilch.

Compare the FIC article to the official "Lutheran Voice" of Lutheranism, the Augsburg Confession:

"Also they teach that men cannot be justified before God by their own strength, merits, or works, but are freely justified for Christ's sake, through faith, when they believe that they are received into favor, and that their sins are forgiven for Christ's sake, who, by His death, has made satisfaction for our sins. This faith God imputes for righteousness in His sight. Rom. 3 and 4." - Article IV

Pastor's reality food show pitch: Christians and Jews bonding over hotdogs – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs

Pastor's reality food show pitch: Christians and Jews bonding over hotdogs – CNN Belief Blog - CNN.com Blogs

February 23rd, 2011

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Pastor's reality food show pitch: Christians and Jews bonding over hotdogs

By Gabe LaMonica, CNN

It was the hot dogs that broke down religious barriers.

Megachurch pastor Phil Hotsenpiller and his wife, Tammy, invited their Muslim, Jewish and Buddhist neighbors over to their Southern California home for an interfaith, multicultural meal.

Rebuking False Teachers By Name

The policy in ELCA, WELS, Missouri, the ELS, and the micro-minis sects is to defend and promote false teachers.
The results speak for themselves.


rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Canon Law in WELS - Pretend Not To Be Naming Names...":

Dropping the names of teachers of false doctrine is proper because the Office of the Holy Ministry is a public office.

Intrepid Thoughts

First Lutheran Church, Moline, Illinois, was across from Melo-Cream Donut Shop.
Swedes lived in Moline and had their college a mile away, Augustana, in Rock Island.
WELS has imitated the decline of the old Augustana Synod.


Rev. Paul A. Rydecki said...

Daniel, Just to add a bit to Douglas' and Adam's excellent comments... You wrote, "Their contention is that a Law/Gopsel message on a mailing is not effective, because it isn't read. Someone sees a postcard with a religious message in their mailbox and it goes straight into the wastebasket."

If the postcard isn't read, how does anyone receive the postcard and know that there's an Easter service with a yummy breakfast before or after? If they mean that a long, wordy treatise on doctrine isn't read, then they may well be right. But a short invitation itself does not have to be devoid of truth and honesty. The question is, to what are we inviting people? To an event that will cater to the old man or to a proclamation of God's truth? Granted, an unbeliever only has an old man, but that does not mean that the old man must be coaxed into falling into this "trap" where we actually mean to kill him (if only he knew...).

I've heard it said, "No unbeliever goes to church for the right reasons." I used to believe that. Now I see the error in it. True, no unbeliever goes to church out of love for Christ. But some go because their conscience convicts them and tells them there is a God and they've offended him, and they'd better find out who he is before it's too late. Is that a "wrong reason" for going to church? Absolutely not. In fact, those are precisely the unbelievers whom the Lord has prepared to hear his Law and Gospel.

Now what? Shall we, instead of honestly portraying what the Church has to offer, persuade them to come in for other, non-spiritual reasons? Then we are promoting ourselves, not Christ. This idea that we should somehow "trick" people into exposing themselves to the Means of Grace (Ha! They fell for it! They came for breakfast and exciting, upbeat music, but mixed in with all that we're going to give them Jesus! Surprise!) is really deceptive and dishonest.

The idea that we shouldn't "pepper" our mailings with religious messages (i.e., the Word of God and the proclamation of Christ) because the world will perceive it as "cultish" is really scary. I don't know where that comes from. Should we be content to let the cults promote their doctrine freely while we shrink back from presenting doctrine for fear of appearing "cultish," relying instead on what a friendly bunch of people we have in our congregation? May this never be.

***

GJ - The conversation reminds me of many tea and crumpets discussions in WELS. Someone quoted Jester as saying "So much for pre-evangelism," as if a quip from John Jeske threw the Shrinkers back, like the soldiers when Jesus said, "I AM."

In fact, J. P. Meyer has an excellent passage about this "baiting the hook" concept. He rebuked it quite sternly as adulterating the Word of God. WELS pays attention to Meyer only where he is wrong. There is no discernment.

The Word of God must be used for rebuking, but the pastors refuse to rebuke. If they start to rebuke, they pull back because of the Satanic blowback from the Shrinkers.

One Intrepid told me he was booted in the backside for days, because of one mild Intrepid post. After that, Rydecki reversed himself on UOJ and Lindee laid down a bank of fog, aided and abetted by Thoughts of No-Faith Webber.

The comments are rigorously policed and edited. Notice how they appear, disappear, and stop.

So far I am reminded of the statement about the Italians in war. "They are worth two divisions on our side if they go with our opponents. They are like four divisions against us if they are our allies."

First Congregational Church in Moline is now United Church of Christ, thanks to various mergers.
The UCC is the model for mainline churches going Unitarian -
without really admitting it.
The Unitarians lead the way in radicalism,
closely followed by the UCC, with the mainlines
(ELCA, WELS, LCMS, ELS, CLCs) close behind.

--

LPC has left a new comment on your post "Intrepid Thoughts":

The problem with some so called "Intrepid Lutherans" or so called "Steadfast Lutherans" is that they rebuke false doctrines but promote one of their own, like UOJ.

LPC

Canon Law in WELS - Pretend Not To Be Naming Names.The Truth? WELS Is Nasty, Nasty, Nasty

"But WELS is perfect. Or it was, until YOU showed up."

The Intrepids are listing wacky worship bulletins and practices in WELS and ELCA - just about the same:

1. Entertainment services.
   
2. Women pastors.
   
3. Drink coffee during the service.
   

They do not name the congregations or pastors, because that would be "naming names" and impolite, according to WELS Canon Law, Volume CCLXVII, Part II, Page 5834, subsection 14. Be sure to read footnote #43, which excuses all the DPs and Church and Changers from this law.

As the Lund family pointed out, verbatim quotations are easily matched with the congregation and pastor. Previously, when the Intrepids mentioned a certain pastor who copied and pasted from Swindoll and called it his own work, they did not name the pastor and parish in Appleton (of all places!). I named the plagiarist, so the Intrepids mentioned that a certain blog (no name) gave away the identity. The final result was the pastor apologized and the offensive material was removed. Google is ultra-fast, so anyone can search for this material and find it. Notice where super-politeness has gotten the victims of all this false doctrine - nowhere.

I came from a town where I could walk from one end to another, go uptown and downtown, knowing all kinds of pleasant people who knew my family from teaching and business. People in Moline belonged to many different denominations and several major ethnic groups: Swedes, Belgians, Germans. They were uniformly polite. Unfortunately, the Wisconsin sect enjoys a well-earned reputation for bullying, sadism, nastiness, and routine eye-poking for the fun of it. Their so-called outreach reflects this self-centeredness.

Location - create a fancy-schmancy parish near other WELS parishes to pull members away. That is being done at The CORE, Latte Lutheran, the Indianapolis spikey hair place, Love's Park, and other places.

Content - fashion a Groeschel outlet, where every Schwaermer fad is copied and promoted as something new.

The Wisconsin sect is self-destructing because the new plan, started by Norm Berg, will turn whatever remains into a bad copy of the Evangelical Covenant sect. This approach was already used in South Lyons, Michigan, in the stealth mission started with the blessings of DP Robert Mueller and VP Paul Kuske. Some of the WELS pastors involved were: Rick Miller, Mark Freier, Kelly Voigt. WELS gushed over them until they left the ministry. The non-Lutheran minister at Crossroads (cute name? - another Schwaermer fad) made a point of thanking them.

Crossroads started out, saying, "Bored with worship?" Etc. etc.

No one ever denounced the chuckleheads who got that going. When Kuske and Mueller did the same thing, the same way, with Pilgrim Community Church and two Shrinker divorcees, the plan flopped again. Nobody said nothing.

Here is how it works. Lying plagiarists are constantly promoted and praised, and the DPs cover for them in every way possible. For example, I told DP Buchholz how all the Shrinkers were being brought into the WELS preps and colleges, to be lionized and offered up as good examples. He blanched and denied it. A WELS college student again confirmed for me that the visiting heroes were the ones identified as certified Shrinkers from Church and Change.

Meanwhile, anyone with any brains and a sense of Lutheran doctrine is treated as something stuck to the bottom of their jackboots, after a long walk through a busy pasture.

If a parish is bankrupted and eviscerated by a Shrinker, nothing is said, even in the face of obvious evidence. As Tabor proved, a pastor could father a bastard in his own parish and get another call in WELS. That kind of synod leadership led to the murder of Tabor's long-suffering wife and a felonious coverup.

However, a healthy parish with sound doctrine is invisible, unless gratuitous remarks need to be said. I learned in WELS that "Page 5 and 15 parish!" is the worst kind of insult, the ultimate put-down, because that meant the congregation used the liturgy instead of making up new stuff (copied from Schwaermer) each week.

WELS, like Missouri and the Little Sect, is training its members to be E. Covenant or E. Free in the next generation, unless they see the implications of justification without faith. If they really study the topic and convince themselves that UOJ is ancient, revealed wisdom, they will become ELCA members or Unitarians, depending on whether they are high church or low church.

The synods are spending millions of offering dollars to do this. Gospel outreach is Schwaermer plagiarism.

If this bothers you, write a letter. But do not name names.

If you are thinking about a specific example, it is a violation of WELS Canon Law to mention this if you have not gone to the parson first.

And if you do go to the false teacher, it is a violation of the Eighth Commandment to identify false doctrine and compare it to sound doctrine.

And if you survive having your brains bashed in by the pastor, the circuit pastor, and the Doctrinal Pussycat, complaining about your treatment will only prove you do not belong in the sect. You should leave if you do not like it.

Do not publicize this, because everything is a top secret, unless the officials have something to say about how you followed the wrong procedure, how you are just loaded with personal defects.