The Oracle of Ichabod:Mystery of the Sistine Chapel Revealed

Cleaning up the Sistine Chapel fresco revealed many new details in the artwork,
including the name of the Dephic Oracle.

I wonder why people are so quick to doubt my observations and predictions.

I published my thoughts about the demise of the ELCA merger, before it took place, 24 years ago. I documented all the homosexual activism taking place at that time, chapter and verse, with exact details and quotations. That issue of Christian News was sent all over ELCA, and to Lutheran groups as well. And yet the 2009 ELCA convention was a shock?

A late-comer to the Christian Faith has noted on Facebook that LIberalism: Its Cause and Cure also predicted the current situation in religion, even though it was published about 20 years ago. The book, hated by Shrinkers, became a minor best-seller for Northwestern Publishing House and began a relationship between Christian News and NPH in selling books.

Although that should be adequate proof, let me add a unique perspective that has developed, after I was ordained in 1973. As Uncle Roy has often said, "He knows everyone!" I have met church leaders from all denominations and studied under many men who are world-figures in theology. Add to that my experience with the LCMS, WELS, the Little Sect on the Prairie, and several micro-mini groups. Most people know one denomination, and sticking to one is a good career move. However, that also creates a parochial view that is blind to everything else.

People I have met, spoken to, or heard include: Paul Y. Cho, Charles Colson, James Kennedy, Robert Marshall, David Preus, Robert Preus, Jack Preus, Roland Bainton, Stan Hauerwas, Paul Holmer, John Howard Yoder, Nils Dahl, Sydney Ahlstrom, J. Pelikan, Kurt Marquart, David Scaer, and quite a few others. Real doctoral work means reading hundreds and books, and writing books demands the reading of many hundreds more.

Many contribute research to this blog without acknowledgement. They know the wrath of the UOJ Shrinkers, so they keep their pen names. Many details come from them, and they are in a position to know. Since I am routinely called a liar and slanderer, I check on the facts before I publish and I link whenever possible. There are several occasions when false stories were fed to my friends so WELS could call me a liar for publishing the lies they were promoting.

Reading Ichabod is a short-cut to Lutheran knowledge. The fact is, few can sit down and write from the same perspective and with the same freedom.

To paraphrase the fired former Synod President Gurgle - "To deny this would be false modesty, and that would be a sin."

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LutherRocks has left a new comment on your post "The Oracle of Ichabod: Mystery of the Sistine Chape...":

I am laughing...I have not done much of this of late...I will sleep well tonight...


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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "The Oracle of Ichabod: Mystery of the Sistine Chape...":

The fact is, few can sit down and write from the same perspective and with the same freedom.

I disagree. Everyone can sit down and write with the same freedom. They decide not to. I'll let them consider why that is. From my perspective they decide not to publicly and faithfully defend and promote Christ's doctrines for fear. Fear of XYZ. Regardless the reason for the fear it is certainly not Godly, since Christ would have us contend openly as He provides the opportunities, and Oh! there are opportunities. But they do not, and the apostasy continues to advance, smothering the sheep and blinding the churches.

Jude 1:3 Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints.

Mark 8:35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.

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GJ - Ah, but Brett, you are focusing on the freedom part. I agree with that. Few have the same perspective. That was aimed at the lunk-heads in Church and Change (and Missouri counterparts). They keep repeating their talking points from seminary, never imagining that they were fed propaganda. Synodical spin is a tough sell in an academic setting. For instance, "It is true because Walther said so." That would create a yawn or a "Who?" in most universities.

Artful Dodger told me that the St. Louis Seminary put this spin on Walther kidnapping his niece and nephew: "They wanted to go to America."

Conventional Wisdom

"We're not done yet, Brett. ELCA will get a whole lot smaller after this convention."



The LCMC will meet in Des Moines starting on October 2, the day we return from the Moline High Reunion. We turn south at Des Moines, so we will stop at their gathering for a short time.

The parallel group, the NALC (the bishops' synod) will meet in Columbus in July.

WELS is meeting next week, to approve the NNIV and to re-elect Mark and Avoid Jeske as the de facto Synod President.

ELCA will meet August 15th.

• Bethel in Noblesville, IN, passed their first vote to leave ELCA by an 82% margin. This congregation has about 1300 members.
• Gethsemane Lutheran Church, Ft. Wayne, IN, 1st vote to leave ELCA, today.
• St. John's Lutheran Church, Gollad, TX, 1st vote to leave ELCA, today.
• St. Jacob Lutheran Church, Chapin, SC, second vote, already decided to join NALC (Vote Passed!)
• Going, going, gone.

WELS Convention Meets To Re-Elect SP Gurgle.Cash Bar Hosted by Prof Tiefel

The Synodical Conference is a marketing tool for Thrivent Insurance.
Thrivent unites all Lutheran groups with ELCA, following the ELCA agenda.

Do not be shocked, Baby Blue Eyes, Tiefel himself was serving alcohol at his worship conference bash at an ELCA college, just last week.

Post convention highlights and lowlights here.

Orthodox Theologians For UOJ.Oops, Wrong Folder.My Bad!

Brett Meyer on UOJ Being Insidious

Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Review of J. P. Meyer - Ministers of Christ, Revi...":

UOJ is insidious. It's sole function is to separate the hearer from the one true Gospel.

Those who have rejected Christ's faith but still desire to be called Children of God, have created a new way to be righteous in God's sight that doesn't require the faith which they lack. Having established this new righteousness they go about to destroy Christ's righteousness because it stands as a testament to their deception and departure from Scripture.

Romans 10:2 For I bear them record that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.

Romans 10:3 For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.

Almost all (W)ELS UOJ essays bow deep before the holy grail of Universal Justification, Siegbert W. Becker's Justification essay. His is the most clear confession concerning the false, deceptive and contradictory nature of UOJ.

This is his statement on the Kokomo four:
"Every one of the statements can be understood correctly, even though one must swallow a little hard to accede to the fourth. However, because the statements were used to discredit the truth of universal justification and to cause other laymen to doubt this teaching it is especially necessary to point out that the statements do not contain false doctrine."

"One really becomes a guilt-free saint only through faith, if we limit ourselves to the biblical usage of the word. However, since our holiness, as Augustine says, consists in sin’s remission rather than in life’s perfection, we could say that when God forgave the sins of the whole world he regarded all sinners as guilt-free, but if they are guilt-free we might also say that they are considered sinless in the sight of God. But a sinless person is a holy person, a saint."
Page 14

Saints in Hell
"Even the fourth statement can be defended even though it leaves much to be desired. As we have said, the statement is not drawn from a WELS source. If it is true that God has forgiven the sins of the world then it is also true that he forgave the sin of Judas. When Jesus called Judas “friend” in the garden, he was in effect treating him as a forgiven sinner. If Jesus took away the sins of the world he also took away the sins of the people who died in the flood. It is surely no more difficult to believe that God forgave sins that were already being punished than to believe that at the time of the resurrection he forgave sins that had not yet been committed. How that is possible I do not know. It very likely finds its explanation in the divine attribute of eternity.

But while the statement can be defended as expressing a biblical reality, yet it would be best not to speak in such terms. In Scandinavia it is customary on the part of some to ridicule universal justification with the remark, “The damned lie in hell with their forgiven sins.” So this fourth statement is a caricature which has a tendency to make universal justification look ridiculous." Page 15

http://www.wlsessays.net/files/BeckerJustification.PDF

There is little about UOJ, and certainly S.W. Becker's essay, which doesn't contradict Scripture, Christ's Holy Word.

And yet I received this warning from an Intrepid Pastor no less, "I did have Sig Becker for a professor, for a number of classes, and I can say, and will say from the roof-tops if called upon to do so, that this man is so far away from UOJ that he's not even in the same universe. OK, I know, I know, he defended Kokomo, but I happen to know that that was a case of synod blood being thicker than confessional water, so to speak...So, I may be dumb, but I'm not totally stupid. So, I think - in my own humble opinion - that if I say some guy is not an UOJ fanatic, I just might know what heck I'm talking about...I only ask you to consider three things - and this advice comes from my own experience - and please believe me, I know of what I speak:

1.) Bashing dead WELS guys, especially greatly beloved ones like Meyer and Becker, will not get you any sympathy or even so much as a hearing among 95% of WELS people. So, if you want to actually make any points or any progress, stick to the living."

So from the only publicly contentious corner of (W)ELS comes the admonition that if we want to be heard by the (W)ELS laity - which these guys shepherd - we can only discuss the statements of the living or the unbeloved dead. Well, so far they haven't promised to stop quoting the dead false teachers. Maybe if they stopped elevating men above Christ they would, by God's grace, hear Christ's voice in the Words of Scripture and faithfully defended and promoted in the Lutheran Confessions.

This pious lie is refuted by the Gausewitz catechism, the Missouri KJV catechism, the old German LCMS catechism, and many statements previous to the 1932 Brief Statement.

UOJ Enthusiasts are also Church Growth Enthusiasts. Ask Valleskey.

Two Charged with Battery

It was either gonna be a divorce or a funeral.

A New Jersey rabbi and his wife used hired goons, kidnapping and brutal beatings to force an Orthodox Jewish cad to grant his wife in Israel a long-sought religious divorce, federal prosecutors said yesterday.
Judy and David Wax of Lakewood, NJ, could face life in prison if convicted of coordinating the Oct. 17, 2010, kidnapping and assault of Yisrael Briskman, who prosecutors said was targeted after he failed to honor wife Chaya Dina Briskman's request for a "get" -- a divorce document recognized under Jewish law. Instead of granting the "get," Briskman fled Israel for Brooklyn.

 

'GET' HIM! David and Judy Wax (above) leave court in Trenton yesterday after being charged with kidnapping runaway husband Yisrael Briskman. [GJ - He could be a Missouri Synod president in the future. I call him The American Moses.]

 

 

'GET' HIM! David and Judy Wax leave court in Trenton yesterday after being charged with kidnapping runaway husband Yisrael Briskman (above).

RELATED: JEWS 'SPLITTING' HEADACHE
David Wax, 49, lured Briskman to his suburban home to discuss work on a set of Talmudic books published by Wax's Taryag Legacy Foundation, according to a federal criminal complaint.
But Wax ushered Briskman to a bedroom, where two goons punched him in the face, handcuffed and blindfolded him, prosecutors said.

During the 30-minute beatdown, Briskman was shown a body bag and asked repeatedly by his attackers to consent to Chaya's divorce, according to the complaint. Briskman eventually agreed to grant the "get," but Wax wasn't finished.

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/silly_rabbi_bust_for_divorce_force_656udw7sMKKy5setQoFU3N#ixzz1SYdgYCAp

Harrison's Hagiography Needs Some Editing

SP Harrison continues the LCMS mythology, which omits Loehe, forgets Walther's many crimes, and scapegoats Stephan.


AC V has left a new comment on your post "Review of J. P. Meyer - Ministers of Christ, Revi...":

Here's the "enlightened" answer, Brett. The Book of Concord authors were ignorant:

"Our Lutheran Confessions have no separate article on Objective Justification; the closest we can come to a paragraph of formulation for this doctrine is in Article IX of the Formula of Concord, under the doctrine of election. But even that is not really sufficient or suitable for stating the orthodox position in a clear and unequivocal manner. For our Fathers it was not difficult at all to consider objective and subjective justification under the same heading, and they were apparently unaware of any need to separate them or distinguish between them. But such was and remained the case only so long as the orthodox had a clear understanding of the nature of faith; once that understanding was gone, it became necessary (at the end of the last century) to begin making such as (sic) distinction."
Daniel Deutschlander, 1977.

Missouri Myth Machine
I was chuckling through a Christian News account of one Walther book. Walther took two clergy to court for slandering him. He put a high price on his good name, so they apologized quickly and repudiated their accusations. Walther was a hero!

But - Walther was above the law when he slandered Bishop Stephan. First of all, he had to know about Stephan's adultery before the Society left for America. Stephan was under house arrest until their departure, with court depositions taken about his multiple intimacies. The women were taught that, since Stephan had charge of their spiritual well being, he was also in control of their bodies.

Walther changed ships to leave quickly, because he had kidnapped his niece and nephew from his father's parsonage, hiding the children from the police, who had warrants out for his arrest. The children were later smuggled to America, with the help of his felonious lawyers, the great Marbach and Vehse, who are also treated as heroic figures.

The American Luther did not go to Stephan when he "found out" about the adultery in their new home of Missouri. Was Walther not suspicious that the mistress, known from the previous court actions, lived on the floor above the bishop in St. Louis? I find Walther's innocence impossible to believe.

Walther ran to his friends to discuss the double adultery, the double confessions, and the money matters. There had been struggles over the issue of money. There often is with parachurch groups, as there was recently with Thoughts of Faith. WELS replayed the scene too, with $8 million disappearing and the treasurer accused in public of mismanaging the funds when he was the one who put his foot down about designated funds being taken.

Doubtless the clergy and lay leaders knew their enterprise would blow up if people saw wider responsibility for the cult activities of their leader, whom they swore to follow as bishop for life.

Walther stealthily took away the Society's grant of 40 acres of land from the bishop. He organized St. Louis and Perry County opposition, leading the mob to threaten Stephan's life, rob him of all his possessions and money, forcing him out of his house and across the Mississippi River. Holding someone by force, threatening his life, and forcing him into another state - all are felonies.

Walther's earlier kidnapping of his niece and nephew should put him lower than the Casey Anthony family in the esteem of American Lutherans, but Walther's earlier crime is conveniently forgotten. The orphaned children died in America rather than being the comfort of their grandparents.

Please remember this - the group did not go to America for doctrinal reasons, although that is often claimed. They did not go to find religious freedom. The great enterprise was launched for one reason only,  to follow Bishop Stephan to America. He was their abusive cult leader, un-mourned by the Pietistic congregation he left behind.

Walther's thievery did not end with the mob deposing and robbing Stephan, who already lost 40 acres of land, from The American Luther changing the title behind his back. (Can you name a recent LCMS DP who changed a will, illegally, and still rose to the synod presidency?) Walther also talked Stephan's son into giving up the 80 acres that his father bought with his own money. According to the Stephan family accounts, Walther also made persistent attempts to undermine Stephan's son, who became a minister in the growing cult.

Thus today, the Lutheran Tetzels--Special Giving Counselors--have elderly people grant them Irrevocable Gifts, "to help the church and provide big bucks for your retirement," only to turn their backs on the givers when the money is poorly invested and the promised income evaporates.

History Turned into Lies
The Missouri Synod does admit that Loehe organized the denomination and invited the Perry County/St. Louis mob to join with his pastors. Of course, the official account is far more delicate. Half the original LMCS pastors were Loehe men, and Loehe set up a practical seminary in Ft. Wayne (which moved to Springfield and back again).

Walther alienated Loehe, so Loehe is largely forgotten by the LCMS, erased by the myth machine. Walther had to be the top dog in all discussions, so every official LCMS account has Walther the Hero defeating the dark forces of false doctrine. Every Missouri fetish in doctrine and practice has to be correct because it came from Walther or his chosen disciples - Pieper and Stoeckhardt.

Make a decision for Christ - echoed by J. P. Meyer.


Missouri's Hybrid Doctrine
The Missouri Synod, the Wisconsin Sect, and the Little Sect on the Prairie share in Walther's hybrid doctrine, due to educational influence and the ceaseless efforts of the excommunicators. St. Louis trained the Wauwatosa Seminary gang and dominated the ELS until the Syn Conference broke up.

Universal Objective Justification as the timeless truth of the Christian Church is pure baloney. Walther got it from the Pietist Knapp, the influential gas-bag from Halle University, mother ship of Pietism. Knapp's double justification scheme, promoted by Walther, did not become official in the Missouri Synod until the 1932 Brief Statement.

Two Forms
The Little Sect on the Prairie loves to glorify their split with the Big Norwegians, when they parted over the concept of two different forms being adopted by the merging but fractious Norwegians.

But WELS and Missouri have had two forms of justification all along, with no mention being made of the contradictions until exposed on this blog.

UOJ slowly came to dominate WELS and Missouri, but justification by faith was being taught the entire time. No better proof--impossible to deny--is offered by a catechism. The Gausewitz catechism is instructive because he was a Wisconsin Synod leader and also a Synodical Conference leader. The Gausewitz catechism was used decade after decade, until the Shrinkers replaced it with the Kuske UOJ catechism.

Likewise, Missouri has no sharper weapon than "he denies UOJ," but they still produce a KJV catechism with no mention of UOJ. I bought one from Pope Paul the Unlearned, who has a divine call to blog about CPH books.

I am not sure where the ELS pastors are. They fear Pope John the Malefactors laser-equipped crosier. They are free to communicate with pen names on this blog. I suggest not using such names "Norge" or "Koren" or "PreussianUnion."

Hagiography Is Not History
The Catholic Church made a name for itself by inventing saints and investing them with supernatural powers and innocence beyond all human understanding. The St. Theresa movie came out when I was at Notre Dame. One student would say, "She was a sick chick." The ex-nun professor would say, "No she was not." The Christian Brother student would counter, "Sick chick."

The Lutheran Church harms people when an abusive cult leader like Walther is treated as the great hero of the American church. That treatment has enabled Syn Conference pastors to serve as dictators who can do whatever they want, teach whatever they want, as long as they press the Walther macro button at the right time. And Walther is so handy for getting rid of people. The template has not changed - attack people behind their backs, promote Enthusiasm in the name of orthodoxy, and devour the money of widows and orphans.