Mankato Free Press : Former Gibbon LCMS pastor found guilty of sexual misconduct. UOJ bears fruit.

Mankato Free Press : Former Gibbon pastor found guilty of sexual misconduct:

GIBBON, Minn. (TEE) – When the pastor of St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, Moltke Township, rural Gibbon, was approached by a Wisconsin church in late April and asked to transfer there and be their pastor, the St. Peter’s congregation was at a loss of words. 


A former Gibbon pastor has been found guilty of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl.



A Sibley County District Court jury Friday found David Radtke, 52, guilty of two counts of third-degree and two counts of fourth-degree criminal sexual conduct.



According to court documents, Radtke engaged in sexual activity on multiple occasions with the girl, a Spanish exchange student who lived with the Radtke family.



The girl told authorities Radtke gave her back rubs and groped her sexually, on one occasion awakening to find Radtke’s hand inside her underwear.



The girl, who testified at the trial, said similar encounters followed, with Radtke initially denying wrongdoing to family members but later admitting to his acts when questioned by investigators.



Radtke testified during the trial that he gave the girl late-night back massages and accidentally touched her inappropriately and briefly upon awakening after he fell asleep with her laying across his lap.



He said he apologized and asked for forgiveness, which she refused.



Radtke was arrested May 23.



He is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 20.



He was the pastor of a rural Gibbon Lutheran church.




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The Free Press



GIBBON — New charges have been filed against a Lutheran pastor from Gibbon accused of sexually abusing a 16-year-old girl.



David Radtke, 52, has been charged with stalking and intercepting electronics communications.



Last month he was charged in Sibley County District Court with third-degree criminal sexual conduct involving the girl, a foreign exchange student who had been living with the Radtke family since last summer.

The latest charges allege the girl’s cellphone was to be turned over to investigators but ended up at the Radtke residence instead.



Emails forwarded from the phone to the Radtkes’ personal emails indicated the girl’s emails were being monitored, allegedly to hunt for information to discredit her accounts of the assaults.



According to the criminal complaint, Radtke’s wife told investigators the Radtkes were paying the bill on the girl’s phone and therefore believed they had a right to monitor her emails.



Under the original charges, Radtke stands accused of engaging in sexual activity on multiple occasions with the girl.



The girl told investigators on one occasion she awakened to find Radtke groping her.



The girl said similar encounters followed with Radtke initially denying any wrongdoing to family members but later admitting to his acts when questioned by investigators.



Radtke was arrested May 23.
http://m.mankatofreepress.com/MFP/db_268556/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=oBIzwEwE


Even more details are here.

This LCMS DP was trained in Church Growth at The Sausage Factory, Mequon, and could have been his new boss, if he had not been arrested. See the call report.

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The defense:


Diane Radtke told the jury that she asked the female if she felt safe and that told the vistim that she would not allow David to be alone in the house with her any longer. Both David and Diane stated that they felt the touch was inappropriate but "certainly not a crime". 


The defense asked many questions about the female victim to establish that she had lied about smoking to the family and maybe could not be believed. 


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GJ - WELS and Missouri follow the same strategy - attack the victim of the crime.

WELS Reformation Summary - From AC V

Calvinist Leonard Woods Jr. created the language of Objective Justification and
Subjective Justification in his famous 1831 translation of the Georg Christian Knapp dogmatics
textbook from Halle University, still in print today.
CFW Walther endorsed the double-justification OJ/SJ language decades later.

AC V has left a new comment on your post "What Huber and Knapp Have Accomplished In the Olde...":

Your Reformation celebration “WELS Connection” for today: “The history of UOJ in WELS”

We begin with Leonard Woods (1807-1878), born in West Newbury, Mass., graduated at Union College in 1827 and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1830. His translation of Georg Christian Knapp's Christian Theology (1831-1833) was long used as a text-book in American theological seminaries. http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Leonard_Woods

Woods and Andover Seminary were Calvinist.

This is the footnote Leonard Woods (Remember he was a Calvinist) put in his translation of Knapp’s Christian Theology under the article “The Scripture doctrine of pardon or justification through Christ as an UNIVERSAL and UNMERITED favor of God”:

"This is very conveniently expressed by the terms objective and subjective justification. Objective justification is the act of God, by which he proffers pardon to all through Christ; subjective, is the act of man, by which he accepts the pardon freely offered in the Gospel. The former is universal, the latter not."

Knapp was educated at Halle University, the center of Pietism,
and closely associated with August Hermann Franke.

Who was Georg Knapp whose Christian Theology textbook was so acceptable to Calvinists that is was “long used as a text-book in American theological seminaries”? Knapp was a theologian at Halle University in Germany in the late 1700s. Halle was a “Lutheran” University and a hotbed of Pietism and Rationalism.

Tholuck, a rationalist and Universalist, was Hoenecke's mentor
at Halle University.

The year after Knapp died in 1825 Friedrich Tholuck succeeded Knapp’s theology chair at Halle. Tholuck made it his aim to combine Rationalism with Pietism and, in spite of the opposition of the theological faculty of the university, he succeeded in changing the character of its theology. This he achieved partly by his lectures, but above all by his personal influence on the students. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/August_Tholuck.

Here’s the “WELS connection”:

Tholuck mentored Adolf Hoenecke who attended Halle as a student. Hoenecke often credited Tholuck for bringing him to faith http://www.studiumexcitare.com/content/66). Adolf Hoenecke was the first WELS Seminary professor beginning in 1866 when the Seminary was in Watertown, then in 1878 when it was in Wauwatosa, WI. His dogmatics notes, modified by Prof. John Schaller and later Prof. John Meyer and recently by the Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary staff, remain the basis for dogmatics studies at the Seminary.

http://www.studiumexcitare.com/content/66

To sum it up:

Halle University (Pietism/Rationalism) + Knapp (theology acceptable to Calvinists) + Tholuck (Influencial Rationalist/Pietist) + Hoenecke (UOJ in 2 Cor. 5:19) + Schaller (“Wauwatosa Gospel”) + Meyer (unbelievers are saints) + Kuske (“God declared all people righteous” Catechism Question #253) + Bivens ("all are sinners and all are justified," FiCl Oct. 2011) = UOJ today in WELS.

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GJ - That is an excellent summary of the history of the Objective Justification and Subjective Justification terms, along with their association with Halle University. Halle, as the center of Pietism, was associated with Biblical studies, Christian faith, and missions. Orthodox Lutherans opposed Pietism, but the later years changed the adversaries. Halle became the center of rationalism in Biblical studies (Semler), and believers were considered Pietistics and mystics in an overwhelmingly rationalistic 19th century, when Stephan and Walther came over.

The ethnic Lutherans coming to America were allied with Pietism and unionism because the alternative was the rationalistic state church opposing them. The Augustana Synod Swedes and the Norwegians had that in common with Saxon Immigration Society in Perry County and St. Louis. The Buffalo Synod was another Pietistic exodus.

Pietist Johann Jakob Rambach was educated at Halle University.

Jay Webber quoated Rambach, the Halle Pietist, against Chemnitz, the senior editor of the Book of Concord::

I can understand why Chemnitz would read 1 Timothy 3:16 in this way. But his reading does not rule out what I would consider to be a necessary corrolary to such a "personal" justification of Jesus. The 18th-century Lutheran theologian Johann Jacob Rambach makes the following observation in his Ausfuehrliche Erklaerung der Epistel an die Roemer (p. 322), regarding the Lord's payment and satisfaction of sinful humanity's "debt" to God:

"Christ was in his resurrection first of all justified for his own person, Is. 50:5, 1 Tim. 3:16, since the righteousness of God declared that it had been paid and satisfied in full by this our Substitute, and issued him as it were a receipt thereof; and that happened in his resurrection, when he was released from his debtor's prison and set free. But since the Substitute was now justified, then in him also all debtors were co-justified."

Later in that commentary Rambach also writes (in a way that shows that he has 1 Tim. 3:16 in mind):

"The justification of the human race indeed also ocurred, in respect of the acquisition, in one moment, in the moment in which Christ rose and was thus declared righteous; but in respect of the appropriation it still continues till the last day."

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GJ - The origins of UOJ are a combination of Calvinism and its midwife, Pietism. Samuel Huber was the first Lutheran to claim that the entire human race was absolved in the resurrection of Christ. He was a "former" Calvinist who was repudiated by Polycarp Leyser, an assistant editor of the Book of Concord. Why do Olde Synodical Conference Lutherans teach Huberism, which was utterly rejected by the Concordists still alive when he failed at teaching universal absolution?

Pietism lacks the foundation of the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace, because all Pietists believe the real church is the cell group, which gives energy and power to the congregation,  which is  nothing more than a convenient place to organize the cell groups. That is why the Sacraments and the sermon mean so little to the Lutheran CGM and Emergent Church efforts. The outward appearance of the congregation is necessary for foot traffic, but the real church is the cell group (small group, Bible study group, share group, care group, koinonia group, prayer group). 

Calvin taught that the Holy Spirit works separately from the Word and Sacraments. In fact, the Word and Sacraments are useless unless the Holy Spirit happens to drop by and do his work, according to the Swiss Reformer's published works.

The Olde Synodical Conference represents the triumph of Pietism, rationalism, and Calvinism.

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LutherRocks has left a new comment on your post "WELS Reformation Summary - From AC V":

Outstanding work. Thanks for posting.

I remember hearing on more than one occasion when I was into CGM...people these days vote with their feet. How upside down is that? We cater to their feet? Or this one...the unchurched come to church for the wrong reasons and end up staying for the right reasons...huh? And the 'poor miserable sinner' is left unattended to...

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GJ - And where are the "orthodox Lutheran leaders" opposing this Dreck, Joe? They are scheming to start more businesses under the cover of the synod - like coaching, estate planning (their own), etc.

OnWord - About Us. With Ichabod Commentary

What hath Cascione wrought?

OnWord - About Us: [GJ - One of the leaders is a DP that Jack Cascione worked hard to get elected. Buengler marched in procession, robed, soon after that election, with ELCA potentates.]

OnWord is a communication resource of Mission Advocates - lay people and church professionals, women and men, participating in the Mission of God (Missio Dei) and committed to encouraging a missional emphasis for the present and future of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. [GJ - Why is a phrase in English translated into Latin? These poseurs get rid of all the ancient Sunday names in Latin - Septuagesima, etc - and throw Missio Dei at us. I get it - missional is Fuller Seminary, so Missio Dei is a smokescreen. High church, Fuller style - the guy in the Hawaiian shirt, playing the keyboard, knows some Latin.]

Mission Advocates embraces the historic doctrinal commitments of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. Several of these commitments are summarized here as they speak to the emphasis of Mission Advocates.

- That the Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of God.

- That the center of faith is the Gospel of Jesus Christ - the "chief article" of the Christian faith and the "article on which the church stands or falls." [GJ - Justification by faith is the chief article. This section could be applied to any sect.]

- That the Lutheran Confessions (The Book of Concord) are drawn from God’s Word and are a true and binding exposition of Holy Scripture. [GJ - But see what these debbils say later.]

- That the primary mission of the church is to make disciples of every nation by bearing witness to Jesus Christ.  Other necessary activities of the church are to serve the church’s primary mission and its goal that all people will believe and confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. [GJ - Manufacturing disciples, the anti-Means of Grace living bobble translation, is not the primary mission of the church. Teaching and baptizing in the Name of the Trinity is.]

- That there is one holy Christian Church on earth who’s (sic - whose) Head is Jesus Christ. [GJ - They cannot get one little page of English right. Sad.]

- That Christians are the Church and that they alone originally possess the spiritual gifts and rights which Christ has gained for, and given to, His Church.  The Scripture teaches that the Priesthood of All Believers is the Church in action (1 Peter 2:9-10).  Apostle Paul reminds all believers: "All things are yours," (1 Cor. 3:21, 22) and Christ Himself commits to all believers the authority to forgive sins – the keys of the kingdom of heaven (Matt. 16:13‐ 19, 18:17‐20, John 20:22, 23), and commissions all believers to preach the Gospel and to administer the Sacraments (Matt. 28:19, 20; 1 Cor. 11:23‐25). [GJ - The crowds must have been appointed by Jesus and trained as apostles, too.]

- That the public ministry is the office by which the Word of God is preached and the Sacraments are administered under the authority and in the name of a Christian congregation.  Although the office of the ministry is established by God, it possesses no power other than the Word of God (1 Pet. 4:11).  Regarding ordination we teach that it is not a divine ordinance, but a commendable ecclesiastical ordinance through which the Body of Christ, through Word and Sacraments, is equipped to participate in the Mission of God - bringing the hope of Christ to the world. [GJ - I distinctly remember ordination being called a sacrament in the Book of Concord. Ordinance is a familiar Calvinist term.]

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St. Louis Cardinals Win World Series

What Huber and Knapp Have Accomplished In the Olde Synodical Conference

Hopeless (Moldstad), Helpless (Schroeder), and Hapless (Harrison) imagine that success means keeping people happy and continuing as thralls of Thrivent. I will explore the incestuous relationship between the sects and Thrivent fairly soon.

More importantly, the impact of Huber's Easter absolution and Knapp's double-justification have eliminated the Means of Grace from worship and from the ordinary thinking of the clergy.

Some will say, "But we have Holy Communion and Holy Baptism. We talk about the Means of Grace." The Roman Catholics do too - but there is never enough grace in the Roman Means of Grace to get someone out of their mini-Hell for the semi-saved, Purgatory.

All the Protestants talk about baptism and the Lord's Supper (communion is an odious term for most of them). But the non-Lutheran Protestants treat the Sacraments as ordinances, laws that urge Christian to perform acts that affirm their faith. An ordinance does not confer grace at all.

Universal Objective Justification unites the Olde Synodical Conference with ELCA. Everyone is forgiven - everyone has already been forgiven. Although the implications of that falsehood vary somewhat, the Big Four end up in the same sinking boat together, figuratively and literally. The demons recognize one another and establish fellowship together. The Big Four (ELCA, LCMS, WELS, ELS) work together at all levels and troop off to Fuller Seminary together. They work together through Thrivent and Lutheran World Relief. Unionism and doctrinal indifference are so close that one is either the daughter or the mother of the other.

UOJ is not a harmless error because the the demonic doctrine is a repudiation of the Gospel. Here are the obvious results of UOJ:

• Clergy and laity no longer trust in the efficacy of the Word, so they are directed toward schemes, methods, and entertainment.
• The sermon is not an opportunity to create and sustain faith in the Gospel, but a chance to tickle people into membership and financial support. The Old Adam speaks to the Old Adam instead of the Spirit working through the Word alone.
• No one respects the divine call because every parish is a franchise business that must obey the franchise owners at headquarters.
• The fruits of the Spirit are almost entirely lacking because the Gospel has been replaced with a bogus substitute and angry tirades against faith. This naturally leads people into more rationalism and Pentecostalism, often a combination of both errors.
• Right and wrong are judged based on the franchise rather than the Ten Commandments. Adulterers and worse are hailed as saviors of the synod while anyone who questions the franchise is excommunicated, shunned, and covered with abuse. His or her family shares in the abuse if they do not join in shunning the dissenter.
• Since there is no Gospel, the UOJ sects are all law, man-made law. Mrs. Ichabod says, "Double predestination and double justification - they mean triple punishment and no forgiveness." Notice that clergy and laity only talk about material success now and never about fidelity to the Word, a reversal of the Biblical standard.
• The clergy plagiarize and the laity love it, because worship has become a joke.
• Genuine Biblical study is obsolete, because UOJ cannot bear the weight of casual reading, let alone serious scholarship (which any layman can do). Thus the new papalism - the priest will tell you what the Word of God says, and he is right because the Synodical Pope says so.
• Confessional study is "boring and irrelevant" for the same reasons.

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AC V has left a new comment on your post "Looking for Authority Instead of Studying the Word...":

Oh, and one more thing. The Book of Concord. Doesn't the Augsburg Confession, Apology; Article III. "Of Christ" sound like a paraphrase of Romans 4:25?:

"…Christ suffered and died to reconcile the Father to us; and that He was raised again to reign, and to justify and sanctify believers, etc., according to the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed." 

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AC V has left a new comment on your post "Looking for Authority Instead of Studying the Word...":

Couple of Luther quotes on Romans 4:25:

"Sin cannot remain on Christ, since it is swallowed up by his resurrection. Now you see no wounds, no pain in him, and no sign of sin. Thus St. Paul declares that 'Christ died for our sin and rose for our justification' [Rom. 4:25]. That is to say, in his suffering Christ makes our sin known and thus destroys it, but through his resurrection he justifies us and delivers us from all sin, if we believe this." - Luther, M. (1999). Vol. 42: Luther's Works, vol. 42 : Devotional Writings I (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (12–13). Philadelphia: Fortress Press.

"In Rom. 4:25 Paul says: 'Christ was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.' Consequently, he who presumes that he is righteous in any other way than by believing in Christ rejects Christ and considers Christ’s Passion and resurrection useless. On the other hand, he who believes in Christ, who died—he himself at the same time dies to sin together with Christ; and he who believes in the resurrected and living Christ—he himself, by the same faith, also rises and lives in Christ, and Christ lives in him (Gal. 2:20). Therefore the resurrection of Christ is our righteousness and our life, not only by way of an example but also by virtue of its power. Apart from Christ’s resurrection no one can rise, no matter how many good works he does. On the other hand, through His resurrection anyone at all rises, no matter how much evil he has done, as this is treated at greater length in Romans. Perhaps another reason for Paul’s practice of mentioning the resurrection in his salutations is this, that the Holy Spirit was given through the resurrection of Christ and by this Spirit the apostleship and other gifts were distributed (1 Cor. 12:4 ff.). In this way, therefore, Paul declares that he is an apostle by divine authority through the Spirit of the resurrection of Jesus Christ." - Luther, M. (1999). Vol. 27: Luther's Works, vol. 27 : Lectures on Galatians, 1535, Chapters 5-6; 1519, Chapters 1-6 (J. J. Pelikan, H. C. Oswald & H. T. Lehmann, Ed.). Luther's Works (Ga 1:2). Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

The Big Four were described in 1530.

Intrepid Lutherans: Chemnitz and the Two Tribunals - a Fitting Meditation for the Reformation

Intrepid Lutherans: Chemnitz and the Two Tribunals - a Fitting Meditation for the Reformation:

Chemnitz and the Two Tribunals - a Fitting Meditation for the Reformation

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The justification of the sinner through faith alone in Christ was the Gospel that thrilled Luther and that fueled the Reformation. Below is an excerpt from Chemnitz' Loci Theologici in which he beautifully pictures the "act of justification" as the Apostle Paul presents it in Romans 3.

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Paul clearly describes the act of justification in this way in Romans 3:

1. The conscience of the sinner is through the Law placed before the judgment tribunal of God (who is a consuming fire and in whose sight not even the stars are pure), is accused, convicted, and condemned, so that it is afflicted and pressed down by a terrifying sense of the wrath of God, Rom. 3:19 KJV: “… that every mouth may be stopped and all the world may become guilty before God”.
2. The heart thus contrite does not entertain Epicurean thoughts but anxiously seeks whether and how it can be freed from the comprehensive sentence of condemnation. From such thoughts come such passages as Ps. 130:3: “If You should mark iniquities ….”; Ps. 143:2: “Enter not into judgment …”; Rom. 7:24: “Who shall deliver me …?” Paul, by listing these points, shows that if anything can justify before God, it necessarily would be either the ethical system of the philosophers, according to the teachings of men, or the works of the divine law, because the Law has the promise of righteousness and eternal life. But Rom. 1:18 ff. shows that the teachings and ethical principles of philosophers cannot justify. And Rom. 3:20 says: “By the works of the Law shall no flesh be justified.” For the Law shows and accuses the sin present even in our good works, because “the Law is weak through the flesh,” Rom. 8:3.
3. Therefore God, “who is rich in mercy” [Eph. 2:4], has had mercy upon us and has set forth a propitiation through faith in the blood of Christ, and those who flee as suppliants to this throne of grace He absolves from the comprehensive sentence of condemnation, and by the imputation of the righteousness of His Son, which they grasp in faith, He pronounces them righteous, receives them into grace, and adjudges them to be heirs of eternal life. This is certainly the judicial meaning of the word “justification,” in almost the same way that a guilty man who has been sentenced before the bar of justice is acquitted.

It is manifest how much clarity this gives to the discussion of justification. The fathers in disputing this matter often spoke inadequately about justification. But in their devotional writings, when they were looking at the picture of the divine judgment or the divine judicial process, they handled the doctrine of this article very well.

The example of Bernard [of Clairvaux, 1091–1153] shows this clearly, because he was not involved in idle speculations but was exercising himself in the serious matter of repentance based on the doctrine and testimony of Paul. Gerson has some wonderful thoughts about the tribunal of God’s justice and the throne of His grace. For if we are discussing our common position before the tribunal of God, we are all subject to the tribunal of His justice; and because before Him no living person can be justified but all are condemned, therefore God has also set up another tribunal, the throne of grace. And the Son of God pleads for us the benefit of being called away from the tribunal of justice to the throne of grace. Therefore the Pharisee, because he was not willing to use the benefit of this calling, but wanted to enter into judgment before the tribunal of justice, was condemned. But the publican, who was first accused at the tribunal of justice, convicted and condemned there, later by faith called out to the throne of grace and was justified [Luke 18:9–14].

All these points so beautifully illustrating the doctrine of justification come from the correct linguistic understanding of the word “justification.”

Chemnitz, M., & Preus, J. A. O. (1999). Loci theologici (electronic ed.) (481–482). St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House.

POSTED BY REV. PAUL A. RYDECKI AT 6:00 AM

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Rehabilitating Martin Stephan — Lutheran Forum

I wonder if Pope Paul the Unlearned is Jack Kilcrease's source on Bishop Stephan.
Read McCain's foaming-at-the-mouth replies on this long thread.

Rehabilitating Martin Stephan — Lutheran Forum:

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Facebook

Jack Kilcrease

Question: I was talking online with an LCMS pastor about early LCMS history and he asserted to me that Bishop Martin Stephan had syphilis. I don't recall reading this anywhere and when I googled it, I found only one, let us say, less than honest source. So does anyone know whether or not this was true?

Share · 3 hours ago · 

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    Joel A. C. Dietrich I haven't heard this...but if you want to know...I'd ask Dr. Lawrence Rast.
    

    2 hours ago ·  2 people
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    Jacob Corzine for the record, it could be named under its code word, 'the french disease'..
    

    2 hours ago
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    Jack Kilcrease Thanks. I've read that before, but I didn't try it on google. That yields nothing as well. I think someone is making things up!
    

    2 hours ago ·  1 person

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GJ - Jack Kilcrease is a constant source of entertainment. He confessed ignorance about the ELCA's biggest lawsuit ever. He demanded proof, which was easily available to anyone with strength enough to conduct a Google search. He was too indolent to carry on from an initial link provided by this  blog. So more information was provided by me and others. Then Jack got touchy.


I have a confidential source who gave me plenty to check on. Someone did additional research and confirmed that Stephan was syphilitic. As someone asked on the thread above, why did the storm break so suddenly?

After pretending not to notice for decades, Stephan's followers had physical proof of his dalliances with women, since women show symptoms of syphilis more readily than men, for obvious reasons. Stephan's rashes, his daughter's deafness, and his wife's illness all point to the same conclusion, regardless of the claims of the confidential source.


McCain is right about one thing in the thread above. The Saxons did not need Loerber spilling the beans to know Stephan was an adulterer. The bishop left his wife in Dresden but took his mistress, Louise Guenther, to America. In Europe, Stephan lived with Louise in the spa where his rash was treated, but sent his wife home, rejecting her. Louise joined him and lived with him later in Illinois.

If Kilcrease wants to play his game of arguing from silence, it will not change the basic facts. The real issue is not Stephan's adultery, but his doctrinal legacy through Walther.

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-------- Original message --------
Subject: Haven't seen you around.
From: Jack Kilcrease <jdk002@aquinas.edu>
To: brett.meyer@comcast.net
CC:

Brett,

I'm just curious.  You seem to have fallen off the face of the earth.  What happened to you?  I've missed your passionate diatribes against the false gospel of UOJ on the Ichabod lately.  Has there been a falling out between you in Jackson.  Just curious.

All the best,

Jack.

***

GJ - Kilcrease blocked me today on Facebook. Big loss! At the same time he wrote his little Wormtongue message to Brett Meyer, above.

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Brett Meyer has left a new comment on your post "Reformation Sunday, 2011":

Faithful divine service and sermon Pastor. To God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost be the glory forever and ever.

Amen.

In Christ,
Brett 

Neenah Church's Prayers Answered on ABC's Good Morning America - WBAY-TV Green Bay-Fox Cities-Northeast Wisconsin News. Deputy Doug Engelbrecht Has AC Prayers Answered

Neenah Church's Prayers Answered on ABC's Good Morning America - WBAY-TV Green Bay-Fox Cities-Northeast Wisconsin News:

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A Neenah congregation received an answer to its prayers on national TV.

The Good Morning America series "Show Me the Money" was in Neenah, where State Treasurer Kurt Schuller presented a check for nearly $10,000 to Trinity Lutheran Church.

The money came from savings bonds from church member Amy Larson, who passed away.

But they never made it to the church and sat as unclaimed property for 13 years.

Schuller presented the church with a check for $9.967.40.

"I am so proud and so pleased and thankful to the Lord to be able to present this check to this wonderful church," the state treasurer said.

"There was so much joy and there was so much emotion. It was just really exciting and fun to see how everybody was so excited about this gift that was given to us," choir director Naomi Laabs said.

The check presentation was made over the summer and the segment aired on Good Morning America on Friday.

Trinity Lutheran Pastor Doug Engelbrecht says the church used the money to replace ceiling fans with air-conditioning to help get through Wisconsin's muggy summer.

Plans for the Next Version of Luther versus the Pietist: Justification by Faith. CFW Walther's Immaculate Deception

Official synodical history is the worst source of facts--in any denomination--and controversy is the best. I enjoy reading both because the gap between the myth of origins and the raw data is as breath-taking as the Grand Canyon's 10-mile expanse. The American Indians saw that gap as a difficulty to be overcome, but the clergy see the distance to the other side as not worth attempting. 'Tis safer to repeat the official story, especially when it is teeming with lies.

CFW Walther's immaculate deception is one of the great frauds in history. Walther willingly followed a syphilitic adulterer to America, kidnapping his own niece and nephew from his father's parsonage - while his father was grievously ill. CFW pleged complete obedience to the bishop on the way over to America but took over the cult a few months later. Roman Catholics call that "mental reservation."

When the shoes of the fisherman were usurped, Walther insisted on total obedience. His bizarre and anti-Christian opinions were repeatedly established as canonical truthsl. Missouri was the only God-glorifying sect. All others had to submit or be driven away in a torrent of accusations. We can thank Walther-idolator Tom Hardt for associating Walther with Huber's false doctrine of Easter absolution and tracing the association of OJ/SJ with Huberism, via more plagiarism (from Knapp to Woods to Germany to America - There and Back Again, A Habitual Liar's Adventure).

The next version of the justification book will deal with Huber's Easter absolution nonsense, which one website identifies with early Universalism, and Huber's close affinity with Walther's Easter absolution claims. The book will also show that the LCMS was born in Pietism and never escaped the problems of that insidious movement.

The Olde Synodical Conference has fed everyone the line that they were the orthodox Lutheran alternative to the unionistic and Pietistic decay of the Muhlenberg tradition (General Synod, General Council, ULCA) - even though Muhlenberg, Bishop Stephan, and Adolph Hoenecke all went to Halle University, the mother ship of Pietism.

Calvin pretended to be Lutheran and signed the Augsburg Confession. He had to be flushed out of the tall grass by Westfall. Huber came to Lutheranism via Calvinism but never accepted Lutheran doctrine. Spener blended Calvinism with Lutheran doctrine and practice, never admitting that he stole the idea of cell groups from a Calvinist.

In Walther's day the clergy were either aggressive rationalists, favored by the system, or isolated Pietists, barely able to pass the state exam, since the rationalists dominated the process. Thus Walther was trained and nurtured in two forms of Calvinism, one the logical result of Calvin's magisterial use of reason, the other Spener's clever blend of Calvinism and Lutheranism.

As Chemnitz wrote, quoting the ancients, when the stream is muddied, we have to return to the source, putting aside the various doctrinal statements and studying the Word of God itself. That is where the UOJ Stormtroopers find themselves stranded in shallow waters. They can only quote a tiny group of double-justification fanatics to prove their case, ignoring the entire witness of the Scriptures so they can pixelate one part of one verse in Romans.

The UOJ Enthusiasts are responding to the corrosive effect of the facts by avoiding their favorite shibboleths. They no longer want to go into battle yelling, "Everyone is already forgiven, whether they believe it or not!" Instead, they use justification by faith in their writings while juggling words to indicate they only mean - "making a decision to trust in a previous, universal absolution."

Looking for Authority Instead of Studying the Word of God

LPC has left a new comment on your post "Jack Kilcrease Butters Up David Scaer for Another ...":

Jack is an example of what happens when you become a Waltherian. When you become a UOJer, you become dependent on an authority. You have to look for someone 'great'.

In LC-MS, there are plenty of professors specialising in historical and systematic theology, they have no one (after Walther Maier) that can be considered a specialist in exegetical theology.

The weakness in exegesis leads to dependence on an authority of what the Scripture means ( according to so and so etc).

Only the synodical conference Lutherans interpret Romans 4:25 like they do, the declaration of the whole world irrespective of faith to be justified.

Lenski does not believe this interpretation, neither does Walther Maier agree with that interpretation.

This is where the Synodical Conference people are unique and on their own because they are the only ones that interpret Romans 4:25 the way they do.

LPC

Wauwatosa theologian.

Luther Rocks: TLH - Still Relevant for the Times. James Tiefel's CGM Hymnal - Not

Luther Rocks: TLH - Still Relevant for the Times:

'via Blog this'

TLH - Still Relevant for the Times

From Wikipedia: The Lutheran Hymnal (TLH) is one of the official hymnals of the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. Published in 1941 by Concordia Publishing House in St. Louis, Missouri, it was the LCMS' second official English-language hymnal, succeeding the 1912 Evangelical Lutheran Hymn-Book. Development of TLH began in 1929 as a collaborative effort of the churches of the Evangelical Lutheran Synodical Conference of North America and became the common hymnal for both the LCMS and theWisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS). Containing 668 chorales, hymns, carols, and chants, plus the liturgy for the Common Service, Matins, Vespers, the propers, collects and prayers, the suffrages, canticles, psalms, and miscellaneous tables, TLH became an extremely popular and beloved worship resource in theLutheran church in North America, and attempts to succeed it in more recent years have often met with strong resistance.

The first attempt to replace TLH began in 1965, when the LCMS began work on the Lutheran Book of Worship and invited other Lutheran denominations in North America to participate in its creation. As a result of disagreement and compromise with the other churches involved in LBW's production, the LCMS objected to some of its content, and Lutheran Book of Worship was published in 1978 without the endorsement of the very church body that initiated its production. An LCMS revision ofLBW was quickly published in 1982 under the title Lutheran Worship. Lutheran Worship (LW) was intended to replace TLH as the official hymnal of the LCMS; however, many congregations were still unsatisfied with the final product, leading them to continue using TLH. According to a 1999 survey by the LCMS' Commission on Worship, approximately 36% of the synod's congregations were still using TLH as their main hymnal, and even more were continuing to use it in combination with LW and/or other hymnals and hymnal supplements. An even newer hymnal, Lutheran Service Book (2006), has restored many of the former hymnal's features in the hope that more widespread use can be achieved. In the WELS, TLH was effectively replaced by Christian Worship: A Lutheran Hymnal in 1993, and few congregations continue to use it on a regular basis.

The Lutheran Hymnal is commonly referred to by many to as the "Red hymnal," in contrast with LW, the "Blue hymnal". However, the "Red hymnal" moniker is somewhat misleading. The initial editions of TLH were in fact bound in blue, and the hymnal has been simultaneously available in both red and blue cover versions for much of its history. Although the red cover version is now more common, many congregations' pew racks are filled with blue-covered copies of the "red" hymnal. Generally, members of these congregations refer to TLH simply as "the old hymnal". The widespread use of Lutheran Service Book (LSB) [1] has begun the process of resolving the LCMS' hymnal controversy, as initial reviews have been generally quite favorable. Concordia Publishing House has announced that all TLH-related supplemental materials, including specialized accompaniment editions and the agenda, will go out of print when current supplies are depleted, but plans to continue to produce the pew edition for the foreseeable future. TLH remains an officially sanctioned hymnal of the synod, and it is unlikely that the synod will ever formally decommission it as an official hymnal.