We Had a Great Time at the Moline 1966 Reunion

Team Jackson posed with Ronald McDonald,
but we found him a bit stiff.

Sassy would not get on the bench with Ronald McDonald.
When I got a little stern with her about it, she got all cute and smiley to make up for it.

Mrs. Ichabod was inside with the Moline ladies having lunch at this excellent restaurant.
Sassy is not yawning. She is calling for Mom to come outside.

We enjoyed an evening with Linda and Dave Pearson in Geneseo,
a beautiful town of immaculately maintained homes.

One Rebuttal to WELS Propaganda

Jon-Boy Buchholz sent that email to me when he wanted good PR.

“There were not enough candidates from MLC and WLS to meet all of the call requests. Following assignment day at MLC, there were still some 45 teacher calls that remained unfilled, due to a lack of suitable candidates available. The Lord blessed our district with eight teacher candidates of the 11 requested, and all four of our pastor candidate requests were filled. There were numerous other pastoral calls around the synod that went unfilled. This is the smallest seminary graduating class in recent memory (23 men). This year’s small seminary class and the continuing need for teacher candidates underscore the need to encourage young men and women to study for the preaching and teaching ministry. Remember that this year's eighth-grade confirmands will not graduate from Martin Luther College as teachers until 2022, and those who pursue pastoral ministerial training will not graduate from seminary until 2026. It’s a long pipeline, even as the need for workers presents itself now!”

Uh, no.  What a complete bushel basket of blather.  Let’s get this right out on the table: there is no real need for called workers.  This is the great myth that is constantly perpetuated.  How can there be such disconnect between the synod’s needs and the synod’s worker training college?  Maybe congregations aren’t looking for ECE graduates en masse and would rather get a teacher that could focus on fifth graders instead.  Maybe having a staff minister would be a horrible idea because the program is only good in theory and not in practice so instead a congregation would rather just call another pastor.  This district report even proves there is no need.  The AZ/CA district had 3 churches leave, 10 teaching positions were eliminated, and two schools were closed.  Why train more called workers to go to schools that are closing and churches that are leaving?  Seems rather pointless, doesn’t it?  Apparently the DPs are not reading their own reports.  Perhaps this is where that disconnect happens. 

The Changers used "Growth" to introduce their apostasy,
but their agenda was never growth - except growth in money and power for themselves.
Ask the Founders of Church and Change - John Lawrenz, Steve Witte,
John Johnson, John Parlow, and Old Scratch.

Buchholz Uses ELCA Strategy - If He Cannot Conquer, Divide

Luther paraphrases Paul.
Hey, hey - no UOJ.

I noticed in the WELS DP Buchholz report that he followed the example of his ELCA peers.

When ELCA cannot take over the property and kick out the pastor, when a congregation objects to the lavender activists, the bishop sets up an antagonist splinter group claiming to be the "real congregation."

That is precisely what Jon-Boy Buchholz did in Las Cruces - he followed ELCA's methods.

Buchholz:
"A subsequent decision by the majority of the Emmanuel, Las Cruces, congregation to retain Pastor Rydecki as its pastor resulted in the separation of that congregation from the WELS. After that vote, the members in the minority separated from Pastor Rydecki and formed a new congregation in Las Cruces. They chose the name “Cross of Christ” because they wish to
 proclaim that the forgiveness of sins was completed at the cross [GJ - justification without faith]. The congregation is served by Pastor Jim Connell and is applying for membership in the WELS and in the Arizona-California District at this convention." 

As I wrote before, the congregation voted to leave WELS.

Buchholz might have known he was losing this one, but he wanted to frighten the rest of clergy back into their rabbit warrens.

Transexual Priest - Church of England

Episcopal Church Plunges to New Depths on Sexuality Issues
TEC and Church of England elevate transgendered priests to pulpits

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue DD
www.virtueonline.org
June 9, 2014

The Episcopal Church reached new lows this week when it announced that the Washington National Cathedral, TECs flagship cathedral, would play host to its first transgendered priest, a certain Rev. Cameron Partridge, who will preach in its pulpit.

A few short years ago, such an invitation would have been unthinkable. Nobody in their right or left mind would have entertained the notion that a priest, claiming to be a man (of God) who was formerly a woman, could suddenly announce to his bishop -- in this case Massachusetts Bishop Tom Shaw, a homosexual -- that she secretly felt herself to be a woman trapped in a man’s body, obtain a sex change operation, (euphemistically called sexual reassignment surgery), keep her/his job as a priest, and then go on to preach in one of the nation’s most prestigious pulpits.

Never mind that transgender surgery is a lie. It can't change the chromosomes or DNA; it can only effect a cosmetic change. Nonetheless, The Episcopal Church has raced ahead of the culture and historic Christianity and pushed this abomination right into the pulpit. A church whose deepest theological utterances have been reduced to sound bite words like “inclusion,” “diversity” and “oppression” is a church that has surgically operated on itself.

From the plodding efforts of one man, Dr. Louie Crew who made it his life's work to get the church's leadership to embrace homosexuality, we have now reached the point where a whole bevy of unnatural sexualities have invaded episcopal pulpits...a sight that would have sent an Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Cranmer or Ryle reaching for their Bibles. Servitus would not have been the only object of John Calvin's wrath.

Who would have thought that, in time, an alphabet soup list of sexualities LGBTQI would have commandeered the minds of allegedly thoughtful bishops who, in the press for full inclusion and cultural push, would ditch sacred scripture in the name of a false compassion. And now the question comes: Why stop at a mere handful of sexualities? The way is open to a Heinz 58 variety of sexualities which we are told now exist! If inclusion be the theme of God’s new understanding of love, play on.

This is, after all, the Age of Tolerance. Sexual positions and attitudes that go against the prevailing zeitgeist have resulted in screams of homophobia causing orthodox believers to leave TEC. This makes tolerance the new intolerance. Those who don't agree are left hoping and praying that people will understand the difference between Episcopalian and Anglican.

The Episcopal Church has been in the vanguard of innovative changes in the area of human sexuality for more than forty years. Other denominations, like the United Church of Christ, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, have all followed suit. Last month, a group of 80 United Methodist pastors and theologians in talks about the future of the United Methodist Church went public with the view that the controversy over homosexuality is too great a doctrinal divide and called for an "amicable" denominational split.

"We need to recognize the reality that we — laity, clergy and even the Council of Bishops — are divided and will remain divided," the pastors stated in a letter published on the national Goodnews.org forum for Methodists.

"Talk of a 'middle way' or of 'agreeing to disagree' is comforting and sounds Christ-like. However, such language only denies the reality we need to admit. Neither side will find 'agreeing to disagree' acceptable." 

The fallout will be costly, but godliness and faithfulness to Biblical absolutes demands it. The losses will be great, but not as great as The Episcopal Church which has spent nearly $40 million on lawsuits over properties to date.

The Episcopal Church is reaping the whirlwind of its apostasies. It has lost over 200,000 active Episcopalians, hundreds of priests and dozens of bishops who, no longer able to stand the increasing abandonment of biblical norms on sexual behavior and the authority of Scripture, have set about to form the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA).

Sodomy has become the lightning rod issue for progressive Christians. The irony should not be missed. Even as America's Protestant denominations capitulate to the culture on sexuality issues including divorce, abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, transgendered pastors, their churches, already aging, will shrink even more quickly and die. The urge to proclaim “justice” for sexually perverse persons overwhelms even the need to survive, it would seem, as God, we are told, is doing a “new thing” and we must get with the program.

It is hubris piled on hubris. It is as though the church has embarked on a long death march with a cyanide tablet, instead of a wafer, held out in the inviting hands of John Shelby Spong with the Cheshire cat grin of Gene Robinson standing next to him. The cup of salvation is now the cup of sexual salivation.

The Church of England, the Mother Church, also seems bent on the same road of self-immolation as the Episcopal Church, rather than following the African churches they gave birth to with the gospel, two centuries ago. How ironic.

Archbishop Justin Welby’s kairos moment in Nairobi to embrace his evangelical African brothers and sisters along with a handful of western orthodox Anglicans was passed over in favor of his own faux reconciliation talks with the most liberal Anglican flotsam he could muster while dodging the elephant in the sacristy - the emergent ACNA. Reconciliation and realignment are not the same thing. The former is playing the impossible game of squaring the circle; the latter is recognizing the obvious. 

The deeper truth is the fulcrum of Anglicanism is no longer Lambeth Palace and Canterbury. In truth, it is Abuja and Nairobi. Africa has the numbers while England wears the lace and miters of history led by theologically hollowed out bishops ministering to a dying church.

This week a Trannie, a woman priest (a man now a woman, the exact reverse of the American female into male), was made a minor canon at Manchester Cathedral. A narcissistic video narrated by the Rev. Rachel Mann tells us how wonderful God is for allowing LGBT folk into the church and now into the pulpit following decades of alleged oppression.

One can only imagine the high testosterone, masculine driven House of Bishops in Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda or Rwanda viewing this video and then noisily throwing up.

One wonders at what point the whole sickening sexually revolting mess will be too much for Anglican African, Asian, and Latin bishops causing them to rise up with one last heave to overthrow their ecclesiastical colonial masters and bid them farewell, acknowledging once and for all that western Anglicanism is lost and that God’s Holy Spirit has indeed moved on to more fruitful pastures in Africa and China (where an estimated 40 million Christians now reside) leaving the West to rot in its own sexual apostasies.

Is it any wonder that social historian Philip Jenkins observed that Africa is overwhelmingly going Christian with more than one billion Christians by 2050? By then, TEC and the CofE and the ACoC will be footnotes to history. The CofE can barely muster one million today and TEC now has an ASA of less than 700,000 that includes seven transgendered clergy!

The American Physics Society compiled a list of countries that could have “no religion” by the end of this century. They include the Netherlands, Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, Austria and Estonia.

Perhaps one day a Kenyan Christian will visit Canterbury Cathedral and upon seeing it full of tourists, will suddenly jump into the pulpit and announce he has Good News that “Jesus saves and He wants your life your soul, your all.” The cathedral’s Director of Stained Glass Ministries stricken with the news promptly collapses and dies of fright.

TRANSGENDER REDUX

Theologian John Piper says that in the first chapter of Romans, the apostle Paul draws a parallel between the way nature teaches about God and the way nature teaches about male and female sexuality. "Nature is one of God's methods of revealing what we should prefer, even if we don't. God, the wise, loving, purposeful creator and designer of human life is the one who connects biological nature and sexual identity."

God's divine nature is revealed in the physical, material universe, he argues. So much so that Paul says in Romans, "So they are without excuse" when they "exchange the glory of God for the glory of the creature," or when they "exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator."

Piper adds that Paul then draws the parallel with human sexuality. "Just as physical nature reveals the truth about God, so physical nature reveals truth about sexual identity. Whom we should worship is not left to our preferences, and who we are sexually is not left to our preferences. Both are dictated by God's revelation in nature," Piper writes.

So if a human looks at the world and chooses to worship a creature rather than the Creator, he is without excuse, he says. "And if a man looks at his own body and chooses to play the part of a woman, or a woman looks at her own body and chooses to play the part of a man, they are without excuse … Genitalia is a revelation of God's design.

"God knows what is best for humanity. He also knows the painful disordering of our sexual desires that came with the fall," he says. "We are all disordered in some measure in different ways. He promises to help us with our disordered loves so that we can enjoy measures of contentment in the midst of our necessary self-denial."

God will forgive anyone who turns to Christ for mercy and embrace Him in "repentance as our supreme treasure."

END

How Do They Miss the Efficacy of the Word? God Will Provide

I recently posted about gardening and the classic Isaiah 55 passage on the efficacy of the Word. Not comprehending the Isaiah passage means misunderstanding justification, sanctification, and evangelism.

The passage in the graphic is really about efficacy too, though the word efficacy is not used in the English translation.

Ephesians 3:20 Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh (power of the Holy Spirit in the Word at work) in us, 21 Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen.

The Holy Spirit always works through the Word, and God always works through the Holy Spirit in the Word - never apart from the Word. Adolph Hoenecke used that statement to say "That is sound doctrine. The Word never without the Spirit. The Spirit never without the Word."

This relates directly to gardening because the living seed (another metaphor for the Word in the New Testament) inevitably grows when rained upon.

Rain and snow return to the atmosphere after accomplishing God's purpose (Creation) and illustrate how the Word of God always returns to Him after accomplishing His purpose:
1. The Word is never without an effect - never preacher or taught in vain.
2. The Word always accomplishes His purpose - even when a riot, or shunning, or rejection follows.
3. The Word prospers His will, so it is a big riot, a major shunning, and a violent rejection. But it is also a major conversion, an abundance of blessing,  or a miraculous effect that continues for generations (such as the wedding of two believers, sometimes only one, and the believers that come from that union).

After sowing the seed carelessly, following Matthew 13/Mark 4 - and I do mean carelessly, I get results because the seed is alive and the rain water accomplishes God's purpose in initiating and promoting growth.

Gardeners suffer from planter's panic, the agricultural equivalent of buyer's remorse. They wonder, "Will all those seeds actually grow? I see nothing. I am out $30 in seed for those tiny packets." 

 

The trouble with city-slicker clergy is they have the religious equivalent but no Biblical study or gardening experience to counter it. They try something and see no results after a few weeks. They start looking for something that really works.

The Fuller con artists, long ago, promised them that business methods and statistical analysis really work, so the clergy do not need to worry about being faithful to the Word.

Abandoning the Word-that-really-works, blind Fuller and its blind disciples chased after fads and numbers, in spite of all the evidence they were no better off than the Gadarene swine - and no more appealing.

The one thing that works - preaching an original, Biblical sermon - was replaced by plagiarized how-to coaching harangues. 

• The liturgy is faithful to the Word - get rid of that.
• Classic Christian hymns are faithful to the Word - get rid of them.
• The Creeds confess the truth of the Word - get rid of them too.
• Holy Communion and Holy Baptism are taught in the Word - nope, might discourage the Sacrament-scared.

The Evanjellyfish are abandoning the Word as fast as they can. Witness the lavender activism of Andy Stanley. 

The blind disciples will continue to fall into the pit, on top of their Fuller, Willowcreek, and Trinity masters.

WELS and Missouri will continue to detonate, defibrillate, and decrepitate. \