Silence Protects the Abusers

Saturday, September 13, 2014

Expanding the Focus

http://shatteredpulpit.blogspot.com/2014/09/expanding-focus.html

Before people get bored reading my story, and move on to something more interesting, I am expanding the focus of the Shattered Pulpit to include the perspective of others who have had similar experiences. I can write about it from the victim’s standpoint, but I can’t explain it from any other viewpoint. I think it is important for people to understand what happens as a result of these sins from all angles not just a victim’s.  

The New Focus:
A look behind the closed door of Lutheran clergy sexual exploitation, harassment, and abuse with first-hand accounts from victims, family members, congregants, coworkers, leaders, pastors & perpetrators to aid in the understanding & prevention of further exploitation. By reading viewpoints from all angles, people will not only better understand the early warning signs to prevent it, but also the devastating affect that it has on everyoneinvolved.

Author: I survived extensive clergy sexual abuse at the hands of a long-time WELS Lutheran pastor which ultimately destroyed my faith and soul. I share my story with how it started, progressed, the red flags that everyone missed, and how it destroyed me emotionally & spiritually. 

To anonymously share your story, from any angle, email: lilliansuearmstrong@gmail.com

***

GJ - In a parallel story. the NFL uses a similar protection scheme to keep scandals out of the news or to tamp them down as soon as they erupt.

The Synod Presidents are really in charge of damage control, which means denying the obvious, absolving the guilty and unrepentant, and slandering anyone who talks. When I was still following ELCA, the denomination reported scandals in their national magazine and in their news releases. They certainly did not report everything.

So-called news departments are public relations efforts. Someone can track the agenda by what is reported and what is spiked. Herman Otten was always eager to spike stories for the ELS, LCMS, and WELS. His readers did not want to see anything against Holy Mother Synod unless it was part of the Otten-Cascione agenda.

Two major factors in clergy abuse are alcoholism and Thrivent. 

Alcoholism and drug abuse are both the cause and the excuse. "I didn't know what I was doing because I was drunk."

One sure sign of clergy alcoholism is the need to have meetings, "ministries",  and "Bible studies" in bars. I would also look for the alcoholic liver, the belly that extends beyond the normal body shape.

Thrivent fosters abuse by its genocidal support of abortion on demand through the funding of Planned Parenthood. By grouping all the Lutherans together in funding and projects, Thrivent reduces everyone to the lowest common denominator and erases any sense of compassion for the victims. Smooth operations and gobs of money are the goals.

Not WELS - A Valuable Property Stolen by the Episocopalians, Sold to Babtists

GROTON, CT: Bishop Seabury Church sold to evangelical Baptist congregation

By David W. Virtue DD
www.virtueonline.org
August 21, 2014
The Diocese of Connecticut, which is bleeding money and people and who recently let a bishop go because it can no longer support three bishops, has sold a flagship parish after the congregation was forced to leave following the parish and priest's rejection of the theological and moral innovations of The Episcopal Church.

The building, formerly known as Bishop Seabury Episcopal Church on North Road in Groton, has been sold to Stedfast (sic) Babtist Church, which describes itself as independent Babtist with "one message--the message of the Lord Jesus Christ, and one ministry--the ministry He has given us to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature." The church is also the home of several other ministries.

No price was given for the sale. The Land Clerk's office in Groton said there was an exemption clause on the sale of the building, so no price was available. The diocese also did not reveal how much it received in their press release.

The message of Stedfast Babtist is the same message that the former occupants under Fr. Ron Gauss declared, but a very different message from the one proclaimed by Bishop Ian Douglas, the diocesan Bishop of Connecticut, whose gospel is more one of inclusion and diversity.
Douglas had already lost what became known as the "Ct. Six" -- the most active orthodox Episcopal parishes in his diocese -- and with it a sizeable portion of income to the diocese. Fr. Gauss was one of the original "Ct Six." After the group lost their suit in federal court to preserve their rights of worship, the Bishop of Connecticut and his Diocese filed suit against the rector and vestry of Bishop Seabury Church in 2008 to establish their ownership of the property under the supposed terms of the trust unilaterally imposed by the malodorous Dennis Canon. The trial court ruled against the parish in 2010; the Connecticut Supreme Court upheld the trial court's decision in September 2011; and the United States Supreme Court declined to review that decision earlier this year.

Douglas set a policy, reinforced by the national Church and Mrs. Jefferts Schori, of "no negotiations for properties and no sale to Anglican churches." The parish had attempted to negotiate with the bishop but to no avail. Fr. Gauss had sought a negotiated settlement, but the response was a temporary rental -- nothing else.

According to a press release from the diocese, the last 18 months have seen lay and ordained leaders from the Bishops' Office and from Episcopal parishes in Gales Ferry, New London, Niantic, Norwich, Poquetanuck, Stonington, Mystic, and Yantic attempting ways of discerning what God is up to in Groton and its environs, and how the resources of the Bishop Seabury Church might best be used to extend God's mission in Groton and across Connecticut.
In a community-wide meeting in January, representatives of the neighborhood, social service agencies, other faith communities, and municipal offices all shared their hopes and dreams, needs and aspirations for Groton. The meeting came up empty-handed despite the need for housing for wounded veterans, a community center, and a soup kitchen. In the end, it was decided that the best option would be to sell the building to another Christian community and use the proceeds to support a new missionary program of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut if indeed that ever comes about.

So with all these efforts of liberal do gooders, and despite the tremendous need in the area, all the surrounding parish leaders could not come up with anything, even with a soup kitchen, to keep the property from being sold. Finding no basis therefore in keeping the property, the diocese sold it to an evangelical Babtist congregation who, they say, will keep the gospel alive under the noses of liberal Episcopalians.

"There is irony heaped upon irony here," the Ven. Ronald S. Gauss, Rector of Bishop Seabury Anglican Church, Gales Ferry, CT, told VOL. "These Babtists no more tolerate homosexual behavior than we do; they have a clear fix on the gospel as we do; and now they have bought the property from one of TEC's most liberal bishops. God has got a great sense of humor."
A further irony is that the Babtist church is growing and they were looking to relocate to a new and larger facility. The money was too good to pass up for Bishop Douglas as he watches his parishes age and wither and income into the diocese drops.

In a press release, Douglas said of the sale, "I am delighted that the building formerly known as Bishop Seabury Church will continue to be a house of prayer for sisters and brothers in Christ. And I am particularly excited that the resources freed up by the sale of the building will help to underwrite a new missionary program through the Missionary Society of the Episcopal Church in Connecticut. After all, Bishop Samuel Seabury, the first bishop in The Episcopal Church, was a pioneering missionary in these parts in the early years of American independence. I can think of no better use of the money coming from the sale of the church that bears his name than to support new missionaries in Connecticut today."

Said Fr. Gauss; "If the building was not going to be used by our congregation, it couldn't have been put to better use. One note is that Bishop Seabury Church in all of its 140 years of existence was never called Bishop Seabury Episcopal Church. The original name was Bishop Seabury Memorial Church, and later shortened to Bishop Seabury Church. The Diocese has removed The Seabury Window, and all other memorial items (The Seabury Pulpit, Altars and Lecterns) from the property. It is my prayer that they are put to good use and not just stored away somewhere or sold. Hopefully the funds obtained from the "short sale" of Bishop Seabury Church will be used to present the REAL Gospel of Jesus the Christ, and not the socially correct Gospel that caused Bishop Seabury Church to depart the Episcopal Church."

Several WELS cronies of Mark Jeske stole this congregation,
St. John in Milwaukee.

Where was the protest from the Love Shack
when St. John's property and endowment were stolen?

Even the Seminary President's Name Is Ambiguous. Save the Date - October 12, 2014. Will She Do an Ellen Afterwards?

Robin Steinke is the only woman Lutheran seminary president, the first woman to head Luther.
Liz Eaton is the first woman to head a Lutheran denomination.
Rebecca M. Bergman is first woman president of Gustavus Adolphus College.
Paula J. Carlson is the first woman president of Luther College. 

OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT

THE INAUGURATION OF ROBIN J. STEINKE

SERVICE OF INSTALLATION

Save the Date!

October 12, 2014

3 p.m.

Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, 12650 Johnny Cake Ridge Road, Apple Valley, Minn.

Preaching: The Rev. Elizabeth A. Eaton, ELCA Presiding Bishop

A reception will follow the service.

Get directions to Shepherd of the Valley.

ROBIN STEINKE

President

The Rev. Dr. Robin Steinke came to Luther Seminary as president in June 2014. She was the first woman in the 145-year history of the seminary to be named to the position.

Prior to coming to Luther Seminary, Steinke was the dean of the seminary and professor of theological ethics and public life at Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, where she served from 1999. She previously served as an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) pastor; a training manager and financial planner at American Express Financial Advisors; and a middle school band director in Marietta, Ga. Steinke is a graduate of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, S.D. She holds a Master of Divinity and a Master of Sacred Theology from Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in England.

Steinke is known for her strategic leadership and passion for sharing the gospel. She is involved in a number of important church and academic initiatives. She is currently co-chairing the national ELCA Theological Education Advisory Council that is evaluating and exploring the future of theological education. She serves as the ELCA Representative to the Lutheran World Federation Council and chairs their Endowment Fund. She is a member of the ELCA Ecclesiology Task Force and serves on a number of other church and academic committees. She previously served a six-year term as a commissioner for the Association of Theological Schools’ Commission on Accrediting.

***

GJ - A reader noted that Phyllis Anderson (married) became the first woman seminary president when she replaced Timothy Lull, who died after heart surgery. Below is Anderson with the entire incoming class at Berkeley, which had to merge and sell its valuable property to stay alive.

The prez with less than 20 incoming seminary students.
Why not host a secret initiation ritual, the way WELS does, and lie about it?
These are details about the amalgamation.

---

Grumpy Luther wrote:

Whenever I see a portrait of Robin Steinke, all I can think of is the "It's Pat" skits they used to do on Saturday Night Live.

If you are not familiar with that, Pat was a sexually ambiguous character.  The whole theme of the skit usually involved the other characters trying to figure out if Pat was a man or woman.

So, ditto with this Robin lady...er...dude....ah...well, anyway....

Fun with Cold Weather

The cold and rain has arrived here, though no snow for now. We were sweltering and batting at insects. Now I am thinking about cold weather projects.

I just ordered spinach so I can start it now, cover it for the winter, and harvest in the spring when the insects are not out and the spinach is crunchy with moisture. Fall-planted spinach will last through a bitter Minnesota winter and pop up for early spring.

Peas can be planted extra early in the spring, far earlier than people imagine.

Lettuce also loves cold and rain but bolts and turns bitter with heat.

Fall means the hardy bulbs will arrive soon and be planted: tulips, garlic, daffodils, giant aliums, crown imperials. Garlic will be my deterrent against predators going for the tulips. That may work.

I also started with suet, which I can buy at the meat market. I told them, "If the raccoons find it first, I am cutting off their supply."

Fat-loving birds are the ones that eat insects, so we want to see chickadees, starlings, woodpeckers, and many others clustered around the suet bags.

Why Did Wisconsin Lutheran College Pick Archbishop Weakland To Speak? - Perhaps the Answer Is Here

Roman Catholic Archbishop R. Weakland said that children wanted sex with adults.
He protected his priests and had his own homosexual affair.
Wisconsin Lutheran College hired him and his priests to lecture to the public -
and denied it.
Blackmail and embezzlement - familiar topics in WELS.

A reaction to Weakland protecting abusers can be found here.

http://www.abusedinwisconsin.com/St_Johns_School_for_the_Deaf.aspx

John Doe 16

In the 1990's, many of Father Murphy's victims began to break their silence and report their abuse to the Archdiocese. Among those who reported was “John Doe 16”. John Doe 16, now an adult, and a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of Father Murphy at St. John's School for the Deaf, reported the abuse to Archbishop Weakland in 1994 and began a several year quest to have the Vatican hold the abuser accountable and remove him from the priesthood. After much back and forth between Catholic officials in Rome and the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, Murphy was never held accountable, never removed from the priesthood and when he died in 1998 Murphy was dressed in full vestments and a funeral mass was presided by Auxiliary Bishop Richard Sklba. 

New York Times Report 2010

In March, 2010, an article by Laurie Goodstein and David Callender in the New York Times reported on the Murphy debacle:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/us/27wisconsin.html 

John Doe 16 v. Holy See

In April of 2010, after years of dealing with a life time of severe emotional distress from his abuse as a child, John Doe 16, represented by Jeff Anderson and associates, filed a lawsuit in United States District Court, Eastern District of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Division. The law suit, titled "John Doe 16 v. Holy See" names Pope Benedict and two of his top aides as defendants. 

The suit alleges that the pope, in an earlier role before his election, and other Vatican officials failed to discipline Murphy in the 1990s when US Church officials discovered the abuse, reported it to the Vatican and wanted him defrocked. 

The filing of the lawsuit, is the second such filed by Jeff Anderson and Associates on behalf of a victim of clergy abuse. 

CNN Documentary: John Doe 16 Breaks His Silence

In September of 2010, just a short time after filing his lawsuit against the Holy See, Terry Kohut, AKA John Doe 16, broke his almost 50 years of silence and spoke to CNN about the sexual abuse he suffered as a child at St. John's School for the Deaf. Click Here for CNN Documentary 

Later that year, Terry Kohut and fellow St John's victim of Father Murphy, Steve Geier, were featured in the magazine Deaf Life. http://www.deafpeople.com/dp_of_month/kohut.html 




Index of articles about Wisconsin Lutheran College's beloved Archbishop Weakland.

Fungi Are Smarter Than People - I Read That in a Book

This fungus is smarter than you and I put together.

Fungi produce special structures— for example, mushrooms above ground or truffles below— to disperse spores. Since fungi grow in all sorts of environments, they have devised some elaborate methods to achieve spore dispersal, including attractive scents, triggers, springs, and jet propulsion systems. To ensure survival, fungal spores can develop tough membranes that allow them to go dormant for years if the conditions are not right for immediate germination. 
Jeff; Lowenfels, Jeff (2010-09-10). Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Kindle Locations 860-861). Timber Press. Kindle Edition.

As one scientist observed, evolution gets increasingly difficult to promote at the microscopic level. Man-made devices, like the Swiss watch, look crude under a scanning microscope. God's Creation is a marvel of engineering. The author--an evolutionist and global warmist--has to use unusual language to explain how simple fungi can serve as the primary decomposition agents in the soil.

It is perfectly clear to the author - fungi have devised elaborate methods to achieve success! Likewise, desert plants have figured out that waxy leaves will ensure survival in the blazing sun. There must have been conferences of fungi and cacti, because both groups have many different strategies for dealing with the same issues in their environments.

That Chemical Factory in Our Plants
Intricate chemical systems created by God are used by bacteria and fungi to decay matter and hold nutrients in the soil to feed to plant roots. Harvesting some beans and tomatoes made me think about the more elaborate chemistry of plant cells turning solar energy and basic chemicals from the roots to fashion:

• Sunflowers - loaded with minerals, protein, and oil.
• Corn - sugar that turns to starch after harvesting, oil.
• Beans - carbohydrates.
• Spinach - fiber and iron.
• Potatoes - comfort food and a vitamin pill.
• Squash family - B vitamins in abundance.
• Cabbage family - cold weather plants with great nutrition.
• Carrots - sweet when raw, sweeter after a frost, like candy when cooked.

Lacking the ocean of life in the soil, the plants would never grow. And yet the plants also feed the soil. Most gardening books seem to think of compost as returning the organic matter to the soil, but more is involved than that. Although we eat the fruit, seed, roots, and tubers of these plants, we have a big plus when returning the garden trash to the soil.

1. The roots have penetrated the soil and established fellowship with fungi and bacteria.
2. Tap roots have mined the minerals from below.
3. Plants have formed cellulose, lignin, and carbohydrates for soil creatures to break down and store in the soil.
4. Rotting roots have fed soil life and left channels for rain and air to penetrate. The soil actually breathes when it rains.

Simply knowing the mutual dependencies of Creation can make us gifted gardeners who are the envy of the rototiller fan club.

Rototilling; spraying with herbicides, pesticides, fungicides, and miticides; compacting soil; removing organic material from lawns and under trees —all these human practices affect the soil food webs in your yard and gardens. Once a niche is destroyed, the soil food web starts to work imperfectly. Once a member of a niche is gone, the same thing happens. In both instances, the gardener must step in to fill the gap, or the system completely fails. Rather than working against nature [GJ - Creation?], the gardener had better cooperate with it; and this, as we shall see, does not require a lot of hard labor— not if the gardener understands and teams up with the soil food web, letting its members do the work.
Lowenfels, Jeff (2010-09-10). Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Kindle Locations 1517-1520). Timber Press. Kindle Edition.

To get this Knockout rose bloom, I dug a hole in the lawn, put the plant in it,
mulched it, and added red wiggler earthworms.

Book Stores Selling E-Book Readers - That is the Lutheran Church Today

Many times I have walked into a bookstore, only to find a man behind the counter, right at the front, selling e-book readers. I wanted to say, "Do you realize you are selling the tool to close down this store for good?"

No one read my thoughts, and one favorite bookstore chain shut down completely - and they had the best oatmeal cookies ever.

The Lutheran Church anticipated this foolishness, engaging in it wholesale across denominational lines. Fuller Seminary? ELCA pastors were there in droves. So were LCMS pastors - and WELS/ELS pastors. The excitement was so great that James Tiefel in WELS and Paul Tiefel in the CLC (sic) fell under the spell - a great movement for little minds, flinty hearts, and no soul.

The Big Two and the Little Three comprise 99.99% of Lutherans in America, and they are all engaged in training pastors and laity to leave Lutheran doctrine and worship for good. No one admits it. Not at all. They are all "confessional Lutherans."

SP Mark Schroeder (WELS) has the audacity to call WELS orthodox while promoting the Mark Jeske Church and Change fund-raising operation at every opportunity.

SP Matt Harrison hymns the Olde Synodical Conference while transcending the battle, a battle that was never fought, since the Missouri leaders pushed it down on everyone while denying it was there.

Consider this - the Lutherans who grew up in the LCA and ALC of the past were far more Lutheran than the Olde Synodical Conference fakes of the present. The ALC/LCA members went to church expecting to sing real hymns and chant the liturgy. They did not crave feminist Bibles, feminist Creeds, and women teaching men. They were raised on the foundation of the English language, the King James (Tyndale) Bible, directly connected to Tyndale's study under Luther and Melanchthon.

The LCA/ALC members expected to hear a pipe organ, which supports hymn singing better than any other instrument. They looked forward to Biblical sermons rather than coaching or success story talks. They did not have monstrous screens hanging from the ceiling, nor did they expect a rock band cluttering the chancel with their instruments and befouling the narthex with their latest CDs on sale.

One of my good friends is a minister of music at an Evangelical church. When he learned that I still wore a robe and conducted the liturgy, he burst into laughter. I do not mind that he and his congregation have their style - that is their business. But I mind very much that Lutherans did not have the nerve to resist the total saturation of their denominations with the Fuller agenda.

More about Driscoll

This is the link about Driscoll's abusive language. Is it a wonder that the same language was reported in the Anything Goes District of WELS, after two chumps went to a Driscoll conference?

Positive Response after The Shattered Pulpit Blog Posted

Monday, September 8, 2014

Synod Responds within Hours

http://shatteredpulpit.blogspot.com/2014/09/synod-responds-within-hours.html

Within hours of my last post that a registered sex offender was listed in the Synod Yearbook, I received official word from the WELS Synod Administration office that they had already taken the necessary steps to remove this individual from the yearbook. It was an oversight that he was included in the first place and they do not have his name in the 2015 synod yearbook.

I feel like a thousand pound weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I have struggled for months over that one issue and if that meant God condoned what happened to me also. Today knowing, without a doubt, that it was NOT intentional and the Synod does NOT condone that type of behavior, gives me a tremendous amount of peace and relief.

Over the course of time, my thinking has become so warped that I no longer know what “my way” of thinking is and what is “normal” thinking. In my mind I am terrified of God, therefore, I constantly look for ways to further doubt him and “prove” that he truly is evil and condoned what happened. My brain is so programmed to proving that God is evil that it is an instinctive reaction to everything now. I have dwelled on that yearbook point for countless hours wondering, whereas, a “normal” person would be able to immediately process that as unintentional and go on with life. I, however, let it become a major stumbling block of doubt for me instead.

I think one of the biggest impacts in my healing has been writing because as I write, I get responses from people that truly mold my journey and aide with the healing process. I have become SO convinced that God is this “evil being” up in heaven causing pain that it’s my primary focus now. However, through this journey, I am finding many people who are proving that theory wrong and showing me a loving God instead. That it’s “my way” of seeing God and not how God actually is.

Several pastors have also written offering me tremendous amounts of support with my journey and that, combined with the Synod Administration response, gives me an indescribable amount of peace today. Up until TODAY, I always had that nagging doubt that God condoned this. Today that was finally put to rest.

Today is the VERY first time, since this all began that I can honestly say God doesn’t condone what happened - and actually believe it. I can’t even find the words to describe the peace that I feel because of that. When you have been terrified of God for so long, and to such a degree, coming to realization that God and the church, as a whole, doesn’t condone what happened is the most amazing feeling on earth!

Maybe I can survive this journey after all. Maybe there is hope for recovery. To all the pastors that are showing me how God, and the church, really is thank you. Thank you for hope and this incredible amount of peace that I have today because of that!

***

GJ - One Satanic temptation is thinking that such evil is condoned. Most people are disgusted and alarmed at this behavior, and they do not comprehend what is being hidden from them. The greater the scandal, the greater the motivation to hide it.

Jeske's Church and Changers have engaged in gorilla warfare for years to get their guys in jobs and their wild hair projects funded. They are bullies and thugs, as everyone has seen from the Engelbrecht-Patterson debacle with Ski and Glende, who are both former hirelings of Jeske.

Moreover, such Dreck as this item from the WELS Meditations is sure to encourage the worst in everyone -

This is from WELS's Meditations, March-May 2014, for Monday, 17 March 2014.  The howler is in the second column which reads:  "No matter what you did yesterday -- or failed to do -- and no matter what you will do tomorrow, God has forgiven you." 

Everyone should encourage Lillian Armstrong, because she has been willing to put her experiences on display to help others. Continue to contact and support her. Here is the contact information for The Shattered Pulpit blog.

Some think that nothing can be done, but things happen as soon as light is shed on evil. Web pages are erased. Denials are issued. Problems are fixed - or at least massaged. 

The situation has to change to the point where officials fear that cover-ups will be even more damning than the facts. 

Delivering the Nutrition - Why Gardeners Do Too Much

Cathedral Rock in Sedona, Arizona
illustrates God's landscaping methods.

Strangely, gardeners and farmers have followed the Liebig mistake in thinking their big programs work better than microscopic action in the soil.

1. If I buy 40 pounds of nitrogen and spread it on my lawn, the grass will be so happy. I will bag up all the clippings and haul them away for that neat pool table look.
2. If I scratch fertilizer into the garden, the flowers will love me. 
3. If I rototill the garden before and after the season, the soil will be be fertile and smooth.

All three programs are wrong for the soil and harmful for the plants. Yet people blunder away, spending too much money and working too hard for bad results.

Almost all the nutritional benefits come from fungi and bacteria, and the interactions based upon fungi and bacteria. The bacteria are so small that 500,000 fit on the same space occupied by a period at the end of a sentence. Fungi are bigger and can be quite lengthy. Fungi can grow faster in a few hours than bacteria move in a lifetime.

As a Creation gardener, I want to help the fungi and bacteria distribute nutrition as they work with earthworms and other creatures. The three actions above damage the microscopic actions in the soil without providing more than marginal help. For example, Scotts Lawn fertilizer will not stay in the lawn but pass through into the water table, adding to pollution.

In contrast, nitrogen from mulched grass will be locked up by the soil creatures and passed back and forth in the root zone, to feed and energize those living forms that need nitrogen. They pass it to plant roots in exchange for their carbohydrates. The root tips receive nutrition from and donate food the bacteria, protozoa, and fungi need.

The earthworms are gentle bulldozers than move soil constantly, improving and multiplying the good effects of the bacteria they graze upon. I do not want to tear up this intricate web, but support it from above by protecting it from disruption.

Before, when I put mulch under the crepe myrtle bush, I thought about holding in rainwater and protecting the surface from drying out and wind erosion.

Now I realize that by mulching the bush with its plant material, I am feeding the bacteria and especially the fungi that need dark moist environs to do their work. I added Epson salt before the rain to take magnesium and sulfur down into the soil. Fungi distribute the chemicals where they are needed.

Church Programs - Scotts Lawn for Congregations
Church programs are like the three damaging steps I described above. The grand projects, often forced at a national level, ignore the divine effect of the Word and substitute man's cleverness. The more they fail, the more they insist on doing everything the wrong way. They search among all the false teachers to find an expensive magical formula instead of trusting in God's Word.

Creation and the efficacy of the Word are two sides of the same coin, to borrow a phrase. Denying one means rejecting the other.

Only in ELCA - Or WELS - Missouri, ELS, and CLC (sic) - If We Are Going To Be Honest

HOLY SMOKE! Sex offender William Prante, pictured yesterday,
has St. Peter's Church in an uproar.

PORN-AGAIN PERV

By Matthew Nestel

May 7, 2008 | 9:09am

Outraged parishioners have abandoned a Manhattan Lutheran church – after their pastor vowed to keep a convicted kiddie-porn collector on staff.

“The families were horrified,” said Brooklyn Criminal Court Judge John Wilson, who attended St. Peter’s Church at the Citicorp Center in Midtown with his wife and young son until learning last October that its receptionist was a registered sex offender. “It’s truly disappointing that someone in a position of authority would think so little of protecting children.”

But the Rev. Amandus Derr said that by keeping William Prante on the job, the church is fulfilling its Christian mission of rehabilitating sinners, while protecting kids by barring Prante from being alone in St. Peter’s with anyone else.

Prante, however, regularly sees children at the church as part of his job.

Prante, 61, pleaded guilty in 2004 to a Louisiana child-porn charge after authorities found more than 700 sexually explicit images of children, including girls who appeared younger than age 5, at his home.

Prante, who downloaded the porn onto his work computer during his past job as an arts group’s education director, served two years in prison.

“The best day of my life was the day of my arrest because I could get healthy,” Prante told The Post yesterday.

After his release, he moved to New York – registering as a low-risk sex offender – and started hanging around St. Peter’s, where a friend is the organist.

But when the church finance director – who was unaware of Prante’s crime – hired him last year, a parish council member uncovered news stories about him and complained to church officials before ultimately resigning.

Derr then felt compelled to tell his congregation, and did so following a Sunday service with Prante’s permission.

“That day was particularly heinous,” said a parishioner and mother of a young child, one of more than a dozen congregants who stopped attending St. Peter’s afterward.

---

http://www.nycago.org/Organs/NYC/html/StPeterLuth.html

St. Peter Lutheran Church (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street New York, N.Y. 10022 http://www.saintpeters.org Organ Specifications: 619 Lexington Avenue at 54th Street (since 1903): Present building (since 1977) ► II/43 Johannes Klais Orgelbau (1977) First building (1903-c.1970) ► III/17 M.P. Möller, Inc., Op. 7626 (1948) • II/5 Welte Organ Co. (ca.1912) – Sunday School room ► III/32 Eifert & Stoehr (1905) 474 Lexington Avenue at 45th Street (c.1871-1903): • George Jardine & Son (1872) See also the Continuo Organ in the Chapel.

St. Peter's Church (c.1871-1903)   Since its founding on June 2, 1862, as the Deutsche Evangelische Lutherische Sanct Petri-Kirche by a group of German immigrants, St. Peter's has faithfully served the midtown Manhattan area. Worship services in the German language began in a loft above a feed and grocery store at the corner of 49th Street and Lexington Avenue. By the 1890s, it became apparent that English services were required. During its first ten years, parish growth required several moves to larger quarters, eventually purchasing the former Lexington Avenue Presbyterian Church at the corner of 45th Street and Lexington Avenue. St. Peter's remained at this location until being uprooted by the construction of Grand Central Terminal.     St. Peter's Church (1903-1970) The building was sold to the New York Central Railroad in 1903 for $200,000, with the proceeds going toward the construction of a new Gothic-style church at 54th Street and Lexington Avenue. The new church was dedicated on May 14, 1905, and was typical of Lutheran church design of the time. Carved wooden sculptures, altar and pulpit dominated the chancel with a mural of the Sermon on the Mount above the altar, and glorious stained glass windows pictured scenes from the life of Jesus. In the balcony was space for a three-manual organ, the choir and the overflow crowds. By the 1920s, German services no longer predominated and English was adopted for morning worship. In 1925 the legal name of the parish was changed to "Saint Peter's Lutheran Church of Manhattan." By 1960, congregations in New York City were dwindling and St. Peter's was no exception. Rather than flee to the suburbs, the congregation of St. Peter's decided to affirm human life amidst the skyscrapers and develop a ministry that would serve more than just a Sunday congregation. A renewal of liturgical life unfolded and new programs in jazz, drama and the arts were developed. John Garcia Gensel joined the staff as the first pastor to the jazz community. In 1970, the First National City Bank (later known as Citibank) purchased the property for $9 million and agreed to build a new church next to its 59-story office tower. Hugh Stubbins & Associates designed both the tower and church, and Vignelli Associates designed the church interior. Stubbins described the church as two hands held up in prayer with light coming in between them." Consecrated in 1977, the church is a flexible space allowing for a great variety of expressions of worship through liturgy, song, sermon, dance, music and poetry.

WELS-ELS-LCMS Are Still in Cover-Up, Deny, and Slander the Victims Mode

As of today, child-porn file swapper Hochmuth
had this up on LinkedIn.
Here is a link I obtained - listing other Lutheran offenders.

Sunday, September 7, 2014

Collusion is Devastating

"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action, engagement and remembering.”--  Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery (1992) 

“Collusion is usually far more devastating to victims than the primary abuse.” -- Dee Miller 

What message do leaders send to clergy abuse victims by this conduct?
Answer: "What happened to you doesn't matter. Go away. Shut up."

What message do leaders send to clergy perpetrators by this conduct?
Answer: "You're safe with us. We'll cover for you." 

When people collude, they are making themselves complicit in the cover-up of some sort of unethical conduct or in the protection of others who engage in unethical conduct.  

We see the manifestations of collusion with clergy sex abuse through minimization, denial, rationalizing, victim-silencing, victim-blaming, and keep-it-quiet tactics. Collusion can be accomplished both consciously and unconsciously, intentionally and unintentionally. Even if someone says they didn’t intend to collude, their conduct may still be collusive. Many collude through silence and inaction. You won’t see collusion in what they do; you’ll see it in what they don’t do. Collusion often occurs behind closed doors. It’s a secretive sort of thing.

Here is an example: 
I'm sure that everyone involved would say clergy sex abuse itself is a terrible thing. But look at the message it sends to a victim when something is done even unintentionally:

True case of a WELS pastor which happened a few years ago; local news media reported: 
A Lutheran pastor was sentenced to two years in prison for possessing child pornography on his home computer. _________ pleaded guilty. The felony charge carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison. The prosecutor told the judge _____ had more than 70,000 images of young boys and other homosexual photographs on his computer. _____ is a pastor at ________.

As a victim, I struggle with the fact that he pleaded guilty; is a registered sex offender; had possible additional charges in a neighboring state; BUT, despite all that, is in the WELS Synod yearbook as being “retired”. He was an active pastor when this happened and instead of resigning he “retired” and, as of today, is still listed in the yearbook as retired. I struggle tremendously that the Synod knowingly lists a registered sex offender in their directory as if nothing happened; thus giving the appearance that he retired normally and there was no wrong-doing. I left God because I thought the church condoned what happened, so when I see this still in the yearbook, I continue to wonder. When you are struggling to come back to God, faith, and church, things like this (even if done unintentionally) are stumbling blocks. It puts doubts in your mind as to what is acceptable to the church. 

Since the church considers itself to be “the family of God,” the parallels in how families deal with the shame of alcohol and other abuse are strikingly visible when we compare how families of “faith” justify such pervasive collusion with abuse.

It is generally recognized that enabling behaviors of the family members of a drug addict help to keep the patient in denial and out of treatment. By constantly "lowering the bottom" through rationalizing and covering for the addict, close relatives become a part of the problem. Generally, they are as resistant to seeing this as addicts are to facing their own addictions. 

Family members do not collude intentionally. It's just that addicts are experienced con artists. They know how to play on the emotions of everyone. They are excellent actors, often even fooling themselves. By diverting attention, often to other issues, the addict keeps people from staying on course to clearly focus on the addiction as the root cause of their suffering. 

The same is true for clergy perpetrators. A clergy perpetrator, usually with years of being in the public eye, is skilled at convincing almost everyone, including victims, that he is really innocent or just “made a mistake.” He uses his charisma and status to enhance this skill. Even if he breaks down and "confesses," he finds ways to minimize the problems and the harm already done. It takes an enormous amount of energy to find one’s way to reality through the fog of deception which has been created by the offender and the many colluders who have already been misled.

Certainly there has already been a lot of effort, on the part of most denominations, to consult attorneys and instruct clergy about the "new rules." Unfortunately, just like many spouses of alcoholics, the concerns seem much more about protecting the image of the "family" than protecting its most vulnerable congregation members. 

When a patient enters treatment, everyone in the family minimizes. "It must be a chemical imbalance." Or "He'll be fine in a few weeks. After all she's only been drinking heavily for five years." The same dynamics are evident with clergy perpetrators and their colluders. "It's just the stress of the ministry. Treatment will be tough, but we are all going to expect total rehabilitation. With all the prayers going up for him, he'll be back in the pulpit in no time, being the great guy that he has always been.” Other common characteristics which colluding church leaders share with family members of substance abusers: distrust, high anxiety, conflict among formerly close colleagues, inconsistency, unpredictability, constant manipulation of the rules, and aggressive tendencies. 

When an addict is finally forced into treatment, he seems to "clean up" quickly, but often does not stay sober for long, once he is released. It is common for him to look at the wife and children he has harmed and expect them to forget what he has done, welcome him home, and restore him to all the blessings of marriage and fatherhood while leaving behind their memories of neglect and/or abuse. Colluding family members have the same attitudes, thereby naively giving his denial support more than his sobriety. All of this is usually true, as well, of the clergy perpetrator and his colluders, as he tries to manipulate his way back into a trusting relationship with his congregation and profession. 
“The world is too dangerous to live in -- not because of the people who do evil but because of the people who sit and let it happen.”  --  Einstein

 

References:
http://stopbaptistpredators.org/whats_collusion.html
http://www.takecourage.org/parallels.htm