Using Straw Men Arguments To Argue Against Faith. It Is Not Too Late to Boycott the Emmaus Conference

Ron Pederson is against faith.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1649010391990081/

Ron Pederson

April 5 at 11:33am · Edited

“God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s sins against them” (2 Cor 5:19).

What did Jesus accomplish by His life, death and resurrection? Did He accomplish a potential forgiveness that is true only when we believe it? Is our faith like some kind of magical genie that brings the forgiveness of sins into existence? If the forgiveness of sins is not already there, what is faith to believe?

***

GJ - How pathetic - three tired old straw men arguments in a row.

1. Did He accomplish a potential forgiveness that is true only when we believe it?

GJ - That one is especially lame, Ron. Who has said that? You are arguing in a circle and daring anyone to challenge your circular reasoning. You seem to reject utterly the Formula of Concord. See the quotation above.

2. Is our faith like some kind of magical genie that brings the forgiveness of sins into existence?

ELCA argues the same way. "Is the Bible a book that fell from heaven? Do you worship the Bible?" Instead, begin with Romans 4:24-25 and slither your way out of that passage. Luther's Galatians Commentary speaks only of justification by faith.

If the forgiveness of sins is not already there, what is faith to believe?

GJ - Ron, tell us the truth. Is the revealed Word of God dependent upon your darkened understanding? If you cannot believe in a universal absolution and salvation without faith, you cannot believe? How fortunate that so many read and understand the plain words of the Bible, that we are justified by faith.

Darwin could not believe in God creating a wasp that laid its eggs on pests, only to have baby wasps eat the larvae of those pests as they hatched in their warm, juicy bodies. Would that keep you from trusting in Creation too, since it was so hard on Darwin's tender sensibilities?

Two Rose Gardens Mulched - Planting before a Storm

Our helper came by to haul tree rubble and mulch. We will have many small logs left, even if someone gets the bigger pieces for firewood. Logs and sticks are great additions for the yard, unless one covets the billiard table look.

I kept piling up sticks near the Jackson Bird Spa all winter, rather than hiding them in the back. The birds constantly used the sticks and branches for beak wiping and perching.

Logs rotting into the soil are food centers for many animals, large and small.

Our helper was impressed by all the pruning. He said, "Now you will have to build a deck with lots of lumber and provide yourself with some shade back here."

I planted on strawberry plant in the compost, just to see how it would do.

Front Yard
I mulched Mrs. Wright's rose garden myself, because I wanted to see the finished area, which is the sunny side (south) of the house. Now the area boasts the straw bales growing potatoes, strawberries and a few other items. Raspberries are newly planted next to the straw bales, and a few red roses are planted between them.

I put Mrs. Wright's roses in a straight line parallel to the fence between our yards. The walkway between them and the straw bales was grassy. Now it is mulched with shredded cypress.

Back Yard Again
We mulched Mrs. Gardener's roses along the fence. We began the mulching last fall, so the soil had plenty of time to develop more soil creatures. Newspapers, wood mulch, and autumn leaves fed the soil for about six months.

Digging those roses was easy and fun. I put them in the lawn parallel to the fence, so we had lawn to cover with mulch around the roses. This time I had pre-soaked newspapers to lay down. Sassy and I did a quick run to Lowe's for more bags.

Before - grass and weeds grew along the fence. Now mulch has suppressed the grass and weeds, turning them into compost. Roses are leafing out and growing fast.

Storm Arriving
We have been watching the storms develop in the West. Normally we get moisture pulled up from the Gulf of Mexico or rain sweeping across Oklahoma toward us. Often the brunt of the weather heads north to Joplin or south to Ft. Smith and Little Rock.

Today we had a rain so light that I grabbed our new strawberry plants, soaked them again in rainwater, and planted them.

The rose bushes lacking the proper attitude were given an all-cane pruning. Nothing wakes a rose up faster. Two things I suggest, based on recent experience:

1. Soak rose bushes and potted plants for hours before digging them in. They are more dried out than appearances suggest. Rain water is best. Second best is water that has set for a day. Third best is city water. 
2. Prune all the canes upon planting for a faster start. Waking them up means getting the roots to establish themselves.

The rain is pouring out of the clouds now.

The fence and trees make vertical gardening easy.

WELS Musings from a Layman - The Sausage Factory as the Echo Chamber

WELS produces the MDivs who repeat the same bromides,
which are echoed verbatim to show their loyalty to Holy Mother Sect.

Randall Schultz

I propose that the Sausage Factory be given an additional nickname. One could also call it “The Echo Chamber”. Graduates have a habit of repeating certain phrases like Matthew 18, the Eighth Commandment, all are saved, etc. Perhaps a more fancy title might be the Pavlovian Dog School of Polemics. This conditioned response even applies to synod minders who have this mode of operation in place whenever debate is attempted.

The opposite of the echo chamber is an anechoic chamber. I have been in a couple of those. When you speak, it sounds like the words just drop out of your mouth and hit the floor in front of you.  This would be akin to writing a letter to a DP or other synod top dogs.

I remember reading once that Johannes Bading performed 2,182 baptisms. At his funeral, Pastor Gausewitz was one of the pall bearers. At one of the two organ concerts that I attended, Kevin Hastings gave a really interesting informal talk about the history. When he came there, there were members there who had fond memories of Pastor Brenner. He found it humorous that they said that Brenner could get a bit long with his sermons. They joked about wanting a lever a for trap door at the bottom of the pulpit. I am guessing that these members had elderly relatives who talked about Bading.

When I read a bit more about Bading's humble life, it reminded me of what I read about Matthias Loy and even Walter Maier (the elder).

Another tidbit. When we visited St. John's, there about twenty to forty in attendance. After the service, an elderly lady pointed to a young man in a photo hanging in the narthex. She said, "that's my husband". Those who were there probably just had a strong sense of belonging to a church that was so vital to the formation of the Synodical Conference. After St. John's was stolen and Kevin Hastings was locked out, much will be sent down the memory hole.

Then, I read a few entries from the latest WELS Documented blog. It was about many different worship styles yet allegedly, the same doctrine in the WELS. I wondered what the WELS leaders have been smoking. I also noticed that most of the congregations listed were outside of Wisconsin. The one notable exception was St. Paul's Muskego and the Bridge.

I believe that Kevin Hastings said something like, "it was so funny to hear these smart alecky 85 year old members say that they wished that there was a lever connected to a trap door on the bottom of the pulpit. That way, they could pull the lever when Brenner took too much time in a sermon."

I also remember going there with our children when we had maybe only the oldest three and St. John's was still in the WELS. I was a lay delegate at a District convention at the Echo Chamber, I  mean the Sausage Factory. Hagedorn gave his atrocious Cross Cultural paper there. I spoke briefly with Kevin Hastings afterwards about it. He said that he was going to talk with Al Sorum (Zebaoth, N. 7th St) and some other guys in the Metro Milwaukee North circuit about it.

I am sure that by then Jeske had a fairly tight grip on the puppet strings of synod leadership. Kevin Hastings was probably the odd man out in the circuit by then.

Apparently, Thrivent loot and Schwan donations are not enough. When I tried to discuss with some laity a number of years ago the direction that I saw it moving in, I saw a lot of normalcy bias and status quo bias. A lot of members are quite timid. This is probably a lot of history that is playing out. Many of the pastors, like Brenner were probably quite stern. Disagreeing with a pastor was akin to arguing with a police officer.

Worthwhile comments get the anechoic chamber effect.
Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?

***

GJ - The creepiest feeling is to have several Echo Chamber graduates repeat the same words when triggered in a conversation. Mentioning D. James Kennedy will get, "He is an Arminian, so at least he believes in the general Atonement."

Say "capitalism" and they will say, "Not capitalism. America is a free enterprise country."

Any criticism of Church Growth elicited, "Don't throw out the baby with the bath water." I said, "Don't wash the baby in dirty water."

Another WELS layman said, "WELS never stops talking about the whole world being forgiven, but I have never seen a more unforgiving, thin-skinned bunch."

Martin Chemnitz the Senior Editor of the Book of Concord, Or Rambach the Halle Pietist? Boycott the Emmaus Conference

For the whole process or act of the reconciliation of man the sinner with God is simply and clearly represented, as it were, with the word justify. For this matter is not handled incidentally or lightly, but seriously and, what is more, before the court of God and God Himself the judge. For the Law summons us to the tribunal of divine judgment, where it not only accuses us of sin, but completely convicts us. And since before that just court of God every mouth is to be stopped and the whole world [is to be] subject to God (Ro 3:19), therefore Moses pronounces against us the sentence of death and condemnation. 2 Co 3:7, 9; Dt 27:26. 

Therefore when our conscience, now convicted of sins and therefore made subject to eternal death and damnation, anxiously looks about for something with which to oppose this just judgment of God, so that it might avoid and evade the broad sentence of damnation, it finds nothing at all. But finally God Himself, rich in mercy, sets His Son before us in the Gospel as atonement. Romans 3:25. 

And those who through faith take recourse to that Son the Mediator, and apprehend Him by faith—those the Father justifies from the charge placed by the Law and from the sentence of condemnation; that is, He absolves [them] for the sake of Christ, and, by imputation of the obedience and death of Christ, declares [them] righteous and awards them life eternal. Romans 8:33–34. And this is the process or act of the justification of a sinner before the judgment seat of God, so that he appeals from the throne of the strict justice of God to the throne of grace in the blood of the Son of God, as Gerson describes the matter of justification by the apt simile of forensic appeal.

Martin Chemnitz and Luther Poellot, Ministry, Word, and Sacraments: An Enchiridion, electronic ed. (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1999), 73.

Tensions Mount as People Await the Latest Lame Excuses For Universal Absolution without Faith. Boycott the Emmaus Conference

Jay Webber, Marvin Schwan Adjuct  Professor of UOJ,
will offer subtle, nuanced, masticated versions of rationalistic Pietism
at the Emmaus Confence. Valleskey will smile benvolently.

What do WELS, the ELS, and the LCMS have in common? They all had their trotters in the trough for Marvin Schwan's money. WELS is so Biblical that they named buildings after the unrepentant adulterer, whose greed and selfishness led his first wife to end her own life. Leaving his wife and the mother of his children, he married the wife of one of his staff. Of course, a couple of "Scriptural" divorces had to be purchased from the Synodical Conference, not unlike the Roman Catholic Pauline and Petrine escape clauses, aka annulments

His Excellency, First Deputy of Frozen Food, left this world a billionaire, but gave his first wife only $1 million and a Cadillac in the divorce. That was not even coffee money for him, and yet he gave $15 million to John Shep for the Ukraine fiasco, not including the missing cheese factory.

The second Mrs. Schwan became a Lutheran while married to St. Marvin but reverted to Romanism 15 minutes after the commital service of the sainted Marv. Have you witnessed a better argument for money as THE Means of Grace? It converts and when gone, unconverts.

Marvin Schwan is invisible on the Internet.
This is the only photo I could find - a bit dated.

Jay Webber must have known these details, because he told the WELS/ELS leaders that I passed the Forbes article on Marvin Schwan's divorce to Herman Otten. According to Otten, Mrs. Schwan saw the Christian News reprint of the article and gave up in despair. I wondered why the ELS/WELS fussed over Marvin's divorce coming out in CN. The excuse Webber offered was, "Nobody reads Forbes" when I said it was universally known with Forbes printing the $1 million/Caddy story with a photo of Marvin laughing his ascot off.

The back story is that Mrs. Schwan did not know how her husband double-crossed her until CN came in the mail. Certainly it looked like double-mockery, leaving her and giving her 1/4 of 1% of his net worth, since Forbes had him at $400 million at the time. The accidental reading of the Forbes story must be the reason Webber was anxious to blame me (and conveniently blackball me in the WELS/ELS sects). How do I know he did? He told me. I consider it a blessing not to be associated with the degenerate leaders who wept tears over Marvin's grave while kicking dirt in his wife's face - "a Scriptural divorce."

You should have heard Wayne Laatinen offer his praise for Schwan, not only for Marv's "Scriptural" divorce, which Wayne knew all about, he solemnly declared.  Laatinen also told me what a fine example Marv was to other donors to WELS - the ice cream man was not like that Columbus guy.

I wish I had enough money to buy the same absolution and heavenward send-off from WELS, the ELS, and the LCMS. They never stop trashing me, and I have been married for 45 years. One wit says WELS students are told they will burst into flames if they read this blog.

Jay Webber lived off Marvin's guilt-money as he traveled in luxury to Europe and on to the Ukraine. Webber and Church Growther Roger Kovaciny kicked John Shep out of the episcopal office, emulating the Great Walther who extended the Left Foot of Fellowship to Bishop Stephan. Why do Church Growth and UOJ keep coming up in Webber's storied career?

 Jay told me that the ELS calls Mequon "The Sausage Factory"
for the sound-alike graduates all coming out the same.
His explanation for WELS  is -
Our "Weaker Evangelical Lutheran Sibling."
John Shep told me Webber genuflects to the ELS whenever Jay
is 100 miles from Mankato or closer,
but makes fun of the leaders the rest of the time.
"He is a cat person, is a lover of old books and freshly-brewed coffee, has a dry sense of humor, and doesn’t get enough exercise." 

The UOJ Arguments Are Easily Dismissed

I cannot be quoted or referenced, but I am the only one in the debate with a PhD in theology from Notre Dame and an STM in Biblical studies from Yale University. I have published books and articles about theology for the last 45 years, a number in the areas of comparative doctrine, where one expression of faith is compared to another. WELS published and sold my Liberalism, Its Cause and Cure. They also distributed Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant by carton, after heavily promoting the book. Some publishers include various Lutheran synods, the Augustana Historical Society, Northwestern Publishing House, and the Conference for the Spiritual Well-Being of the Elderly.

Jay Webber and Jon Buchholz only have MDivs and never progressed beyond repeating the errors learned from the heirs of Walther. My PhD simply means Teacher of Philosophy/Theology. In the Middle Ages and the Reformation, theologians earned the degree and then published. A degree does not make one a scholar, but very few pastors devote  extra years to advanced coursework and reading hundreds of books, only to start on the dissertation and read many hundreds more.

Some of the scholars I have learned from, in lectures, in the classroom, and in doctoral work include Martin Marty, Roland Bainton, Nils Dahl, Paul Holmer, Stan Hauerwas, John Howard Yoder, Frank and Elisabeth Schuller-Fiorenza (now at Harvard), and a few others. That background does not make me infallible, but I do have perspective and practice in discussing theology and arguing doctrine with a wide variety of professors, pastors, priests, and laity. I especially value my conversations and correspondence with laity, because they are not programmed to agree to advance their careers.

In Christ
Webber tries to argue that the entire world is forgiven "in Christ," as many other UOJistas do, but "in Christ" only refers to believers.

Objective and Subjective Justification
As far as I can determine, the first and most important use of these two terms came from the Calvinist translator of the Halle Pietist Georg Christian Knapp. The terms traveled back to Germany and found the blessing of Walther, who was a Pietist himself, not a Lutheran.

Raised for Our Justification
Anyone can read what this means by looking at the plain words of the entire sentence.

Romans 4:23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him;

24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead;

25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

No one wants to yell that phrase anymore, because the argument collapsed.


1 Timothy 3:16
Webber likes the Pietists Rambach and Quistorp on this passage, which says a lot about UOJ and where it belongs. He preferred the Pietistic version to what Martin Chemnitz wrote about the same Scripture. No genuine Lutheran - before Pietism - believed and taught that Christ's resurrection absolved and saved the entire world.

Their only example is Samuel Huber, a former Calvinist (to be kind) who was smashed like a bug for the same line of reasoning, shortly after the Book of Concord was published. Like the UOJistas of today, Huber could not stop yakking about universal absolution.

Faith
The UOJ Stormtrooper have a two-fold argument, doubly perverted and erroneous. 

1. They argue that faith is a work of man, which is stupid and anti-Biblical. The Gospel Promises generate and nurture faith through the Spirit at work in the Word. Therefore, they constantly warn against justification by faith, which is the Gospel itself, the hope of man, the Promise of eternal life through Christ's atoning death and victorious resurrection.
2. Secondly, their version of faith is faith in UOJ, faith in the entire world being saved without faith.

Here is a list of their idiocies, which I have copied verbatim from their own sources. Read Walther below and see if he is not saying:

• Faith in UOJ.
• One must make a decision for UOJ.

"No matter what you did yesterday -- or failed to do -- and no matter what you will do tomorrow, God has forgiven you."
WELS's Meditations, March-May 2014, for Monday, 17 March 2014.

"That faith, which, as we considered in the preceding chapter, is wrought in us by God (Col. 2:12; Eph. 1:19), is firmly based upon the fact that we are justified, that our sins have been forgiven. Justification, just like its opposite, condemnation, is a judgment of God (Rom. 5:18, 19). It is a judicial act of God in which He, as the Judge of all, pronounces a verdict of acquittal upon all sinners." 
Edward Koehler, Justification, Objective and Subjective

"Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner's attitude toward Christ's sacrifice, purely on the basis of God's verdict, every sinner, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of saint."
WELS Kokomo Statements, JP Meyer, Ministers of Christ

"After Christ's intervention and through Christ's intervention God regards all sinners as guilt-free saints."
WELS Kokomo Statements, JP Meyer, Ministers of Christ

"When God reconciled the world to Himself through Christ, He individually pronounced forgiveness to each individual sinner whether that sinner ever comes to faith or not."
WELS Kokomo Statements, JP Meyer, Ministers of Christ

"At the time of the resurrection of Christ, God looked down in hell and declared Judas, the people destroyed in the flood, and all the ungodly, innocent, not guilty, and forgiven of all sin and gave unto them the status of saints."
WELS Kokomo Statements, taken from an earlier conflict over justification

“When Paul uses the word ‘reconciling’ here, [2 Corinthians 5:19] he clearly means that forgiveness of sins is really imputed to ‘the world.’"
Pope John the Malefactor, Lutheran Sentinel, 1996.

"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."

The Calvinist Leonard Woods translating the Halle Pietist Geoge Knappe, 1831.

There is not one for whose sin and death he did not die, whose sin and death he did not remove and obliterate on the cross...There is not one who is not adequately and perfectly and finally justified in Him. There is not one whose sin is not forgiven sin in Him, whose death is not a death which has been put to death in Him...There is not one for whom he has not done everything in His death and received everything in His resurrection from the dead. 

(Karl Barth,Church Dogmatics, IV, 1, 638, cited with approval, Carl Braaten, Justification, p. 140.)

"For God has already forgiven you your sins 1800 years ago when He in Christ absolved all men by raising Him after He first had gone into bitter death for them. Only one thing remains on your part so that you also possess the gift. This one thing is--faith. And this brings me to the second part of today's Easter message, in which I now would show you that every man who wants to be saved must accept by faith the general absolution, pronounced 1800 years ago, as an absolution spoken individually to him." 
C. F. W. Walther, The Word of His Grace, Sermon Selections, "Christ's Resurrection--The World's Absolution" Lake Mills: Graphic Publishing Company, 1978 p. 233. Brosamen, p. 138. Mark 16:1-8.

We proclaim boldly, “Jesus Saved,” past tense, finished, certain. 
Jon Buchholz, WELS Convention Essay

"The justification of the human race indeed also ocurred (sic), 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."
Jay Webber, quoting a Halle Pietist with approval, Intrepid Lutherans

UOJ and Church Growth?
Weirdly the same.
ELCA smiles.

WELS Kingdome Workers Must Be Edgekated

The hilarity pose was borrowed from the Fullerites, too.
The Jeske Mob controls everything in WELS.

http://kingdomworkers.com/grenadaedu.php?utm_source=4_16Grenada&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FIA2015

Qualifications & Skills

Bachelor’s degree in education or related field

5 years of experience in teaching elementary grade levels

International or urban USA school teaching experience strongly encouraged

Prior cross cultural volunteer or professional involvement

Experience working with children new to the Gospel

Knowledge of the “Christ Light” curriculum is a plus

Passion for mentoring peers and others with less experience

Love for helping others understand the value of a Christion (sic) based curriculum

Capability to teach Sunday School to a wide age group of children while mentoring others to teach the lessons

 

Gardening Questions - Since Some Ask. Creating the Fungal Jungle with Straw Bales

I consider tomatoes to be weeds with tasty berries.
I do not build supports or put up wire cages.

How do you get rid of persistent weeds?

Weed killer is not as effective as they make people think, and many have grave doubts about spraying it all over like a garden hose. I would use RoundUp or Dawn detergent on poison ivy, but not anywhere else.

Broadleaf weeds are easily quashed with repeated mowing. They cannot go to seed and their mulch helps the grass grow.

Weeds in the low spots of sidewalks? If the soil has built up, shovel the weeds and soil out together and use the combination as compost or mulch.

Weeds in the narrow cracks in a stone walk or a sidewalk? Apply salt, whether table salt or rock salt. In a saline solution, it will dry up the plant and be persistent in stopping growth without being necessarily toxic. The salt can be diluted later with water and will be from rain and watering.

A salt water solution is going to dry up the plant roots. You could do the same with a whole bag of dry, inorganic fertilizer, but that would go right down into the water table. My uncle burnt his wife's roses by double applying fertilizer. Water would have helped. His intentions were good.

Irony - roses grow best without fertilizer. If you love roses, cover the ground between them with a layer of newspapers, about 1/2 inch thick, with mulch over the newspapers. I water the newspapers first to keep them down while the mulch is piled on. Mulch prevents weeds, composts the lawn for a wonderful soil environment, and turns all covered weeds into compost. Mulch holds water and prevents wind and water erosion.

Straw bales can grow flowers or vines from the sides, too.

Which side is up with straw bale gardening? Creating the Fungal Jungle

Straw bales are placed with the strings on the outside, facing the gardener, although any configuration will work. The straw side up on top makes planting a little easier. For you city slickers, that is like looking into the top of  a box of soda straws. The other side of the bale looks relatively mangled, but it will work too.

I got mine going early before our last snow and the rain that followed. Every so often I watered with a soaker hose too, keeping the straw damp, like a wet rag wrung out.

The straw becomes a composting medium where soil creatures and plant roots can meet and make deals, carbon and root exudates (for fungi and microbes) in exchange for whatever the plant needs. The fungi can travel far for the food, if it gets the carbon it cannot manufacture on its own. Thus the straw bale becomes a fungal jungle beneficial for all plants.

Hydroponic gardening is another version of this, producing tasteless tomatoes. As some wit said, a hothouse tomato is the fourth state of water - liquid, steam, solid, and tomato.

The difference is the microbial activity--in soil and straw bales--rather than counting on water and chemicals to do the job in hydroponics.

Every get a dozen roses at the store, only to see them wilt in 24 hours? They are produced for show rather than for long term health. Of course, shipping and neglect shorten their lives too. The ones we bought for Easter were extra fresh and lasted most of the week, given away to three neighbors while we kept some. They were given in memory of Gary Meyer.

The soil, an ocean of life,
does not need a rototiller hurricane to stir it up.

Biggest Mistakes of Gardeners

Beginners are a too timid. They should experiment more, observe more, order more and plant more. To lose one plant is crushing, but that will happen every season. If it is one plant or one variety that crashes, the abundance of the rest make up for the human mistakes or the inclement weather.

Gardeners should water more after planting. They should save as much rainwater as they can and use it on their favorite plants. Rather than buying a capture kit for way too much money, I bought two Rubbermaid garbage cans, each lid converted into a birdbath top.

Gardeners should prune roses and bushes and trees. Roses and bushes grow and have better shapes with pruning. Trees need more light and air.

Gardeners should stop using poisons. Instead, they should welcome a wide variety of God's creatures to do His work, as planned from the beginning. Has anyone ever said, "In the beginning, Monsanto...."?

Finally, everyone who grows anything in a yard should keep the organic matter there and let the soil creatures, birds, and toads do their work.

 This is the Dick, Jane, and Sally version.

Middle school version -
the truth is incredibly complex
with infinite dependencies.

St. John Lutheran Church (formerly WELS) - Story on WELS Discussions

"So my guys stole the congregation and its endowment,
and no one said a word...except that blogger I never
met but invited to speak at St. Marcus."

The late Tim Niedfelt wrote about the theft.

Basic Facts Here - About the Theft of St. John's in Milwaukee via the Jeske Mob

WELS Discussions

Paul Birsching

7 hrs

When I was quietly left out of the ministry after two years, I had just been through two of the toughest years of my life. I was young, and I figured I had made a lot of mistakes. I was asked to sit out a year, and, for my own health, I did. That I was never spoken to again is another story. After two years or service, I had hardly proven myself.

But there are many, many others out there with proven track records and 25 or 30 years of service, who have also been summarily dismissed from the WELS consciousness. These people labored long and faithfully, often with little encouragement and less compensation, and received not the rewards to which the laborer is entitled. What they did receive was nothing, absolutely nothing, no explanations, not compensations, no thanks for service rendered, only a cold shoulder.

For 27 years now, I have watched while others much more approved for ministry and arguably much more talented and faithful than I have receive ghastly treatment with no so much as a raised eyebrow. And yet, we now wonder why we can't seem to find enough qualified candidates to be pastors in the WELS.

In 1996, St. John's Congregation, Vliet Street, Milwaukee, one of the very earliest and most historically significant churches of the WELS, voted to leave the WELS. Kevin Hastings, then ten years into his ministry, decided to stay with the church and soldier on, often taking half his meager salary and even more often putting his own hands to do the repair work necessary to keep the doors open for worship. Kevin, unfortunately, was sent to a doomed congregation of aging members who could not attract younger members. Because of unfortunately liberal politics that surrounded St. John's with housing projects that served to surround the church with transients of a decidedly Southern Baptist bent, all efforts to grow St. John's from the community were fruitless.

I'm not here to tell you that St. John's deserved the WELS to step in and save it in some way. I do think that the fact of its leaving the WELS received not even a mention speaks to how the WELS is ready to forsake all things old in search of the new. Perhaps this explains why the WELS loses people out the back door faster than they can get them in through the front door.

What I am decided needs to be addressed, however, is how Kevin Hastings, faithful servant of God, deserved to be curtly dismissed of his duties via letter, deprived of his personal effects, and how certain WELS pastors could have been complicit in this matter. I would especially like to know how these pastors were involved when they don't even reside, in some cases, within 400 miles of Milwaukee. And I finally would like to know why WELS pastors and other members have been applauding a former WELS pastor, turn ELCA pastor, taking over the church which is now lead by openly gay men.

There is certainly a time to say nothing to besmirch the character of certain people which would break the eighth commandment. But, in this case, the character of the person with no fault, Kevin, had been besmirched, while those openly living in sin have been applauded.

There is a growing undercurrent of mistrust and disgust with things happening in the WELS and being swept under the table. We had better start addressing these wrongs, making confessions where applicable, and making serious attempts at rectifying them, because the volcano of unspoken unrest is about to explode. The time to be silent on such things is no more.

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  Steven E. Anderson "And I finally would like to know why WELS pastors and other members have been applauding a former WELS pastor, turn ELCA pastor, taking over the church which is now lead by openly gay men."
  
  I don't quite understand the connection between WELS and ELCA. Who is supporting homosexual leadership in which synod and church?

  7 hrs · Like
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  Paul Birsching St. Johns dwindled to a very few members. At some point, the leadership came out. Shortly thereafter they issued a dismissal by letter to Pastor Hastings. After this, they invited a former WELS pastor who, for various reasons, became ELCA. Since he...See More

  7 hrs · Like
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  Paul Birsching And the new pastor has personally slandered both Pastor Hastings and former Pastor Brenner to me with absolute lies.

• 

  Paul Birsching I'm sure that there are a lot of financial factors that are different today, Paul A. And I'm also sure that we lack the faith of our forebears, mostly because the media plays upon our fears and we listen. But fear had nothing to do with this particular instance. Nor did economics. If Kevin hadn't bent over backwards to keep the church going, it would have failed a long time ago. No, this was a dastardly deed, one which defies explanation. And, again, I'm not saying it was a good situation in any sense, but the WAY in which this was done and the WAY everyone looked the other way are quite disturbing. And also the way that so many have been duped into thinking that all is now well. A lot of people spend a lot of time talking hypothetically. Here is a real live case, and none of the hypothetical champions for the truth ever became real ones. Where are the dogmaticians on this one?

• 
  

The altar at Historic St. John, 8th and Vliet, Milwaukee.

***

GJ - I knew this was coming, about six months in advance, when Pastor Kevin Hastings told me this - His friend, one of the WELS pastor, told him to have an exit strategy. I advised him that WELS was going to steal the congregation. He should get an attorney pronto.

Hastings did not act until after the congregation was stolen and the two men had him locked out, with their hands on the endowment, one in the parsonage, his personal belongings stolen for the time being. Got a problem with this? Talk to our law firm.

The episode reminded me of the Menendez brothers, who shotgunned their parents to death and used the estate cash to pay for their criminal defense.

One WELS laymen wrote me lately that my blogging about this shameful episode  is the only record of anything happening.

The account above is another perspective, from someone I do not know and with whom I have had no contact.

Synod President Mark Schroeder did nothing and said nothing, as far as anyone can tell.

Mark Jeske has organized many Thrivent events, starring Mark Jeske, sharing the limelight with ELCA pastors. He is also on the board of Thrivent, so he has no qualms about financing abortion on demand through Planned Parenthood grants, no compunction about ELCA's pansexual views on ordination.

No one in the Synodical Conference should be shocked, because this is exactly how CFW Walther got his start in the papacy. Instead of meeting with Bishop Stephan about the man's adultery and syphilis, Walther organized a mob of his supporters only, came down to Perryville, threatened Stephan's life, robbed him of his gold, land, and books, and kidnapped him at gunpoint, forcing him over to Illinois. The Perryville-St. Louis mob profited greatly from these criminal acts, covered them up, and wrote themselves up as heroes.

Following In His Steps - not Jesus, but the Great Walther.