From 2013 - Larry Olson, DMin, Fuller Seminary - Hated Professor at Martin Luther College. Students Prayed He Would Take the Call to Inida

http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1049988
The doctoral stripes on the sleeves are for PhDs, not for drive-by DMins.
The brocade stole worn with an academic gown - that must be WELS stylin'.

RATING: ALL	CLASS: ALL	COMMENT
08/20/2015 POOR 1HELPFULNESS 1CLARITY 1EASINESS	THE2001For Credit: YesAttendance: N/ATextbook Use: Essential to passingGrade Received: N/A	I have never taken a class with Olson, but I have heard terrible things. He focuses on the Law and belittling students. While I recognize the importance of the Law, Olson uses it to chastise students and never builds them up with the Gospel. He is the very opposite of Christ like. He is nothing more than a bully on a power trip. 0 people found this useful1 person did not find this useful report this rating

 

         

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4/24/13

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If you can avoid this professor, do so at all costs. He's rude, inconsiderate, boring, and doesn't know how to teach. Takes your money if you don't bring your book. Expects us to write papers at a level such that  (sic) of an English scholar, which few of us actually are. This is not a grammar course, Olson, its (sic) religion. [This is WELS. We duzn't hafta write English.]

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11/10/08

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No interest in topic; boring lectures; unable to teach.

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11/7/07

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Revisiting the Straw Bale Garden, Ground Zero - Now the Sunny Tomato Garden. Cardboard and Wood Mulch

Once upon a time, we had an unkempt area on the sunniest side of the house. At one point the crab grass had a real crop going. We buried it in newspapers and wood mulch.

Last year I jumped into straw bale gardening, a genuine disaster, except for the slugs. If they become a commercial crop, I will start driving a Tesla and wintering in Sedona.

Norma Boeckler's Robin:
he never leaves the watered, earthwormed, and mulched rose garden.

The good side of this disaster comes from laying down lots of organic material. The straw bales rotted into the soil with those rasping slugs entombed with strawy groan, unknelled, uncoffined, and yet not exactly unknown. They were crawling on the wall at night and covering the vegetation. Slugs are essential creatures in the decomposition of organic matter, but they are all too willing to destroy new, tender plants.

The slug fantasia came from the un-natural state of keeping straw bales damp to start them composting.

Today our helper came over with his two children to put up a little picket fence from Lowe's and cover the sunny garden with cardboard and mulch. The father parcels out some of the jobs as we work on the task, and we have a great time.

The mulch job was simple. No weeds were growing. The roses were already around the maple tree. Some raspberry canes were coming up from last year, so we worked around them. We laid out the cardboard boxes flat and covered them with shredded wood mulch.

Last year's plants will form more compost and the area will stay relatively open for the new tomato plants. Tomatoes love hot areas and plenty of sun, so that will be ideal for them. Water comes from the soaker hose on the fence and more water from the front faucet.

Mulch holds in water, prevents wind evaporation, and keeps the constant microbe to earthworm cycle going to feed to the plant roots.

I am going to plant some mature tomatoes for an early start and experiment with various types.

Someone Asked about Lange's Outline of the Book of Concord

I found $30 books and this link to Lange's Outline of the Book of Concord:

http://www.sbowd.com/full-pdf-outline-of-the-book-of-concord-lyle-w-lange-13k/

I am not sure if I have ever used it. I am far more for learning a book through repetition than gleaning through helps.

For instance, What Luther Says is a good set of quotations, but the editor sets up a filter when he judges various Luther quotations, under justification, as Objective Justification and Subjective Justification. labels that exist in the mind of the sect but never existed in the Bible, Luther, Chemnitz, or the Book of Concord.

Mequonites, what is the Chief Article?
Why have you not deprived Bivens and Brug of food,pelted them with manure,
and baited them with dogs?

I suggest getting to know one section of the Book of Concord at a time. This would be my priority for new readers, based on the most neglected or abused parts:

1. Luther's Large Catechism - once published as a book by the ALC, worth regular reading.
2. Melanchthon on justification - Articles IV and V of the Augsburg Confession, Article III of the Apology. See also at the same time, Article III, The Righteousness of Faith, Solid Declaration, Formula of Concord.
3. Formula of Concord, Adiaphora, Article X.
4. Formula of Concord, Election, Article XI. 
5. Smalcald Articles, especially about Enthusiasm. If you cannot define Enthusiasm from the Smalcald Articles and identify examples of it, you do not know the Biblical, Lutheran doctrine of the Word, its efficacy, its relationship to the Holy Spirit, the Visible Word of the Sacraments, and the clarity of the Word.
6. The Catalog of Testimonies - which show that Lutheran is not a brand but a continuation of the Apostolic Church.

Rainbarreling the Plants - Roses First. Using the Treasure That Falls Free from the Sky

Neglected KnockOut roses look dreadful.
Note the spent blooms here.
Bushes of all types respond well to pruning.

"Never grow a rose bush, the saying's true,
But treat it as a rose bush, if you do." G. Jackson, American Rose Society

I have two rainbarrels full of fresh rain and no skeeters.

This post addresses the virtues of rainwater for all plants - in short - rain is pure water with useful nitrogen for greening them up. Some other good qualities are dust in the rain bringing minerals to the plant and rain causing a change in the pH of the soil.

Gardeners may overlook the benefits from the normal actions of Creation, such as organic matter raining down on the soil and being processed into food for the creatures and plants. The old way was to clean up and throw away leaves and debris, but it is wiser to keep what is already generously provided so the soil can be enhanced naturally and without cost.

Pope John Paul II is infallibly white,
fragrant, and spectacular in bloom.
Why run off to Rome when you can visit
the Jackson Rose Farm?

The Problem with Rose Growers
The potted roses, purchased by most people at gardening centers, start out beautiful. I was struck by all the bright red blooms on the KnockOut roses I bought at our nearby nursery. Some places advertise KnockOut roses as "self-pruning," which is not true.

KnockOuts are easy care - more like robust, disease free, and eager to grow.

They are not self-watering, self-pruning, or self-weeding.

All roses need regular watering, from the rain, from stored rain, from stored water, or from tap water.

Weeding is almost eliminated with a thick cover of organic mulch. If weeds break through, they can be pulled or covered up with more mulch.

Pruning is not difficult or dangerous. The only way to have fresh beautiful roses on the bushes is to create bouquets for the house, friends, and others. When I cut roses for others, I look for dead wood (always present somewhere) and trouble-spots.

Watering should be addressed once a week. We have had loud but light rainstorms. We have also had sunny days with strong, drying winds. The bird baths show the power of evaporation from those winds.

I use soaker hoses for general watering of most roses, rain barrel watering where the need is greatest. A newly planted or transplanted rose will get the rainwater first.

I am now supplementing some of my favorite berry plants, to give them a good start. Watering is fun and good exercise. Sassy Sue supervises me until she gets bored with it. Then she asks to go in.

Peace roses are very large and develop
an attractive pink edging.
My Peace rose bushes have burst into bloom,
all at once - very startling and appealing.

Travels with Sassy Sue - Our Three-Legged Wonderdog

Sassy waits like this when I stop at a store.
The window is always open and she makes friends with people walking by.

Mrs. Ichabod was speaking to a saleswoman at Bonworth and mentioned Sassy. The woman said, "I know them. They walk by my house all the time."

In fact, Sassy chose to walk down her street time after time. Sassy likes heading south on those very quiet streets that branch off Scott, the street parallel to Elm Springs Road, the main East-West thoroughfare.

So we drove down that street - after many conversations at the store - and the saleswoman jumped in the car with her son to come over for a visit.

We had a good time, but needed to take Sassy along for the ride back. Mother and young son got in the back seat, which was half filled with trunk storage. The trunk itself was full of mulch. Mrs. I sat in the front. I got Sassy into the back seat, but what did I see when I opened my door to drive?

Sassy took over in the driver's seat, where she had the most room. Everyone laughed and laughed, the boy especially.

Sassy is very friendly with several cats,
but loves to send one black cat up the tree or on the roof.

John Moldstad, Bishop Martin Stephan, and CFW Walther: Co-Inky Dinks

John Moldstad became the Professor of New Testament
at Bethany Lutheran Seminary without a college degree.
He finished one when some turmoil erupted.

Bishop Martin Stephan left the university without completing a degree.
His Pietistic congregation in Dresden was able to give him
a call because they had a special, independent status.

CFW Walther, Stephan's toady and enforcer,
only had a university degree,
but Synodical Conference salesmen consider him the
ultimate interpreter of all doctrinal and Biblical matters,
Lutheran doctrine, even social issues.

John Moldstad was a parish pastor when he became a seminary professor at Bethany Lutheran College, the Little Schoolhouse on the Prairie. News got out that he did not even have a bachelor's degree, so he finished that up. The ELS wanted to be able to brag, "All our seminary professors have graduated from college!"

Some pastor not approved by the WELS faction in the Little Sect became synod VP, so the WELS faction voted him out and made Moldstad the new VP. SP-for-Life Orvick finally retired and the VP was upgraded to SP. Thus someone too lazy to finish college became an ELS seminary professor, synod VP, and Synod President.

If anyone suspects Bethany Lutheran Seminary of Lutheran scholarship, or the ELS of Lutheran leadership, that should quash the rumor, the hope, the nostalgia.

• The Lord's Supper in the Theology of Martin Chemnitz - BjarneTeigen
• Jack and Robert Preus teaching there?
• Ylvisaker?

Here are all the students at Bethany Lutheran Seminary,
three classes, two per class.

Call for Nominations: Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary 
Pursuant to the guidelines of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod for calling a professor to the seminary (cf. Guidelines for Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary II.A.2), the Board of Regents of Bethany Lutheran Theological Seminary, Mankato, Minnesota, herewith issues to the congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod a call for nominations to a professorship. The nominees must be ordained clergymen of the Evangelical Lutheran Synod or of its fellowship (WELS). Nominees are to be qualified primarily to teach Old Testament, which requires expertise in the Hebrew language. They shall have a secondary qualification in Symbolics (Confessions of the church - so forget WELS for that one) and Church History (or the Glories of Walther, which is enough). In addition to this, they (sic - how many? one call means "he") will serve as the supervisor of the Senior Research Project program. The individual called will begin teaching fall 2017. Nominations are to reach the undersigned by June 1, 2016, so we can blackball anyone suspected of Lutheran doctrine.

That is pretty sad - when a call for nominations cannot even get simple grammar correct. One can only guess how low the teaching has descended since someone like Moldstad could fast-track to SP on a high school graduation diploma.

The Pietists love titles but hate higher education. Martin Stephan had to be bishop for life, and Walther went along with that and signed the document. Walther infallibilists try to deny this, but the document is in the archives.

Walther aspired to be pope of all Lutherdom, America and Europe, on the strength of his BA from Leipzig and his role in robbing and kidnapping the bishop he swore allegiance to, a few months before.

The ELS punished Bjarne Teigen for writing an excellent work on the theology of the Lord's Supper, which exposed the Synodical Conference rejection of the efficacy of the Word.

The Little Sect should hire Jay Webber as their new seminary professor. As Luther says, false teachers are God's punishment against those who are not faithful to His Word. No one else is so completely clueless about Lutheran doctrine or so intoxicated with his own opinions. As John Shep says, Jay makes fun of the ELS leaders all the time, until he is within 100 miles of Mankato, when he becomes a humble servant.

In Other News
The Little Sect is taking back Lawson and Brockdorf, little black sheep who ran away from the ELS during the great rending of the sect by Rolf, son of Robert, son of Governor Jacob, son of Norway.

The two men threw themselves on Moldstad's neck, weeping, hoping the terms of reconciliation would not be too harsh. As they explained, leaving and being against did not mean what people thought it meant. After all, they were just as hysterical for UOJ and Pope John Hisself.

Frozen out - but just for a time - Brockdorf.

Let it go, let it go
Can't hold it back anymore
Let it go, let it go
Turn away and slam the door!

I don't care
What they're going to say
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway!

It's funny how some distance
Makes everything seem small
And the fears that once controlled me
Can't get to me at all!

It's time to see what I can do
To test the limits and break through
No right, no wrong, no rules for me I'm free!

Let it go, let it go
I am one with the wind and sky
Let it go, let it go
You'll never see me cry!

Here I stand
And here I'll stay
Let the storm rage on!

Here I stand
In the light of day
Let the storm rage on,
The cold never bothered me anyway!

(I did not rewrite this as satire, because the song is already doggerel.)