Two Videos - A New One about Walmart and Martin's Work. An Older One about Coldstone Ice Cream

Martin sat with Yale theology professor Paul Holmer.

The recruiting video was just released from Walmart. Martin speaks on camera and then adds a bit later that retail has to move as quickly as the website.

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Years ago we attended a Yakov Smirnoff show in Branson, wearing custom shirts. We gave him one too.

The Food Channel saw us wearing the same t-shirts and included us in the video about Coldstone Ice Cream. In the background you can see Martin wife Tammy and his younger daughter Danielle. Josephine speaks on the video about her favorite ice cream. As do I.

Yakov Smirnoff was happy to pose with us after the show.
We gave him one t-shirt and another one for his mother.
He was quite touched. He signed all our shirts.
Grandson Alex is savoring his soother,
so this was around 2006.

From a Discussion about Running Out of Oil - And Checking the Oil - On Facebook

I don't know where the gratuitous comment came from,
but the comment below is routine behavior for the anti-Luther crowd.

FB Discussion about Changing the Oil

Gregory L. Jackson Check your oil once a week before starting the car. Saves money and eliminates grief. Keep one or two quarts of good oil in the car - Quaker or Pennzoil.

Miles Whitener Greg, your mechanical advice is much better than your theology!

Gregory L. Jackson So you don't agree with Luther, Miles?
Like · Reply · 4 mins · Edited

You Didn't Build That! - The Problem with Pietistic Separatism

Without a treat - Like the property, the title, the cash, the endowment funds.
Learn from Walther, who took 120 acres away from his bishop.

New sects like to begin by leaving with the congregation's property and money. Where that is difficult, some have borrowed heavily on their equity, put it in a trust fund, and left the denomination's property with a big debt and few members. ELS Pastor Kincaid Smith bragged abot doing that in Brownsville. I do not remember if that was leaving the LCA for LCMS or leaving the LCMS for the ELS.

No one can dispute whether the established denominations are apostate. Just attend the next conference at Fuller Seminary, Willowcreek, or Trinity Divinity. Those beehives are the places where apostates learn secular methods in how to be leaders.

But another question is whether the separatists are better.

Bishop-for-Life Randy DeJaynes began the Lutheran Confessional Synod (sic) with one LCA/ALC church and a fairly large group of people. The ELS and WELS declared fellowship with him, which meant they could pray with him (yippee) and commune with him (even better). That congregation is where Jim Heiser began Repristination Press, although it is not clear who really owned the stock. That was about 20 years ago, or around 1996, and the LCS blew up.

Bishop-for-Life Randy was arrested in 2008 for child porn and making his privates public. Jim Heiser obtained a call to a conservative LCMS congregation long before that. .

Heiser obtained a call from Salem in Malone, Texas.

Salem is a conservative, independent Lutheran congregation. From January 1, 1922, until July 18, 2004, Salem was a member of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod. The year 2004 was marked by the Malone Statement about Benke's unionism. 

The LCMS was unionistic for decades. No one seemed to notice that Missouri was teaching UOJ, Church Growth, Pentecostalism, and who knows what else. Yankee Stadium was a big deal for the signers, who were largely the founding ELDONUTS.

Heiser, Heimbigner, and later Handrich obtained their property from the LCMS, so one could truthfully say, "You didn't build that." Those five pastors who joined later or join now will probably have to leave all the property and money behind - or borrow it out the back door, as Smith did.

Oddly, Heiser did not even attend Clark Brown's installation, though Brown was one of the signers of the Malone statement. That congregation took their parish back to the LCMS and extended Brown the Left Foot of Fellowship.

All this material about church property is complex, reminding me of the fast fish discussion in Moby Dick, one of his hilarious asides in a novel where most of the text is comprised of asides.

Shunning and Pietism
The main issue is shunning, fellowship, and Pietism. Babtists do it best. If someone has the wrong attitude toward Ken Ham - for instance - the iron curtain in the Babtist brain slams shut. The individual who dared to question a Ken Ham is on the no-fly list.

ELDONA makes much of their purity of purpose, thanking God daily they are not like the others. But in establishing their credentials they leave out many germane facts.

Item. Jim Heiser's parents have been members of a WELS congregation, Steve Spencer's in Arizona. EDONA is not in fellowship with WELS and supposedly rejects UOJ, which is just about the only doctrine in WELS. Nothing else is needed, really. How could Heiser's parents go to a congregation opposed to ELDONA? Spencer expressed the thought that no WELS pastor wanted to join the Heiser cult.

Item. Heiser's sect-minders are quick to make certain erroneous, defamatory, and foolish statements, without the IQ to check their facts. They are not keen to face the facts about themselves. The ones who could not slip money and property away from the LCMS  are stranded with a handful of members. Even with adroit moves, one has the old church property but almost no members and plenty of debt. His former members meet elsewhere.

Item. ELDONA makes a lot of noise about sound doctrine, but for almost 20 years, Heiser and ELDONA had no outward problem with UOJ. As far as I can determine, all the ELDONA pastors were ordained in UOJ and continued to teach that false doctrine until about 2013. Although Heiser seem to have seen the light in 2000, when he was reading and selling Thy Strong Word, he was content to be in fellowship with the ardently  UOJ Rolf Preus Synod for a number of years. The precipitating change seemed to have come from Paul Rydecki, who earlier argued for UOJ on the Intrepid Lutherans blog and finally saw the light, teaching Justification by Faith and being kicked out of WELS for it.

Meanwhile, the Rolf Synod ran back to the ELS, guided by Jay Webber. They said something like this, "Yes, we left the ELS but not really, more like a multi-year coffee break. Yeah, that's it. A coffee break."

Item. ELDONA is crying about the adverse publicity they stirred up for themselves, without ever checking their facts, apologizing for their behavior, or showing an ounce of common sense. They even think I make money from more page-views. They do not gain many page-views for this blog (that "no one reads") because few know or care about ELDONA.

You didn't build this - Charity Lutheran Church.

Authoritarian Rule Is the Problem In the Church - Not the Solution

The Duggar clan was deep into Gothard's authoritarian lifestyle and business:
Josh and Anna met at an annual Gothard gathering.

A group of articles about Fundy Guru Bill Gothard include  -

1. This summary from Christianity Today,
2. Another from the Washington Post, and
3. The Cult Next Door from a Chicago magazine, where his headquarters were located.

Bill Gothard is being sued by 10 or more young women,
who were selected by him as "staff" and groomed at his headquarters.
Here he is posing with Duggar daughters - still welcome there.

Recovering Grace is a website about Gothard's methodical abuse.

Anticipating the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, Lutheran leaders should be more aware of Luther's fight against the divine rights of the Pope - which included torturing and murdering opponents.

Pope Paul VI is supposed to be the last Pope to wear the tiara,
which is a crown for the pope-king.

The bishop's hat - the mitre - is supposedly more modest.
Popes no longer parade around in their tiaras,
but they claim divine infallibility for themselves -
and for all those who agree with their dogma.

The Episcopal Church, the Eastern Orthodox church, and others affect the cone-head look with the mitre. The term "episcopalian polity" is used for any group that makes the bishop (episcopos) the ultimate authority in the group. The Biblical term means "supervisor" - literally - not mini-pope. Richard Neuhaus' one sentence send-up of the AELC Seminex bunch was "a portable seminary and a superfluity of mini-popes."

The parts of ELCA adopted the episcopal titles and dress before the 1987 merger, claiming "nothing will change." They only become more dictatorial and corrupt.

A bishop's hat - modeled by Bishop and Mrs. Robinson -
is not necessarily a sign of orthodoxy.

Presiding Bishop Schori and her lady bishops in The Episcopal Church -
just try to gainsay these harpies.

Some wear an invisible mitre.

Bishop Matt Harrison controls the LCMS as an authoritarian,
down to censoring what he does not like on his PR blog Steadfast Lutherans -
open discussions for those who agree with Harrison.

ELDONA is the smallest group to adopt the mitre.

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Acolyte Stefanski - "One of the things I enjoy about the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese (ELDoNA) is that it fosters independent thinking and expression. Our bishop, the Rt. Rev. James Heiser doesn't 'run' the pastors (much less the congregations) or assign them to do his bidding, but simply offers such correction as may be necessary from time to time as they study and proclaim. If we seem to walk in unity (or, if you wish to be derisive, "in lockstep"), it's not by his dictate, but by agreement in the Word of God. Interestingly, having been educated in various church bodies, schools, and academic eras, most of us did not start out on the same page, but have been brought together as we have studied and confessed individually and found that our confession was the same…for which, to God alone be the glory.

Ten years of the diocese, now, by God's grace; may the Holy Spirit ever cause us to walk as one!"

Bishop Heiser (profile picture - mitre, above) - "Thank you, Pr. Stefanski. And, suffice to say, such correction is very rarely needed." 

When someone dared to give away this book at the last ELDONA conference,
bully Oncken ordered it removed and Bishop Heiser was clearly outraged.
Heiser, Rydecki, and others interested had copies sent to them (no objections
raised) and draft sent free seven (7) months earlier.
Since then, ELDONA has lied about a pastor not even involved in anything
concerning them and magnified their hissy-fits into slander.

The Rolf Synod left the ELS, including Rolf Preus,
but Rolf left the synod, leaving them with an awkward name.
Note the details copied verbatim below.

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The Ultra-UOJ Rolf Synod Was in Fellowship with ELDONA for Years!

As of Ascension Day 2010, the Evangelical Diocese of North America and the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches recognize fellowship with each other.

The 2010 General Conference of the ACLC was held April 20-21 in Princeton, MN.  It was hosted by Christ Lutheran Church

We joyfully and officially received Christ Lutheran as a member congregation, along with Rev. Robert A. Lawson, Sr.
We regretfully acknowledge the resignation of Rev. Rolf Preus as Superintendent of the ACLC and withdrawal from membership.
We unanimously adopted "A Statement on Confessional Fellowship."
We rejoice in moving closer to practicing fellowship with the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America
We carefully read through and discussed "Unity, Union, and Unionism."
On right our 2010 General Conference attendees (from left to right): Rev. Robert Lawson, Jr.,  Rev. Em. Walter Anderson, Mr. Richard Scott, Mr. Bob Schlesselman, Mr. Allan Kretzmann, Rev. Robert Lawson, Sr., Rev. Steven Brockdorf, Guest Rev. Mark Mueller of ELDoNA, Mr. Scott Markel, PhD., Mr. David Flitter, and Rev. Karl Heck.

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GJ - One can only marvel at the way in which false teachers lead their people to and fro, in errors maze.