Correcting the Correction E-Mailed to Me. I Quoted the New Edition, Which Armin Panning Edited

Hi Greg,

Just an FYI about the J.P. Meyer Ministers of Christ quote.

You might already be aware of this, but I thought I would pass it along just in case. WELS identified Meyer's statement as unacceptable, and NPH removed it (relegated it to a footnote) in later editions of Ministers of Christ. In my edition, which bears a 1963 copyright, the statement occurs on pp 103-4.

Of course, if your point was to prove that JP Meyer held this position, his quote supplies the proof. If your point was to prove that the WELS accepts this statement, the corrected edition proves otherwise.

I am not trying to enter this UOJ debate at any level; I am just making sure you have accurate information about the citation.

***

GJ - I responded in a calm and reassuring way, keeping the author's identity secret here, lest there be reprisals against him for violating the shun order.

The writer is quoting from earlier editions. I bought the 2011 edition, cited the year and page in the graphics, and gave the volume away to a bookish guy who enjoys having a huge library.

Panning was the New Testament professor at Mequon and previously presided over the appeal of the Kokomo families who questioned the UOJ claims of JP Meyer. Three of the four statements are directly from Meyer and the fourth is from an earlier Swedish-Norwegian debate about the same topic. The Swedish Augustana Lutherans were on the side of Paul, Luther, and the Confessio Augustana. 

WELS makes fun of the Book of Concord and refuses to teach it in any significant way.

I also responded to X by saying that Buchholz' statements in his essay are even worse than JP Meyer's. However, appealing to the authority of one WELS leader or another is rather ironic. They turned against Gausewitz' Biblical catechism and adopted the Kuske catechism, a real farce, instead.

This is preposterous.

' ----

Has anyone in WELS read the Book of Concord?
Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?

The write responded:

Hi Greg,

You are correct - Ministers of Christ was reprinted in 2011. 

I misspoke myself when I said the statement had been moved to a footnote. The editors left the bogey in place (presumably since the author is dead and can't give permission to change it), but then added an explanatory footnote:

"It has been correctly observed that when the New Testament uses the term hagioi, generally translated as "saints," it regularly restricts itself to speaking of believers. It is therefore critical to realize the adjusted meaning that Prof. Meyer here gives the term "saint" when he incorporates it into the phrase "the status of a saint." He is not saying that every person who has the status of saint is a saint, or a believer, or that he will necessarily be saved. That would be universalism. Rather, he is saying that in view of Christ's substitutionary death and merit, God now declares the sinner righteous. God can look at the sinner as holy because in Christ his status, his standing before God, has changed."

I know you still disagree with the content of the footnote. But aside from that, the footnote does demonstrate that even those who defend UOJ agree that the "Saints in Hell" phraseology that Meyer used is unacceptable because it is inconsistent with the biblical usage of the word hagioi (i.e. an "adjusted meaning") and confusing enough to require an explanation / disclaimer. In other words, if they agreed with what Meyer said, and how he said it, they would have left it alone.

I even remember being warned by Seminary professor to watch out for this flaw in an otherwise excellent commentary -- (probably in PT or Dog, 84-88).

It's been good to talk with you. Have a good weekend.

***

GJ - WELS, the Misouri Synod, and the fading ELS would have to repudiate UOJ for them to be considered Lutheran or even Christian.

This is closely related to the issue of authority. For WELS, the ultimate authority is a select group of dimwits and those who agree with them. If someone agrees with those dimwits, they are counted as praiseworthy and defended all the way to state prison. If some question the dimwits, they are expelled or hated out.

Murders Most Foul - WELS Cover-Ups Even Worse. JP Meyer's Saints in the Wisconsin Synod

An Internet Sleuth Found More Information on the Wives Murdered in the Homes of
Two WELS Church Workers - Tabor and Just.

Mrs. Janice Tabor was murdered  October 8, 1976, at the parsonage of Salem Lutheran Church, 2400 N. Cramer, Milwaukee. Pastor William D. Tabor never spent a day in prison - Oscar Naumann, WELS Synod President, 1953-1979.

Naumann Hagiography

Tabor's mistress, Janet Goodall, was found guilty of the murder, but Tabor skated. Janet was not a good witness against him, because she protected him at first, then told various stories. She also had a record of deception at work.

The basic story is the Janice Tabor caught her husband, Pastor William Tabor, in bed with Janet Goodall. She threatened to expose him, though everyone already knew he was an adulterer, and a fight followed. Janice was shot in the back and twice in the head with a 45.

The mistress changed her story when the police told her that Tabor was cheating on her and his wife with a third woman. The prosecutor was not able to gather enough credible evidence to charge Tabor, who refused to answer any questions. According to WELS, he was already forgiven for everything past, present, future.

Tabor's real history is not told in the newspaper accounts and WELS was certain stingy with the truth. He was trained at Concordia Seminary, LCMS, in Springfield (now at Ft. Wayne). Tabor joined the Lutheran Churches of the Reformation at some point and served an LCR congregation (now ELS) in Cape Girardeau in Missouri, Scriptural Lutheran, Jay Webber's first call. We were there and ended up knowing a lot more because of that and some LCR connections, such as Pastor William Bischoff, an Otten friend, Trinity, Bridgeton, LCMS.

What I know at this point -

• Concordia Seminary, LCMS.
• Scriptural Lutheran, LCR. Tabor was known for adultery in Cape and suddenly discovered WELS was the True Church. WELS Pastor Roger Zehms was the circuit pastor, and he knew all about Tabor's adultery. When Scriptural members protested that Tabor could not be a pastor, Zehms told them, "Write a letter." Zehms said he baptized a woman's baby who was "the spitting image of Tabor." When Miscke pal and NWL editor Jeb Schaefer had lunch with us in Milwaukee, he said the police came to synod headquarters and "Tabor's file was completely empty." So - where did those LCR letters go, WELS?
• Pastor Bischoff also told me about Tabor's adultery being well known.
• Tabor still began a WELS mission with a bunch of people he took out of Scriptural. Perhaps this is where Zehms baptized the Tabor look-alike. The mission faded away.
• WELS gave Tabor a call to Salem in Milwaukee. After all, Zehms said "Tabor was a great preacher." Tabor had at least two mistresses in Milwaukee, and he was undoubtedly present with his mistress when his wife was murdered.
• WELS gave Tabor a new call to Escanaba, Michigan, but that ended with another mistress. The WELS excuse is that he already had a call when he murdered his wife, so he was not given a call just to get him out of the state. But with two mistresses, that is the normal WELS method - move the man to another state and claim no knowledge of the scandal. The same is true of clergy and leaders with DUIs.

Tabor seems to be in Texas now.

Here is one newspaper account of the Tabor murder. By Googling the names involved, more stories will show up.

Here is a second account of the Tabor murder.



Sharon Ruth Just was murdered - July, 21,1980 - Arizona Lutheran Academy, Phoenix, Arizona.

Teacher Al Just was convicted but only spent a few years in prison. He married his children's babysitter, but she divorced him, supposedly when she saw a glimpse of the real Al Just. Carl Mischke, WELS Synod President, 1979-1993.

Carl Mischke - Hagiogrraphy

Although WELS organized a big white-wash for Al Just. Loyalists came from New Ulm to support him - even the president of Dr. Martin Luther College - who testified for Just at the trial.

His son, a Fuller alumnus, is now First VP of WELS.
Sonny boy had no trouble with an adulterer serving as an
"evangelism consultant" in Columbus.

I can get a number of links about William Tabor - see above - but only this one about Al Just. 



Legal Description of Al Just Appeal for Murdering His Wife 


Appellant [WELS Teacher Al Just] and his wife dozed off, and appellant later woke up and went to the kitchen.

Appellant told Klettlinger that while he was in the kitchen he heard his wife screaming, and he ran into the bedroom. He stated that he observed her lying on the floor next to the bed, and that he attempted to lift her body. As he did so, he dropped her and discovered the knife, and removed it. He told Klettlinger that she was struggling with him, that he reached in her mouth to keep her from swallowing her tongue, and that when he did so, she bit his thumb. He took pillows and sheets and pressed them between himself and Sharon in an effort to stop the bleeding. He also stated that he put his hands over her mouth so that her screams would not wake the children. He told Klettlinger that when Jana entered the bedroom and turned the light on, he told her to turn off the light and go back to bed.

There is more, but it is sickening. The jury did not buy his pathetic lies and sentenced him, but somehow that became a very light sentence.

Pastor Steve Spencer, WELS, ordered me to never mention the case again, because the Phoenix WELS clergy were very touchy about it.

A relative of Al Just wrote me that Just was completely innocent. He must not have heard that Just confessed his crime to another relative.

One of my friends saw Al Just with a WELS youth group after leaving prison. The excuse was, "He served his time."

How does someone measure the damage done to congregations and family members by these concerted efforts to deny church workers engaged in adultery and then murder to cover up their infidelities?

I cannot imagine being a child having a father who murdered my mother or even worse - who denies the obvious while church leaders do everything possible to hide, confuse, or obscure the truth.

WELS accepted Tabor so they could have a bonus congregation from the Scriptural Lutheran Church split. The bonus congregation no longer exists.

WELS's Meditations, March-May 2014, for Monday, March 17, 2014.  

"No matter what you did yesterday -- or failed to do -- and no matter what you will do tomorrow, God has forgiven you."

Adultery and alcoholism among the WELS/ELS church workers is justified - so to speak - by their false dogma of UOJ. How ironic that Jay Webber saw the damage first-hand at Scriptural, then took funds from the adulterous Marvin Schwan to go to the Ukraine and play the role of a big shot. He completed his destructive work by ignorantly and deceptively installing UOJ in Luther's Works at the Emmaus Conference.

Luther himself refuted Jay Webber's ridiculous claims.

Clergy adultery is no sin in WELS or the ELS,
if the fringe benefit of money is offered in abundance.

For Beginning Rose Growers - Bet on Creation

One of my classmates added a word to my vocabulary - complexification. He was admonishing another classmate for the crime of complexification, but I am not sure why. That word fits the world of garden publishing. They have made a delightful hobby so difficult to understand and so arduous in labor that many would rather push a reel mower through tall weeds.

Our neighbor is going to begin rose gardening with her daughter, so I was thinking of some basic tips.

Feed the Soil Creatures and Leave Them Alone - They Will Pay a Bonus
Man-made fertilizers do not feed the soil creatures, because Creation is not engineered for the products of factories. The soil microbes deliver nutrition to the delicate root hairs, and that relationship alone should be enough to discourage rototilling, double-digging, and other follies. Long-term relationships are the best, so let the fungi deliver to the root hairs, the bacteria and protozoa and nematodes doing their jobs.

Feed the soil creatures with

1. newspapers, 
2. cardboard, 
3. leaves, 
4. grass, 
5. bark, and 
6. logs. 

The top layer is always going to be plants, weeds, or mulch. The mulches discourage weeds, hold water in the soil, reduce wind erosion, and rot downward to feed everything below. Besides, soils creatures work best in dark and moist conditions, so mulch feeds provides that and feeds them as well. The effect of organic material on soil will attract insects that spiders, birds, and toads enjoy, another benefit.

AARP is recruiting at younger ages all the time.

Good, Better, and Best Water
Less water is used when mulching the garden, but dry spells demand some help for plants and creatures. Tapwater is good for watering, if we have nothing better.

For better results, water stored a day or more is doing to be relatively free of chlorine. That was my mother's secret for beautiful plants in her overheated, dry classroom. No teacher could match the results. During dry spells I store water when I am going to soak new rose bushes or plants that come in the mail, which are always dry and need a long soaking.

The best results come from rainwater, either from the heavens above or barrels below. Commercial rainbarrels are expensive, unless we buy large plastic garbage cans on sale.

Rainwater is:

• Liquid fertilizer, enriched with nitrogen fixed by lightning, courtesy of the Creator.
• Medicine, designed to heal stressed plants while helping their staff - the microbes, earthworms, and other staff that serve and benefit the flowers, vegetables, and fruits.
• Chlorine-free. Chlorine is great for killing bacteria, but bacteria are foundational for the food pyramid, engineered to 

Only then do the tiny, microscopic organisms— bacteria, fungi, protozoa, nematodes— appear, and in numbers that are nothing less than staggering. A mere teaspoon of good garden soil, as measured by microbial geneticists, contains a billion invisible bacteria, several yards of equally invisible fungal hyphae, several thousand protozoa, and a few dozen nematodes. The common denominator of all soil life is that every organism needs energy to survive. While a few bacteria, known as chemosynthesizers, derive energy from sulfur, nitrogen, or even iron compounds, the rest have to eat something containing carbon in order to get the energy they need to sustain life. Carbon may come from organic material supplied by plants, waste products produced by other organisms, or the bodies of other organisms. The first order of business of all soil life is obtaining carbon to fuel metabolism— it is an eat-and-be-eaten world, in and on top of the soil.

Lewis, Wayne; Lowenfels, Jeff. Teaming with Microbes: The Organic Gardener's Guide to the Soil Food Web, Revised Edition (Kindle Locations 162-169). Timber Press. Kindle Edition. 

Leaves and wood are full of carbon. Bacterial and fungi crave carbon, so I find it amusing that the heavy gardening books of the past dismissed leaves, newspapers, and wood as being mostly carbon. That is like a football team turning down steaks, because they are mostly meat.

Man-made fertilizers have no long-term benefit. Organic materials build up the soil population, which holds onto all the beneficial compounds and circulates them among them as the food eating bacterium and fungus becomes the food. Slugs shred organic matter and serve as food. Earthworms concentrate beneficial compounds, grind soil finer, and move bacterial around.

If the soil population is doubled, the moisture and compounds held by the creatures will also increase as much. These interactions are Creation, engineering, and management at their best.

De-Complexification - My Method
I laughed when Amazon offered to sell me a book - Compost Tea. People have elaborate schemes for piling up, turning, and distributing compost. Adding to that - they have recipes for making compost tea, adding water and performing various magic formulae before pouring it on plants.

I make compost by covering the lawn with cardboard, holding it down with leaves, logs, and mulch. Simply shutting down the sunlight turns the lawn into perfect compost, using the soil creatures without tossing them around like debris in a tornado. Material on top of the cardboard keeps it in place until watering, rain, and additional weight keeps it in place.

I turned one area from shaded grass to a Shaded Garden, where shade-loving plants can grow in rich, soil that was fed over the winter by the lawn rotting under the cardboard and leaves. Some airborne weeds have grown, but they are easy to pull from the area. The plants we put there are ones that enjoy shade, thrive in shade, and multiply (naturalize) on their own.

I make manure tea by adding manure to rainwater. That delivers an extra dose of organic matter to the root area. Bags of manure or mushroom compost are inexpensive and easy to move around - unlike a ton of compost.

Butterfly Weed is very attractive to Monarchs
and to us.