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ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Monday, October 31, 2016
Strange, High Numbers on the Blog Today
Look at How ELCA Treats HerChurch, Which Is in FollowerHerShip
With WELS and LCMS.
Parallels with Ski and Glende? You Bet. From 2010
Making Idols of Canaanite goddess, Is that Still Okay, ELCA Leadership?
by Exposing the ELCA on Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 10:28pm
Now we have an actual statement from ELCA leadership about the teachings of this San Francisco Lutheran Church. Bishop Michael Burk of ELCA Southeastern Iowa Synod spoke with Ebenezer Lutheran Church’s Bishop from the Sierra Pacific Synod (in August 2010). Bishop Burk had questions about reports he had heard of non-orthodox practices happening at the church. Here is his account of that conversation,
“After visiting with the bishop and with another synod staff member who knows the congregation and the pastor well, there is an acknowledgement that this congregation ‘pushes around the edges’ on matters that make some of us uncomfortable. Things like what they refer to this ‘rosary’ are seen by many to be outside the bounds, but don't rise to level of anything in the disciplinary arena. Speaking explicitly about the pastor and regular worship experience there, when folks have ‘dropped in unannounced’ they have experienced preaching that is decidedly within Lutheran orthodoxy and worship that is familiar and done with integrity. It was said that this small congregation is serving the local community very well, especially when it comes to reaching out to the local community.” (read here, go to comment 6)
We have now learned that Ebenezer Lutheran Church is offering women an interesting “spiritual retreat.” The church website says,
“Celebrate ‘She Who Is’
Encounter the Divine Feminine
with body, mind and spirit”
At this spiritual retreat you will experience -
“Sacred Re-imaging, rituals and work(play)shops, sacred sounds, altar building, meditation with the Cosmic Mother, Christian Feminist stories, beach walks, free time and relaxing with beauty that is around, among and within!”
The experience will include presentations on -
“God/dess Around Us
Language of the Goddess – Pr. Boorn (ELCA pastor)
God/dess Within Us
Connecting with God/dess – J. Dancer
God/dess Beyond Us
Spirit Shrines – Linda Roberts”
The Retreat gets even more interesting unfortunately. Ebenezer Lutheran Church’s website tells an attendee’s retreat experience where we read,
“Pastor Stacy reminded us of some of the discounted feminine images of God in the Old Testament—probably none of which were the products of female imaginations—and invited us to form our own images in clay of Asherah, the mother goddess of the Canaanites familiar to early Jewish inhabitants of Canaan. I am no artist. Warming and working the clay with my hands, I wondered whether my goddess would look anything like the photograph of an Asherah figure Stacy provided as a possible starting point . . .”
“The next project, led by Kathryn Wagner, was to make a mandala, a circular, meditative image of the self . . .”
“On the shore of Monterey Bay, on Saturday night and Sunday morning, all ten of us prayed the Goddess rosary [some beaded their own Goddess Rosary that afternoon] beside a cross erected of driftwood and draped with seaweed. Stacy called us to remember the sea as the primal water from which life emerged, to think of it as the amniotic fluid of our mother's wombs . . .” (Read here) http://www.herchurch.org/id10.html
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| "It's not coming your way, Brett. It arrived years ago. Ask my buddies in the LCMS and WELS." |
One could write five articles on the non-orthodox, troubling, and heretical statements written about this "spiritual retreat." But we will just focus on "Asherah."
The image of Asherah, that ELCA pastor Stacy Boorn had the women on the retreat make, is a false god. As was mentioned above, Asherah is "the mother goddess of the Canaanites" that God continually told the Israelites to stay away from. Scripture speaks of Asherah and Asherah poles extensively and none of it is positive. Here is one verse (see more verses at end of this article) -
Deuteronomy 12:3 - Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.
I would be interested in hearing from ELCA headquarters and the synod bishops as to whether this new documented information of "herchurch" making idols of a false god (one the Bible specifically mentions and which is forbidden in scripture) is still considered acceptable practices for ELCA members. As you can read in the Bible verses below, it is not acceptable to God.
If making idols and the worship of false gods does not warrant expulsion, I don’t know what does. ELCA inaction here = acceptance/approval.
---------
More of what God’s Word says about Asherah/Asherah poles -
Judges 3:7 - The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.
1 Kings 14:15 - And the LORD will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they aroused the LORD’s anger by making Asherah poles.
1 Kings 16:33 - Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.
2 Kings 17:16 - They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal.
Deuteronomy 7:5 - This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.
***
GJ - Notice that DP Doug Englebrecht sent the District VP to investigate The CORE and found exactly the same Lutheran orthodoxy! Twas practically Adolph Hoenecke come to life again.
Readers - HerChurch is a picture of WELS in the future.
No one thought HerChurch could happen when I published about this topic in 1987. Now the same people who ignored the warnings are shocked that it did happen - with their synod's blessing. My classmate from Yale, with a PhD in NT studies, blessed it as well. Now he is an ELCA seminary president.
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| The new president of the seminary started by Loehe in Iowa has no distinctive qualifications for her job, whether academic or professional. She looks less than thrilled with the potential for closing the school. Note the Mark Jeske ambiguous, lop-sided smile. |
The problem is with corrupt officials who seem to be spineless shiver-sisters, until someone dares to question the conduct of their office. Then, as Luther wrote, they are ready to tear up trees with their bare hands.
Or as Proverbs says, it is easier to rob a she-bear of her cubs than to encounter a fool in his folly. Prov. 17:12.
2016 Update
HerChurch is the WELS and LCMS of the present - not of the future.
Mirthless Mark Schroeder and Matt the Fat Harrison are helpless when asked about the aberrations of their sects. However, they are meaner than outhouse rats when someone points out the obvious - they are eagerly and forcefully advancing apostasy.
Today's Rose Delivery - For the Future Bride and Groom
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| Falling in Love is bi-colorand fragrant. |
First I photographed two Falling in Love roses for a couple at the Evangelical college nearby. They were both in my classes.
I thought that was rather cold to send photos of roses, so I decided to deliver them to the future bride, who was away on choir tour. It's a good thing I checked or withering roses might have greeted her.
I looked over Falling in Love, a row of roses in our main rose garden. Several were looking good for a Monday bloom, but I boosted the chances with buckets of stored rainwater plus a general watering. I have learned that a direct water for each rose is very important.
Today two Falling in Love roses were perfect for the vase, and a rare Bride's Dream was exceptional. Bride's Dream ended up in the circle around the maple tree, so it gets more shade and competes for water. Still, the rose has great blooms every so often.
Falling in Love is pink with a white back, while Bride's Dream is the same pink all over.
California Dreamin' is like Double Delight in coloring, with pink and yellow coloring.
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| Bride's Dream |
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| California Dreamin' |
The Starlings Are Back
The weather seemed to be turning wintry some time ago, so I put six pounds of suet in two baskets, for the birds that thrive on bugs - especially the Starlings. Chickadees and the Woodpecker family also like suet. The suet remains.
Yesterday I heard and saw a flock of Starlings high in the trees during the morning walk with Sassy. I have not seen them in the yard. They were making the rounds, since they took off as a group. Today I will put fresh water in all the birdbaths, because the dry weather has to make them relatively short of bathing and drinking water. Starlings really make a fuss in the water, which attracts more creatures to the scene.
People hate Starlings for what the Creator designed them to be - smart, social, and voracious eaters. But we discount whatever is plentiful, until we notice a shortage of what we once took for granted. Starlings arrive in flocks and seem to dominate, but I wonder about the claim that they "drive out native species." That is like saying, "The squirrels eat all the bird-food." On a given day, many bird species eat, and the squirrels take their turn. A squirrel will bat the birds away, just as we swat at flies, but the birds wait in the trees and bushes for their turn.
The Starlings decide to eat from someone's lawn, and they gather in the normal pattern. One scout bird lands. Next a few more join the scout. Soon the entire flock is on the ground, engaged in eating. But if the scout bird rises to the air in alarm, the entire flock takes off.
Starlings never seem to stop foraging. When I first discovered mulch, I noticed how they marched through the garden, flipping grass-leaf mulch over to expose the bugs enjoying the shade or feeding from decomposition.
Their larger cousins, the Grackles, are often around Starlings. The Grackles are even better at spearing the ground for grubs.
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