Church Politics - A Microcosm - And Still the Pulpit Leads the World

Herman Melville, Moby Dick, "The Pulpit, Chapter 8"

Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship’s bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on a projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship’s fiddle-headed beak.

What could be more full of meaning?—for the pulpit is ever this earth’s foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God’s quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favourable winds. Yes, the world’s a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.

Herman Melville, Moby Dick, The Pulpit

I am not worried or fretful about the future. Before, our country had outward peace and inner turmoil. Now, we have outward turmoil and inner peace. Nothing is going to change the path which people chose some time back.

Secular politics remind me of church politics, but church politics are worse by far. In both cases, people swear an oath based on certain principles. The difference is that the ecclesiastical principles come from God and the legal principles come from man - the U.S. Constitution (read as often and as rarely as the KJV). One would never guess, after hearing from the great and wise in the Church - that Tyndale was killed for giving us the first direct translation of the Bible, directly influenced by the Lutheran Reformation.

The Church today rewards people for being unfaithful in every possible way. And they punish for indications of faith. This was predicted long ago. 

"He that justifieth the wicked, and he that condemneth the just, even they both are abomination to the Lord." Proverbs 17:15

The secular parallel is perfect. The corrupt become rich. The truly evil become billionaires. 

David Preus, another crooked smile, another abomination.

Some indications of corruption in the visible Church are listed below:

1. The LCA actually voted for a pro-life statement in 1978, and the people behind it lost their jobs while the synod became even more pro-abortion.
2. The LCA bishop published a set of letters between him (Crumley) and the pope (JP II) - in color. To match him, David Preus (ALC) worked to have joint Holy Communion services with a Calvinist seminary faculty, on their terms of course.
3. The LCMS and WELS abandoned the faithful KJV while promoting and selling the NIV and ESV, the latter two using a corrupted text and deceitful translating. Both synods were happy to be part of the ecumenical slate of apostate paraphrasers - and to enjoy the loot derived from replacing the KJV.
4. WELS went all out to feign superiority over other Lutheran groups, while working with ELCA - and practicing safe sects at Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, Trinity Divinity, and other evangelical flotsam.
5. David Valleskey and Frosty Bivens bragged about their studies at Fuller while calling anyone who repeated their braggadocio - "liars!" Oh, how sweet, to be a red under the bed while denouncing those who expose the reds under the bed.
   

"I did not go to Fuller! Ask Bivens. The drive by Demon stripes? Oh, I just borrowed that robe."