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The Church of the Lutheran Confession (sic) is simply a smaller, dumber, meaner version of WELS. Sin for the CLC is not agreeing they are the best, the purest, the most orthodox. And they have the best Donkey Basketball team. |
I was going to write about WELS-LCMS being equals as Pietistic cults when someone sent me the letter of Paul Rydecki about leaving ELDONA.
The Missouri Synod came from the hyper-Pietism of the Martin Stephan cult. The Loehe group actually started the organization and invited the Perryville/St. Louis fanatics to join, but the Walther fan club has always claimed the fame. Walther - for all his posturing - was a dictatorial fake who did not know or teach Biblical Lutheran doctrine. My understanding is that Stephan-Walther's Objective Justification was slowly introduced but kept down by the Germanic nature of the LCMS and their ease of reading Luther in German.
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| Pope Walther bypassed the rules to install Pieper as the dogmatics professor. His Holiness split the Synodical Conference by promoting Objective Justification in the form of Calvinistic double predestination - the Election issue. |
Walther's chosen yes-man, F. Pieper, had the power and influence of being professor and president of the Missouri Synod. He used that to blend OJ with the Means of Grace. Read his mish-mash of dogmatics. It is all there.
The essence of Pietism is found among conservative Babtists, ELDONA, LCMS, WELS, ELS, and the CLC (sic). They expect total conformity with their group and shun anyone outside of their cult. The stink-eye precedes total, absolute shunning.
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| Whee! Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek, Kent Hunter, Waldo Werning, Paul Calvin Kelm, Unstuck, Fireproof Marriages! Something has to work. |
It is a pity that the so-called conservative Lutherans have their Boswell - Ichabod - without their approval. They would be less inclined to run off the cliff into new and old Enthusiasms.
Heiser stayed with the LCMS to vest his pension with them, similar to Kincaid Smith's antics in borrowing money from the LCMS parish to start an ELS congregation.
However, Heiser expected everyone to join him and bow down to his episcopal authority. A purple clergy shirt was enough at first, but that soon turned into the regalia and rule of Romanism.
I have two accounts of Heiser's obnoxious behavior with laity who belonged to ELDONA. One layman innocently brought copies of my books and some KJV Bibles to an ELDONA meeting. All those books disappeared. ELDONA (Heiser) was horrified and did not want those books and Bibles distributed. Everything purchased disappeared - and no thankyous followed.
That was not enough for them. One ELDONA pastor followed the layman around, listening to every word spoken. He was warned, "If you want to get along here, you better shape up."
The layman went to Heiser's office to ask what was going on. After all, I had given extensive blog space to ELDONA for explicitly teaching Justification by Faith. I had previously given up on ELDONA for embracing the Rolf Preus OJ group and another OJ fanatic.
Why would I join and agree with someone clinging to the LCMS for money and soliciting their OJ dogma?
Heiser at first refused to answer any questions, because "he was too busy." But then he unleashed a series of bizarre claims. One was that I violated copyright laws (no explanation). My crime was quoting some of Heiser's reprints verbatim and including the precise source of the quotations. That is called research, perhaps an odd exercise for a bishop who took 20 years to finish an STM.
Heiser appreciated and sold Thy Strong Word, published in 2000. He was totally convinced that OJ was wrong, but then sought out union with Rolf Preus and the other OJ guy. That is exactly why I gave up on ELDONA and Heiser's sinuflection to Rome, Eastern Orthodoxy, or any other folly.
Missouri Holiness Principles
We know that Walther and his circle knew all about Stephan's adultery with many young women. He suffered from syphilis and gave it to his partners, who discovered the non-academic meaning of an STD. The Walther bunch staged a riot to topple Stephan, steal his land, grab his gold, and claim his library. Seminex carried out the library book thefts in similar fashion, claiming the books belonged to them, not "801" as they called Concordia Seminary St. Louis. A true Pietist will not even use the offending word.
Graduates of St. Louis and Ft. Wayne look down their noses at the other school. ELDONUTs are almost all from the Ft. Wayne seminary. The lone St. Louis member there apologized for not graduating from Ft. Waye! - way too funny for outsiders to comprehend. I have seen the same loathing with graduates of Gettysburg versus Philadelphia, WELS versus ELS.
WELS-ELS Holiness
By now most readers know that WELS-LCMS-ELS are working with ELCA all the time, bowing and scraping for cash from Thrivent, Schwan, and other sources. Pan-synodical projects have been going on since the big Church Growth project headed by LCMS-WELS men and ELCA female clergy executives. The Woke stuff everyone is complaining about was the substance - and the beginning - at Snowbird. I got that into Christian News too, and WELS sent flunkies around to explain it away.
"The pulpit leads the way," as Herman Melville wrote. Mischke (WELS) was kissing up to Chilstrom (ELCA) with the help of Bohlman (LCMS). I not only wrote about it, but got Herman Otten to publish it in Christian News.
ELS Pastor Jay Webber knows that I gave Otten the Forbes story on Marvin Schwan divorcing his wife and marrying the wife of one of his managers. Webber told his ELS bosses. Here is Webber's claim - "No one reads Forbes. Everyone reads Christian News."
Nota bene (note well - for those who failed Latin) - The greatest sin in the LCMS-WELS-ELS was not Marvin Schwan's serial adultery, nor Forbes publishing a grinning Marvin getting his divorce for $1 million plus a Cadilac. The unforgivable sin was the reprinting of the story in a publication (CN) no one admits to reading.
The sycophant clergy were quick to blame me for the consequences when they were the enablers who led the Schwan family into tragedy.
Webber was happy to move to the Ukraine, with Roger Kovaciny (!) and take over the faux-seminary there. Schwan gave them $15 million and a cheese factory, as I recall from my notes from a John Shep phone conversation.
Webber, knowing all about Floyd Luther Stolzenburg - removed from the LCMS ministerium for cause, hailed as savior for WELS in Columbus, Ohio - gladly took money from Floyd's new/old congregation. This will bring tears to your eyes - as it does mine - the Ukrainians named their church after Floyd's. Is that not sweet? - recapitulating the start of the LCMS, with Bishop Stephan. Read this without laughing out loud - 25 Years of Grace in the Ukraine. "Fellowship with WELS and ELS has been very fruitful in establishing good, solid, pure Lutheran doctrine in Ukraine. Not all churches have this blessing." They even quoted the foundational passage on the efficacy of the Word, Isaiah 55, while making this absurd claim for themselves in the dying ELS and the absurd WELS.
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| Ukraine cat - "So that's where all the money went!" |
