Today I spent a few hours on the basics of the computer, checking what I knew, then contacted Best Buy because I had a contract. I had lengthy diagnosis discussions, ending with a live in-person Best Buy buddy tomorrow.
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.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
One Hour on a Park Bench With...
From time to time, someone asks the readers how would they spend a one-hour conversation on a park bench, if they could name anyone living or dead. This does not include locations in San Francisco or LA.
Many list their mothers, which should encourage mothers who seldom get a card, flowers, or a phone call on Mother's Day.
Some say "Jesus." And they get responses, "You can do that anytime."
The missing information is the result of a century of denying this fact - the Scriptures are God speaking to us through the Spirit in the Word.
The eager-to-please clergy (or do they just hate the Scriptures?) tell people they are too dumb and antiquated to use the best translation, the King James Version, which is not only the Majority Text but also boasts the majority readership.
How did this come about? I give credit to the creeping Calvinism of our country, which first embraced fake sources (Vaticanus, Sinaiticus) and then embraced crackpot "translators" who knew the meaning of the original better than anyone else. They even bragged about translating a translation - Good News For Modern Man, aka TEV.
Biblical scholars wowed the future pastors with all the ways they could scrape away the content of the Scriptures and leave the kernal of truth. That dream was fulfilled when Ski ruled at the Popcorn Cathedral of Love.
When people read or hear the KJV, they are listening to God's own Voice.
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
The About Mode - And Paul L. Holmer, Yale
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| Paul L. Holmer's lectures were branded into our minds, because he had so much to say in few words. |
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| Gugenheim Fellow |
One of Holmer's enduring statements about intellectual life was the 50-year cycle of the About Mode. Someone has a new, creative idea and everyone copies it for 50 years before they wear it out. The minor figures live and prosper in the About Mode. They have no ideas of their own.
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| McGavranistan provided the fields of opium. |
I am a bit sad that I learned that bit of genius, because I have seen it repeated in my lifetime. I wondered how ELCA, WELS, Missouri, and the ELS could drool over the same terms and methods derived from Fuller Seminary and its copycats.
WELS and Missouri were supposed to be stalwarts of Biblical inerrancy, but they said exactly the same things at their conferences as I experienced first-hand at the LCA/ALC evangelism conferences and training. The Peter Drucker tapes I heard in the LCA were verbatim what WELS/LCMS taught.
The non-secret was that WELS/LCMS leaders were not only trained at Fuller and Trinity Divinity, but also jointly worked with ELCA, excited together about all they were gaining and tapping from AAL/Lutheran Brotherhood/Thrivent funds.
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The founder of Church Growth, Donald McGavran, was a pro-abortion liberal Disciples of Christ missionary. His salesmen C. Peter Wagner and Win Arn were unflagging cheerleaders for the dull, verbose McGavran.
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| We never had transvestite church picnics in the LCA, but that is how WELS picks conference speakers. |
All those who followed, adored, and praised McGavran, Wagner, and Arn were perpetually in the About Mode.
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| The late Waldo Werning, D.D. (honorary) went nuts when I challenged his denial that he ever went to Fuller Seminary. I read that fact from my Day-Timer. Likewise, the WELS Stooges - Bivens, Valleskey, Kelm, Olson, etc etc - denied it too. |
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| Hunter got degrees from LSTC - ELCA and P!U! Fuller. That made him an expert for the LCMS and WELS. |
The About Mode is the curse of Calvinism, the font of every modern heresy. The Calvinists do not accept that the Holy Spirit is always at work in the Word and never apart from the Word. They consider the Word of God a dead letter unless they make it reasonable, germane, and attractive. In other words, Rationalism is style of interpretation and the efficacy of the Word is their enema enemy.
No clever can unite the superficial marketing talk of the Calvinist Church Growth salesmen with the Means of Grace taught in the Scriptures.
As long as the red lens of Rationalism is over their eyes, they will see and hear Church Growth Principles! in every Word of the Bible, especially when so much is ripped from the Majority or Traditional text of the Greek New Testament.
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| And WELS never participated in Church Growth, said Wayne Mueller, CG expert, in the WELS magazine. |
The Church Growth and NIV stooges usually deny being nursed on the Fuller sow's teats, but they hate anyone criticizing Holy Mother Sow. One Larry Otto Olson, WELS, is such a genius that he earned a precious D.Min. in Church Growth - I read his Fuller essay - and was never there! (See the Christian News article penned by another sycophant.)
The only way the True Church can grow is by adhering to the true Scriptures. There is no "about" to change, corrupt, or remove the Word from the Scriptures. The lazy, corpulent, alcoholic ministers need to go back to the Word of God and teach directly from the reliable Scriptures, the Majority Text itself or the King James translation.
Those leaders and the various mini-popes can see the crash coming. The question is whether they will bail out and repent or be removed from the True Vine (John 15:1ff).
From the Lutheran Librarian - Alec Satin - Loy on Denominations
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| This is a perfect example of Luther paraphrasing the Apostle Paul and a thorough rebuke of the Lutheran sects of today - ELCA, LCMS, WELS, ELS, ELDONA, CLC (sic). Lord Jim Heiser finally got the mini-papacy he longed for, ever since the brain-washing of Concordia Ft. Wayne, and its twisted sister seminary, Concordia St. Louis. |
From The Columbus Theological Magazine, Vol. 6. 1886. “Lutheran Union. Third Part.”
“It is difficult to believe that any who have devoutly studied the Scriptures and have taken these as their guide can seriously entertain the opinion, that the different denominations of Christians are all equally authorized parts of the Church, all of which taken together form the whole. Whether this be meant geographically or specifically, it is unscriptural and absurd.
The facts are such that one must be blind to believe that, e.g., the Romish Church is really the Church of Italy, the Lutheran of Germany, the Protestant-Episcopal of England. What is the Church then of these United States? All can see that no one of the denominations has a separate existence merely in view of territorial limits. The Church of Rome is no more confined to Italy than is the Lutheran Church to Germany; and the Lutheran Church no more recognizes the divine right of Romanism in Italy than it does in Germany. It is a sect that has no divine warrant for its existence anywhere. People are only deceiving themselves when they try to believe that the whole unhappy business of church divisions can be justified by such a dream of separation on merely geographical grounds.
But just as little is the theory tenable that the various denominations are merely species, all of which together form the general Christian or Christian Church. That would imply that Christ organized different churches, each differing from the other and all possibly occupying the same territory. The opinion is too wild to merit serious refutation. It is the sect spirit driven to desperation for some show of plausibility. We read nothing in Scripture of the organization of such various churches specifically different but generally one.
But we do read warnings against all divisions, and admonition to preserve the unity of the children of God. “There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism.” Eph. 4:4.5. The one body of believers in Christ becomes manifest in its confession of Him and the truth by which He is revealed to man.
In their knowledge and consequently in their confession, they may vary without necessarily ceasing to be Christians. But those who continue in the Lord’s word shall know the truth, and their confession must be a preservative against the power and prevalence of error. Those who have that truth must insist on it. The glory of the Lord and the salvation of souls, which are constantly endangered by error, demands this. And they who have this truth, and are organized on the basis of its acceptance by all, constitute the true visible Church of Christ, with which all should unite.
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| Does anyone wonder why the Lutheran sects are united among themselves in braying their Objective Justification nonsense? All them have raced to Fuller Seminary and Trinity Divinity School to inhale the corruption of those Magna Stinkpottae. To excuse themselves, they claim the innocence of Safe Sects while denying they went there. |
Monday, October 17, 2022
Our First Hint of Winter - Relief Predicted
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| Cannas multiply through rhizomes (below), storing energy, growing and spreading. |
Cannas to the right of them,
Cannas to the left of them,
Cannas in front of them
Volleyed and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell,
Rode the six hundred.We never got the big thunderstorm predicted but the cold has moved in for today, Monday, and Tuesday. Then we will have sunny, warm days again.
Nothing motivates the bulb digger more than a prediction of cold. I ran into this in New Ulm, Minnesota, when cold meant "too frozen to dig." I had to find warm spots around the parsonage to bury the treasure.
Sassy supervised me Saturday, when I dug up and planted in the area under the green fence, now a line of tall plants and several elderberry bushes. I also dragged the shovel down a line in one backyard garden. That was the second large bag of daffodils, with grape hyacinths alternating in spots. Both will multiply on their own, a better way to invest than the fickle stock market.
Team Hagar has fulfilled my agricultural ambitions, removing vast amounts of unwanted vegetation and helping in planting. Sassy and I sat together while the maple tree was dug in for grape hyacinths. Nothing escapes Sassy's attention. If children are playing outdoors, she watches and grins like the block's grandmother (same age in doggy years). She never took her eyes off the grape hyacinth dig. Sassy kept looking at me, as if to say, "Do you approve of this?" I had to say, more than once - "It's OK, Sassy. That will be a ring of flowers around the maple."
Cannas Are Next Year
I was wary of growing cannas, because they needed to be dug up in Midland, Michigan and definitely in Minnesota. I noticed the morning coffee couple's house - on the way to Pat and John's - festooned with a fence of cannas. I had one big question - "Can cannas last the winter in the ground?" They said "Yes!" and offered me some.
Cannas are rhizomes so they spread easily. They come in many sizes and two colors, orange and yellow.
Glads Galore
I also found that the neglected gladiolas grew all summer, some left over from the previous year. They are probably hardier in the soil than cannas, and yet they are very inexpensive.
Sunday, October 16, 2022
The Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2022
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Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity, 2022
Pastor Gregory L. Jackson
The Confession of Sins
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16
The Absolution
The Introit p. 16
Introit
Reward them that wait for Thee, O Lord:
and let Thy prophets be found faithful.
Hear the prayer of Thy servants: and of Thy people Israel.
Psalm. I was glad when they said unto me:
Let us go into the house of the Lord.
The Gloria Patri
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19
The Kyrie p. 17
The Gloria in Excelsis
The Salutation and Collect p. 19
Collect
O God, forasmuch as without Thee we are not able to please Thee, mercifully grant that Thy Holy Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, who liveth, etc.
The Epistle and Gradual
The Gospel
Glory be to Thee, O Lord!
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed p. 22
Praise be to Thee, O Christ!
The Nicene Creed p. 22
Stumped by the Truth
The Preface p. 24
The Sanctus p. 26
The Lord's Prayer p. 27
The Words of Institution
The Agnus Dei p. 28
The Nunc Dimittis p. 29
The Benediction p. 31
The Hymn # 54 Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah
The Sanctus p. 26
The Lord's Prayer p. 27
The Words of Institution
The Agnus Dei p. 28
The Nunc Dimittis p. 29
The Benediction p. 31
The Hymn # 54 Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah
Announcements and Prayers
- Therapy, diagnosis - Kermit Way. Improvement, Pastor Jim Shrader. Callie and her parents. C.
- Pastor K and Doc Lito Cruz - dealing with diabetes.
- The I AM Sermons book will have a revision.
- We are working together to improve the audio - and learning a lot in the process.
- Thank you for the birthday greetings and blessings on or about my birthday.
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| Graphic by Norma A. Boeckler |
KJV 1 Corinthians 1:4 I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ; 5 That in every thing ye are enriched by him, in all utterance, and in all knowledge; 6 Even as the testimony of Christ was confirmed in you: 7 So that ye come behind in no gift; waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ: 8 Who shall also confirm you unto the end, that ye may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord.
KJV Matthew 22:34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law? 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets. 41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David. 43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, 44 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? 45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son? 46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
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| Graphic based on Norma Boeckler's Art |
Eighteenth Sunday After Trinity
Lord God, heavenly Father: We are poor, miserable sinners; we know Thy will, but cannot fulfill it because of the weakness of our flesh and blood, and because our enemy, the devil, will not leave us in peace. Therefore we beseech Thee, shed Thy Holy Spirit in our hearts, that, in steadfast faith, we may cling to Thy Son Jesus Christ, find comfort in His passion and death, believe the forgiveness of sin through Him, and in willing obedience to Thy will lead holy lives on earth, until by Thy grace, through a blessed death, we depart from this world of sorrow, and obtain eternal life, through Thy Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, one true God, world without end. Amen.
Stumped by the Truth
KJV Matthew 22:34 But when the Pharisees had heard that he had put the Sadducees to silence, they were gathered together. 35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, 36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
The practice of asking questions and being asked in a long-standing Jewish tradition. The rabbi asks the first three and then he is asked the final question.
Krister Standahl, the Dean of Harvard Divinity at the time, gave a lecture to Yale Divinity students. He said Christians should not try to convert Jews. Just after that, Yale's Professor Malherbe gave his class some examples of "To the Jew first and then the Gentiles." The Apostle Paul returned to his rabbinic clothing and customs to do the very thing Standahl did not approve. It might be added that the Risen Lord Jesus converted Paul, but the Harvard Dean also overlooked that.
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. 38 This is the first and great commandment. 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
One of the interesting facts is that the second has been standard in our culture and it has parallels in all religions. The rationalists think Christianity is borrowed, so that explains it. But that would mean the Lord of Creation had to be taught by religions which deny Him.
When people are afraid to ask or answer honestly about the truth, they become stumped.
So this is the fourth question, with Jesus asking the religious teachers.
This is the opening of the trap.
41 While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, 42 Saying, What think ye of Christ? whose son is he? They say unto him, The Son of David.
This is the opening of the trap.
I have used it many times about minor matters. "Do you expect me to pay?" The vendor says "Yes!" So I add. "You expect me to honor my word?" They say, with some emotion, "Yes we do!"
We were so created that our brains work based on truth and the consequences of truth. That is our gyroscope. Due to our fallen nature, we often skirt the issue, play verbal games, and fail to deal with the truth. But the gyroscope of God's own Creation through the Word (Logos) Jesus works to correct us.
So I ask the ultimate question, "So shouldn't I expect to honor your word?" Silence always follows as they hurry to honor their word.
The Closing of the Trinitarian Trap
43 He saith unto them, How then doth David in spirit call him Lord, saying, 44 The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool? 45 If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?
If you are like the rest of the world, including me, this question seems tricky and confusing. Jesus warned that He could phrase things so the hardened would be even more hardened. This is ideal for the college religion class, where the professor makes a joke out of the puzzle. My future wife followed the professor around, knowing he was a Harvard apostate and asked, "How can you teach these things and give Holy Communion at Salem?" (Salem in Moline is where we worshiped. He assisted in Holy Communion there.) He was embarrassed and silent.
This professor declared in class that there was no Trinity in the Bible. When I cited the Great Commission, he said, "That was put on the lips of Jesus by a later editor." (What a grasp of history! He could go back 2,000 years and separate Christ from His teaching!) That exchange made me very interested in the "problems of the Trinity in the Bible."
But wait. The Trinity is in this passage, once we look again, using a faithful translation (KJV).
The Old Testament is given to us by the Holy Spirit, and the passage Jesus quoted from David's Psalm is
KJV Psalm 110:1 The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.
God has given us the Scriptures, Old and New Testaments, through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible is - by far - the oldest ancient manuscript in existence. The Bible is also the most copied and translated work in the world. In fact, there is no comparison with anything else, whether Homer's Iliad or Shakespeare (Oxford).
I am not an expert in this, but the KJV uses LORD to name the godhead, and Lord in reference to Jesus. So is this not saying?...
Through the Holy Spirit, God the Father said to God the Son, Sit down at My right hand in glory until (the final consumation) I turn Your enemies into Your footstool. (paraphrased)
Someone has said, the Jewish teachers knew the Trinity, and that is entirely possible since it was taught repeatedly in their own Scriptures. What is almost comical is the denial of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the rapidly decaying mainline (apostate) denominations.
46 And no man was able to answer him a word, neither durst any man from that day forth ask him any more questions.
Silence is the greatest and most powerful sign of denial, because the false teachers know they are stepping off the cliff. They will often rage, fume, and toss out every insult they can, so that others are afraid to correct them.
Faithful Christians have this to strengthen them
We are already in the Good Shepherd's flock, so the Lord Jesus Christ shepherds us as we go through life. He uses His staff to guild us and to ward off evil, especially the evil of false teachers, wolves who love to scatter the flock.
We have the eternal Word, so we know that this is a treasure far beyond our ability to measure, as if we have won Fort Knox (without the tax burden).
We know the Spirit is always helping us with this Word, correcting and comforting us, giving us the peace of forgiveness through faith in Christ. Grace? While everyone is talking about grace, we know that we have access to this grace through faith in the Good Shepherd (Romans 5, John 10, Psalm 23).
This inspired Word is so powerful because it is God the Holy Spirit at work to continue us in life and into eternal life.
Friday, October 14, 2022
Keeping You Up To Date with ELCA, The Ministry Partner of Missouri, WELS, and Thrivent
Committed to womanist theology, Trinity Lutheran Seminary and the ELCA’s Quality of Call Initiative for Women in Ministry have appointed Denise Rector as the seminary’s first joint doctoral scholar-in-residence (DSIR).
Womanist theology is an understanding of God and the world that centers on the experiences and insights of Black women. Trinity, part of Capital University in Columbus, Ohio, has made increasing efforts to give voice to historical and contemporary exploration of Christian faith based on the unique experiences and contributions of women of African descent.
The DSIR is awarded to ELCA women of color who are completing their dissertations in theology, biblical studies or religion. The position supports the practical and professional requirements of doctoral candidates as they complete their dissertations in fields that serve the ongoing reformation of the church.
Rector is completing her doctorate through the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Her dissertation explores the feedback loop between historiography (how we imagine and write history) and epistemology (how we know) in the construction of African American racial identities throughout U.S. history and in the church.
“I became interested in the study of womanist theology when I realized that I wasn’t seeing myself—a Black woman—or the history of Black women represented in the teachings of some of the theology classes I was taking,” Rector said. She finds that womanist theology “recognizes the importance of including people … whose rich, cultural understandings of the divinity of God may not always show up in church on Sunday morning.”
Rector said it was essential to explore these issues faithfully and theologically and to understand their effect on how church history and American history are incorporated into the teachings of God’s creation. “For a long time, there has been an Americanist religion that doesn’t always reflect the racial and ethical variety of creation.”
Womanist theology “recognizes the importance of including people … whose rich, cultural understandings of the divinity of God may not always show up in church on Sunday morning.”
Kathryn Kleinhans, dean of Trinity, said the seminary is committed to looking at American history “through marginalized groups and telling their stories of history, theology and ethics that we haven’t told yet.”
In 2021, both ELCA Gender Justice and Women’s Empowerment and the anonymous-donor-funded ELCA Quality of Call Initiative supported Trinity’s activities related to the ELCA Womanist Theology Initiative. The project allows students at all ELCA seminaries to take classes focused on womanist theology, regardless of which seminary offers the course.
The appointment of Rector also builds on the success of “Hush No More: Perspectives From Womanist Theologians,” a series of seminars hosted by Trinity in fall 2021 on the development of womanist interpretation of Scripture and womanist perspectives on pastoral care.
Mary J. Streufert, ELCA director for the Quality of Call Initiative and for Gender Justice and Women’s Empowerment, said the doctoral scholar-in-residence is an investment in women.
“Supporting women of color working in fields such as womanist theology is also an investment in ministerial imagination and formation in the ELCA,” Streufert said. “I cannot wait to see the Holy Spirit continue to work.”
Rector, who expects to finish her dissertation in 2024, said Black women seminary professors are rare.
“Being here at Trinity Lutheran Seminary has been like landing in the best-feathered nest for someone starting a teaching career,” she said. “Dean Kleinhans wants to bring in professors of color to be part of the diversity of academia so students have exposure to theology taught with a culturally rich, expansive and inclusive view.”
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The Lutheran Librarian - Featuring Loy's Sermons on the Gospels for the Church Year
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