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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 favorable 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, Chapter 8 |
I was going to write about the downfall of Augustana College, but that involves obscure histories of people most readers do not recognize, from college presidents Dr. Andreen (Yale genius) to Tom Tredway (Methodist academic politician). Instead, let us focus on Bibles since the pulpit is the forefront of the world, as Herman Melville wrote in Moby Dick.
The Scriptures are the foundation of all Christian organizations, and that book - now politically warped - has proved to be the supreme document of apostasy. We have 150+ years of turning away from the Apostolic Greek New Testament Text (aka Byzantine, Traditional, or Received Text) and clinging to a deliberately warped text relying on paraphrasing to avoid the clarity and accuracy of the King James Version - the Westcott-Hort Greek New Testament.
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| They were ordained unbelievers. Hort favored a Mary religion over a Jesus religion - his words. Westcott merged polytheism from India with Christianity. |
The Westcott-Hort butchered text was secretly published in 1870 for the translators of the Revised KJV. We never hear of that Bible edition, because the Revised KJV in 1880 was a total disaster, a flop, unsellable in America or Britain. The leaders of that fiasco could not figure how to fix it, so it became the wallflower of Bibles, "sinking beneath the waves, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown." (Lord Byron)
The Westcott-Hort text was unveiled the moment the Revised KJV was published for everyone, so the two publications were aligned with each other, though both failed while becoming the start of a new age of Bibles. The Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament text of today hardly varies from the errors of the Westcott-Hort, and the English Bibles of today show the same arrogance cutting, pasting, and paraphrasing.
The Evil Four (RSV, ESV, NRSV, NIV) Plus One (Beck) are consummate frauds that still do not add up their sales to the readership of the KJV. And the KJV alone outsells the pathetic Evil Four Plus One.
Three of the Evil Four are licensed by the extreme Left Wing National Council of Churches. If you look at what mainline churches are doing now (including WELS and LCMS)...the NCC was doing that and more 30+ years ago. This is funny, as a factory worker asked - "Why do they excuse the ESV when it is only slightly better than the NIV? Why not simply use the KJV?"
The Revised KJV tanked and sank in the 1880s - unfixable, so how did Biblical changes happen to take place so much later?
All of us little Baby Boomers were being born after WWII. Our parents were from the generation that fought Germany and Japan - patriotic, hard-working, frugal, and church oriented. Boomers became the petri dishes on which modernism could grow and enjoy metastasis without much interference. Teachers and ministers were gently encouraged to embrace whatever was new and different.
This gentle encouragement allowed the radical forces to change foundation of Biblical teaching and preaching. Billy Graham gave the impression of rock-ribbed Biblical purity, but he went along with shocking claim that the original Bible texts were lost and impossible to recover. That not only went against the extreme accuracy of the Jewish transmission of the Old Testament, but also against the Word of God - "Heaven and earth may pass away, but My Word will never pass away." (Matthew 24:24) That is not just a Biblical verse but the theme of the entire Bible.
Unsurprisingly, the efficacy of the Word was gradually dropped by the Lutherans and all other denominations. Many people - including the conservative Lutherans - have told me that they never heard of the efficacy of the Word. That makes it so much easier for the apostate leaders of today (ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC-ELDONUTs) to reject the efficacy, clarity, and inerrancy of the Scriptures.
The mainline church bodies gladly participated in all radical changes. Just remember, the National Council of Churches is hardly mentioned anymore, because their funding was cut back so severely and their reputation at their own headquarters was shot to pieces over 30 years ago. Yes, I read the books about the NCC and included some of it in Liberalism Its Cause and Cure.
A member of the Wisconsin abusive sect will say, "I have nothing to do with the National Council of Churches or the United Nations." However, that New NIV is worse than any doctrinal roadmap published by the NCC. WELS has sent money to UNICEF, aka the United Nations.
If your congregation is using the RSV, ESV, or NRSV, you are funding the ultra-left National Council of Churches. If your parish is using the New NIV (because the NIV was yanked), you are using a paraphrase even worse than the NCC versions. Little by little, your congregation is undermining the Scriptures. In many cases, the pastor is blowing up the foundations of the Faith.
Once upon a time, a Presbyterian minister told me his denomination was against conservative ministers. I asked, "How do you define conservative?" He said, "Someone who attended Fuller Seminary." Incredibly, I restrained myself from laughing.
Fuller Seminary formally rejected Biblical inerrancy just as the Church Growth Movement was initiated by Donald McGavran, Disciples of Christ advocate of Planned Parenthood. The son of a Mordor professor said, when I mentioned Fuller apostasy, "Weren't you a member of the Disciples at one time?" That is a typical WELS answer to any doubt about its purity and superiority. I left the Disciples on my own, shocking my family, to join a liturgical, Biblical Lutheran congregation across the street.
We few, we happy few, we band of KJVers, joined the KJV fan club upon learning how bad all these toxins were, served up like gourmet food when they were really roadkill. Ditto The Lutheran Hymnal, still a classic.
Traditional Baptists (not Calvinist Baptist, a strange amalgam) have two things in common. They know the KJV is the best Bible and they teach Justification by Faith. The Chief Article can easily be ignored by congregations using Evil Four paraphrases, but the KJV is the unifying Bible because it even retains the Greek text - the Faith of Jesus. If the Evil Four Bibles are so slap-happy good, why do they corrupt so many clear terms?
