Luke 12 Verses for Lutherans

 "We are Confessional Lutherans!"

 Look at the dates and the verbatim quotation - WELS has never embraced the Church Growth Movement from Fuller Seminary?

Luke 12 In the mean time, when there were gathered together an innumerable multitude of people, insomuch that they trode one upon another, he began to say unto his disciples first of all, Beware ye of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.

3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

Another win for Fuller - a cheerleader helming the WELS seminary, teaching safe sects - but no one is laughing.

GJ - For decades, the "conservative" synods - in concert with ELCA/ALC/LCA - have sent their dumbest and most pliable to Fuller Seminary, Trinity Divinity, and Willow Creek.

During that time, only the Church Growthers have advanced in the WELS-LCMS-ELS.

Studying at those institutions of Calvinist-Zwinglian learning has been a requirement for world missions and American missions, academic posts, and whatever else is coveted.

For laughs, WELS had their foaming-at-the-mouth-for-Fuller professor, David Valleskey "study" the Church Growth Movement,  a movement which he dearly loved and practiced for years in the seminary classroom. For his published act of apostasy, Valleskey was promoted to seminary president.

Are we surprised that WELS-ELS-LCMS are happy to sell the New NIV? They already sold their heritage for a cold bowl of lentil soup. Making some money on the side is simply a bonus.

4 And I say unto you my friends, Be not afraid of them that kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do.

5 But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.

GJ - For decades, the "conservative" synods have been building bigger barns for their loot, following the ELCA/ALC/LCA practice of looting estates and robbing heirs. WELS faced one widow in court - and lost! (Milcraft fiasco)

I remember one utterly corrupt official who had a big retirement party for himself and promptly died. His specialty was money, but greenbacks did not buy anything where he went.

 This is from Jay Webber's online ELCA seminary.
Do they mean this?

6 Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings, and not one of them is forgotten before God?

7 But even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not therefore: ye are of more value than many sparrows.

8 Also I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God:

9 But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.

10 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.

GJ - The Bible has only one message - teaching faith in the Savior Jesus Christ - for salvation, for the forgiveness of sin. Those who are too wily to mouth the platitudes of Church Growth are busy telling the sheep they are forgiven and saved without faith, without Christ, enjoying universal grace without the Means of Grace, like the rest of the world. 

The unbelieving clergy fashion themselves as great intellects, guardians of the sacred tombs of Walther and Pieper, but really fellow-travelers with Bishop Stephan and his young, female groupies.

But challenge their false doctrine and they fly into a rage, leaving behind a foul scent as they run away, as Chemnitz wryly noted.

 "All you have to do is make a decision for universal forgiveness without faith. If you decide you were already forgiven, you are already forgiven. But if you reject my precious message, my disciples will ruin your income, drag your name through the mud, and interfere with anything you do - in Christian love, of course."

Stay at Home Will Finish Off the Mainline Denominations - Including WELS-LCMS-ELS

 By Norma A. Boeckler - Jesus Cleansing the Temple

Schools Online

Seminaries caught onto the reality of people not wanting to end their employment while living in overpriced campus tenements. They called the answer "distributed education;" I called it "going online."

The LCMS-WELS-ELS colleges and seminaries were far-sighted. They spent millions on their glorious buildings and chapels, just in time for students to stay home and learn online.

Coming from a small business family, I always think of overhead. Even a donated (think Schwan) building is overhead. There is more to heat, clean, insure, and finally - repair. ELCA began dissolving and titling their seminaries first. They exist in name as small parts of colleges and are selling off assets to stay alive. Merged seminaries are just liked merged congregations - a polite way to say one is closing and moving its meager assets.

The Chinese Corona virus has kept everyone at home, including all the public colleges and schools. That will accelerate Lutheran colleges in crisis. They are not as bad as the Tisch College of Art, where room, board, and tuition are $82,000 a year! Tisch will not refund the students because going online cost them millions of dollars. The synodical schools operate on an annual basis, but the established private schools have endowments to cover shortages.

A wealthy Moliner was involved in his denomination's college. He told me about a dorm serving as a cash machine. Once the dorm is paid off, by a gift or by rental fees, the charges are almost 100% profit. Colleges demanded that students rent their tenements from the school, so the Lutheran schools made money on tuition, books, fees of all kinds, tenement rental, and cheap food.

Let's say Schwan donated a few buildings. The cost to maintain them is included in tuition. Do the students need spacious buildings with AC to study and learn? Not at all, as everyone has concluded online. I would have paid to see the Roman Catholic bishop in the academic procession at

Students already have broadband and good computers. They howled when one online school skipped printing books and charged a fee for the online version. Now all are happy (faculty included) that the textbook is available with a click and not under a pile of more interesting reading.

 John 1:14 και ο λογος σαρξ εγενετο και εσκηνωσεν εν ημιν; και εθεασαμεθα την δοξαν αυτου δοξαν ως μονογενους παρα πατρος πληρης χαριτος και αληθειας

Congregations Online

I have never advocated congregations being exclusively online. I have been urging pastors to add online broadcasts to reach people (sick, shut-in, far away) who otherwise would have no access to the Means of Grace. One ELDONA pastor and the foundation owner asked me about details.

Our Channel - https://video.ibm.com/channel/bethany-lutheran-worship

Bethany Lutheran Worship

Suddenly, when stay-at-home became law or at least cautionary, most congregations were left abandoned. (Greek students would make it a middle - they made themselves abandoned.) Unprepared, they are not broadcasting their own services with the liturgy, creed, hymns and sermon. But they are asking for donations!

Confidential - online services are not the place to pass the plate.

Our congregation does well because of tent-making. There is a precedent for that. See NT History 101 - The Apostle Paul. We have very low overhead, broadcasting from - "A spare room in a rented house," as Paul McCain spat out in his plagiarized blog (without citing Bethlehem). Our monthly streaming cost is $100, though it may increase from so many using the service.

I think many clergy have resisted broadcasting because that would allow people to compare and contrast, wondering why so many pastors give exactly the same sermon, without giving any credit to the original writer - or the denomination.

Online broadcasting has allowed us to teach:

1. The entire Gospel of John in Greek.
2. A new course on the Gospel of John in Greek.
3. Romans 1-5 in Greek.
4. Pilgrim's Progress

Pietism Is Just as Aggressive as Calvinism and Marxism in Taking Over Minds and Institutions. Woke Before the Woke Generation

 Pickleface Pietist Greta is their patron saint. How dare you question that fact!

Pietism is an aggressive philosophy that imitates its host institution while taking it over, eventually destroying the host. The most powerful and dangerous method is the cell group. Pietism turns the Gospel into Law, repudiating congregational worship and sound doctrine.

Skipping ahead to the oldest and most rotten examples today, let us look at ELCA, the Presbyterians, and the United Church of Christ. They are 100% woke, promoting the latest social justice warrior fads as the ruling norm of their institutions. Each little victory leads to more of the same - and you thought they would calm down?

LCMS-WELS leaders covet ELCA and long to catch up with them. They are closer than Siamese twins.

Pietism kills the concept of the Means of Grace, and the cell group rules over the congregation. The congregation remains, but it is just a place to gather and manage cell groups. Bishop Martin Stephan, STD, did this, adding his robotic and submissive followers as a para-church, attached to the parish. They were glad to see him leave Europe with his disciples (Walther circle) and his mistress.

After Walther led the riot, holding Stephan at gunpoint, robbing him of everything, and kidnapping him to Illinois, the fanatical sect settled down and tried to hide their Pietistic cell group origins. CFW himself, a die-hard Pietist, later confessed that Stephan was "a bit of a Pietist." (Servant of the Word, a hilarious hagiography) For reasons known only to those who appreciate the facts, Walther did not want the early history of Missouri written down.

The enthusiasm for and deception about Church Growth is a good example of how the Calvinist-Pietists take over. The ELS-LCMS-WELS sent their gullible, lazy leaders to Fuller, Willow Creek, and Trinity Divinity to unlearn Lutheran doctrine and practice. Trinity Divinity began in...you guessed it...Pietism.

Back to the rotten roots - But it is for the good of our dear mother synod/denomination (fill in the blanks).

Pietist-Calvinists have these characteristics:

• They are humorless and dour.
• They are burdened with the Law and have little joy in life.
• To make up for their dead, shriveled souls, they look for ecstasy in following celebrities outside the sect and sometimes manufactured inside the sect.
• They must have their way and find endless ways to get even with anyone who crosses them.
• They often have trouble controlling their eating, drinking, and smoking.
• They make sure they have the lion's share of money, but it is never enough for them.

 They went to Fuller, Willow Creek, and Trinity Divinity to find the right medicine. How dare you question their motives?

Response to WELS National Church Growth Leadership Conference

"I thought that you might have some fun with it, as I see that you did with the post. Glende is not listed as either a keynote or breakout speaker. Jim Huebner and Al Sorum each have breakout speaker presentations. It looks like they are being downgraded as they pass the baton to a new generation of so called leaders.

As I read the descriptions of the various keynote presentations, I could only stifle my gag reflex. I also noticed a rather underhanded little trick that some of the keynote speakers used in the description of their respective topics. After the introductory paragraph, there would be either a paragraph or a series of bulleted statements that were posed as questions. I am convinced that this method is used to instill doubt in the attendees and is the path to a new approach.

Translation: "Forget all that you were taught in the bad old days about the Means of Grace. Today, we have new challenges and a changing culture. Those old ways caused us to lose many members."

With a slight change of language, these descriptions are no different than a business leadership training seminar.

The WELS leadership will never admit that embracing of the CGM led to some of the member exodus. Now, they are self-loathing Lutherans who imply that liturgical worship and the Means of Grace are an impediment to obtaining new members. The leadership seminars dance around this with topics like male/female leadership, pop culture examples, equipping members, using our gifts, and the semantics of those with a call being referred to as called workers and lay leaders being called leaders. Synod leaders claim that members cannot see clearly (as in Church Growth eyes), yet the leaders are the ones who have muddied the waters.

Attendees of this conference will report back to their congregations what a wonderful experience that it all was and that they have been given a lot of good ideas for "our" ministry. The use of the plural possessive form implies that we are all in this thing together. 

Thanks for taking the time to read this.

In Christ,"

 "WELS just borrowed another Church Growth Principle. No, they are still shrinking!"

Failed Fads - Let Me Count the Ways. Fuller Seminary Is the One Sting To Rule Them All

How many fads have failed the floundering sects - like WELS, LCMS, and so many more? They gathered at Fuller Seminary - even the Church of Rome (where ELCites and Missourians flee). Phoenix experimented with St. Timothy Community, just as Paul Kuske, Roger Zehms, and Floyd Stolzenburg experimented with Pilgrim Community Church.

Let me count the ways -

1. Switching from Justification by Faith to Objective Justification - WELS and LCMS
2. Getting rid of the KJV in favor of the NIV
3. Charismatic Renewal
4. Lutheran Marriage Encounter
5. Cursillo
6. Smells and Bells OJ - Gottesdienst
7. Marriage on Fire
8. Friendship Sunday
9. Cho and Napoleon Hill - using the occult powers of the Universe to get what we covet
10. Making disciples
11. Church Growth at Fuller Seminary and its satellites - One Sting to rule them all, One Sting to find them; One Sting to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.

The last fad binds and rules all other notions imported to replace the Means of Grace. Robert Schuller - a liberal Calvinist - boasted that he invented the Church Growth Movement. He also promoted Paul Y. Cho and Napoleon Hill, both fraudsters of international acclaim and ignominy.

 Friendship Sunday, WELS

My Only Dogmatic Rule - Worth Remembering. "The Non-Reciprocity of False Teachers"

 Not quite.

My light reading time in Lutherdom challenges the efficacy of the pour-over coffee I make: so much drivel, trivia, and illiteracy in Biblical doctrine. I stay awake on LQ, CN, and ALPB by searching for the best graphic to use.

When Christian News pops up on the Net, I use control-f to find basic Lutheran doctrinal terms. Here are results from the latest issue -

• Justification by Faith - not once.
• Efficacy - not once.
• Means of Grace - not once.

These results are repeated almost every issue, and they are the bitter fruit harvested from decades of palling around with Calvinists. The LCMS leaned on Calvinists as allies when the Battle of the Bible was raging. As David Scaer also let slip, Robert Preus consulted with famous Calvinist theologians to back up his precious Objective Justification attacks on Walter A. Maier II.

This is the phrase I invented to cover this - "The Non-Reciprocity of False Teachers." No matter how much Lutherans may borrow and honor from the Calvinists (Romanists, and others), the false teachers never reciprocate.

When Fuller Seminary was the most popular destination for LCMS-WELS pastors, Fuller fans never tried to study with the Lutherans, another display of how much they despised Lutheran doctrine - or what remained of it in their sects.

LCMS-WELS sent their administrators and synod staff to Fuller, Trinity Divinity, and Willow Creek - to listen to rants about how ineffective Lutherans were. The Lutherans paid - with offering dollars - for the privilege. In fact, when one of my friends became a WELS pastor, they immediately offered to send him to Fuller - for free. Yes, the supposedly tougher-than-tree-roots WELS did that.

Revs. Wally Oelhafen and Fred Adrian, who did so much to shrink the WELS Michigan District, confessed their attendance at Fuller, "But that does not mean we agree with their doctrine." However, they despised my essay on the Means of Grace, which became "The Cure" chapter of Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure. Roger Kovaciny, Church Growth bedfellow of Floyd Stolzenberg, screamed and tossed my paper during the "discussion." Those who sided with the Means of Grace were removed from the ministry by the crafts and assaults of two DPs, Robert Mueller and John Seifert. Kovaciny went to Russia, with love, to convert the Eastern Orthodox to Church Growth dogma.

Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure - Abe Books - Up to $60 new - NPH edition.

Liberalism: Its Cause and Cure - Kindle. 99 cents. Amazon.

Free Jackson PDFs and other books - listed here.

 Ukraine cat

Has Ichabod Become the Palantir? Lazy Lutheran Discussion Sites Are Catching Up - A Decade Later

Most of the discussion sites for alleged Lutherans are filled with trivia and ennui, but I still look them over for glimmers of news. They would never post that a cross-dressing Church and Changer is going to lead a national synodical conference. So they publish the obvious, long after everyone has noticed the same trends.

Years ago, I predicted the closing of SynCon Lutheran colleges. Now SpenerQuest is discussing the same topic. WELS hastened to have their teacher's college, DMLC, take over their pastor's college, NWC. The math is simple: 1 + 1 = .75. Nevertheless, they still have MLC, Bethany (ELS), and Wisconsin Lutheran College within a short drive - not to mention the LCMS colleges.

They may deny it, but LCMS-WELS have a morganatic merger where they plan together, such as deciding which units to close down.

All the schools of higher education decided to grow their buildings from student loans and jacked up tuition prices. The result is overbuilt colleges just in time for online education that requires no buildings. Many students have concluded that they do not need to spend $40,000 to $60,000 on two years of required courses that are available in community colleges. If everyone has to work full-time to pay for college, online courses are necessary to keep up the cash flow. That drains the campus of cash-flow from renting dorms and selling wretched school food.

St. Ignatius Loyola Seminary is primed for a wave of MDiv students.

On a brighter note, the ALPB Online Forum (a cure for insomnia) has posted membership losses.

LCMS - From 1970 to 2012 - 877,349 fewer baptized members.

Roughly half of that loss came between 2010 and 2018, with Matt Harrison as the Synod President.

One way to grow WELS is to publish an open letter about ELCA being so radical and weird. ELCA would gladly feature cross-dressing at their high schools, colleges, seminaries, and parishes. That was WELS? I forgot.

Mirthless Mark Schroeder became WELS SP in 2007, the blessed year of this blog's birth. I do not have the WELS shrinkage rate for those years, but Schroeder recently bragged that Missouri was losing members twice as fast as WELS. Imagine what would have happened without Church and Change, Change or Die!, and the constant drumbeat of Willow Creek insights derived from Fulleroid diplomas!

The totals for WELS are bound to be much lower. They never grow out of GA/HB hazing tricks.

 The pseudo-confessionals want us to believe that their Calvinist studies do not yield Objective Justification and Church Growth.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall - How Did That Happen?

 Mark Spitz' gold medals

Mark Spitz now

I was looking at the news a little and a picture of Mark Spitz came up. Mrs. Ichabod said, "Remember Mark Spitz?"

I said, "How did that happen? He is so old!"

She said, "Have you looked in the mirror?"

Christina is such a comfort in my old age. The shock came from not hearing about Spitz for 50 years - his medals came in 1972 and 1976.

People ignore so many toxic emissions from their synod because of gradual change. That is why WELS-LCMS-ELS sell the book The Frog in the Kettle, written by George Barna, David Valleskey's favorite theologian.

The pretext is that a frog will stay in a gradually warmed kettle but jump out of one that is warmed quickly. That is ridiculous, so it is telling that Lutherans wanting change sell that book to their victims, their little frogs in the kettle. Unfortunately, sentient beings are much dumber than frogs - Lutherans stay until parboiled.

The so-called conservatives think a little witticism will lower the heat they are feeling. That only helps them adjust to the new temperature. They cannot imagine living apart from Holy Mother Synod and their dear friends.

Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh Would Feel at Home in WELS-LCMS-ELS-ELDONA-CLC (sic)

 No, they sold you down the river so they could share the loot with ELCA. And you voted to keep them in their befouled office!

Various people and journalists are expressing dismay about the NY Times reviving a false accusation against Justice Kavanaugh and promoting a book based on the same slanders.

However, Kavanaugh would feel right at home in the WELS-LCMS-ELS-ELDONA-CLC (sic). I thought about repeating some of their whoppers, which they oink to each other, but why dignify the muted squeals of hogs looking for one more scrap of food?

Not only are the apostate "conservative" leaders far away from what they represent, but they are truly radical, obnoxious, and hateful. Yet they wonder why their weakened structures are melting away from their toxic leadership.

Don't worry - they have another Change or Die! conference coming up on October 10th, led by two epitomes of their alleged positions - in reverse.

1. They are hosting the seminary president representing his faculty's opposition to Creation by the Word, aka the Six Day Creation. 
2. And the audience will hear from women's ordination, nay gay ordination plus abortion-on-demand advocate Heidi Neumark. Change...or Die!

I miss the good old days when I would post some news about the "conservatives" being completely off the rails. The opponents would pepper me anonymously with all kinds of nasty comments. I could trace many of them back to Appleton, Wisconsin and Austin, Texas, both septic systems from Jeske's Time of Grace influence.

Two episodes are especially noteworthy and are connected.

I. All the WELS problems in Columbus, Ohio were my fault. The turmoil had nothing to do with three, notorious divorced Church Growth pastors. However, Columbus blew up after I left, as one person said, "Because you were not around to blame anymore."

II. Tim Glende (from Columbus) and drinking partner Ski and two staffers in Appleton took a man to court because he told the truth about them. As most people outside of WELS know, it is not against the law to tell the truth, nor is it wrong to come to a public meeting where facts are supposed to be discussed. Glende began complaining on the stand about a blog in Arkansas. The judge said, "What?" I guess that line of attack went nowhere. How does one blame a blog "nobody reads" when his drinking buddy is showing obscene photos and making lewd remarks to a lady on the staff? Yet Ski still wanted to sue when Glende's case was tossed out like last week's fish soup.

I could elaborate, but those who want more details can find them on the blog by using the label list on the left column. Tis more important and useful to realize - the leaders of these dying and dead sects never stop getting even for the truth coming out about them.

Write a letter? Ha - that is turned into a confession of sin by the letter-writer. Speak to them first? - that is how they begin their counter-attack lest a lawsuit land them in the red again. They have many lawsuits to settle, but they do their best to thwart them, hide them, deny them.

When the readers hear the Left raving about Kavanaugh and other targets of their fury, just remember - those are identical portrayals of your synodical leaders in action. And there are plenty more pastors and laity willing to share in the fun.

 As Spindletop reminded me, the faithful remain and encourage each other. I responded by saying the apostates energized me to study Luther, the Book of Concord, and the Scriptures.

***

GJ - One LCMS Facebook friend responded, "get real, Jackson! You are nuts, crazy, insane. Not all the cups fit into your cupboard, Fool!"

Recently I had written him, "Happy Birthday and God's Blessings."

Zwingli, Calvin, and Walther - Jealous of Luther's Impact. The Big Swindle Continues

The Reformation is the German Reformation, the basis for many to a part company with the Church of Rome. Luther's teaching and preaching of the Word changed all of Europe.

The term Evangelical is the one Luther chose over any group named after him, "a bag of maggots" plus a few other choice terms.

The term Protestant also came directly from the Lutherans, at the Diet of Speyer.

Vance wrote a detailed look at all the errors of Calvinism.

Non-Lutherans stole the name Evangelical, so Lutherans were forced to use the Evangelical-Lutheran name to distinguish themselves from the Calvinist-Zwinglians.

Now those same groups would have us think they are the "real Protestants" and the "real Evangelicals" because Luther did not compromise with their Enthusiasm, separating the Spirit from the Word.

Zwingli and Calvin were ferociously jealous of Luther's world-changing impact, so they pretended to agree while establishing their own followers. Zwingli died trying to be a soldier, and Calvin took up the challenge to replace Luther while pretending to be Lutheran. Calvin's against Westphal shows that the Geneva pretender was no Lutheran at all.

Walther Worshipers - Listen Up

CFW Walther was never a Lutheran. He grew up in the home of a rationalist father, who was an approved pastor. Walther attended Leipzig University, which was also rationalist. Unlike many of his Stephanite friends, he managed to be approved by the rationalistic state church examination board.

The rationalists hated Pietists, and that seemed to be the division in those days. If someone had a strict view of the Bible, he was a Pietist or Mystic. Rationalism began at Halle University, the mother ship of Pietism, so the influence from Halle was mixed.

Given the polarity, how did Walther talk his way into approval? He talked his way into ordination and a call to the parish. His friends had to settle for being tutors, because they were not approved.

Nevertheless, Walther sought the benefits of Pietistic cell groups and a cell group guru. When that man died, after moving away, the Walther circle adopted Pastor Martin Stephan, a Bohemian Pietist with a Pietist congregation.

"Stephan became pastor in Haber, Bohemia in 1809.^[2] In 1810, Martin became the pastor of St. John's in Dresden, a specially chartered church that had its origins in those who had fled from Moravia and Bohemia in 1650.Stephan preached in Czech and German." Stephan

Stephan's education was even more limited than Walther's, because the future bishop never finished a degree and only had his call because the Bohemian Pietists had more freedom to call. Their property was donated by Zinzendorf, the very influential Pietist leader, and they were allowed cell group meetings on the property only. Stephan violated that rule and his female followers, too.

Stephan's Pietistic cult was apart from the congregation, and it became his power base. CFW Walther was his enforcer, who punished those who offended the easily offended Stephan. One man had to apologize to Stephan before he was allowed to see Stephan. Anyone not in full agreement with Stephan was shunned was punished.

Contra- Luther, the Spirit of Calvinism

After seizing power from Stephan, Walther set himself up as the head of the Perryville cult in Missouri, taking his time, inheriting his brother's call to the church in St. Louis.

Walther was a pastor,

• the head of a group of parishes,
• the head of the synod, 
• the head of the seminary, and 
• the head of publishing.

Walther taught against the Bible, very much in the style of Zwingli and Calvin. He set about creating a body of work and a team of cult followers who would echo his errors and enforce his discipline.

Walther rejected Justification by Faith, as revealed in Genesis 15:6, Romans 3-5, Galatians, the entire Bible. The clown cult named LutherQuest (sic) simply parrots the Walther line without ever dealing with the Scriptures.

 Walther Shrine

Walther statues are abundant in the State of Missouri.

The Big Swindle

Walther gradually assembled other Lutheran groups as allies, then drove away those who could not accept his Objective Justification backed by Election without Faith. He was clever, because the other groups were too alert on Justification and too likely to make him look the fool for teaching against it. Instead, he made his Election without Faith as the test.

Walther's dictatorial rule and his authoritarian rule over the shrunken Synodical Conference allowed Objective Justification to gain dominance, so clearly attuned to the rationalism of the 20th century. Hoenecke supported Walther!

ELCA loves OJ too, though God-talk is really beyond them now. Nevertheless, they are leaders in showing where Calvinism and Pietism lead - to no faith at all.

Justification without Faith is so dominant in the dying Synodical Conference that pastors and leaders are afraid to confront it, lest the OJ harpies scrape them into synodical hell for "opposing the Gospel without faith."

The Parallel Swindle Illustrates the OJ Fraud

Thesis 1 - The Synodical Conference is so Biblical, so Lutheran, so pure, so Book of Concordish, they just have to stop and admire themselves - again - for being so golly gee good.

Thesis 2 - The Synodical Conference Immaculata rejects the Church Growth Movement's false Calvinistic Enthusiasms. 

Thesis 3 - However, since we are so pure and unmoved by false doctrine, we can spend millions of dollars and send all of our leaders to Fuller and Willow Creek, just to pick up some practical details.

Thesis 4 - Fuller Seminary assured us they were doctrinally neutral and proved to us that the Lutheran name, liturgy, hymns, ordinances (used to be sacraments), and sermons are detrimental to growth.

No one is going to print that in an official capacity, but the Four Theses have been their filthy lie, ever since the 1970s, with many different leaders and professors. Several degenerations of pastors and DPs have remained silent.

The Church Growth Swindle continues.

Kent Hunter calls himself the Church Doctor.
Where are the malpractice suits?

Hunter is unrepentant and a model of the favored LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) pastor. ELCA ThD, Fuller DMin - these are the best degrees a "conservative" pastor can get.

Don't laugh - he made more money attacking Biblical doctrine than the pastors teaching the Scriptures.

May They Live a Hundred Years and Look Upon Their Accomplishments: The Cutting Edge Bled the Synodical Conference to Death

The class portraits of the seminary in Mordor are useful for identifying who drank beer together. Fortunately, the worst of them published their wisdom and gloried in taking over the Wisconsin sect. Their Church and Change organization was out in the open, on the Internet, and they had conferences not attended by Kudu Don Patterson.

There were many others, like Valleskey and his pal Bivens, all the leaders in American and world missions. Missouri and the Little Sect on the Prairie have their counterparts. C. Peter Wagner listed five LCMS leaders in his Who's Who in Church Growth. The Little Sect always wags its chihuahua tail when WELS speaks or offers a treat.

I hope they all live 100 years and look upon the wreckage of their doctrinal and pastoral felonies. Waldo Werning was named in the Who's Who list of Church Growth heroes, and they all worked with him too - and Otten. The typical Shrinker bragged about going to Fuller Summer - as Valleskey, Bivens, and Werning did - and denied it when convenient.

The one thing they prize is money and visible, measurable success - not the Gospel. They hate the Gospel and glory in teaching against the Chief Article of Christianity - Justification by Faith. For that reason, God has taken away their previous success - when they actually taught the Chief Article - and handed them over to their Father Below.

Matt the Fatt, Mirthless Mark, and Pope John the Malefactor are not leaders - but followers. They protect the apostates, who reward them with undeserved salaries and benefits, chiefly the benefit of the doubt. They could not possibly be shielding felons among their church workers, could they? Let's hope they stay in office another 20 years, so people pay a fortune for their maladministrations, their promotion of Church Growth and ELCA dogma - UOJ.

Fancy this - the LCMS-ELS-WELS have sent their leaders to Fuller and Willow Creek for decades, just like ELCA. And now they are all Barthians, because Fuller is Barthian. Has any synod broken the news that Fuller is pulling back, canceling building plans and ending their local cancer nodes? They are going down together, with ELCA just a little bit in the lead.

 Barth's children had two mommies, because Barth moved his mistress, Charlotte Kirschbaum, into his home and lived with her alone in the summers. Everyone knew, just like the Walther circle and their promiscuous Bishop Stephan. Barth/Kirschbaum are the two most prominent theologians for Protestants, Catholics, and Fuller Seminary.

 Hybels is another favorite among the apostates - the founder of Willow Creek, the trainer of Lutheran pastors of all stripes, and the target of many women whom he pursued. As Lenski noted, spiritual adultery and similar problems go together. 

The Lutheran Leaders, After Betraying the Reformation, Have Swindled Their Members

 Zwingli was the first modern theologian, and Calvin followed the same subjective method. The appeal is to Zwingli's opinion, which became the norm. Why did the Anabaptists split with him? - they had feelings too.

The typical faithful member of a Lutheran congregation believes and thinks in a completely different century than their leaders. I recall a Missouri pastor complaining, "We did not have a single course on modern theology when I was in seminary." What a tragedy!

Most people think in terms of the Bible, the language of the 1500s, the basics of faith. They hear alien terms - like Objective Justification - and convert them into Biblical words - the Atonement. The reverse is true of modern theology, which includes Objective Justification and the de-mythologizing of Bultmann. They have a different meaning for all the Biblical terms and events. Rauschenbusch, Tillich, and Barth/Kirschbaum are pristine examples of this shell game.




The concepts of objective and subjective are reversed. Luther considered the Scriptures to be

• the objective truth, 
• the Word of God, 
• the Book of the Holy Spirit, 
• one unified truth. 

The modernists have an incessant need to rethink Biblical terminology. They are inherently subjective with favorite terms, favorite passages, and their own meanings. The Reformation popes in Rome began this erosion - "It is our Bible, so we will tell you what it means."

Zwingli, Calvin, and the Pietists continued this slippage:

• Why argue over doctrine - we can work together.
• I feel Luther and Paul were too harsh.
• Grace means God forgives everyone, without contingencies - like faith.
• Mythological terms like resurrection, divinity, and salvation need to be reconsidered in light of modern science. Bultmann, "Every schoolboy knows a corpse does not revive and leave a tomb."
• "Let's teach Marxist revolution and call it the Dogmatics," Kirschbaum whispering to Barth in their summer cabin.

 That is why the synods secretly love Christian News,
its UOJ and Church Growth modernism.

Modern theologians have been thoroughly trained in modern philosophy, so they isolate terms and write a dissertation about one word - Agape, intent, etc - or about one of their living professors - the servant theology of John Howard Yoder. 

Paul L. Holmer brilliantly described this approach as "about..." As long as we write and speak "(About) Paul's Concept of Salvation," we can pretend to be objective while promoting our own subjective interpretation. Then we can write chapters on Hellenistic and Pharisaic influences on Paul to show what a male chauvinist he was, a warning not to repeat those errors today. 

If someone teaches Reformation theology (Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz, Book of Concord), he is teaching the substance of the Bible and Early Church. This is a minority view today and heavily censored.

The Lutheran faculty members are political appointees, selected for their loyalty to their denomination's stories and dogmas. Their path through higher education has immersed them in modern philosophy and modern theology. They are not concerned with the objective truth of God's Word or the Lutheran Reformation. Their ears are always attuned to the right use of terms.

The photographer wanted to know how to get Sassy Sue to pose for her portrait. I said, "Use the word treats, which makes her ears perk up." We watched as those ears went from resting to full alert each time, her eyes glowing.

The modernists listen for their favorite words of evasion and also for dangerous terms that make them growl. They love all the synonyms of world absolution without faith (OJ, UOJ, Justification of the World, General Justification). They refuse to say:

1. Justification by Faith.

John Sparky Brenner (WELS) writes: Individual Appropriation of Forgiveness, which seems to be a category of its own, neither Paul's nor Luther's, but neither SJ or anything else. (I am open to correction on this.)

Justification must be God's declaration, and from Moses (Genesis 15) to Paul's Epistles to Luther and beyond, that forensic declaration has always been "by faith," and always connected to the Means of Grace, the efficacy of the Gospel Word. 

Otten, like John Sparky Brenner, cannot write the words Justification by Faith. I check each issue with a control-f to scan every article. For the UOJists, Justification by Faith is like garlic to the vampires. They say "the cross" but that means universal salvation to them, not the Atonement. The pity is, the errors have been repeated so often, and their pride is so ossified, that they cannot discern the difference between the Atonement and the blasphemy they teach.

A smooth liar like Jon-Boy Buchholz (WELS District Pope) will deny that WELS teaches universal salvation while promoting his precious essay that declares that to be so.

 WELS banner for congregations to use - "We are saved, just like you." Jon-Boy denied this happened, but look at his blasphemies, enshrined in the WELS Holy of Holies, near Jay Webber's monstrosity.

One can apply the dogma of Halle to every Biblical example and see how preposterous it is, but that is the problem. The ELCA-WELS-LCMS-CLC (sic) are so subjective in their teaching that it only matters whether someone is faithful to the peculiar papacies. That is why they are in the sack together via Thrivent, always obedient to the far Left agenda, since they are disengaged from the Scriptures and Confessions as objective truth.

More than one pastor - maleducated by the Synodical Conference - has found his entire viewpoint changed by Luther's Reformation. I get that reaction when people read Thy Strong Word. I was at Mordor for the WELS enforced post-graduate course on Church Growth. As soon as the seniors graduated, they had to endure a week of Fuller dogma (Barth/Kirschbaum) from the carefully trained alumni of Fuller, though none dare tell the truth. The graduates were forced back for even more later. So WELS should be buying up ELCA properties for all their new missions, no? No.

WELS and CG reminded me of my seminary and pastoral counseling. The new dean converted many courses into pastoral counseling courses, his favorite topic. No matter what department, it ended up pastoral counseling. Now the seminary is mostly a school for counseling with a few MDivs in the program. Seminarians are the smallest part of the school now.

At Mordor, their mission festival was Paul Kelm and CG. The evangelism program was Paul Kelm and CG. Worship was CG. World Emissions - CG. Magazine articles - CG. Books - CG. Special programs, one requiring all pastors to attend - CG with Kelm, Olson (Drive-Buy DMin), and Huebner. Synod officers - 

1. Wayne Mueller CG, 
2. James Huebner Fuller alumnus CG, 
3. David Valleskey Mordor Prez Fuller alumnus CG. 

In the future, Mordor and the Little Seminary on the Prairie will be merged into a hallway at Concordia Seminary St. Louis - CG Department, one faculty member.

The Church Growth Movement - now Missional - has been a fantastic success at imposing Barth/Kirschbaum's subjective modernism on all denominations. Fuller went from tepid semi-inerrancy to rejection of inerrancy under the leadership of Barth/Kirschbaum students, who returned from Switzerland with new insights.

What do they promote?
And what do they deplore?
That is the answer.