Romeward Bound - Another ELCA Leader Kisses the Shoes of the Fisherman. Is McCain Next?

Paul McCain used part of this painting, without his approving stance,
in his heavily plagiarized blog, which is now extinct and erased.
Neuhaus impressed him too.

Russell Satzmann has dropped the mask and joined the Church of Rome, after being an editor of Lutheran Forum, serving in ELCA, and moving to Ye Olde ELCA, aka The Bishop's Synod, aka NALC.

Here is his unfascinating account.

The late Richard J. Neuhaus, formerly of the LCMS, then AELC, then ELCA, continues to have a gigantic and inexplicable effect on influential Lutherans joining Rome as a priest.

Neuhaus was a gracious person, much more pleasant and consistent than Herman Otten, who worked dishonestly with McCain.

Supposedly these guys all want pure Lutheran doctrine, but they are all allergic to it. Otten was happy to make money from the most vile and error-filled books about Luther. He never answered me, but he told another person, "I sell to both sides of the issue."

"Buy my Roman Catholic books. Buy my Calvinist books.
Buy my ELCA books. Buy my Baptist books.
Buy my Church Growth books.
I refuse to mention or list Lutheran books."

Luther pointed out, long ago, what we should do with pastors who are not studious. I volunteer to supply the ammo from Sassy.

In His Steps (Neuhaus' Steps)

B-16, gloating.


Married priest is first in Seattle Archdiocese

By JOHN STARK
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BELLINGHAM -- The day after his ordination as a Roman Catholic priest, the Rev. Tom McMichael stood in front of the altar at Assumption Church after Sunday Mass, while members of the congregation raised both hands in a gesture of welcome and blessing.

The welcoming of a new priest is a special moment for any church, but this moment may have been more special than most: At McMichael's side was Karin McMichael, his wife of 23 years.

McMichael, 48, is the first married priest in the Archdiocese of Seattle, which includes all of Western Washington. He and his wife have two sons, aged 19 and 21. McMichael expects to be working at Assumption part time at least until this summer, while also celebrating weekend Masses at Skagit County churches.

The Jan. 11 event was no surprise to the parish. McMichael had been on the church staff as a seminarian and deacon for several months, the culmination of a process that began in November 2005. That was when McMichael informed his congregation at Lynden's Hope Lutheran Church that he was resigning to become a Catholic.

McMichael took that step with no assurance that he would be able to continue the religious vocation he loved.

"Perhaps the most difficult part of this was giving that up, and not being sure if I would be able to continue," he said. "There was no guarantee that this door would open."

While priestly celibacy remains the rule in the Roman Catholic Church, there are exceptions. In the 1950s, McMichael said, the Roman church allowed some married Lutheran pastors in Germany to be ordained after conversion. And some small Eastern-rite churches that accept the authority of the pope have a long tradition of married priests.

In the U.S., Pope John Paul II approved the ordination of converted, married clergymen from other denominations in 1980, according to information on the archdiocese's Web site.

If some Catholic priests can have wives, why not all?

"That's not a question I can answer," McMichael said.

McMichael and every other would-be priest in his situation must apply to the Vatican for permission to be ordained, and must undergo seminary training in Catholic doctrines.

"They make it very clear ... that this is the exception," McMichael said. "The rule, if you will, in canon law is celibate clergy. But they also acknowledge the possibility of exceptions."

At present, there are somewhere around 100 such priests in the U.S., McMichael said. He doesn't think he and others like him are paving the way for the general acceptance of marriage for priests.

"It's not a step toward married clergy as the norm, and I think that's made very clear throughout the process," McMichael said.

As McMichael tells it, his transition from Lutheran to Catholic, and from Lutheran pastor to Catholic priest, was a long one.

He was born into a Swedish-rooted Lutheran congregation, where pastors and congregation are, in his words, "very comfortable with Catholic forms, with the Eucharist, with vestments, with a high view of the clergy. ... That was the kind of Lutheran I was, and the kind of Lutheran religion I was attempting to live."

He got his religious training in a seminary that included other young men training for the Catholic priesthood, and he always felt comfortable with an inclusive view of the Christian faith. As he saw it, reunification of all Christian churches was the ultimate goal, and the reunification of Lutherans with Catholics was part of that.

The Catholic Church has taken significant steps in that direction in the past 50 years, McMichael said, shifting to celebration of the Mass in local languages and working to smooth out theological differences over the role of faith, good works and divine grace in human salvation.

But as McMichael saw it, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was moving in a different direction in the years leading up to his decision to leave, away from the traditional liturgy and becoming more "Protestant," more concerned with maintaining a separate denominational identity.

"Some of us had to deal with the question of whether we belonged," he said.

McMichael and his wife decided they didn't. Both made the conversion to the Roman Catholic Church, and both had to submit to "a stack of paperwork" as the first step toward McMichael's Catholic ordination.

"Rome, and the Archdiocese of Seattle, wanted to have a sense of who I was, and why I was coming," McMichael said.

He acknowledges that not everyone in his new church, or his old one, may be supportive of what he has done. But he has received support aplenty. Some former parishioners at Hope Lutheran went to Seattle for his ordination, and members of Assumption also have been welcoming, he said.

He said he especially values the diversity of the Catholic Church: The Assumption congregation is a rainbow of ethnic groups, income levels and theological viewpoints.

"It has been especially gratifying to be received by people who are coming from very different theological perspectives," he said. "I just rejoice in the gathering for Eucharist with this incredible diversity of people. ... "

He hopes that his own ministry will further unite, rather than divide.

"Not everyone can do what I did or would want to," he said.

Otten's Nemesis Dies

Father Richard J. Neuhaus, son of a conservative LCMS pastor, was a liberal Missouri pastor, an AELC leader, an LCA and then ELCA pastor, and finally a Roman Catholic priest.

Father Neuhaus died of cancer today.

Neuhaus and Robert Wilken kicked Otten and Marquart out of the student newspaper at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. Neuhaus became well known for editing the Lutheran Forum Letter, which became more conservative as the LCA became more radical.

We corresponded for a period of time and met at the Ad Fontes Conference in York, Pennsylvania. He became the best known convert to Romanism. Others, like Wilken, have followed.

Neuhaus was a caustic critic of the Church Growth Movement, calling it "tacky." He was talented and gracious, so it is a pity that he abandoned the confessional standards of his father.

Neuhaus on TV

Richard John Neuhaus (LCMS, then AELC, then LCA, then ELCA, then Roman Catholic)is on TV talking about his new book, As I Lay Dying, about coming back after almost dying. Mrs. Ichabod said, "That's a rerun from 2002." OK.

Some surprises about his early life:

1. He grew up in Canada, but went to the States for an education.
2. He was kicked out of high school for his behavior and never graduated.
3. He bought a gas station and ran that for a period of time.
4. He attended a Concordia College and graduated without his high school diploma.

He wanted to serve in the inner city and went to St. John's in NYC, soon after ordination. He did not look for an academic career.

Neuhaus did not mention how he and Wilken (now Roman Catholic too) got Otten and Marquart kicked out of the editorship of the student paper at Our Lady of Sorrows Seminary in St. Louis (formerly Concordia).

I met Neuhaus at the Ad Fontes conference in Pennsylvania. We had corresponded quite a bit already. I fed him news about the LCA in Michigan. He spoke with LCA President Crumley at the conference. That was just before Neuhaus became a Catholic. Crumley seemed to be having a problem with that. Crumley knew I had joined WELS even though I had barely met him once. The bigwigs keep track.

Neuhaus spoke against Church Growth at Ad Fontes. Some of the LCA clergy were mouthing all the CG terms, like "user-friendly liturgy."

Neuhaus is a clever man with many talents. I think it is a pity he fell in with the apostates of Missouri and finally with Rome.

More information here.

Surrendering the Fort - 2009 Festival of Apostasy

Mass bells can be ordered at the seminary bookstore. Wink.


No, the post below is not from The Onion, but from the Concordia, Ft. Wayne, website.


January 20 - 23, 2009 (Don't fail to miss this one.)

Concordia Theological Seminary (CTS) in Fort Wayne, Indiana is once again hosting its annual Symposia, 20-23 January 2009. Held every year on the Fort Wayne campus, the four-day event is highlighted by presentations on Exegetical Theology and the Lutheran Confessions.

The theme for the 24th annual symposium on Exegetical Theology is "The Coherence of the Sacred Scriptures"

The theme for the 32nd annual symposium on The Lutheran Confessions is "A Last Look at Missouri’s Critical Time: The 1950s to 1970s"

Scheduled speakers include:


The Reverend Richard Koenig
ELCA Pastor emeritus Former Editor, Lutheran Forum
Topic: "Memoirs of an Editor" (Lutheran Forum is the magazine of record for ELCA and LCMS pastors longing to join Rome, as several editors have done already - Neuhaus and Klein.)

Dr. R. Reed Lessing
Professor of Exegetical Theology, Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri
Topic: "The Big Bang and the Book of Amos"

The Reverend Paul Robert Sauer
Pastor, Our Savior Lutheran Church, The Bronx, New York; Associate Editor, Lutheran Forum
Topic: "Out of Step or Before His Times: Berthold von Schenk"
(Quote from Sauer: "There are faithful children of God in all church bodies—even in Roman Catholicism!" I have the von Stench book, a key to the Romanizing trends in the Lutheran Forum bunch. Ft. Wayne's David Scaer loved the book. Ugh.)

Dr. David R. Schmitt
Professor of Homiletics Concordia Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri
Topic: "Goal, Malady, Means as Law-Gospel Ersatz in the Theology of Richard R. Caemmerer"

Dr. Philip J. Secker
Director, The Arthur Carl Piepkorn Center for Evangelical Catholicity
Topic: ""A Pilgrimage not Taken: Arthur Carl Piepkorn"

Dr. Christopher R. Seitz
Research Professor of Biblical Interpretation, Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Topic: "Has Diversity in the Scriptures Been Overemphasized? Listening to the Coherent Witness of the ‘Goodly Fellowship of Prophets’" (Wycliffe College - Lutheran? No.)

Dr. Richard J. Shuta
Professor of Theology, Concordia University, Ann Arbor, Michigan
Topic: "Dr. Walter A. Maier as Evangelical Preacher" (Amazing - a nod to conservatives, red meat for the base, as they say in politics.)

Dr. Robert L. Wilken
University of Virginia (Ooo. No denomination listed. Is it because Wilken left the LCMS for ELCA and then joined the Church of Rome under the tutelage of Father Richard J. Neuhaus? One Neuhaus book is dedicated to Wilken "by the Sea of Galilee.")
Topic: "A Pilgrim from Wittenberg to Constantinople: Jaroslav Pelikan"
(Sports fans - this is a two-fer: a Roman Catholic, an apostate from the LCMS, promoting a Missouri Synod theologian who joined ELCA and converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.)

***

GJ - In case you wonder, the parenthetical remarks are mine. You can check out the original website from the link I graciously provided.

This conference is a double hand-spring and triple sommersault with a half-gainer for joining Rome and Eastern Orthodoxy, with ELCA as the farm team for Holy Mother Rome and Holy Mother Constantinople (Neuhaus, Wilken, Pelikan). Note too that McCain's pal, Fenton, who helped put together the Lutheran Service Book, joined Eastern Orthodoxy shortly afterwards.

Would the last pastor to leave Concordia, Ft. Wayne please blow out the candles at Kramer Chapel? They are a fire hazard in an unoccupied building.

And to think, Herman Otten's brother could barely force himself to say hello when I last saw him in Ft. Wayne. Was I sinuflecting to Rome, like his fellow alumni? No, I was writing against that very thing.

This conference was once hailed as the Other LCMS Convention, where the conservatives got together once a year. Mass bells are breaking up that old gang of mine.

I am trying to joke, but I have never seen anything so disgusting in my life. The alumni should bring torches and pitchforks, but they will not. When Neuhaus explained how he became the Roman Catholic apostate he always was, half the audience (alumni of The Fort) nodded in agreement.

---

A. Nony Mouse has left a new comment on your post "Surrendering the Fort - 2009 Festival of Apostasy":

All of this sounds interesting, but who can believe you anymore? You've published so many lies and half-truths, some of which you up-chuck over and over and over again, who will believe you? You may think you have a lot of followers, but I only see a certain few commenting. Those who check in daily are simply wanting to see what outrageous thing you're writing next.

***

GJ - Now, Mouse, if you weren't so lazy you would Google the men and read the websites and books for yourself. How can you believe what Concordia, Ft. Wayne has posted, bragging about its Return to Rome Symposia? Half of the talks would have made Preus and Marquart explode in rage. Mouse, you log in because you love to jabber in deep cover, but I know who you are. The symposia of the past used to give ELCA fits. Now they make most of us ashamed. Some, like you, Mouse, are shameless.

The statistics are posted from Feedjit. I see dots all over the globe. If Ichabod were false, you would not be in a state of rage each day, Mouse. But you feel guilty for what you have done.

The name-calling does not affect me, except to encourage more posts. I have heard all the names before. That is how WELS responds to its cover-ups being uncovered.

Recessional Lutherans

Recessional Lutherans, like Father Neuhaus,
lead them out, reverently.

I remember when Rev. Richard J. Neuhaus used to call himself and his friends Confessional Lutherans. Clearly he was preparing for some years to become a Roman Catholic priest. His friend Robert Wilken (head of graduate studies, theology, when I was at Notre Dame) also joined the Church of Rome.

Now we have those Synodical Conference leaders who want to moonwalk toward Pasadena or Constantinople, while posturing about their Confessional Lutheran standards. They are like the choir and pastor leaving the church first, during the recessional. They cannot be Confessional Lutherans, so they must be Recessional Lutherans.

I began writing against the Church Growth Movement about 20 years ago. My first little article stirred up more letters than I ever received on a single topic. Many laity were suspicious of Church Growth. They were glad I identified some of the obnoxious odors coming from Satan's Lair, aka Fuller Theological Seminary.

Recently someone I know quite well told me about WELS Campus Ministry in Madison, Wisconsin. The pastor took his staff down to Willow Creek for training. Now they are spending millions on the building, starting cell groups, and bragging about their results. Willow Creek recently confessed that all their methods were wrong. I was not alone in suspecting that WC wanted to open up a new round of training for all the clergy they mistrained before. This time around they will apologize abjectly while fleecing the wolves again, many of them using denominational funds, or Trivent dividends.

Going Under
The tabloids use a term: going under. It means that circulation will increase if they go under the standards of the other papers. More salacious gossip. More skin showing. Congregations do the same thing. The whole WC/CGM approach is to go under the standards of all other denominations. Make the music slicker. Turn the Sunday worship service into a recruiting seminar. Spike the sermon and make it a pep talk.

ALC and LCA congregations used to go under the standards of LCMS and WELS by setting up shop nearby. They would promote open communion and lax standards all around. Who can complain about that? Sometimes a Missouri congregation strict on the lodge would find itself emptied by a new ALC congregation apparently conservative on every issue except that one.

The Recessional Lutherans are going under the standards of the Book of Concord with both gambits, whether they are slouching toward Pasadena or Constantinople. Fuller is low-church whoopie Enthusiasm; Eastern Orthodoxy is very high church, smells and bells Enthusiasm. The Book of Concord defines Enthusiasm as separating the work of the Holy Spirit from the Word.

***

Comments posted earlier:


Wreck said...
As a confessional Lutheran, I am disturbed at the trends of ELS and WELS.

I'm LCMS, but very confessional. I've been giving moving over to the WELS quite a bit of thought lately. It has to be better than the LCMS. OUr own congregation has embraced PLI, CGM, worship folder, etc. I cannot remember the last time my congregation used hymnals

I'm tired of the fighting. Some say it's a losing battle. Someone HAS to stay confessional. They have to.

I fear female ordination and female elders are not far away in the LCMS. ELCA is gone. They are Lutheran in name only. They might as well be United Church of Christ or Episcopalian.

November 30, 2007 1:42 PM
Anonymous said...
"As I suspected, Lutherans do not become Eastern Orthodoxy without some prompting. Some of the prompting comes from the outside or from the inner turmoil a Lutheran feels in a non-Lutheran Lutheran synod. Professors are encouraging the move to Eastern Orthodoxy as well."

Bingo.

When I visited a relatives WELS church with the whole Seeker Senseless model, I told him that if it were between that kind of worship and going to a Catholic church, I would pick the Catholic church. He rebuked me saying something like "I would definitely tell you that you would be making a big mistake knowing what the Catholic church teaches."

He was right to rebuke me, but such desperate times call for desperate cries. (and conversations) Why would I, a Cofessional Lutheran, want to do something so senseless? Keep pushing us and you'll push us all right out the door!

I wonder if the WC folks teach the buisness principal of "LEAD, FOLLOW OR GET OUT OF THE WAY."
It may be working.

Rarrr.

November 30, 2007 3:02 PM