Just As Stupid as Bethany Lutheran College (ELS) and Martin Luther College (WELS)...It's a Fad, Dad!

 

"I say e-sports!" 
"I say get an education!"
"I say e-sports!"

"Not specifically Valpo related, but another sign of the growing trend perhaps: In conversation with some friends over the weekend we learned that Wittenburg University an ELCA school in Ohio has done away with their entire music department, including all ensembles.  On the heals of that announcement it was also announced that they would be building a multi-million dollar e-sports complex." 

I did not know what e-sport$ were until I found the above from the ALPB Ovaltines.

This agrees with the blind-following-the-blind vision of the Lutheran denominations, large and small. Like the Church Growth Movement, this tired fad appeals to the stupidity and negligence of the Sect Presidents, District Potroons, Circuit Creampuffs, and Board Reprobates.

The ELS and WELS dinky colleges have reached across 30 miles of highway to have two $15 million gyms while dissolving academic program. Valpo is getting the flack at the moment, but more will come along.

Protestia - Methodists Catching Up with The Big Faithless Five - LCMS-ELS-ELCA-WELS-CLC (sic)

 

"Oliveto’s successor, Kristin Stoneking, also a married lesbian, seems entirely in lockstep with her predecessor’s radical progressivism. At PSR, which styles itself as a “progressive Christian seminary,” Stoneking wrote an op-ed hailing the 2024 General Conference as an example for other denominations to follow. Stoneking also welcomed the UMC’s retreat from traditional Christian ministry and transformation into a “large, non-governmental institution.” In an interview with her conference, Stoneking followed Oliveto in describing the Traditional Plan as a moment of “deep despair.”

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Famed UMC Bishop, Who Denied the Divinity of Christ For Years, Retires On Her Own Terms

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Faith Church is a non-denominational ‘word of faith’ church in St. Louis, MO. Led by pastor and pastrix duo David and Nicole Crank, they claim “18,000 members across eight campuses in Missouri, Illinois, and Florida” and have the ethos of your typical “You’re-David-and-here-are seven-life-tips-to-help-you-kill-your-Goliath-of-debt” kind of church.

Megachurch Pastor’s Wife Charging $16,999 To Be Part of Her ‘Inner Circle’+ ‘Private Text Access’

Lutherans Must Do More Research on Their Own

 

I enjoy chasing down the facts from synodical headquarters and seminary libraries. I have published plenty; Christina was a major force in exposing verbatim facts and sources. Others have contributed but I dasn't name them. 

Two things are quite important -

1. The Big Five - LCMS-ELS-ELCA-WELS-CLC (sic) - do not cherish the truth.
2. The ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS have deluxe headquarters, but seldom used libraries.

If they had chosen students as their endowments instead of robbing the givers for spanking new mausoleums, the crisis would not be looming upon them. Read a little history and you will see that the synods have been letting their students borrow huge sums of money - which became enormous burdens on students, especially those who dropped out along the way. 

Long ago, Augustana College and Seminary let one student swap a truck full of potatoes for tuition. I took Greek in my freshman year of college, but now some schools ask $3,000 for "summer Greek," cash up front. Summer Greek students at St. Louis get to splash in the fountain upon finishing. 

However, the real treasure is Biblical doctrine, which is mocked in every single one of the Big Five - LCMS-ELS-ELCA-WELS-CLC (sic). 

Luther-Melanchthon-Chemnitz led the Reformation through scholarship and preaching the Gospel.  Matt the Fatt is still parroting Objective Justification's magical hocus pocus - Romans 4:25, but not Romans 4, or even Romans 4:24-25, to wit - 

25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. OJ! Yay Matt!

24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification. - Yes - Justification by Faith.

If the Big Five leaders are not "apt to teach," they must step down and stop wasting everyone's money to make themselves look good. 

 Each sect disparages the others, but they still hide under the wings of their boss.

Oh! How They Trip Over Grace Because They Do Not Have Faith!

 

The Big Five - LCMS-ELS-ELCA-ELCIC-WELS-CLC (sic) imagine that they teach grace, and they love to use the term grace while mangling and torturing its meaning. The vast majority of Big Five congregations will ignore Ascension because they do not not hold mid-week Advent or Lent services. Those that do are more likely to be copying the Roman Catholic cake-walk with a lot of strutting and billowing of incense smoke. The rest say, "We don't have enough people for mid-week anything!" 

First we must define the Big Five concept of grace, using an example from Lutherans now in ELCiC. The previous leader said this about a school for naughty boys that they funded, even though not one of the boys was Lutheran! The speaker emphasized that fact and said - "Not one boy is a Lutheran, so this is an act of pure grace!" The last two words were bellowed with great authority and sanctimony. 

The Big Five live according to their new versions of the Bible, especially the despicable NIV. Everyone is forgiven. Everyone! Everyone! (So sayeth the former leader of the LCMS teen group.) Forgetting the leap of faith, they flatter themselves with the Leap of Grace.

Be patient. I am getting there.

Faith in Jesus Christ gives us access to faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, miracle worker and Teacher, who died on the cross for our sins and rose from the grave, ascending to Heaven.

KJV Romans 5 1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

The gracians, as they might call themselves, are immune to the basics of faith, which they dispose into the category of works. Even there, they do their best to get rid of the true Gospel.

KJV John 6 27 Labour not for the meat which perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto you: for him hath God the Father sealed. 28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent.

The connection is clear and never broken - faith in Jesus Christ gives us access to grace. Faith comes from the Gospel Word, as early as newborn, because faith comes by hearing. A mother took a photo of her new baby grinning and looking to her right, a big smile for her daddy. Faith comes by hearing, and so the baby was baptized according to the Scriptures. The Baptists want me to say that babies do not have faith, so I ask them how babies have faith in their parents but not in God.

The works of God are - believing in Jesus, whom He has sent.

But the yahoos of modernity still say in horror and alarm - "You are making faith to be a human work!" 

Lutherdom will need a whole new generation or two before they can teach Romans 5:1-2, not to mention Romans 10. They have poisoned the well and yet cry in despair because their promiscuous spending in Church Growth and other idiocies have bankrupted them. 

1. The LCMS Purple Palace will be sold to Roman Catholics at a deep discount.
2. The WELS Love Shack will become an Urban Renewal office.
3. The ELS office will be a fitness center called Renuvia.
4. The CLC and ELCA will merge into the CLC, headquarters in the nearest Masonic Lodge.

GA!

Elizabeth Eaton, Harvard MDiv, Is Back in Office, Working on Photo-ops

 

I linked into a number of nauseating stories this evening and decided not one of them was new, noteworthy, or surprising. They are the necessary sequel of the 1989 development of ELCA. They stole the name ELCA, which was already used a long time for a tiny group of Pietists. Another debacle - The Gotterdammerung - or Twilight of the Gods - arrived in 2009. Dressing up paganism as the greatest event since 1530, ELCA continued the custom of promoting the worst and least able to lead them forth. 

Eaton was quickly promoted from local partial-state bishop to Lord High Bishop, modestly entitled Presiding Bishop of the ELCA. Remember how patient the radicals were in having their time of frolicking with the offerings of the faithful? All things new were building up to a mudslide of massive proportions. 

That began with a female bishop or two, not unlike the first couple of female chaplains long ago, so they could build momentum at Harvard and MIT. A male bishop has conveniently tracked the growth of female bishops, now 55% of all the bishops. I am not sure where Megan Rohrer fit, given a new and touchy equation in their sensitive teeter-totter ELCA.

A Brief Message to the Synod Popes and Bishops - Jesus' Farwell

 

From Luther's Third Sermon on Cantate Sunday

35. Thus, we have the true meaning of this passage, from which we see how fools who seek from it to bolster up their jugglery, place themselves in opposition to it and build upon the sand. There is scarcely a passage that is more strongly opposed to them than this one. We have briefly explained this Gospel lesson in order that we may see how it teaches just that which we have always preached.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton is back on her job, after having a leave of absence since November of 2023.

The Big Five - LCMS-ELS-ELCA-WELS-CLC (sic) fail to acknowledge the three-fold message from Christ -

These are the three parts we have in this Gospel lesson: Sin is unbelief; righteousness is faith; the judgment is the holy cross.

But Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, Jay Webber, Buchholz, David Scaer, CN Cub Editor, SP Mark Schroeder, SP Matt the MDiv, and many more of the Big Five deny Justification by Faith and replace the Chief Article with the gibberish lovingly declared by Cascione and many others.

Behold! - Luther's Statement Silences Objective Faithless Justification!The Holy Spirit Is To Convict the World In Respect of Sin, of Righteousness, And of Judgment!

 

"These are the three parts we have in this Gospel lesson: 

1. Sin is unbelief; righteousness is faith;

2. the judgment is the holy cross. Therefore give heed and learn to consider everything that is without the Spirit as nothing and as condemned,

3. And afterwards be prepared for the holy cross that thou must suffer on account of it."

If every congregation would adhere to the three explanations above, they would become healthy, strong, and devoted to the Scriptures. The last 50 years take us back to what was happening in 1974 A.D.

All the denominations used to be infatuated with plans for new missions, new ideas, new Bibles, new hymnals. They knew the demographic shift, but lo! - they wanted the spin, the glory, the glamor of Fuller Seminary. World missions executives were first sent to Fuller, because seminaries were not preparing missionaries for anything except quinine for malaria. Their American missions executives trained the same way - completely wrong.

The last 50 years were a con job, the perfect example of -

“Whoever marries the spirit of this age will find himself a widower in the next. ”

William Ralph Inge

A Facebook poster linked me and others to his garage sale of electronics. He was apparently building on the multi-campus model, because he had a large pile of very expensive electronics and a big bill for renting an empty space. (People do not have buildings anymore - they have spaces.) In short, his space and his toys were bleeding him dry. 

His offerings disappeared, which reminds me of the motto - "A sucker is born every minute." - the iconic P.T. Barnum - because every one and every thing is iconic when it often should just be ironic. English is so degenerate now that media people say "very iconic" and "the most iconic." I'm so old I remember "unique." I could neve be a media expert now, because my vocabulary is bigger than 50 words.

"Build it and they will come" (Field of Dreams) said no one in the Bible. Tower of Babel - Build it and they will run.

The Soi-Disant Lutherans Do Not Lead - They Manage. The Big Five - LCMS-ELS-ELCA-WELS-CLC (sic),

The Soi-Disant Lutherans Do Not Lead - They Manage

I can see why Matt the MDiv - with very little parish experience but lots of money experience - pushed hard to get re-elected. He must have known the LCMS colleges were crashing down in slow motion.

The trouble with living from carefully Photoshopped budgets is bearing fruit, but not the kind they want and need. I keep thinking there are no more fads to exploit, such as Unstuck. But the managers are like diabetics trying to cure the problem without changing to healthy food and modest amounts. I was doing great until I discovered my pancreas only had a 70 year warrantee - not renewable.

The managers of the Big Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) - having been living off the latest fads since WWII. The strangest or funniest part is that they work together on bad ideas, supported by Thrivent, which was forced into merger from some very bad years, at least three in a row. Merger erased the past - how sweet.

I sent this to a "conservative" Babtist pastor and teacher. He was furious with me that I told the truth about the sanctified Andy Stanley. Likewise, the WELS pastors and Bishop Katie went to Stanley's re-education camps and loved it.

Thus the blind lead the blind, who teach other greedy clergy to follow them in speeding up the process. They get together in management sessions and figure out how the process will work. One newly hatched ELCA pastor said loudly on a bus during my last LCA conventicle - "I know what you are saying about the bad decisions, but I BELIEVE IN THE PROCESS!" Even funnier, the Wisconsin Sect managers did not want me talking about their buddies in ELCA, because they were sharing the same bed of insurance money. 

One think is needful - and they make fun of it - faith in Jesus Christ! Worse than that, the Big Five Sects are always undermining the Gospel by belittling the Scriptures - even the Bogus Bibles they sell. Ten more years of their tommyrot from Fuller Seminary and the Church of Rome will empty their churches and devastate their institutions. They will be like Monkey Wards, as we used to call it, clinging so tight to their money they were left with useless buildings.

Whom Do We Follow? Jesus Christ Our Good Shepherd - Or CFW Walther, The Pietist Who Covered for His Bishop's Syphilis?

A Stephan descendant wrote this book. Walther talked Stephan's son out of his father's land. I photoshopped the cover because CFW Walther and his circle covered for their bishop. Walther's circle took control over the cult - nabbed from Bishop Stephan - when they suddenly "discovered" the syphilis and the STD the bishop gave to young women.

Walther and his associates were severe Pietists and began to follow Pastor Martin Stephan after their earlier mentor moved away and died. A letter from Stephan "saved CFW's life," teaching the whole world is righteous, forgiven of sin. Walther not only stole land, books, chalice, and money from Stephan, but also the bishop's Objective Faithless Justification. Stephan himself was a dedicated Pietist who attended Halle University, a Pietist citadel, the Jerusalem of all who followed Philipp Spener.

The Walther Circle must have been pretty dense, because Stephan took his son and his mistress to America, excluding his wife and his sickly children. Walther and Company agreed to make Pastor Stephan a bishop before they disembarked in New Orleans. The LCMS has continued to deny their  dogma, as taught by Spener (Pietist), Knapp (Pietist), Stephan (Pietist), and Walther's Circle (Pietist).

Note the extreme dump of malarkey in this statement, which Robert Preus cited. The LCMS and its sister-sects consider this to be far more significant than Luther and the Scriptures. Does anyone wonder why the failing three sects are racing downward, as if trying to catch up with ELCA? 

LCMS, WELS, and the ELS consider "in Christ" as their lifeline to their peculiar dogma, but Calov said it best, and Preus cited the repudiation. 

Anyone in the LCMS-WELS-ELS who disagrees with Walther is condemned as a "false teacher." Robert Preus' final book, Justification and Rome, edited by two of his sons, repudiates Objective Faithless Justification, but his children and grandchildren still do not acknowledge Justification by Faith.

Pietism always decays into Unitarian rationalism, rejecting the Trinity and almost everything else. ELCA began as a series of Pietist missions to America. Now they embrace every kind of radicalism and reject 

• the Scriptures, 
• Luther's works, and 
• common sense. 

Now the Big Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) are shrinking fast from following the chimera of progress.

Universal Pietism embraces Universalism - everyone is saved and happy. That is why the Unitarians merged with the Universalists.

The Big Five - ELCA-WELS-LCMS-ELS-CLC (sic) - Stopped Being Lutheran Now They Are Far Left Unitarian

 

The Big Five - ELCA-WELS-LCMS-ELS-CLC (sic) are so far gone that they are closer to the Unitarian sect than they are to the Reformation. In fact, they can barely say the word Reformation or show any knowledge of Luther, Melanchthon, and Chemnitz.

Before writing angry, anonymous emails to me, consider the facts. The alphabet soup of synods has grown away from the Scriptures, even the Majority or Apostolic Text. Their loathing of Luther is the direct result of loathing fraudulent men and texts, which gave them freedom to disparage the Biblical texts, especially their favorite phonies - Vaticanus and Sinaiticus. 

Notice the similarities of corruption. Bogus Bad American Bibles like to end Matthew with "making disciples." Surprise! So does the modern German Bible. 

But lo, the KJV has the correct translation of the Greek - "teach all nations." Luther's original Bible translates the ending "teach all nations."

KJV Matthew 28:19 - 19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Luther Bibel 1545 28:19 Darum gehet hin und lehret alle Völker und taufet sie im Namen des Vaters und des Sohnes und des heiligen Geistes, 

Koine 1550 Stephanus -  19 πορευθεντες ουν μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος

NIV Matthew 28:19 - Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 

The clergy today know little Latin and less Greek, but they should be able to look up various translations of the New Testament. Parading "make disciples" has been a fetish of WELS and the CLC (sic), with adherents of Fuller Seminary exploding with rage against teach all nations.

Many more examples from their precious NIV, RSV, ESV, and NRSV Bibles reveal that the Big Five cannot handle the precision and sonority of the KJV, which was intended to be read from the pulpit and was accepted as the best English translation.

These clashes, since they do not agree with the best text and translation, open up many errors and excuses for apostasy, without even including the Living (ha!) and Amplified (Ja!) gassy paraphrases.

Look at how ridiculous "making disciples" is. How do they make them? Do they bake them, shake them, and forsake them? A train cannot move safely on slightly crooked tracks, but Church Growthers imagine they can power up a congregation by "making disciples who make disciples who make disciples" - a quote from one of the worst WELS professors. 

Rationalism is always a delight for false teachers, because they commit themselves to attacking all Biblical doctrine, centering on the divinity of Jesus Christ and faith in Him. That is exactly the plan for the Bogus Bad Bibles (including the Christian News Beck Bible - or Milchkuh). Hint - Beck followed the apostates with the imaginary ending of Mark, which energizes the false teachers with "no empty tomb, no resurrection." Yes, I have the Beck Bible. I have the Westcott-Hort blasphemous Greek New Testament. W-H even omitted "the Son of God" in Mark 1:1.

The late Northwestern College (WELS) faculty loathed the NIV and often said so in class. They had no courage beyond the classroom walls, and that tiny school was merged. 

The underlying, Biblical doctrine in all this is the Efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace, opposed and missing in the Big Five - ELCA-WELS-LCMS-ELS-CLC (sic). 

Calvinists loathe the efficacy of the Word because of the Zwingli-Calvin influence, plus a big dose of secular philosophy. The Baptists and especially the Baptists are going mainline rapidly. So where do the Lutherans of all stripes go? Yes, to the last excuse for Calvinism - Fuller Seminary, so weak that they watered down inerrancy from the start. The later rumble was only a case of rejecting inerrancy loud and proud.

 The Holy Spirit will convict the world "Of sin, because they believe not on Me;"

Watch the LCMS And Its Friends Paint and Perfume the Walkout from 50 Years Ago

 

Robert Preus was the younger brother of Jack. He was very encouraging about us leaving the LCA, before the ELCA merger. His last book, Justification and Rome, was aimed at his own faculty in Ft. Wayne. Christina and I saw him many times and enjoyed his company, including the dinner when he installed his son at the Sanford, Michigan LCMS congregation.

Christina and I met Jack Preus on the streets of Chicago, late at night. We were headed back to the hotel, and he was a guest speaker. We later talked to him at the Indianapolis LCMS convention, where he denounced Herman Otten and signed my copy of Chemnitz. Supporting and denouncing the editor was a regular ritual in the LCMS. Matt the Fatt was the latest example.

Note the lopsided Jeske smile. I spoke with ALC President David Preus at the Michigan Synod LCA meeting where he conceded the merger which would form the ELCA. The Seminex cluster manipulated the merger to have more than their share of power, but the Left wanted that. ELCA was formed out of the LCA, the ALC, and the radicalized LCMS Seminex called AELC. David was a cousin to Robert and Jack. Their grandpappy was the governor of Minnesota and an insurance magnate.

Let us put to rest the deception that LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) have major differences or that the ELCA is much different from them. 

The Big Five share the same blasphemy of Objective Faithless Justification. Just to show how untrustworthy they are, consider this: The Big Five teach that everyone is already forgiven, contrary to anything in the Bible (except the New NIV paraphrase). The Great Wayne Mueller told the kids at a WELS young convention that "Evangelism is easy. Just tell everyone they are already forgiven." I guess that applied to the WELS youth who dropped a bottle from the dorm and caused $700 damage to the car below. No one admitted it. 

The Big Five share in the confusion and conflicts of several types of Universalism. One is based erroneously on 1 Timothy 3:16 - Jesus was justified in the Spirit. His resurrection meant He was and is the Son of God, because ordinary humans die from being sinful. Jesus was not. He was the Angel of the Lord in the Burning Bush, foreshadowing the Two Natures of Christ, Exodus 3.

So the Lutheran wise acres say, as the Calvinists do, "I was saved 2,000 years ago." 

The Big Five also rely on snip and clip in the Pauline literature. Often they emphasize grace without engaging "faith in Jesus Christ" as access to grace, Romans 5:1-2.

The LCMS Brief Statement of 1932 was canonized for eternity, copyright Their Father Below. It reveals the OJ faction's duplicity, repeated endlessly by Rolf Preus - "raised again for our justification!" However, the complete sentence is the opposite of what Rolf was trying to promote.

Romans 4:23 Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; 24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

The ending of Romans 4 is clearly a transition to Romans 5. The ancients did not have chapter headings and the verse numbers, but they clearly revealed the clarity of God's Word, not wandering around and bewitching people as the modern seminary professors do.

5 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Therefore means Paul is summarizing Romans 4, a clarion proclamation of Justification by Faith, which gives us peace. 

The amazing grace people tend to forget faith in Jesus Christ in favor of feeling mellow, good, tingly.

By whom also we have access by faith into this grace - access is a simple word. God drowns our sin in an ocean of His grace (Luther). That grace is not instant and universal, as the false teacher Eduard Preuss wrote. Missouri still eats that up, ignoring the fact that Preuss turned Roman Catholic and became prominent in promoting the Church of Rome. No access means no grace, so faith is the way by which we receive God's forgiveness, without works on our part, because Jesus has already paid the price.

Some of the numbskulls still bray - "Do not make faith a work!" They scowl as they say this, as if their lupine teachers are manipulating them at that moment. Truly, the Big Five Conglomerate are anxious to slander faith.

KJV John 6:28 Then said they unto him, What shall we do, that we might work the works of God? 29 Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. 

John 6 is another reason for the apostates to hate the Fourth Gospel, with its emphasis on faith in Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, the pure Word of God teaches against Walther, and the Big Five - even ELCA - with his dogmatic ignorance. 

The Great Kidnapper and Thief, CFW Walther, taught:

1. God has already forgiven everyone in the world, without faith, without the Word.
2. Jesus absolved the entire world when He was raised from the dead.
3. Now you must make a decision for Objective Faithless Justification.

The Big Five are in the same bed together, awkward but the best way to snap at the money given by Thrivent, not to mention irrevocable trusts they sell through Thrivent and their "giving counselors," a call from God.

The Walther side pretends to be holier than thou because they keep mindlessly quoting the Great Walther instead of reading faithful Bibles. 

The obvious apostates occupy ELCA but also flourish in the other four sects, whose banner is the rainbow, not the Means of Grace.