Another WELS Pastor from Fox Valley Needs an Intervention.

Kudu Don Patterson hates this graphic,
perhaps because it is too close to the truth:
Parlow, Jeske, Kelm, Patterson,
Church and Change Tele-tubbies.

WELS Pastor Joel Jillo, Fox Valley, via GMail - one of three from him today:

Gregory the P*** Poor,

Just thought I'd share with you the post I shared on Confessional Lutheran Fellowship on Facebook this morning.  Since I've wisely blocked you on Facebook, I know there's no way you'd see it there.  I won't be sending you any more comments since I know they will never be shared on your bog (sp. intentional).

Have fun living in your insignificance.

--Joel Lillo

Well, I may not have accomplished a lot in my life, but I can say this: I, personally, closed down the comments section of Greg Jackson's blog -- Ichabod, the Glory Has Departed.  Some of you may be familiar with it.  IN this blog, Greg uses unfunny photoshop pictures to make fun of people he dislikes in the WELS under the guise of exposing "false teaching."  He has been a fighter against the teaching of Objective Justification and sees in that doctrine everything that is wrong with the WELS (and, to a lesser extent, LCMS).  

For the longest time, he moderated comments on his blog, but about a year ago, his blog changed formats so that two things happened: 1) His posts would always show "No Comments" on the main page and 2) You could post things without moderation.  After a while, I was the only one posting comments on his blog (usually snarky one liners about how foolish I thought the whole enterprise is). I think that everyone else assumed that there were no comments to read so they never clicked on the "no comments" link. Finally, today, Greg announced that he would only accept comments via e-mail.  

I felt good reading that knowing that I had made a small contribution to truth and decency on the web.

Here's the link to his announcement:

http://www.ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2014/04/comments-can-be-posted-via-google-mail.html

Deputy Doug has always supported
Ski's obnoxious behavior.
WELS knows how to get even with dissenters.

***

GJ - I was sharing with Dr. Bruce Church my frustrations with the comments. Ditto to Brett Meyer. Google Blogger has messed with their own software in the last few months, so I decided to switch to email comments.

Lillo suffers from delusions of grandeur if he thinks he shut down the comments. The most compassionate comment I have heard about Lillo, from his own area, is that he is "strange."

Lillo is not the only one posting comments - as if that mattered. He likes to pick a metric and then decide that metric makes him a winner. Page-views a year? One million. That he cannot face, so he invents factoids about comments. 

McCain and Kilcrease both asked for Photoshops and they got them. One WELS reader wrote last week to say:

"This morning, I was reading Ichabod and broke out into near uncontrollable laughter over the latest graphics. At first, it reminded me of the satirical political cartoonists of the late 19th century. Then, I thought of the woodcuts used in Luther's time."

----

Ski has a call - already?

Another email today from WELS Pastor Joel Lillo, quoting himself on Facebook:

Joel Lillo What Jackson left out in his reporting about Ski's situation is the serious way in which his church handled the events. He makes it look as if they just laughed it off with a drunken frat boy attitude. That couldn't be further from the truth. His congregation, without any prompting or prodding from anyone, put Ski on suspension and put him through a rigorous (for want of better term) spiritual rehab program. From my own personal knowledge of the events, I know that there was sincere repentance for the sin he committed and there was a great deal of concern on the part of the church that the offense would be removed as much as it could be before he was allowed to return to his work in the congregation. And, no, I don't think what he did automatically disqualified him from any further ministry. It would have if he and the congregation had taken the attitude toward his offenses that Jackson says they did. I'm not sure what prompted their legal action against the member who brought the charges. Knowing the situation, I would assume that there were adequate reasons for it. But I don't have any personal knowledge of the whys and wherefores of that.

***

GJ - Everyone in the district received a letter about Ski's behavior, behavior which DP Engelbrecht and SP Mark Schroeder endorsed by cutting a deal for CRM and a call for Ski:

• Ski boozed at work and bragged about having five 20-ounce beers for lunch. Legally drunk.
• Ski kept a generous supply of beer at the "church" and drank steadily.
• Ski made multiple obscene remarks to a married woman to worked for The CORE.
• Ski showed this woman an X-rated photo of a football star, tricking her into viewing it.
• Ski sued the woman's husband in court for daring to comment on his suitability as a pastor, when CRM status was openly discussed, at the request of St. Peter, Freedom. Glende and two others sued the victim's husband at the same time. The judged laughed Glende out of court and the petitions were dropped.
• Ski participated in excommunicating Rick Techlin, an attorney and member of St. Peter Freedom, for identifying the Glende/Ski plagiarisms and pointing out they lied about their plagiarism.

UOJ Buchholz laughed about Ski's alcoholism,
a typical WELS reaction, since it is a drunken, abusive sect.

George Mueller - on SpenerQuest - Is Bi-Sectsual - Pretending JBFA While Spouting UOJ.

George Mueller (Mueller) Senior Member Username: Mueller Post Number: 1373 Registered: 11-2012	Posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - 12:20 pm:       Brett, you are not responding to the proof I have provided to you that the Augsburg Confession teaches that the object of justifying faith is that our sins are forgiven for the sake of Christ's vicarious satisfaction. You are just parroting an argument that isn't responsive to what I am saying. I agree that Christ is only apprehended as Mediator through faith. Why, then, do you argue this against my position? It can only be because you cannot engage my argument but can only parrot an unresponsive argument. You do not engage in debate. You only parrot arguments, whether they are on topic or not. They are usually not. The clear fact is that you REJECT the teaching of the Augsburg Confession. You REJECT the teaching of the Bible. I have outed you as a disciple of Gregory Jackson. I criticized him and the ELDoNA errorists together for their common cowardice in refusing to come onto this site to debate, but you responded by mentioning only Jackson's blog and not ELDoNA's blog. You have been Jackson's disciple for several years now and all you can do in this debate is to parrot his false arguments. I have refuted Jackson by refuting you. Your refusal to respond to what AC IV says (I've given you at least three opportunities to do so) constitutes Jackson's refusal to respond. Jackson pretends to be devoted to the Lutheran Confessions. I have proven on this site that he rejects AC IV, the clearest and most succinct articulation of justification by faith alone to appear in the Lutheran Confessions! And you follow this sectarian!
R.D. (Ryan11676) Intermediate Member Username: Ryan11676 Post Number: 411 Registered: 2-2006	Posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - 12:29 pm:       I don't think Stefanski would set foot on this website. That goes way back before ??DoNA
George Mueller (Mueller) Senior Member Username: Mueller Post Number: 1374 Registered: 11-2012	Posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2014 - 12:42 pm:       You're right about Stefanski. Jackson used to post on Luther Quest, but I don't think Stefanski ever did.

***

GJ - Is George Mueller Rolf Preus or does he just sound like him? SpenerQuest love to hide identities, for good reason. The only thing Mueller (sic) has proven is his blindness and hardness of heart.

Remember, readers - these are the genius Lutherans who regularly linked Paul McCain's Roman Catholic plagiarism - until I pointed it out for them.

Suddenly - no more Paul McCain posts - but no explanation, no apology for directing people toward a Roman Catholic propaganda site: New Advent and the Catholic Encyclopedia. I know clergy who still snicker at this SpenerQuest pratfall. 

Once again - since these people cannot resist lying - Brett Meyer came to his conclusions about UOJ before we connected through Bethany Lutheran Church and the blog. He does his research. I do mine. Naturally a few of us connect through the Net and share information. That is fairly rare.

There is one thing in common - the ELDONA people can read with comprehension, unlike the SpenerQuesters. They work on their own and produce great material.

Lito Cruz is an expert in logic and knows Christian doctrine well. He has been a minister. I post on his blog and he posts on mine, from time to time. Brett Meyer is a tireless researcher who has spent time talking to many different clergy about justification. 

LCMS - get your act together. You have these UOJ Jihadists who terrorize poor, innocent Christians while ignoring your own publishing company - Concordia Publishing House, where a JBFA Small Catechism is still being sold  - over 2 million. And they brag about it. Buy a few cases. Burn them in front of the Purple Palace. Get on TV.

Clean up your own mess before attacking the tiny Church of the Augsburg Confession.

How could the followers of Walther and Stephan
allow this hymn in The Lutheran Hymnal?

Mid-Week Lenten Service. The Good Shepherd

He shall feed His flock, like a shepherd.
He shall carry the lambs in His arms,
and gently lead those with young.

Mid-Week Lenten Vespers, April 9, 2014

Pastor Gregory L. Jackson

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/bethany-lutheran-worship

Bethany Lutheran Worship, 7 PM Central Daylight Time 

The Hymn #245   God Love the World                                      4:6
The Order of Vespers                                             p. 41

The Psalmody                                                      p. 128
The Lection                            The Passion History

The Sermon Hymn #525            As Pants the Hart                             4:36 

The Sermon –     I AM the Good Shepherd

 
The Prayers

The Lord’s Prayer

The Collect for Grace                                            p. 45

The Hymn #657            Beautiful Savior                                            4:24

His last painting.

John 10

King James Version (KJV)

10 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

2 But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.

3 To him the porter openeth; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.

4 And when he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them, and the sheep follow him: for they know his voice.

5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.

6 This parable spake Jesus unto them: but they understood not what things they were which he spake unto them.

7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.

8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.

9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

11 I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

12 But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth: and the wolf catcheth them, and scattereth the sheep.

13 The hireling fleeth, because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep.

14 I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.

15 As the Father knoweth me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down my life for the sheep.

16 And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.

17 Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again.

18 No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

I AM the Good Shepherd

No one should ignore that one of the most comforting passages of the Bible begins with a warning - about those who pretend to be shepherds but are thieves and robbers.

This beautiful image reflects the reality of shepherding during the time of Jesus. The flocks were kept together in a pen and watched over by someone sleeping across the entry-way (the door of the sheepfold).

Thieves and robbers would not enter by the gate, but climb over the side, to scatter, steal, and destroy.

The primary characteristic of the false shepherd is his lack of faith. He sees a good thing, in terms of comfort and security. He realizes that believers are trusting and generous. So he preys upon them instead of praying for them.

Just as in Luther's day, there are those who buy one of these positions. In various ways these false shepherds are placed where they can gain the most advantage for themselves while doing the least amount of work.

That is quite different from the faithful shepherd. Here Christ portrays Himself not just as the faithful shepherd but as the Ultimate Shepherd, the unique Shepherd. There is no good way to translate the original meaning of The Good Shepherd, except to write - The Shepherd above all shepherds.

He is different because He leads the sheep but also lays down His life for the sheep.

Leading them is an interesting image too. The shepherd goes to the sheepfold and calls his own sheep by name. They know his voice and their names (as in baptismal name). They hear His voice and follow Him to green pastures and still waters.

Sheep know their own shepherds and follow them. They run away from strangers.

This reminds us that believing the Gospel also means to avoid the false teachers who pretend to be shepherds while fleecing and barbecuing the sheep. 

I asked my English students to prepare a research essay where the only experts are Biblical verses. "Scripture interprets Scriptures." Since the Bible is God's Word, the best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself, not a man-made commentary.

There is far too much of comparing one opinion with another. Then an essay (or sermon or book) becomes a game of piling up opinions, which becomes very much like the Jewish Talmud, where opinions about opinions about opinions are lined up, almost excluding the original text.

This passage unites all the great passages about the Shepherd and explains the meaning of that term, even more important, what it means for Jesus to be the Good Shepherd.

Only one Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. Jesus did this by command from the Father, but He also did it on His own. He willingly gave up His life to give eternal life to believers.

This is important, because the crucifixion was not Rome and the Jewish leaders taking away His life by force - although they used force and twisted the law. Jesus gave up His life, sacrificed Himself, the Lamb of God for the sheep who so often go astray.

All the references to sheep teach how we are weak and willful, often getting ourselves into trouble. And yet the chief characteristic of God is to be merciful, to seek and save the lost, to forgive and to bless us with peace.

Comments Can Be Posted via Google Mail Now

Comments have been difficult for regular readers lately, so I have switched to using Google Mail, aka Gmail.

To make a comment, use this address -

bethanylutheranworship@gmail.com

You may use your name, anonymous, or a pseudonym.

I will feature good comments in posts. If you have a substantive addition to a particular post, please include the URL of the post in the email. I lose track quickly.

Virtue Online Publishes What Lies Ahead for Lutherdom - WELS and LCMS Included

Liz a les?
Ask her subordinates.

Archbishop Welby links Gay marriage with Christian African killings by Muslim Extremists
Liberal Episcopalians condemn Welby and spin his remarks

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue
www.virtueonline.org
April 8, 2014

The Archbishop of Canterbury said that Christians are being killed in Africa as a consequence of liberal attitudes towards homosexuality in the United States and Britain.

That’s bad enough. Then the Guardian reported that Welby had had private discussions with his predecessor, Dr. Rowan Williams, who “anguished” about it. Really.

Then why didn’t he speak up when he was ABC? Why did he go off endlessly about homophobia in England and Africa, but never publicly opined about the mass killings of African Christians, some of them undoubtedly Anglicans? Because sodomites like Jeffrey John and Gene Robinson whined about their need for acceptance of a behavior so dangerous that it has killed hundreds of thousands of homosexuals in the USA, UK and other nations with AIDS. Was he too busy pushing The Body’s Grace, a paean to homosexual acceptance, to see the damage he was doing?

Speaking on an LBC phone in, Justin Welby said he had stood by a mass grave in Nigeria of 330 Christians who had been massacred by neighbors who had justified the atrocity by saying: "If we leave a Christian community here, we will all be made to become homosexual and so we will kill all the Christians."

"I have stood by gravesides in Africa of a group of Christians who had been attacked because of something that had happened in America. We have to listen to that. We have to be aware of the fact," Welby said. If the Church of England celebrated gay marriages, he added, "The impact of that on Christians far from here, in South Sudan, Pakistan, Nigeria and other places would be absolutely catastrophic. Everything we say here goes round the world."

And you wonder why Archbishops like Nicholas Okoh, (Nigeria) Eliud Wabukala (Kenya) and Rwaje Onesphore (Rwanda), to name but a few, are no shows at primatial gatherings.

This is the first time that Archbishop Welby has publicly voiced his fears for Christians overseas as a key factor in the Bishops' opposition to same-sex marriage and the blessing of gay couples in church. "The problem we face is that everything we say here goes round the world, for reasons of history and media and all that. And so we don't make policy on the hoof," he said.

Asked why he could not simply cede to requests by some clergy to be permitted to bless same-sex relationships, he replied, "The impact of that on Christians in countries far from here, like South Sudan, like Pakistan, Nigeria, and other places would be absolutely catastrophic, and we have to love them as much as we love the people who are here."

The LBC presenter, James O'Brien, suggested that gay Christians might interpret the Archbishop's words as a prohibition on them getting married "because of the conniptions it would give to some, dare we say, less enlightened people in Africa".

"I don't think we dare say less enlightened, actually," replied the Archbishop. "I think that is a neo- colonial approach and it's one I really object to. It's not about them having conniptions or sort of getting aerated. That's nothing to do with it. . .

"I was in the South Sudan a few weeks ago and the church leaders there were saying: 'Please do not change what you are doing because then we could not accept your help. And we need your help desperately.' And we have to listen to that."

Clarifying his comments on the mass grave, he explained, "What was said was that 'If we leave a Christian community in this area' - I am quoting them - 'we will all be made to become homosexual, so we are going to kill the Christians.' The mass grave had 369 bodies in it, and I was standing with the relatives. That burns itself into your soul - as does the suffering of gay people in this country."

The Archbishop reiterated a traditional position on same-sex relationships: "My position is the historic position of the Church which is in our canons which says that sexual relations should be within marriage and marriage is between a man and a woman."

Asked whether he could imagine a day when two people of the same sex would be married in the Church of England, he responded: "I look at the scriptures, I look at the teaching of the Church, I listen to Christians round the world, and I have real hesitations about that."

He added, however: "I am incredibly uncomfortable about saying that. I really don't want to say no to people who love each other, but you have to have a sense of following what the teaching of the Church is. We can't just make sudden changes."

Oh, for God’s sake, just stand up and say you stand for something. Be definitive. Say what you really believe. Stop sitting on the fence. The question is, is LGBT behavior a sin or is it not? Answer that. Don’t prevaricate. Don’t keep telling us you are against gay marriage, but approve civil partnerships because the culture is changing. Sin is sin. Will you publicly declare that sodomy is a sin in the eyes of God and declare that marriage between a man and a woman is inviolable and the only option open to the Church of England and to the whole Anglican Communion and that Scripture cannot be reversed? Be declarative, unlike your predecessor. We all want a definitive word, Archbishop Welby. Does Scripture trump culture or does it not?

It was, he said, "something I wrestle with every day and often in the middle of the night. I am incredibly conscious of the position of gay people in this country, how badly they've been treated over the years."

He also reiterated his view that this was not something the Church of England could decide alone. "What we say here is heard round the world, and people really worry about what we say here because, for historic reasons, we are linked, not just the Anglican Communion, but particularly that we are linked to Churches all round the world. And so, before we make a major change in how we understand what we should do, we have to listen to people and go through a process of consultation, and talking to people, and listening very carefully, and praying without predetermined outcomes. . .

"We have to look at the tradition of the Church, and the teaching of the Church, and the teaching of scripture, which is definitive in the end, before we come to a conclusion. We are not in a position just to suddenly say 'OK, our position in this country has changed': we are one of the great international groups that there is in this world."

EPISCOPAL LEADERS RESPOND

California Episcopal Bishop Marc Andrus immediately went on the offensive against Welby’s remarks calling his statements “lamentable naiveté and at worst…both homophobia and colonial thinking.”

Andrus opined, “Here, I think the archbishop fell back on a solution that was already unjust, but familiar to him: retrench around marriage as only between a woman and a man. Don’t inflame violent people further.”

And what exactly is wrong with that, Bishop? Marriage has, always and forever, been between a man and a woman despite the fact that the West is trying to change the ontology and cosmology of human sexuality. The word "marriage" was created to identify a union of a man and a woman - just as the word cat was created to identify a cat. You cannot use the word "cat" to identify a dog, just as you cannot use the word "marriage" to identify the union of two men or two women.

Andrus said that Welby’s argument is parallel to saying that the segregation laws in the United States up until the mid-60s and the disenfranchisement of women in the United States until the 20th Century would have both been continued if someone had claimed that blacks and women in other countries would be endangered by moves towards greater justice here.

This is not an exact parallel. A man’s color is his birthright. The disenfranchisement of women is in fact changing and will continue to do so because it is a social justice issue. Sodomy is neither; it is a moral choice with possibly deadly consequences. 

Andrus argues that Welby’s position only privileges the colonial power position Great Britain once held.

Not true. By saying the things he has, Welby acknowledges that Britain’s colonial days are in fact over and that by recognizing Africa’s Anglicans, who are growing at a fast clip, they will in time replace the Church of England as the center of spiritual gravity. Already Abuja and Nairobi have become Anglican centers.

“If I am right,” Says Andrus, “and empire thinking underlies the archbishop’s remarks, his proposed way forward – continue to oppress LGBT people in the UK – will fail to keep African’s safe for this reason: if Africa is watching the UK as closely as the Archbishop would have us all believe then they will not miss that the spiritual head of the Anglican Communion is on the side of continued second-class citizenship for LGBT people.”

This is total nonsense. First and second class citizenship is totally made up and a fabrication. Homophobia only exists in the minds of homosexuals; it is not a reality. The word rightly refers to fear of sameness, not to fear of homosexuality at all, as is often assumed.

What people now see is the fascistic triumph of sodomy over reason and the forced belief that everyone must acquiesce to a behavior that offers nothing for them or their children. “From here on, hate refers to any attitude, thought or word that differs with the gay agenda, while gays are virtually exempt from the charge of hate speech—no matter how vile and incendiary the rhetoric—since they are always the (perceived) victims and never the victimizers”, says columnist Michael Brown.

“Archbishop Welby asserts that marriage should be only between a man and a woman, and says that scripture supports his position. I would hope for a better reader of scripture in the spiritual head of our Church. Let me point to this coming Sunday’s Gospel, the Raising of Lazarus from the Dead, in the Gospel of John as a good place to look for guidance on the issue of the safety of Christians, both straight and LGBT in Africa and elsewhere,” says Andrus.

Better reading of Scripture! The raising of Lazarus is guidance for the safety of Christians, both straight and LGBT! What hermeneutical principles of biblical interpretation could possibly lead to that conclusion? It’s a stretch that makes Mormonism’s heresies look good.

Andrus, like so many Episcopal bishops and priests, twists Scripture to make it mean what they want it to mean without any recourse to the historical grammatical meaning of the text.

Not to be outdone or outclassed for biblical interpretive stupidity, lesbian priest Susan Russell of All Saints, California weighed in with this line. “The Archbishop of Canterbury chooses pathetic over prophetic.” Really.

Russell said she was sad but not surprised. “The sad part is, how can our hearts not break when members of our human family fall victim to the scourge of sectarian violence? And yet, how can we remain blind to the reality that being blackmailed into bigotry against some members of the human family only serves to feed the pathology of demonization of 'the other' throughout the human family?”

Blackmailed into bigotry! Demonization of the other! Who in truth is doing the demonizing today if it is not the LGBT community! Again I quote Michael Brown, “The Walt Disney Corporation gave the Boy Scouts of America an ultimatum that they had to accept openly homosexual Scout leaders or lose Disney’s financial support; the Girl Scouts announced that boys who identify and present themselves as girls can join their Scouting clubs; pastor Louie Giglio was disinvited from praying at President Obama’s second inauguration because he preached a biblical message on homosexuality more than 15 years ago; the Supreme Court overturned the Defense of Marriage Act and the military overturned "don’t ask, don’t tell"; the passing of ridiculous bills like California’s SB 777 (mandating the celebration of LGBT American history for all classes, K-12) and AB 1266 (allowing students to choose the bathroom of their personal gender identification as well as play on the sports team of their choice, using that locker room as well, resulting already in a 17-year-old boy playing on the girls’ softball team); Facebook created the customized gender option with 50 gender choices; different states banned professional counseling requested by minors with unwanted same-sex attractions; companies like Sweet Cakes by Melissa were put out of business because they would not participate in same-sex “weddings”; and Attorney General Eric Holder told state attorneys general that they were not required to uphold and defend laws against same-sex “marriage” if they didn’t want to—just to mention a few.”

Russell opines about what she calls “the slow death of internalized homophobia not only condoned by but contributed to by the church?" Really! Name one person, and show absolute proof that someone has died because of “internalized homophobia”. This is a complete crock.

Suicide still remains a choice. All kinds of persons have been bullied over the years and they don’t go around killing themselves. Gays are not the only persons who are bullied. Big kids bully small kids, boys bully girls, and the list goes on and on. Victimization has become the hobgoblin of homosexual activists.

Russell concluded her rant by saying, “Once again making LGBT people the sacrificial lambs on the altar of sectarian politics.” No, the “sacrificial lambs” are lying in shallow graves in the Sudan and Nigeria, bodies that Welby saw and witnessed and, for one brief shining moment, he told the truth.

The Rot of WELS Has Accelerated under SP Mark Schroeder. Nothing Is Too Base or Gross for His Administration

Tim Glende vicared under Mark Jeske, the real SP of WELS,
and wrecked his first call in Illinois.
WELS cautioned Glende about blowing so much money on Savoy;
the mortgage is being foreclosed  while you are reading this caption.

• Rick Techlin has written many times, guardedly, about his experiences in WELS:
• He went through all the "right steps" to deal with the plagiarism of Tim Glende and Ski, who were simply copying Craig Groeschel material. For that he was excommunicated - with the approval of DP Doug Engelbrecht.
• Techlin recently wrote about St. Peter in Freedom using an AK-47 (assault rifle) as a prop during a sermon.
• As a lawyer, Techlin wrote a detailed letter about his experiences with Glende, Ski, and DP Doug Engelbrecht.
• When another member spoke out against Ski going back on the clergy roll, the staff of St. Peter in Freedom sued him on the spot. The judge laughed the petition out of court. Glende even tried to blame "a blog in Arkansas." What?

Fox Valley WELS Pastor Joel Lillo is great at boosting readership of this blog. His latest denials and evasions are worth parsing. 

Lillo semi-denied that Tim Glende was the anonymous fake Ichabod. Such cleverness is frequently found in WELS communications - and it comes from their secret hazing ritual - GA. The clergy know it is a lie, but they enjoy fooling the laity and acting all touchy and irritated about such claims. 

I could publish three volumes of their patently obvious deceptions, including Mark Schroeder's assertion that he never received a letter I sent him - even though he signed the certified letter receipt (which I scanned for the blog).  His published signature rekindled his memory and he changed his story.

Lillo went on to say he participated in the fake blog - but did not know who wrote it. He was fairly sure it was not Glende. 

Fellow WELS-victims, you know something stinks when a pastor in an incestuous and abusive sect says, "I don't know who wrote the blog." Lillo's Google Plus circle consists of Ski and two other people.

Unfortunately for Fox Valley, I was able to see who was reading the blog, where they lived, and what operating system (Windows XP, Mac, etc) they were using. When I posted about Fox Valley, the nasty comments poured in from - Fox Valley. The individual who borrowed my nickname for him - Anonymouse - wrote from Fox Valley and used a Mac (as St. Peter and The CORE did). Lillo did not have a Mac, an eye-witness told me.

Glende was a bully at Michigan Lutheran Prep, a bully at Northwestern College, and and a worse bully in Illinois and Freedom, Wisconsin. His anonymous blog was consistently dishonest, abusive, and cowardly.

Prophetic Photoshop -
WELS Fox Valley clergy train with gay activist Andy Stanley,
sad-faced son of Charles Stanley, the David Cho fan.

Another set of really angry comments came from Garland, Texas, birthplace of Kudu Don Patterson, once a lowly circuit pastor, now an exalted DP in WELS. Joe Krohn told me all about Patterson's angry threats. Once I began noting the Garland comments as soon as they came in, they went silent. That is not proof that Patterson sent them. It was just a co-inky-dink.

It was another co-inky-dink that Glende and Patterson became Facebook friends during this time. 

After Ski was fired twice for what would have gotten him shot in Oklahoma, Patterson gave the souse a call next door to him, in Round Rock, Texas. One reader surmised that Ski will provide the cash bar for the next women's spiritual retreat at Holy Word, Austin.

Glende church growth - from no-debt congregation
to dissolution and foreclosure.
Savoy!
Oi!
Now the Eastern Orthodox want to buy Savoy too.
How did Glende turn two WELS buildings into two
Eastern Orthodox churches?
He is dah Man.

Demi-semi-Excommunicated Rick Techlin Writes about the Anything Goes District of WELS

"Talking about me, Rick?"

From Rick Techlin:

Privacy and Abuse of the Public Ministry

April 7, 2014 by Rick

If a man desires to be a pastor, he desires something that is noble, he also desires something that is public.  A pastor is a public representative of the Church.  The Scriptures declare that all public representatives of the Church (pastors) must be “respectable,” “well thought of by outsiders,” and “above reproach.”  (1 Timothy 3:2, 7, ESV).

Paul writes that those who seek to serve in the public ministry “must first be tested; and then if there is nothing against them, let them serve …”  (1 Timothy 3:10, NIV1978).  God’s word says that there must be “nothing against them,” they must be blameless, and above reproach.

If a pastor sins privately, then he can repent privately, and he can receive private absolution from his confessor.  Pastors are not expected to be sinless, nor should they expect their private sins to be exposed in a public manner.  Private lust is a sin that can remain between the pastor, his confessor, and God.

But what if a pastor takes his private lust, and makes it public?  For example, what if a pastor uses his position as a pastor to make sexually inappropriate comments to his employee?  To his parishioner?  To another man’s wife?  Those are not private sins.  They are public sins.  They are public sins, first, because they involve other people, and second, because they are an abuse of the public ministry.  When one abuses the authority and power of a public office, that abuse of power is in no way a private matter.

Nonetheless, when a pastor falls into disgrace for abusing his pastoral office and must resign from the public ministry, it is possible that under certain circumstances he could be allowed to do so privately.  This is because he would be leaving the public ministry, and would no longer be a public representative of the Church.  If he will no longer be a pastor, then he does not need to meet the Scriptural qualifications of a pastor.

However, what if this pastor did not start looking for a private vocation?  What if instead, he began to use the remaining power of his pastoral office (connections, colleagues, church staff, and a large audience) to attempt to falsely discredit the victim and/or her family?  That would be another abuse of the power of the pastoral office.  A pastor who did that instead of repenting, would be compounding his sin.  He would be demonstrating, that even if he had understood his sexual sins, he clearly did not understand his abuse of the pastoral office to commit those sins nor his abuse of the pastoral office to continue sinning against the victim and/or her family.

The pastoral office can wield tremendous social power.  That is why the men in that office should never abuse that power.  When it comes to abuse of the pastoral office, they must be blameless, or they cannot be a pastor.  If a WELS pastor has abused the pastoral office, then he has abused a public trust, and he should not be quietly transferred to another congregation.  The Church needs to be able to trust all her pastors.  And the Synod needs to be able to trust that certain leaders are not just covering up for their friends.  When it comes to conflicts of interest and covering for its friends, parts of the WELS leadership need a lot more transparency and honesty.

Virtue Online - What Will They Discuss? Hmmm?

What will God discuss with the apostate leaders of WELS, ELCA, LCMS, and the Little Sect?

Archbishop of Canterbury to make Personal, Pastoral Visit to see Canadian and US Anglican Leaders
Will talks be substantive or will it all be smoke and mirrors?

COMMENTARY

By David W. Virtue DD
www.virtueonline.org
March 6, 2014

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and his wife, Caroline, are expected to arrive in Canada on Monday, April 7, for a “ personal, pastoral visit,” with Archbishop Fred Hiltz, primate of the Anglican Church of Canada.

The brief visit is a part of Welby’s personal commitment to visit the primates (senior archbishops) of the Anglican Communion, to meet them, and to learn about their provinces prior to the next meeting of all the primates. 

No major public events are planned in keeping with Welby’s request that the visit be a private one. 

He will leave early the following morning to meet in the United States with Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori of The Episcopal Church.

Welby—who has had a long ministry in conflict resolution—announced his intention to visit every primate across the Anglican Communion during his first 18 months in office soon after he was enthroned. He has said that his visits are aimed at fostering friendship and “mutual understanding.” The 75-million strong Anglican Communion has been trying to heal divisions in theological differences over such issues as sexuality and the ordination of women. 

Welby has already travelled to Barbados, Guatemala, Mexico, Kenya, Hong Kong, Japan, Korea, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan, among other countries.

As one Canadian blogger noted, “If a prior meeting is anything to go by, what Welby learns from Hiltz is going to be slightly one-sided: the lawsuits, the attempts to intimidate conservative clergy, the inhibiting of clergy and the acquisition of buildings will, I am sure, all be glossed over.”

It was Hiltz, you will recall, who soon after Welby was consecrated, raced across the Atlantic to plead with Welby not to recognize the ACNA and its Canadian counterpart the Anglican Network in Canada (ANIC). This was a replay of what Frank Griswold did when he was Presiding Bishop of The Episcopal Church. He too raced across the Atlantic to plead with then Archbishop George Carey to not recognize the Anglican Mission in American (AMIA). Carey obliged. So apparently has Welby.

However, ACNA Archbishop Robert Duncan has played a much more public role than AMiA Bishop Chuck Murphy. He has been seen publicly and met privately with Welby in Nairobi, Lambeth Palace and Canterbury, not to forget a cameo appearance with Pope Benedict XVI's weekly public audience in Rome on Nov. 28, 2012 in company with REC Bishop Ray Sutton.

High profile appearances always help, not hurt, one’s public standing and persona. Neither Hiltz nor Jefferts Schori would have a prayer of meeting with the Pope, publicly or privately. Duncan’s international profile is just as high as Jefferts Schori and Fred Hiltz. He is a force to be reckoned with. With the worldwide realignment of Christianity now in full swing we will undoubtedly see more of this.

Welby has said that his visits are aimed at fostering friendship and “mutual understanding.” We’ll see. If none of the hot button issues are on the table, all talk of “conflict resolution” and reconciliation will sound hollow.

Here is the fundamental problem: there is already a mutual understanding. Orthodox Anglican Christians understand the Anglican Church of Canada so well that most of them have left. The Anglican Church of Canada understands that conservative Anglicans who have left are engaging in unfair competition by preaching the genuine Christian Gospel. What more is there to understand?

The Anglican Church of Canada talks about the environment and the past sins of the church towards Native Americans and has endless dialogue with anybody in the Global South they can influence towards its pansexual agenda.

For example, there has not been a consensus taken in years about just how many Anglicans there are worshipping in Canadian churches. Some say it is no more than 300,000 who show up on any given Sunday, which is just a little less than half of what show up in the U.S. 

By any standard, they would not equal one or two dioceses in the Anglican Church of Nigeria. Nonetheless, Hiltz struts around the country and across the Anglican stage as though he is somehow important when, in fact, his church is in structural decline and his institutions are failing. The ACofC is incapable of starting anything especially a new church plant because it has no definitive gospel to proclaim. 

By contrast the ANIC is growing and planting new churches all across Canada.

THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH

One wonders what the conversation will be about when Archbishop Welby meets Presiding Bishop Jefferts Schori next week.

Will they talk about the tens of millions of dollars spent on lawsuits to grab properties the church has neither built nor paid to sustain? Will he ask her what part of the gospel doesn’t she understand about suing brothers in court when St. Paul expressly forbade such action and talked about letting one be “defrauded” for the sake of the gospel?

Will he ask her why churches they win in court battles cannot be sold back to their owners or to similar Anglican groups instead of to saloons (Jefferts Schori’s favorite) or Muslim groups, in fact anyone who is less connected to the Christian faith. (In fairness one or two have gone to independent Evangelical churches). The most recent outrage took place in the Episcopal Diocese of Pittsburgh when St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Monroeville was handed over to a homosexual denomination – the Metropolitan Community Church after the church split from TEC and the majority joined Bishop Duncan’s Anglican Church of Pittsburgh. The double irony is that the new Episcopal Bishop of Pittsburgh is the Rt. Rev. Dorsey W. M. McConnell who unashamedly calls himself an evangelical!

Will Welby ask her why homosexuals and theological revisionists now run most of the committees and push out conservatives from key posts because they don’t reflect her understanding of the gospel? Or why in victory, the pansexualists are more vicious now than when they were fighting the culture wars that they have clearly won?

Why are people like Susan Russell, Louie Crew, Gene Robinson, and Jon Bruno (this is the very short list) more demonstrably nasty and angry in victory than when they were pressing their claims for inclusivity?

Most people, when they win, are gracious in victory, not so The Episcopal Church’s pansexualists. Their hatred for orthodoxy just keeps growing and growing.

Will Welby confront her about the Episcopal Church’s push into Africa in order to undermine (with money) the faith of orthodox African Anglicans?

The most recent and worst example is Tanzania, where TEC poured over $75,000 in walk around money to a bishop who recently died, in order to influence the next archbishop who honored their gift by not showing up at GAFCON in Nairobi.

Will he talk about TEC’s influence with the Anglican Communion Office better known as the Anglican Consultative Council in London with money to buy their influence to liberalize vulnerable Global South primates?

One suspects that none of this will come up. Pleasantries will be exchanged with perhaps a snide comment or two by Jefferts Schori about the Church of England’s failure to allow gay marriage and the length of time it is taking to allow women bishops.

Welby will be put on the defensive from which he might not recover though I am told he is a very smart man who could fire off a broadside or two of his own.

As a final rejoinder, he might ask what the real justification is for spending upwards of half a million dollars for the House of Bishops to travel to Taiwan – a diocese with 13 churches and less than 700 ASA! -- in September, when the only winner is the ozone layer and a bigger carbon footprint.

All in all, it should make for fascinating reading for future historians to ferret out exactly what was said and by whom and how the cause of Christ and the advancement of the gospel through the unique Anglican story took place when all three churches might well be out of business by the middle of the century.

The only question is: Who will be around to write their epitaph?

The more immediate issue is: Will the Global South Primates once again boycott the next meeting of the primates, when Welby calls one, as they did the last meeting by Rowan Williams in Dublin?

END

Larry Olson, Dave Valleskey, Frosty Bivens,
and many others in WELS based their careers on this con artist.