ELCA - A Warning for the Syn Conference

Budget Matters

The 2012 budget represents strategic use of funds and a commitment to continue faithful stewardship of the ministry entrusted to the churchwide organization, Wyvetta Bullock, ELCA executive for administration, said.

The proposed 2012 churchwide budget totals $80,292,900. This amount anticipates current fund income of $61,792,900, which represents a 19.5 percent decrease from the 2011 income proposal approved at the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. The ELCA World Hunger fund portion of the budget is $18,500,000. Mission support is 76.1 percent of the current fund budget, down from 81.2 percent as proposed in 2009.

In the past three years, mission support for ministries through the churchwide organization has declined from $65.3 million to a projected $47 million for 2012. Subsequently, the churchwide organization’s budget has been reduced by nearly 24 percent, said Bullock. At the same time, this budget is presented to the assembly with gratitude for their partnership and “with confident hope in God’s faithfulness,” she said.

***

GJ - ELCA and its earlier components invented the Tetzel-like Planned Giving Counselors that WELS and Missouri use. That has been working great for them, no? The 1987 ELCA budget, NOT allowing for inflation adjustments, was going to be about $150 million, the total from the LCA and ALC. The actual budget ended up at around $120 million and kept declining in dollars, which means the decrease was even greater than that.

ELCA is in a world of hurt, even with licensing checks from WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect for their worship materials.

WELS just displayed its arrogance again, thanking Mark Jeske, ignoring the real Jeske issues, and spit-wadding the NNIV into WELS faces. Holy Mother Synod does not repent, and the floggings will continue until morale improves.

Missouri's CPH Promotes the Calvinist Edition of the RSV: UOJ Headquarters a Calvinist Lair? Doth McCain Knoweth?

Lookee here. That debbil Mark Driscoll, the cussin' preacher, the obscene homiletician, is knee to knee with J. I. Packer.
Was this before Driscoll became the mentor of Glende, Ski, and Bishop Katie? Or after?

I never took much interest in the ESV, because Pope Paul the Unlearned and CPH were promoting the latest flavor of the Bible. I suspected a reason for the ESV rhyming with RSV.

Taking some time from various book projects, I did some research on the ESV. The respected Calvinist theologian J. I. Packer is the senior editor of the ESV, and the ESV is nothing other than a remake of the National Council of Churches' Revised Standard Version.

I respect Packer as a Calvinist. He is true to his confession, unlike the shape-shifters in the LCMS. They are always chortling over justification by faith being "Calvism," but they are the ones promoting Calvinism as confessional Lutherans. As one of the thinkers in WELS wrote, Calvinism is no longer crypto.

The LCMS and WELS leaders are overt Calvinists. WELS is leading the race to the bottom (mainline translation NNIV, women's ordination) because there is little organized opposition and far too much power held by a few drunks, lazy-bones, and incompetents in that sect.

CPH will base all their new books on the ESV, which shares the double-whammy of coming from the RSV and the Calvinists. Thus the ESV will enjoy the heritage of manuscript manipulation and anti-Sacramental changes in the text.

But all the Lutherans scorn the KJV, which is the only Bible where the translator--Tyndale--enrolled at Wittenberg to study under Luther and Melanchthon, where the very first English printing came from Germany because of that relationship.

Unlike Moo, Tyndale did not earn fat paychecks from a billionaire sponsor. No, Tyndale was burned at the stake for his trouble.

Intrepid Lutherans: Issues with the NIV 2011: "The saints" are no more

Intrepid Lutherans: Issues with the NIV 2011: "The saints" are no more

Issues with the NIV 2011: "The saints" are no more

Share|

There are no more “saints” in the NIV 2011. The term has been completely removed and replaced with various alternatives. I find this very troubling.

Consider the following analysis of how many times the word “saints” appears in the most standard English translations of the Bible:

KJV:		96
NKJV:		95
ESV:		81
NIV84:		69
NASB:		68
HCSB:		61
NIV 2011:		0

As the reader surely knows, the English word “saint” comes from the Latin “sanctus,” which means “holy” or “holy one.” It has been used for centuries as the common English translation of two Hebrew words in the Old Testament and one Greek word in the New Testament.

There are two nouns in Hebrew that have traditionally been translated as “saints” in English: Chasidim and Q’doshim. The primary meaning of Chasidim is either “recipient of mercy” or “merciful or faithful.” In most of the cases where that word occurs in the Old Testament, NIV 2011 translates with “faithful people,” “faithful ones,” or “faithful servants.” This change may be justifiable (see Professor Brug’s comments below), but most English translations have, nonetheless, historically translated the word with “saints,” and Luther’s German translation had “Heiligen” (“saints, holy ones”) for this word.

The primary meaning of Q’doshim is “holy ones.” In these cases, the NIV 2011 translates as “holy ones” or “holy people” in most cases. Again, this change is justifiable. One may argue about whether or not it is helpful or necessary to do away with the term “saint.” It has served the English language well for four hundred years and remains in common usage in most translations of the Old Testament.

Hagioi is the Greek word in the New Testament that has traditionally been translated saint. The word hagioi means “holy” or “holy ones.”

Here is the breakdown of how many times the word “saints” appears in the most standard English translations of the Old Testament:

KJV:		35
NKJV:		34
ESV:		21
NIV84:		24
NASB:		8
HCSB:		0
NIV 2011:		0

UK riots: Police water cannon and plastic bullets? After 50 years of the most lavish welfare state on earth? What an abject failure, says Peter Hitchens | Mail Online

UK riots: Police water cannon and plastic bullets? After 50 years of the most lavish welfare state on earth? What an abject failure, says Peter Hitchens | Mail Online

Police water cannon and plastic bullets? After 50 years of the most lavish welfare state on earth? What an abject failure

By PETER HITCHENS

Last updated at 9:16 AM on 14th August 2011

Bitter laughter is my main response to the events of the past week. You are surprised by what has happened? Why? I have been saying for years that it was coming, and why it was coming, and what could be done to stop it.

I have said it in books, in articles, over lunch and dinner tables with politicians whose lips curled with lofty contempt.

So yes, I am deeply sorry for the innocent and gentle people who have lost lives, homes, businesses and security. Heaven knows I have argued for years for the measures that might have saved them.

Faced with reality: Left-wingers at last meet the filthy thing they have created, and which they ignored when it did not affect them personally

Fear, intimidation, cruelty, injustice, savagery: The mass criminality in the big cities is merely a speeded-up and concentrated version of life on most large estates

But I am not really very sorry for the elite liberal Londoners who have suddenly discovered what millions of others have lived with for decades. 

The mass criminality in the big cities is merely a speeded-up and concentrated version of life on most large estates – fear, intimidation, cruelty, injustice, savagery towards the vulnerable and the  different, a cold sneer turned towards any plea for pity, the awful realisation that when you call for help from the authorities, none  will come.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2025695/UK-riots-Police-water-cannon-plastic-bullets-After-50-years-lavish-welfare-state-earth-What-abject-failure-says-Peter-Hitchens.html#ixzz1V5SScxs1

How To Study Theology

How To Study Theology

David R. Barnhart

David R. Barnhart

1. Grace Lutheran Church, Monongahela, PA passed its first vote to leave the ELCA.

2. First Lutheran Church, Britton, SD passed second vote to leave the ELCA, 137-11. Will join LCMC.

3. Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Manistee, MI passed second vote to leave the ELCA,118-6. Voted to join NALC.

Another Inuitu Fidei Story

AP/WorldMag ^ | Aug 15, 12:01 AM EDT



ILULISSAT, Greenland (AP) -- Greenland's Inuit people have countless terms in their language to describe ice in all its varieties. This gallery of photographs by AP's Brennan Linsley likewise is something of a visual vocabulary for the striking and beautiful forms ice takes on and around the giant Arctic island.

UOJ Is Nothing Less Than Mainline Apostasy - The Last Belch of Halle University Doctrine

 2138 has left a new comment on your post "The Eighth Sunday after Trinity. Luther's Sermons ...":

"If you even fall into despair and depression, your conscience accusing you (with the help of Old Scratch), there is but one remedy. Do you believe Christ died to pay for your sins? If so, then your sins are all forgiven, forgotten, and absolved."

vs.

"If forgiveness were dependent on faith in the same sense that God does not forgive until we believe, we would always have to be sure that we are believers before we would be sure that we are forgiven. We may not see how dangerous that is until one of those moments of temptation and doubt comes to us in which we no longer know that we are believers. In such a time we will have no place to go unless we can say, 'God has told me that in Christ he has forgiven the sins of the world. My faith or my unbelief will neither make God's word true or untrue. He does not lie. He justifies the ungodly (Romans 4:5). Even if I am the most ungodly, the most wicked man on earth, I know that he has justified and forgiven me. To that promise I will cling, even if my heart tells me that I am without faith, without love, without hope. I know that God is greater than my heart and knows all things (1 John 3:20).' Only the doctrine of universal justification makes it possible for a believing child of God to have such a sure foundation for his faith." (Siegbert Becker, "Universal Justification," Our Great Heritage, p. 60, emphasis mine)

 I can't wrap my mind around Becker's convoluted reasoning.

Why is it necessary for me to trust in Christ's universal forgiveness, when I can just trust in Christ who died to pay for my sins?

If I deny that God has forgiven my unbelieving neighbor, but that one is only forgiven and justified by faith, a Lutheran pastor will tell me that I am not teaching God's Word correctly?

Why are people being excommunicated for telling pastors that unbelievers are going to go to hell, and that no amount of "universal forgiveness" is going to do them any good?

 Why hold out a "universal forgiveness" carrot to the unbeliever? What will he care that he's "forgiven"? He needs to hear the cold, hard facts of the Law to break his stony heart, and then the sweet Gospel message of a Savior crucified and risen for him will, with the Holy Spirit's work through water and Word, wash over and bring forgiveness and life to the ungodly.

With faith, with Christ's righteousness covering him, now God sees perfection. Without faith, without Christ's righteousness, God still sees sin.

If universal justification is true, then God must see Christ's perfection covering everyone.

That's a problem, because whoever does not believe will be condemned. So although God sees perfection in the unbeliever, off to eternal condemnation he goes. So much for being universally justified and forgiven.

***

GJ -UOJ is terribly convenient for those who passionately believe nothing. They can denounce faith in the name of orthodoxy, even though they contradict themselves at every turn.

The Christian Faith is one harmonious truth, but UOJ is a clever amalgamation of deceptions, accusations, and denials.

To paraphrase Paul Calvin Kelm, the oldest living college chaplain, UOJ starts with the (pseudo) Gospel and ends with the Law. First they announce all the snake-charmers, cannibals, and tree-worshipers are forgiven, absolved, and saved, via Universal Objective Justification. Next they lay down their law unmercifully, denouncing and condemning and excommunicating. WELS has just attained a new record - more invented laws than actual members.

Missouri has just reprinted Harrison's At Home in the Deceptions about My Fathers.Walther and his chosen disciple, F. Pieper, laid down a Halle University smokescreen over the doctrine of justification by faith. Both came from German Pietistic unionism, which they forced upon Loehe's original group, excommunicating Loehe and anyone else who disagreed with their sect.

The current situation of the Synodical Conference reminds me of three drunks trying to stagger down the road together, using one another for mutual unsteady support.

I asked one WELS member, "Do you realize your synod writes checks to ELCA?"

"No."

I suggested, "Look in the back of your hymnal for credits to Lutheran Book of Worship, owned by ELCA. Everything from ELCA is licensed and paid for, because of copyrights. Like Missouri, WELS is paying for all those portions of their hymnals and liturgies borrowed from ELCA."

The holier-than-WELS Little Sect on the Prairie has done the same thing. So, while excommunicating me by thought, word, and deed for telling the truth, the Syn Conference embraces ELCA and enriches it with cash, still pretending they look down upon the organization they work with so well.

Rebuke Them Sharply, That They May Be Sound in Faith: Forgotten Words in an Age of Apostasy

The namby-pambies have brought about the apocalypse of the visible church, never rebuking correctly with the Word of God, but always rebuking with the word of man.  KJV Matthew 19:13 Then were there brought unto him little children, that he should put his hands on them, and pray: and the disciples rebuked them. 14 But Jesus said, Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven.

KJV Mark 8:32 And he spake that saying openly. And Peter took him, and began to rebuke him. 33 But when he had turned about and looked on his disciples, he rebuked Peter, saying, Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men.

KJV Luke 23:39 And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him, saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. 40 But the other answering rebuked him, saying, Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

KJV Hebrews 12:5 And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him:

KJV 1 Timothy 5:20 Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear. 21 I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality.

KJV 2 Timothy 4:1 I charge thee therefore before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall judge the quick and the dead at his appearing and his kingdom; 2 Preach the word; be instant in season, out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort with all longsuffering and doctrine. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables. 5 But watch thou in all things, endure afflictions, do the work of an evangelist, make full proof of thy ministry.

KJV Titus 1:13 This witness is true. Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith.

KJV Titus 2:15 These things speak, and exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no man despise thee.

---

narrow-minded has left a new comment on your post "Rebuke Them Sharply, That They May Be Sound in Fai...":

Matthew 7:15-23 was our Gospel reading for today. This is in the same vein. Those false prophets, who brag about what they do for Jesus in their self-impressed pietism, will hear, "I never knew you; depart from me." "Look at me, Jesus," will result in a reply of, "I'm not impressed."

A family member of mine, who likes to get little digs and jabs in from time to time, is on the Beth Moore "doctrine divides" kick. The Trinity is doctrine. The Incarnation is doctrine, as are the Cross and the empty tomb. Christ's two natures are just silly doctrine which divides? This is the point of our Gospel for today. What one believes about Jesus is infinitely more important than what one does for Jesus.

This is another consequence of the "flavor-of-the-week" pietism of UOJ, Arminianism, Calvinism, and Anabaptism. This is why we keep the Three Creeds, because this is a summary of the Christian Faith and our doctrine, the Bible in a nutshell, if you will. This is why Word and Sacrament are central to the Christian Faith. It really is all about our Triune God and what He does for us. Any good works we sin-tainted creatures do are still all about Jesus.

***

GJ - Doctrine does divide - the sheep from the goats.