Monday, March 25, 2013

Easter Bunny WELS Services Are Hard To Find on Google, But I Found This




I found this Patterson hagiography by one of his former vicars. The essay confirmed that WELS pays for Patterson's vicars, in spite of the congregation being wealthy and well established, with Kudu Don enjoying safaris in Africa.

I missed the part about his Church and Change leadership, his trip with church workers to Exponential in Florida, and the drunken Holy Word "spiritual retreats" where the ladies bet on who will puke her guts out first.

God made him District President, to punish WELS for its apostasy.
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bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Easter Bunny WELS Services Are Hard To Find on Goo...":

Parody comic on the Tricks cereal advert: "Silly rabbit. Tricks are for kids":

http://sphotos-a.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/c0.0.403.403/p403x403/299256_446156618793018_418089520_n.png


WELS - What Is For Sale at St. Peter and The CORE During Holy Week?
Pizza Made $3,000. Chocolate Is Now For Sale.
What Better Way To Honor the Risen Christ?


St. Peter, Freedom (Tim Glende) has a $1 million budget and is adding on more school space, but WELS had to fund its $500,000+ purchase of a bankrupt bar in downtown Appleton.


Ski has not let his double-secret-probation get him down.
He is currently working as a body double for Cardinal Dolan.

Denominational Leaders Are Not Atheists - But Worse - Apostates at War Against Their Own Confession of Faith


Internet research lands me on many posts where the authors are atheists finding every opportunity to mock and attack the Christian faith.

Looking over the leadership of the Roman Catholics, Episcopalians, and Lutherans, I am tempted to call them atheists too - but that would be too kind.

They are really apostates, who once believed in the basics of the Christian religion but now hate those articles of faith. Apostasy means "falling away" so the only people who qualify are those who once believed.

This falling away is a sign of the End Times. 2 Thessalonians 2.


KJV 2 Thessalonians 2:3 Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there
come a falling away [apostasy] first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

The groundwork was laid with textual criticism from several frauds - Wescott, Hort, Tischendorf. From that came free-form paraphrases of the Bible in the name of dynamic equivalence. Various agendas, such as evolution, feminism, and pan-sexualism were attached. All this was excused under the guise of everyone being forgiven whether they believed anything or not, a religion for apostates but not much of an attraction for atheists.

This sound theory is easily tested in the religious marketplace. Try quoting Luther to a Lutheran leader today. He will begin with this kind of rant, "We believe in Jesus not Luther." More quotations will arouse even more wrath. What does he love? - marketing the Gospel. What does he read? - Napoleon Hill, Craig Groeschel, all the latest but nothing so Medieval as the Book of Concord.

Or - call upon an Episcopalian presiding bishop to recognize the most basic concepts of church, worship, and the faith - according to Episcopalian tradition and teaching, which is rather broad and tolerant. That presiding bishop, known as the goddess Kali the Destroyer, will file suit using your offering money and send you into Episcopal hell, with the help of her lavender friends.

Oh. Oh. There is a new pope. A Jesuit. Protestants are falling on their knees to pray for the latest Antichrist. That looks good on a blog, if someone has undergone brain or spine removal. The modern papacy is based upon the quasi-universalism of the Protestant Left (known to the Synodical Conference as UOJ).

Let me put my years of graduate school in modern theology at your disposal. Ever since Schleiermacher (Halle University) and his Pietist pals revised Christianity to define it as faith without belief, theologians have used stained glass words as a disguise to cover up their philosophical agenda. Like Schleiermacher, they believe almost nothing, but that does not sell books to the gullible public or generate endowed chairs.

Some call it modern theology. Catholics call it New Theology ( Rahner, etc). SynCon Lutherans calls it UOJ.  In spite of minor differences, it is all the same bucket of Dreck. They all work together because they are united by the same disbelief. Pope Francis is a Jesuit, an order known for its disbelief and man-love. His PR machine is working full-time, and the media is busy leveraging his lies.

Therefore, when dealing with any denominational leader, begin with this concept. He hates the very thing you wish to revive or preserve. He will tell any lie to stay in office, because he is highly paid and lightly worked. He is not only deceptive, but mean and vindictive. There is no crime--whether child rape or spousal murder--that he will not cover up if it serves Holy Mother Church. If the cardinals are not example enough, look at your own Synod President.


Sunday, March 24, 2013

Unpleasant Truths from Randall Schulz

Leave it to WELS to treat Thrivent Insurance salesmen to "divine calls."
That works for them, because they consider money a sacrament.


rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Demographic Timebomb for the Upper Midwestern Luth...":

There is an interesting irony in this. In spite of Wayne Mueller's denial over 20 years ago, the WELS and others have been chasing after new members via Church Growth methods for decades. Many of the younger prospects seems to be either absent (due to the demographics) or really not all that interested in CG gimmicks. Yet, the CGM was supposed to be all about the demographics. Several years ago, a researcher discovered that the typical demographic for those that listened to Contemptible Christian Music was a 48 year old white female.



True to form, the Planned Giving Counselors are trying to get the last drop of blood out of the baby boomer turnips. Their push for the irrevocable trusts and estate bequests will give them their last windfall. The younger generation will not see the success that the boomers had. Many of them grew up unchurched, from divorced parents and are saddled with educational debt.

Once again, the CGM has shown what a dismal failure it is. It would wrong to say that without the CGM, the local congregations would be overflowing.

The preaching of the Cross is foolishness to those who are perishing. But, those who rely upon methods would be pleasantly surprised if would trust in the Efficacy of the Word.


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GJ - The biggest traitors have been those Lutherans-in-Name-Only (John Seifert, Paul McCain, David Scaer, Jon Buchholz) who pretended to resist Church Growth while backing it 100%.

I could add a few whiners from the ELS, who "fight without discipline and run without shame."

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rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Unpleasant Truths from Randall Schulz":

Here is a link to an article about the under 40 group accumulating less than their parents:

http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2013/03/ny-times--1.html

Unitarian Universalists would prefer their polyamory activists keep quiet - The Washington Post

Thrivent already supports the Unitarians. Check with Brett Meyer for details.


Unitarian Universalists would prefer their polyamory activists keep quiet - The Washington Post:


Many Unitarians would prefer that their polyamory activists keep quiet


The joke about Unitarians is that they’re where you go when you don’t know where to go. Theirs is the religion of last resort for the intermarried, the ambivalent, the folks who want a faith community without too many rules. It is perhaps no surprise that the Unitarian Universalist Association is one of the fastest-growing denominations in the country, ballooning 15 percent over the past decade, when other established churches were shrinking. Politically progressive to its core, it draws from the pool of people who might otherwise be “nones” – unaffiliated with any church at all.
But within the ranks of the UUA over the past few years, there has been some quiet unrest concerning a small but activist group that vociferously supports polyamory. That is to say “the practice of loving and relating intimately to more than one other person at a time,” according to a mission statement by Unitarian Universalists for Polyamory Awareness (UUPA). The UUPA “encourages spiritual wholeness regarding polyamory,” including the right of polyamorous people to have their unions blessed by a minister.

UUA headquarters says it has no official position on polyamory. “Official positions are established at general assembly and never has this issue been brought to general assembly,” a spokeswoman says.

But as the issue of same-sex marriage heads to the Supreme Court, many committed Unitarians think the denomination should have a position, which is that polyamory activists should just sit down and be quiet. For one thing, poly activists are seen as undermining the fight for same-sex marriage. The UUA has officially supported same-sex marriage, the spokeswoman says, “since 1979, with tons of resolutions from the general assembly.”

Conservative opponents of same-sex marriage have long used the slippery-slope argument: If states are permitted to let two men or two women marry, then what’s to stop them from giving the same privilege to two men and one woman, or two women and one man? Or six? Or 12? Once you legitimize same-sex marriage, sociologist Peter Berger wrote on his blog in 2011, “you open the door to any number of other alternatives to marriage as a union of one man and one woman: polygamous (an interesting question for Muslims in Germany and dissident Mormons in Arizona), polyandrous, polygenerational – perhaps polyspecies?”
The Unitarians are so liberal that they’re playing right into conservative hands. And the conservative blogosphere has responded predictably: First Things has taken disapproving note of the trend, as has the American Conservative.
The debate also makes the whole denomination look silly. “Unitarian Universalism is so broad-minded that it has become flat-headed,” Michael Durall, then an editor of a UUA magazine (he no longer works with UUA groups), wrote in 2004. “This is an abdication of leadership leaving Unitarian Universalism vulnerable to ridicule. Jay Leno would have a field day with this one. Do we truly want to send the message to children, youth (especially!) and adults that having multiple sexual relationships is condoned by UU churches?”
The UUPA has received its share of attention over the years – a PBS interview, a San Francisco Chronicle article – but mostly it has caused anguish and dissent among Unitarians. In 2007, a Unitarian congregation in Chestertown, Md., heard a sermon by a poly activist named Kenneth Haslam, arguing that polyamory is the next frontier in the fight for sexual and marriage freedom. “Poly folks are strong believers that each of us should choose our own path in forming our families, forming relationships, and being authentic in our sexuality.”
Over coffee last week, a friend of mine who is studying to become a Unitarian minister wondered aloud how she would feel if folks in a future congregation asked her to perform a polyamorous commitment ceremony. She is a traditionalist; she’s glad, she says, that the issue hasn’t come up.
For Lisa Miller’s previous columns, go to www.washingtonpost.com/


'via Blog this'

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By HAYLEY HARMON
6 News Anchor/Reporter
KNOXVILLE (WATE) - The controversy continues tonight over the University of Tennessee's upcoming Sex Week.
UT Sex Week is a student-organized event covering a number of topics about sex, gender and sexuality.
After criticism from state lawmakers, the university pulled more than $11,000 worth of state funding for the event.
Now, supporters of Sex Week are working to make up that deficit, and they're getting some help from a Knoxville church.
Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church is located just down the street from UT's campus, and during their services Sunday morning, they're trying to be the best neighbors they can be.
They're donating 100 percent of the money collected during the service to help fund Sex Week.
"This is really a faith in action thing for us. The efforts of students at UT to offer that kind of programming is vitally important, and we see it as part of our ministry to support that," said Youth Religious Education Director Kim Mason, of TVUUC.
Organizers believe that open conversation about sexuality in a safe environment is essential.
"Supporting Sex Week can go a long way towards helping students better understand themselves and the community that they're in," said Mason.
TVUUC itself offers a comprehensive sex education program for members.
Church goers tell 6 News they are excited to help make Sex Week possible for UT students.
"They can choose not to have access to it. They don't have to go to any of these events, but if they want this kind of information then it should be provided," said TVUUC member Lizzie Roper, a former UT student.
Member Jeffrey Kovac, who is also a UT professor and sponsor of Sex Week, says while some of the event's content may be controversial, he sees it as necessary.
"It's true that there's some stuff that's a bit edgy, but there's a lot of stuff like talking about your virginity, how to talk to your doctor about sex, and how to talk to your parents about sex," said Kovac.
The donations from TVUUC mean a lot to Sex Week student coordinators.
"It was a really big shock to us to get that funding pulled and not get that support from our state and our administration, but then to see all these Knoxville community members help us out, it makes me feel really fulfilled," said Sex Week Co-Chair Brianna Rader.
TVUUC raised $870.62 on Sunday.
That money will go to the students behind Sex Week as early as Monday.
UT Sex Week is scheduled to take place April 5 through 12.
Sex Week is still receiving $6,700 from UT student programming money.
UT Chancellor Jimmy Cheek made the decision to withdraw the state funding.
A spokesperson for Cheek said he is not commenting beyond a released statement where he said: "We support the process and the students involved, but we should not use state funds in this manner."
He also said that the decision was Cheek's alone and that no approval process was necessary.
Campfield told 6 News Thursday that while denying state funds for Sex Week is a step in the right direction, he wants all funding to be withdrawn including the money from student programming.
"They're still using student dollars that are not something that kids have an opportunity or parents have an opportunity to opt out of," Campfield said. "I don't think that's something that the parents pay their kids tuition to go to school for."

Demographic Timebomb for the Upper Midwestern Lutherans -
Where Many Are Cold But Few Are Frozen

The cradle rock and roll is not going to change things.

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Daniel 5:25 And this is the writing that was writt...":

The states that the ELS and WELS are big in (WI, MI, SD, ND) have aging populations compared to the rest of the US. The median age is closing in on 40 in many states:

http://www.juiceanalytics.com/writing/census-data-in-google-earth/

http://georgevanantwerp.com/2008/08/07/median-us-age-now-379/

Median age, by state
The median age -- half the population is older, half younger -- for each state on July 1, 2009:

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/nation/census/median-age-by-state.htm

Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota have a lot of empty nesters:

http://www.upworthy.com/the-map-that-shows-you-what-america-really-looks-like?c=ufb1

Skeptical baby is not impressed with the numbers from Ski and Glende.

WELS Scandals Dominate Page-Views. ChurchMouse Gets 666 for the Week.
The Fifth Seal Has Been Opened

http://www.normaboecklerart.com
Top Ten for the Week - Links Are Embedded in the Titles

2266
666
264
103
92
86
77
73
58
55


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http://www.normaboecklerart.com