ELCA Giving Up

ELCA Assembly Receives Report on Financial Status of the Church
07-CWA-018-AL


CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The 2007 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) received reports Aug. 8 on the financial status of the denomination and of the Mission Investment Fund of the ELCA.

The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 6-11 at Navy Pier's Festival Hall. About 2,000 people are participating, including 1,071 ELCA voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly is "Living in God's Amazing Grace: Thanks be to God!"

"Over the past two and a half years, we have seen quite favorable financial results, including increasing operating income, increasing world hunger income and unprecedented giving to disaster response," said Christina Jackson-Skelton, ELCA treasurer.

In 2006 mission support -- unrestricted income from congregations through the 65 synods of the ELCA to the churchwide organization -- increased for the first time since 2001. Jackson-Skelton cautioned that "the level of increases is not yet sufficient to maintain the real value of our grants and other supports."

In contrast, she also highlighted generous giving to the ELCA World Hunger Appeal and Lutheran Disaster Response, noting that fiscal year 2006 saw "the largest single-year increase in World Hunger receipts since 1999" and that between fiscal years 2005 and 2006, an unprecedented $46.2 million was received for disaster response. Of the money received for disaster response, $31.8 million was designated for response to the Gulf Coast hurricanes, she said.

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GJ - The treasurer is not related to Mrs. Ichabod, who does not hyphenate her name.

As always, the facts are fudged. No one fudges faster than ELCA. Income has always been less than the ALC and LCA budgets combined, before merger. Adjusting for inflation, ELCA income has gone down steadily since 1987.

The LCMS and WELS have been following ELCA's doctrinal lead, budget manipulations, and disastrous results for decades. WELS probably has the least amount of cash and credit to get by. All three have embraced Fuller Seminary and Romanism to some degree. ELCA and Missouri seem to be most likely to produce more Roman Catholic priests. WELS is closer to Baptist and Pentecostal worship and practice. The clergy learn this stuff in their seminaries.

Which denomination will ordain women next? Missouri is loudly promoting the move. WELS is quietly instigating the same measures.

CGM Dropout

We told friends we were taking someone to Grease. They were impressed. "Greece! That will be exciting." No, Grease. So I was inspired to write this parody. Sophisticates may wince at the quality of the verse, but the original was not exactly Shakespeare (as Oxford styled himself).

CGM Dropout - to the tune of Beauty School Dropout

Your story sad to tell,
A pastor ne'er do well,
Most mixed up non-Reformed kid on the block!
Your future is so clear now,
What's left of your career now?
Can't even get a job that’s worth a hoot!

Angels: (La lalala lalala lalala...)

CGM dropout,
Your handshake is like ice,.
CGM dropout,
A mistress would be nice.
Well at least you could have taken time, to fix and pad your vita,
After spending all that dough to go to Pasadena.


Reverend get moving (Reverend get movin),
Why keep your feeble hopes alive?
What are you proving (What are you provin)?
You're not loyal to the hive.

If you market what we have, you could be our new fool.
Forget the Book of Concord and go back to our School. (Fuller)

CGM dropout (CGM dropout),
Hanging around the conferences.
CGM dropout (CGM dropout),
It's about time you knew the score.

Well they couldn't teach you anything,
You think you’ve got a D.Min.
But no call will come to you unless you think and talk like vermin!

Reverend don't sweat it (Don't sweat it),
You're not cut out get a call.
Better forget it (Forget it),
Church Growth is all in all.

Now your Luther’s old, your Chemnitz’ bold, your doctrine is outrageous.
You still won’t get our nod until your parish is contagious!

Junior don't blow it,
Don't put my good advice to shame.
Junior you know it,
Even Valleskey’d say the same!

Now I've called the shot, get off the block, I really gotta fly!
Gotta be going to that beehive, in the sky!

CGM dropout (CGM dropout)
Go back to Fuller
CGM dropout (CGM dropout)
At least to Willow Creek
CCM dropout (CMG dropout)
Go back to Fuller.

Skunkpatch - LutherQuest (sic)

Norman Teigen has left a new comment on your post "Synod Minders in the Congregation":

Skunk Patch. I really like that one.

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GJ - The reference is to LutherQuest (sic), aka SpenerQuest.

Rejoicing in Legalism

The old Synodical Conference (LCMS, WELS, ELS) had several doctrinal problems uniting them:
1. Universal Objective Justification - This is the fraud that God declared the whole world free of sin when Jesus died on the cross, without faith, without the Word, without the Means of Grace.
2. Receptionism - The elements of Holy Communion are not the Body and Blood of Christ until the believers receive them. This should be known as the doctrine of the efficacy of the hands.
3. Legalism - Instead of teaching God's Law, which prepares us for the Gospel, legalism splits hairs about everything and ultimately teaches salvation through the law, abeit man-made law.

All three errors are the bitter fruit of denying the efficacy of the Word, which was central to Luther's doctrine, the Scriptures, and the Book of Concord. The generation of theologians following the Concordists also made the efficacy the Word central to their teaching.

Let's look at the current state of legalism in the old Synodical Conference, now united once again - Oh Happy Day - through its work with ELCA.

Partners of the old Synod Conference spent an inordinate amount of time defining what they could and could not get away with. Legalism is wonderful that way. The farther they can get away from the Scriptures, the happier they are. Soon they are quoting the previous generation of writers, who become Holy Writ.

The new mantra is Outside the Framework of Fellowship. If I were to be invited to speak to a WELS conference, the hissy-fits would never end. But if Leonard Sweet, a liberal Methodist minister, teaches the Word to WELS, the occasion is Outside the Framework of Fellowship.

Martin Marty, once condemned by WELS, can address their college and their evangelism conference (Florida) because it is Outside the Framework of Fellowship.

They can work with John Nunes as the new head of Lutheran World Relief, even though Nunes joined ELCA after leaving an enormous LCMS scandal (his homosexual LCMS then ELCA organist murdering and burning an older lady). LWR is not concerned with gathering old clothes for the Third World. LWR is also involved in Left-wing political activism, but that is Outside the Framework of Fellowship.

Soon someone will ask for Outside the Framework of Fellowship to be studied by WELS. They will knit their brows, pick the most ecumenical of their apostate clergy, add one posturing conservative, and produce a statement of rare and precious casuistry. Whenever someone objects after that, they will cite their study.

Milwaukee locutus est, causa finita est. St. Augustine of Waukesha

Translation:The Love Shack has spoken, the case is closed.

Synod Minders in the Congregation

The synods only have power through the call system, simply because congregations let the synod officials bully them. A congregation can call anyone, but usually the parish surrenders all power to a synod hack who decides otherwise. The Missouri Synod is an exception. I have heard that some LCMS congregations have called a new pastor before the District Pope knew there was a vacancy.

Synod minders report to the synod, and pastors know it. One WELS pastor said his principal had reports of the voters' meeting at synod headquarters soon after it was over.

I was talking to a pastor who was friends with Herman Otten. We stopped at his church on a whim, just because it was unusual and very large. The pastor told me how much he liked my Church Growth articles. I was making additional comments against Church Growth when he made it very clear not to continue. Someone was nearby in the hall. So I changed the subject. The bigger the church, the more fragile the call can be, in these evil times.

My mother's LCA pastor mentioned being pro-life (about 20 years ago) at a meeting. Correction, his wife casually said something against abortion. This church had thousands of members, one of the largest in North America. The pastor was a real smoothy and popular. Nevertheless, he retired suddenly within one month. Was it the abortion remark? There was no hint of scandal and he was a good pastor, as LCA pastors go. (Today he would be hounded out of WELS for having a liturgical service.)

Synodical influence seems to work in only one direction. Most people think that a pastor having a father on a national board would help. Just the opposite is true. Daddy is on the board because he is known as a get-along-go-along guy. If his son starts to stray into mild dissent, the synodical officials pound the father. "Your son's career is in danger." The father pounds the son. "Your career is over if you associate with those trouble-makers." The son capitulates and proves his loyalty by betraying his conservative friends.

Synod officials are enormously destructive. If they spent as much time studying doctrine as they do with gossip and meddling, there would be a Lutheran Church today. When a WELS district Vice Pope was caught in adultery, the pastor who exposed the crime was bullied by another district Vice Pope. That is why they are called Vice Pope (or Vice President in deference to their high office). They are in charge of vice.

One seminarian of the Little Sect on the Prairie (ELS) wrote that Orvick and Peterson went around the synod, stomping out orthodoxy wherever they found it. Later, he denied saying this on LutherQuest (sic). So I reprinted his email. I was suprised he was studying at Bethany and writing for the SkunkPatch, as my WELS friend calls LQ, and I warned him about the consequences. Soon he was no longer at the seminary.

Little Sect on the Prairie officials are so worried that a thinking man might enter their seminary that they expressly forbid good students from being there. The shortage of pastors in America is not a problem. Soon there will be a complete lack of orthodox pastors.

Lutheran clergy are rapidly falling into two categories - Fuller/Willow Creek clones or Smells-and-Bells priests aching to join Rome.

If a minister is their buddy and enjoying a mistress, the synod officials deny knowledge of this and defend the bounder. If a DP is molesting children in his congregation, they let this go one for decades and never report his arrest to the synod. But they look for every opportunity to oust a minister who makes them unhappy for any reason. Everyone should get the same treatment and enjoy due process instead of Stalinistic show trials for dissenters. Clergy adulterers and molesters should enjoy a fair process before being tortured and hanged, whether they are conservative or liberal.

Surviving clergy are political. They say to themselves, "I will get no protection and no new call if I associate with the conservatives." Congregations say to each other, "Boo hoo. What will become of us if Pope John the Malefactor boots us out?" The result is an acceleration of corruption.

Still Cannot Read or Count

(Brom Bones)
I don't think you are capable of discerning intell... I don't think you are capable of discerning intelligent opposition - since anyone who disagrees with you is, by your definition, ignorant.

The quickest way to silence debate is by ridiculing those who disagree and refusing to provide an open forum for discussion. Oh, that's right - just what you've accused WELS of doing. Hmm!

(Brom Bones) 6:46 AM
Not sure how you decided that this means I can't r... Not sure how you decided that this means I can't read or count...Would you like to provide some concrete facts instead of opinion?

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GJ: Cannot count - various people have posted in support of this blog, not just one.

Cannot read - see above. Count them up and read their comments. Several have used their own names. The Fiends (probably one guy) are anonymous. A WELS pastor's wife and a WELS professor's daughter have more courage than you. They wrote emails and signed their names. The professor's daughter called me a bunch of names and said I violated the 8th Commandment. I guess she was taught Church Growth Principles instead of Luther's Catechism.

Cannot read - part II. This is not a forum to provide anonymous juveniles the chance to name-call and use obscenities, as if that would prove WELS is perfect after all.