Kelmed from Joseph Schmidt.
ICHABOD, THE GLORY HAS DEPARTED - explores the Age of Apostasy, predicted in 2 Thessalonians 2:3, to attack Objective Faithless Justification, Church Growth Clowns, and their ringmasters. The antidote to these poisons is trusting the efficacious Word in the Means of Grace. John 16:8. Isaiah 55:8ff. Romans 10. Most readers are WELS, LCMS, ELS, or ELCA. This blog also covers the Roman Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodoxy, and the Left-wing, National Council of Churches denominations.
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Parochial versus a University Education
LP Cruz was astonished Jay Webber had such a poor grasp of academics. Many Shrinkers have shown the same ignorance in different forms.
All this comes from a parochial education, which is why one WELS leader would like all the parochial schools shut down.
Parochial is synonymous with "close-minded" for a reason. As I mentioned to LP, each Lutheran seminary teaches its students to worship the fill-in-the-blank synod. ELCA too! May God have mercy on those who question the synod, because no one else will.
In the ELS and WELS, the only requirement to teach is an MDiv from their unaccredited seminary. Pope John the Malefactor did not even have an MDiv or a bachelor's degree when he was hired to teach New Testament at the Little School on the Prairie.
Joe Krohn and his bunch howl that I studied at Yale and Notre Dame. But a real university does not seek to convert someone overtly or force a student to share the same concepts as the instructors. That often happens because many graduate students never leave school and gladly follow the easiest path. However, Ralph Bohlmann's claim to fame was a PhD at Yale where he examined the theology of the Lutheran Confessions. They did not ask him to become a Congregationalist or worse.
Likewise, I had Hauerwas (Methodist) and Yoder (Mennonite) and Gleason (Roman Catholic) as doctoral advisors at Notre Dame. They were interested in whether I did a thorough job in research, not in rebaptizing me as Methodist, Mennonite, or Catholic. Was I harmed by having world-famous theologians as teachers? I think not.
I enjoyed discussing Lutheran doctrine in a room full of Catholic students, with two liberal professors leading the class. They were often far more receptive to Luther's doctrine than the ELS, Missouri, and WELS clergy I have known. One priest from that program, a PhD in liturgy, reminds me annually that he is still reading the set of Luther that I gave him.
Those who suffer from a parochial education never get over their need to find security in the canons of their own little group. WELS rests its confidence on the essay files at the Sausage Factory. One essay, on Church Growth, is by an avowed atheist. Another is by New Age theologian Mark Jeske.
The Little Sect on the Prairie (ELS) likes to act superior to WELS, more confessional, etc. They engage in the same tactics.
I have discussed this with several laymen, who scratch their heads over the obvious inconsistencies in ELS/WELS/LCMS arguments for UOJ. That does not matter to the Stormtroopers, because questioning UOJ is the deadly third rail of synodical politics.
"He denies UOJ!" is the ultimate accusation among these poor, deluded, confused Enthusiasts.
Stepping outside their little circle is doom in their eyes, because doom is good for their income.
The clergy are socialistic. If they can reduce their numbers, they have a greater chance to get the plush non-pastoral jobs. "Ah, no more catechism class. No more preaching, except the same sermon over and over as a guest. No more home visitations. Instead, people will visit ME and bow down in humility."
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Tim Felt-Needs:
"On Contemporary Lutheranism
In terms of contemporary Lutheranism there is nothing new out there to speak too (sic)."
ELCA Follows WELS Pattern of Back-door Ordination: Wauwatosa Lives!
News Releases
ELCA NEWS SERVICE
March 9, 2010
ELCA Bishops Reach Consensus on 'ELM' Pastors, More Review Needed
10-086-JB
ITASCA, Ill. (ELCA) -- The Conference of Bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) reached a consensus March 8 on a draft proposal for a rite that would bring onto the church's official clergy roster those pastors who were ordained and are on the clergy roster of "Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM)." ELM "expands ministry opportunities for people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the Lutheran church," according to its Web site.
The ELCA Conference of Bishops is an advisory body of the church, consisting of the ELCA's 65 synod bishops plus the presiding bishop and ELCA secretary. It met here March 4-9.
The draft proposal, "Reception onto the Roster of Ordained Ministers," recognizes and affirms the ministry of ELM pastors. It is not the rite of ordination, though it uses patterns and texts adapted from the authorized ELCA rite, including the laying on of hands and prayer by synod bishops. It is intended for use with "individuals who have experienced an ordination that this church has not yet recognized," according to the draft.
The draft proposal will now undergo internal and external review, said the Rev. Robert G. Schaefer, executive for worship, ELCA Worship and Liturgical Resources. After review conference members will be consulted about final form before the proposed rite is sent to the ELCA Church Council for consideration, he said. The council, the ELCA's board of directors and interim legislative authority between assemblies, could consider a final proposed rite at its meeting in Chicago next month.
Schaefer explained that such a rite would have a specific, restricted, limited use. The conference was told that there are 17 ELM pastors who could seek to be on the official ELCA clergy roster.
Under the draft proposal, ELM candidates would be received onto the roster of the ELCA after fulfillment of all requirements needed for approval by an official clergy candidacy committee within a synod, said the Rev. Margaret G. Payne, bishop of the ELCA New England Synod, Worcester, Mass. Candidacy committees help guide all clergy candidates on behalf of the ELCA from the time they consider a call to the ministry through their seminary years. Pastors who were not ordained in the ELCA also work with candidacy committees, though the process may be shorter.
"After formal approval these people would be received at a service of worship, (with) the laying on of hands and prayer by a synod bishop," Payne said on a behalf of a committee of bishops appointed to prepare the draft rite following a preliminary discussion by the conference March 6.
"All of us without exception felt it was utterly important and essential that there be the laying on of hands and prayer as a part of a rite," she explained. "We know there are some people who would like to use the word ordination -- we are not saying the candidates will be ordained -- but we are suggesting that we use words in the authorized rite that replicate the promises of ordination, and will in fact be words from the ordination rite."
The conference took up the ELM issue as part of its work following decisions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis. That assembly approved proposals that would create the possibility for Lutherans in committed, publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA clergy and professional lay leaders.
ELM pastors follow the same educational process and credentialing procedure that ELCA clergy follow. Many are serving congregations, anticipating the possibility of becoming ELCA pastors when the church changed its policies regarding professional service in the ELCA.
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, recommended the draft proposal to his colleagues. He explained that the draft proposal needed to meet specific criteria. One was a desire for reconciliation with ELM pastors "who long to be fully recognized as ordained ministers of the ELCA." Another was that the draft proposal needed to be recognized by the Lutheran World Federation "as consistent with our understanding of ministry as we have understood it in the Lutheran confessions and history." Third, he said it was important that the draft proposal honor the ELCA's six full communion agreements.
The ELCA maintains full-communion agreements with the Episcopal Church, Moravian Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Reformed Church in America, United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church. Full-communion agreements provide for mutual recognition of each other's ministries, provide for exchange of clergy in certain circumstances, and encourage sharing of ministries by the churches.
***
GJ - I am trying to figure out exactly what ELCA wants to do. They seem to want quasi-ordination because ordination would go against their concept of a second ordination. At the same time, they want to insert these people into the roster of ELCA with a patina of respectability. This will only increase the number of congregations exiting ELCA, which is good.
I call this Wauwatosa theology because the same justifications have been used to promote the ordination of male teachers and the crypto-ordination of women. Everyone is a minister in WELS. The Wauwatosa claim is - the Gospel creates its own forms.
An elderly layman put it this way: "This is an adiaphoron. That is an adiaphoron. Pretty soon everything is adiaphora." (Hint for Mequon students: adiaphora means "matters of indifference.") In two words, Wauwatosa means "Anything goes!"
WELS has a woman organizing and conducting a worship service at Latte Lutheran. The women "staff ministers" consecrated and distributed Holy Communion, yet the fake blogger howled that I was lying about women pastors in WELS.
The Shrinkers always howl when I hit the target. Of course, that is like hunting cows with a bazooka.
I think Jay Webber, MDiv, is on the ELS doctrine board. He warns people against paying attention to what I write. But the ELS and WELS could not even condemn the crypto-ordination of women. They only asked for a moratorium, a delay!
That is how ELCA worked out their issue. They backtracked and winked at what was going on in many different congregations, publicly stating they were "under discipline" while confessing later they were working with those congregations as equals all along. All the studies and statements were a delay until they could muster the votes needed. They also wanted a few elderly bishops out of the way.
Suspicions Confirmed - Satan at Work at Antichrist's Home Office
From
March 10, 2010
Chief exorcist Father Gabriele Amorth says Devil is in the Vatican
(Giulio Napolitan/AFP/Getty Images)
Don Gabriele Amorth is the chief exorcist at the Vatican
Image :1 of 2
Ask a Former Calvinist
Extra Nos
Lastly, Brett's point about Election and the quote of Romans 8:28-30 is relevant, of which I thought about this morning. If justification has already occurred for all, outside of faith as OJ teaches, then justification has occurred prior to calling. This contradicts the chain of redemption passage, to wit... whom he foreknew, he predestined, whom he predestined, he called, whom he called, he justified...etc.
If people are justified already, then the order says, whom he predestined, he justified, whom he justified he calls.
Have you studied Calvinism yourself? In Calvinist theology, justification or being saved(along with regeneration) occurs prior to faith. What Walther said - saved to believe.
This is why I respectfully say - as an ex-Calvinist, the way UOJ/OJ is articulated and what it implies is really operating on the paradigm of Calvinism.
Calvinists equate justification with atonement, seeing that justification is particular and since the two are the same, pulls the atonement on the justification side, hence, they conclude atonement must be limited.
UOJ does the same above, but since atonement is universal and since it is equal to justification pulls justification to the side of atonement and hence, justification is universal.
The point I make and why I am in consternation is that UOJ is doing the same effectively as what Calvinism is doing.
I left Calvinism! I do not want to go back to its way of thinking.
LPC
ELCA - The Only Religion Left Is Green
I was speaking to a Jewish engineer once, and he said, "The only religion left is green." That was 20 years ago.
He might have said, "The only Left religion is green."
ELCA has proven that concept.
Lent and Easter, according to ELCA, are all about the environment!
Welcome to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Lenten e-mail series, Living Earth: A 40-day Reflection on our Relationship with God's Creation. This year’s theme, “Joining the Hymn of All Creation” reminds us that our relationship with our neighbors, our world, and all creatures, great and small, is a gift of communion given us by God from creation’s beginning. In Genesis we hear the call to “tend and keep” the earth (Genesis 2:15), but in our sin we have turned our backs on the call to be God’s stewards and have rejected the gift of living as part of one whole, healthy earth community. As Lutheran ethicist Larry Rasmussen notes “[w]e are most ourselves when we are most intimate with the rivers, mountains, forests, meadows, sun, moon, stars, air, soil, rocks, otherkind, and humankind.”[1]
ELCA has been unusually concerned with otherkind lately. And yet they overlook the nature-based argument against their latest policy change. They should spend more time down to the farm.
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