I get quite a few emails, but I do not mention the names of the writers, for various reasons. Unfortunately, my doctrinal opponents have a tendency to pound anyone suspected of being my friend. I know of two Facebook examples where FB friends fell under suspicious because they knew me.
If you want to waterboard some people, do not skip these FB friends of mine: Waldo Werning, Herman Otten, Gerry Kieschnick, etc. I was alarmed to find that one Church Growth leader and I had 70 mutual friends. Either I or they must be more careful.
Pastor Foster writes me long emails, expecting me to answer a lot of things. He also makes suggestions. Although he can be annoying at times, he is willing to sign his name. Besides that, he strikes me as being less riled up at what I am saying.
To answer a few things - No, I will not list acceptable Lutherans who are alive and working. The reason is - retaliation by the Shrinkers and UOJ fanatics.
Another question was bound to come up. How are Tillich and Bonhoeffer Nazi sympathizers?
The Fortress Press bio of Tillich (a friendly but revealing one, by his friend) described how he wrote back to Germany about getting a teaching job because he was one of the pioneers of the national socialist movement. The author hastened to say this was baloney, since Tillich was no more than a coffee shop talker. Tillich was dismissed from his teaching post when Hitler came to power. He came to Union Seminary in NYC soon after. I suspect he was lonesome for Germany and burdened with trying to make it in academics in a new society where he had to learn English. Being fired did not make him a Hitler enemy, but that probably looked good on his resume once the war started.
The Bonhoeffer information came from a huge bio about him. I do not own it at this point. The book made this point - that Bonhoeffer was not against the Nazi movement, just against Hitler.
I imagine anyone could dispute the two stories. History is messy and easy to debate. But I did not make up the information.
The more I read, the more I see how two different worlds exist. There is the world that really happened and the world portrayed by thumbnail histories and PR blitzes.
For example, JFK was married before he wed Jackie. The stories are well known. The woman he married kept silent about it. When someone brought up Nixon during the campaign, the family's cardinal brought up Jack's first marriage, which was erased from the books but not dissolved by marriage.
I did see one TV show about Jack's first marriage. I have read about the facts in various books. No TV feature will deal with it - not that it matters much now. But most of history is just like that.
Lastly, I use the term apostate in the New Testament sense - one who has fallen away from the faith after being a believer. Foster is correct - it is a popular term today. The Braaten-Jenson gang used to employ it from time to time. But this is the Age of Apostasy, and Ichabod is a blog about apostasy.
