The Dumbing Down of the Synods and Denominations

Jungkuntz chaired the Seminex board, a portable seminary that became
the official school for the gay Metropolican Community Church sect - 100% gay.
Thus this WELS-LCMS-ALC leader became the chairman of the first
gay Lutheran seminary. That influence continues in ELCA, WELS, Missouri, and the ELS.
Note that Seminex was populated with Concordia, St. Louis faculty,
the ones who walked out and encouraged students to steal the library books.
One Seminex student said to me, "Those were our books!"

Richard Jungkuntz called himself "old school," for the New York Times and mourned the loss of respect for teachers that his father enjoyed. Martin Marty made the same point.

That generation led the Long March through the denominations, appearing to retreat at times - like their hero Mao - but actually regrouping to take over the culture. And they did.

Nothing claimed about the American decline is alien from what the mainline denominations have wrought. They pioneered what the ruling class now certifies as 100% good. The denominations look at the fruit of their labors and make it even worse.

The cause of this calamity among Lutherans is singular: ignorance of Biblical Lutheran doctrine. There is an old principle in sales that also applies to doctrine. If a sales trainer cannot sell, no matter what his words of wisdom suggest, his trainees will not learn to sell. If he has certain hang-ups, such as hating to phone or fearing the close, they will absorb the same quirks and weaknesses.

Applying that to Lutherans, we can see how the seminaries and colleges have been downgrades in service to Holy Mother Synod. I met the Philadelphia (LCA) seminary professor who published an article their Lutheran magazine, showing that homosexuality was against nature and therefore wrong.
That was about 1981. Now Philadelphia and Gettysburg have failed to such an extent, with all lavender faculties, that they now have merged organically while keeping the names. They wanted to fire more professors but had to backtrack a bit.

The Gospel of forgiveness is revealed from the faith of Jesus (Romans, Galatians, Philippians) to the faith of believers who have been converted by the Spirit at work in the Word of God. The Lutheran leaders, who never stop lecturing and writing about their ignorance, cannot teach the basics of Biblical doctrine. They are not stewards of the mysteries of God, but salesmen of the methods of Fuller Seminary.

These leaders do not trust the Word and do not believe in the Gospel as it is revealed in the Bible. Instead, they talk about themselves, their corporations, their need for money, and their great humility. The only things they do not publish are:

• Their crimes, 
• Their apologies for false doctrine, or
• Their actual expenditures of money, from offerings, Thrivent, and foundations.

These leaders - with inadequate training - speak on their own authority. They claim eternal verities without the least bit of Biblical support. Most of the time they are teaching directly against the Scriptures. At other times they are improving and clarifying matters, so the articles of faith can be dispensed with later, thanks to those precious amendments. Thus the resurrection of Jesus expresses the "Easter faith of the disciples," meaning - it never happened.

If you think that cannot happen in your hyper-Pietistic sect, ask yourself how many things have been justified because, "According to research from Fuller Seminary..." One might as well say "the Pope" instead.

When I listen to these people blabbering, or read their pernicious works, I wonder if they could teach the basics of Luther's Small Catechism. They clearly reject the Large Catechism, which any layman can read with edification - and teach to others.

But if the leaders cannot explain correctly how one comes to faith, or what the efficacy of the Word means to all our work, then how can the callow seminarians grasp anything more than the current fads: guitars, cheap keyboards, and statistical models.

The Scriptures

The way the LCMS and WELS tumbled for the original, classic NIV is typical of the growing ignorance. No one had enough knowledge or spine to oppose this move, which worsened with the New NIV. The pattern of ignorance and cowardice continued.

Someone asked me about translations. Oddly enough, the super-pietistic holier-than-me ELDONA group was using the New KJV, which is fairly Babtist in all the key passages. They were not united in that, either, because one pastor likes the Calvinist RSV marketed as the ESV. (Paul McCain does too!) 

In the area where Lutherans should be most careful, they are especially lax. God help the person who disobeys Holy Mother Sects Chief Dogma (the infallibility of the sect itself) but everything else is up for grabs. That is what we should expect in the Age of Apostasy. The most important articles are neglected while matters of indifference are raised to canonical status.

Moreover, ELDONA (aka Jim Heiser, STM) filled with wrath at the mere appearance of my books, including a concise comparison of translations, which indicted their Babtist New KJV.

Those are the same dudes who had no problem with UOJ for over a decade. Real bright bulbs - or just opportunists?

As far as I can see - the only Bibles to use today are the

1. KJV - my favorite, the only one I use,
2. KJV21 - a very slight modernization, or
3. Third Millennium Bible - another slight modernization.

We are not having a debate because all of us in the world-wide Church of the Augsburg Confession appreciate the KJV and feel no reason to look elsewhere. If people wanted to discuss this topic, we would look at all the key passages in the KJV21 and TMB, keeping in mind that the KJV is also slightly modernized.

But let us face the truth - the Lutheran leaders do not care about the teaching of the Scriptures. They cannot preach from it or teach it to to others.