Monday, February 12, 2018

Gerberding Yes and No

 Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry

 This is a great book to read - everyone should know about Passavant.




No part of the church, least of all of the Lutheran Church, dare claim that she knows and understands all truth. A church or a section of the church that boasts and vaunts as if she had assimilated and embodied all the treasures of divine wisdom and knowledge only shows her Phariseeism and ignorance. The church and her people, even the wisest and best of them, must be ever willing and eager to learn. – 
George Henry Gerberding, from the Introduction to English Lutheranism in the Northwest by George Henry Trabert, copyright 1912 by the General Council, Philadelphia.
***
GJ - Funny how I often think of this, and the thought is often taken way too far into doctrinal indifference apostasy. I told the reader who sent this, from Gerberding, yes and no.
Gerberding showed a little too much enthusiasm for every church leader he admired - in one dedication. I recall him listing Oberlin and Spener, though Spener had his Luther-centric moments (far more often than WELS-LCMS-ELS leaders, who rate a zero). Spener was an early editor of Luther's sermons.
Gerberding contributed valuable works, which are often overlooked today, such as The Way of Salvation. Also,The Lutheran Pastor is very good, a perfect antidote for a visit from the lastest Fulleroid from the synod. (A Fulleroid is a veteran of Fuller who is a royal pain. It requires surgery.)
The Passavant book should be studied by all Lutheran pastors. He was a true hero of the Lutheran Church, helping entire synods, building institutions, emphasizing the Lutheran Confessions - not just talking about them.
He was one of the giant oaks of the Lutheran Church. Now we only have weeds.
 George H. Gerberding
(August 21, 1847–March 27, 1927). B. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; educ. Thiel Coll. and Muhlenberg Coll. (see Ministry, Education of, VIII A 711); ordained 1876; pastor and miss. in Pennsylvania, Ohio and North Dakota; founder and 1st pres. Syn. of the Northwest, pres.Chicago Syn. (see United Lutheran Church, Synods of, 208); prof. Chicago Luth. Sem. and Northwestern Luth. Sem. (see Ministry, Education of, XI B 610). Works include The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran ChurchLife and Letters of W. A. Passavant, DDThe Lutheran PastorThe Lutheran CatechistThe Lutheran Church in the CountryLutheran Fundamentals; R. F. Weidner.
G. H. Gerberding, Reminiscent Reflections of a Youthful Octogenarian (Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1928).

Creative Names for the WELS Districts - Based on Someone's Experience





Arizona-California = UOJ Central

Dakota-Montana = People live here?

Michigan = Malcontents'R'Us

Minnesota = Lutefisk!

Nebraska = Corn, Mormons, and more corn

North Atlantic = I NY

Northern WI = Anything Goes!

Pacific NW = Crazy People in exile

South Atlantic = Margaritaville

South Central = Kudu Don's Magical Land, home of the Insta-call for sex perverts

Southeastern WI = WELS World, or M'waukee and Chicago

Western WI = Wait, we have parts of Illinois and Iowa too?


Ask Not for Whom Rob Bell Tolls. He Tolls for Thee, Lutheran.
False Teacher Rob Bell Claims in New Documentary 'The Heretic': 'Jesus Would Be Mortified Someone Started a Religion in His Name' | Christian News Network

The smirking Rob Bell reminds me of a similar photo of David Valleskey, WELS, to be featured soon.
Wiki says - "Bell moved to Pasadena, California to pursue this calling for teaching and received a M.Div. from Fuller Theological Seminary."
Fuller? - like James Huebner, Valleskey, Bivens, Olson, Kelm, and so many from the LCMS. They were not MDivs at Fuller - but post-MDivs, who should have know better, yet betrayed Luther for a bowl of soup.


False Teacher Rob Bell Claims in New Documentary 'The Heretic': 'Jesus Would Be Mortified Someone Started a Religion in His Name' | Christian News Network:

"A new documentary called “The Heretic,” which centers on false teacher Rob Bell, is set to be released on March 1, and features a number of statements that are already raising concern, such as, “The Bible has caused so much damage” and “Jesus would be absolutely mortified that someone started a religion in His name.”

Bell explained in a Facebook post on Feb. 1 that he had been approached by filmmaker Andrew Morgan about creating a film surrounding his work and controversial views, which many decry as being apostate and heretical.

“A few years ago, the filmmaker Andrew Morgan approached Kristen and I (sic) about making a documentary film about my work. We have great respect for Andrew, so we said yes, and he began filming tours and RobCasts and events and interviews,” he outlined. "


'via Blog this'

***

GJ - Oh, do promote the documentary about Rob Bell. The Church Gropers were ga-ga over him and his 10,000 member congregation.

This might be a good warning for those who follow the late, great Waldo Werning, David Valleskey, Paul Kelm, and Larry Olson.

From Barth to Bell - these Commie lovers established the Neo-Evangelicals
at Fuller Seminary and elsewhere.

 They won! Christianity lost. But "there must be divisions."
Charlotte and Karl - now their blind followers are shell-shocked at the couple's shamelessness, which the Barthian disciples tried so hard to ignore.




***

GJ - How could I move from Rob Bell to Karl Barth's schmutzie-wutzie and the decline of the Lutheran Church. That is pretty pretty easy.

Karl Barth was not only a lazy plagiarizer of his friend's notes, which were absorbed into his precious Dogmatics, but he also relied on his mistress Charlotte Kirschbaum for the bulk of the scholarly writing and his lecture notes too.

Barth fans may recall that his first effort into a systematics was a failure. He started over with Charlotte and it became a bombastic success. 

Did I mention she worked for nothing, just a few pennies for daily expenses? 

She moved into his home, with his wife and children present, and lived with him, some distance away, in the summers to vork on that das Buch. Ja! 


GJ - I pedaled away from my family's Disciples of Christ congregation, because I did not like the vapid personality cult there. I found real worship through the Means of Grace at the Augustana Lutheran congregation nearby. But I found the "conservative" Lutherans were pedaling back to the Disciples via McGavran as fast as they could - and Barth/Kirschbaum's pompous Calvinism!

Schocked, Lutherans? Do not be. The LCMS began - at least in Perryville and St. Louis - with Bishop Martin Stephan abandoning his sick wife and children altogether, taking his oldest son to America - with his mistress. And the CFW Walther circle of pastors approved and enabled him. Yes, they made him bishop and committed various felonies to topple him, rob him, and exile him at gunpoint. Ja, the Pastortheologie is a joke book.

But this all comes together in a beeyootiful harmony - Concordia. The LCMS, bolstered by Walther's Universalistic UOJ, fell prey to mainline apostasy that embraced the same error - in the name of grace. How fitting. And the Missouri Synod raced after the mythological interpretation of the Bible, evolution, Pentecostalism, and then - in the fullness of time - Barth-inspired Church Growthism.