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.
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| The Jesuit Pope apologized for the Waldensian women, babies, and men murdered by the Church of Rome and its allies. |
"The pride, luxury, and profligacy of the clergy, led not a few laymen to ask if better and more certain guides were not to be had. Many of the troubadours were religious men, whose lays were sermons."
Wylie, J.A. . The History of the Waldenses (p. 16). Kindle Edition.
"The gravest wrong is constantly done to James, even by evangelical preachers, when they regard James as a preacher of morals who insists on works to save the soul. They imagine that he follows the teaching of the Jewish rabbis. Yet James has just said: “Receive the implanted Word!” (v. 21) and no one receives it except by faith. He has just said that this Word saves your souls, and it does that by faith. Moreover, it is the gravest misconception to imagine that being a doer of the Word is to be a doer only of works. To be a doer of the Word is to do God’s will, and his Word and his will is “that every one which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life” (John 6:40). To do the Word is to believe it for the saving of the soul. The Word ever asks for faith and intends to implant faith. The Sermon on the Mount is often regarded in the same wrong way. It is thought to inculcate law and not Gospel. But its very basis, the Beatitudes, is pure and wondrous Gospel, and its whole framework is the same. Note the Lord’s prayer, seeking first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, the tree that must first be good before good fruit follows, etc. James preaches faith as fully as Paul, and he does so right here."
From: Lenski. The Epistle Selections of the Ancient Church: An Exegetical Homiletical Treatment: A Series of Epistle Texts for the Entire Church Year. 1935/2021 LutheranLibrary.org “Rogate”
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| Hostas are grown mostly for leaf color, but hummingbird fans enjoy the flower spikes which attract the tiny birds for a sip. This is Blue Hawaii, which costs as much as a trip there, so I have clearance hosta. Ranger Bob came over to give Mrs. Ichabod some fresh flowers (around his 20th time) and to feed treats to Sassy Sue. I was put in charge of pour-over coffee. I was grinding beans when he said, "What is that?" I had planted hostas and lambs ear in the shade to the right of the tool shed. To keep the mowers and me from stepping on them, I placed their shipping pages on sticks and stuck them in the soft soil. "I have started a plastic bag garden, to save money." Bob laughed but asked penetrating questions about bags stuck on sticks.  I woke up from a dream about the LCMS. Memo to self - do not write about the LCMS just before falling asleep. But that prompted me to think about church matters as I began to wake up - what a time to be alive!  Above - the Extraordinary League of Failures, WELS. They were old enough to have read Gausewitz - and the New Testament in Greek. What moved them to change from Justification by Faith to Objective Justification? Their Church Growth partners include - David Valleskey, Frosty Bivens, Wally Oelhafen, Fred Adrian, Floyd Luther Stolzenburg, Jon-Boy Buchholz, etc. We are now looking at the dissolution of the Mainline Church Era, started by rationalist Baptists (Walter Rauschenbusch) and similar Methodists and Episcopalians. They could not do enough damage individually, so they banded together in any number of unions, from the morganatic (secret) to the open (WCC, NCC, and several pan-Lutheran councils). The liberal Lutherans were disgusted that the synods could not gather into one big organization - like ELCA? David Granskou, teaching at Waterloo Seminary, was quite vocal about this, as the former paid Secretary of one of these. He was very shy about the Virgin Birth of Christ (did not answer the question) and wrote a book saying no one understands the parables. I thought of one in particular - Granskou - who did not. The excuse is - "If we staunch, quia, orthodox, confessional Lutherans work with ELCA, we can influence them in a positive way."  |