The Pentecostal label may have dwindled or merged - hard to tell. When Christianity Today phoned me about Cho - the Korean felon, years ago, he asked me how I obtained a particular statement. I said to the editor, "I got that from your magazine!" Christina found the reference for me - at the Luther Seminary library.
Pentecostalism was hot in all the mainlines, which I noticed in Midland, Michigan, including the LCMS congregations to some extent. Those days were the birth pangs of "Church Growth, sometimes expressed as Church Growth." (I heard a WELS DP say that without projectile vomiting.)
I learned the reason for the LCMS being so infatuated with themselves. The lies about Stephan and CFW Walther were a Fort Knox of dishonesty. Even worse, the delusional clergy and laity distorted the Gospel horrendously to gild the statues and statutes of The Great Walther with constant praise.
Granted - the Lutheran Church in America was tepid at best and Marxist at the upper levels. Each glob of Lutherdom praised itself (ALC versus LCA versus LCMS, etc).
This turmoil got me to pursue the Biblical issues in relation to the Book of Concord, even when the LCMS Michigan District President asked me about serving one of his Pentecostal congregations. I quoted Luther - "They act as if they swallowed the Holy Ghost, feathers and all."
 |
| ?! |
Pentecostal
I suggest that people study the Holy Spirit in the KJV, Luther, and such authors as Melanchthon and Chemnitz. I am afraid that 99% of Lutherdom today is empty, whether radical in its gay atheism (not just ELCA) or sweating for a replacement for Church Growth - packaged, putrid, programs.
The Lutheran synods do not know where they are going because they have so many baubles to play with, so little content. As one stupefied WELS leader said, "Isn't it great that we had three pastors and three churches! Now we will have two pastors in one church with more attendance." Yay!!!! What????
 |
| "Wuz I smart or not?" |
 |
| He is really onto something, but what it is, I can't tell. |
