Extra Snips from Luther's Trinity 5 - Second Sermon - Read And Weep for Joy Fuller-Willow-Trinity Divinity Addicts! There Is Still Hope for the Faithless Like You.

 

From #25 - Trinity 5 - Second Sermon

These are obliged to learn, after a long period of governing, that thereby they have not accomplished anything. How often it happens, indeed, that the best plans, the wisest counsels, and the brightest ideas prove to be the very worst, and result in nothing but harm and ruin.

#27

As Paul also says in 1 Corinthians 3:6-7: “I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase,” etc.

#29

However, the circumstances are especially pointed out under which work becomes useful and fruitful, namely, when Christ appears and commands to let down the nets, etc., that is, when there is a faith that takes hold of his Word and promise and then, cheerfully and bravely, does what has been commanded, waiting, with prayer and supplication, for his help and blessing.

#30

Thus the disciples could see the experience for themselves what a difference there is between the work they had done all the previous night without faith in Christ, and the work they did when, without prospect of taking anything, they nevertheless, through faith in Christ’s word, and at one draught, drew in an overflowing multitude of fishes. Therefore, if we accomplish little or nothing through our labor and effort, we must put the blame upon our unbelief, or upon the weakness of our faith, and not upon anything else.

#42 - Walther Faithless Four Sects Alert - plus their ELCA bedfellow

They change the proper order of the two parts: the revelation of grace and the revelation of wrath, as if we are first to preach comfort through grace and afterwards to terrify through wrath. This is nothing but a blind and foolish pretext on the part of these people. They have no understanding of wrath or grace or repentance, and know not how to comfort the conscience.

#43

And from this it follows that the man, whose heart has been rightly impressed by the sufferings of Christ, must, of his own accord, see and feel in these the unbearable wrath of God against sin, and thereby be so stricken with fear that the world becomes too narrow for him. St. Bernard testifies that this was his experience as soon as he gained a right insight into the sufferings of Christ. He says: “Alas, I thought I was safe! I knew nothing of the judgment and wrath that had come upon me, till I saw that the only begotten Son of God had to take my place,” etc.

And from this it follows that the man, whose heart has been rightly impressed by the sufferings of Christ, must, of his own accord, see and feel in these the unbearable wrath of God against sin, and thereby be so stricken with fear that the world becomes too narrow for him. St. Bernard testifies that this was his experience as soon as he gained a right insight into the sufferings of Christ. He says: “Alas, I thought I was safe! I knew nothing of the judgment and wrath that had come upon me, till I saw that the only begotten Son of God had to take my place,” etc.

#44 - Oh No! Walther Faithless Four!

For, of himself, no man can grasp this doctrine, or arrive at an understanding of it, without the revelation of the Holy Spirit through the word of the Gospel.

#49

Now, see how kindly Christ comforts the terrified heart and conscience. He says: “Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.” In tones so truly loving does the Savior speak to all who are in fear and terror by reason of their sins. He will not have them to remain any longer in fear and anguish. 

#51

For Christ has not come to make you afraid, but to remove from you your sins and distress. Nor does he draw nigh and follow after you in order to drive you away, but that he may kindly allure you to himself.

#53

For as the net is let down among the waves, so the sermon finds its way among men.

#57

Hence St. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 11:19: “There must be also factions among you, that they who are approved may be made manifest among you.”

#58

And as the net suffers through being let down into the water and becomes wet, so must the office of preaching suffer through all sorts of trials and persecutions in the world, even to the extent of being rent and torn. It cannot produce profitable or fruitful results in all men; yet great power and much fruit are found in those who remain steadfast and are kept to the end. It is our comfort, however, that Christ, through our preaching, will lead his own into the boat, and will keep them there, although we know that we cannot make devout men of all to whom we preach, and that we cannot escape persecution on account of our office; yea, though we know that many will fall away even among those of whom we felt sure that we had them in the net.

Presentation of the Augsburg Confession - Anniversary Today, June 25th, 1530. The Faithless Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) Will Celebrate Their Cupidity.

 

This blog, which nobody reads, has been calling attention to the Faithless Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) - for many years. One aspect of confessing the truth is to compare one's concept with the other's. They refuse to do this, calling on their positions, excessive salaries and perks, and DNA to prove they are correct. However, that does not even begin to address the actual content of the Augsburg Confession.

The air was charged with so much chance for murdering Luther that he was kept in safety. The lay leaders insisted on signing their names, at the risk of their lives, because they wanted it to be their own confession too.

If we look at the Walther Faithless Four - LCMS, WELS, ELS, CLC (sic) - they are one in depravity with their lust for denying Justification by Faith, the Chief Article of the Christian Faith. 

ELCA is separated from the Faithless Four because the biggest sect of all cares  only about their gay ordinations, gay bishops, gay promotions, gay conferences, and much, much more. The Faithless Four joyfully works with ELCA and share the loot coming from Thrivent and other sources. Imagine how proud Thrivent is - to license the churches' own greedy charitable annuity salescritters - to make them all rich, while robbing widows and orphans of their estates. 

Notice how often the date is mentioned - every year! - and yet no one wants to explain the importance of the Augsburg Confession. I am leaving some graphics so the lazy clergy can actually read what they supposedly celebrate.

Compare to the Faithless Four - 

Who Eat This Up

***

From the ALPB Ovaltines

Today at 05:23:45 PM

June 25th, 2024 is the 22nd Anniversary of the imposition of my suspension from the ordained roster of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod in 2002.  The supervisor in charge of my case deemed it an auspicious date for that imposition, listing not just the date but the churchly occasion in his letter.

My assistant at the time had opened and read the letter as part of her duties, and said words to the effect, "You're not going to believe this!"  I was running in and out of the office (on the Concordia Bronxville campus) that day on my way to my cardiologist, having suffered a heart attack forty days before September 11, 2001 and still under relatively close watch.  So I grabbed the letter, muttered a few syllables, jumped in the car, headed into Manhattan, walked into the cardiologist's office and said, "I would like you to take my blood pressure right now.  I've just received news that I've been convicted of heresy."  It was normal.  Not the news.  The blood pressure.

Yes, I should write a book.

Dave Benke

GJ - Benke forced himself into the Yankee Stadium pan-religious event after "911."

They had no chair for him, so they had to find one. His prayer either did or did not invoke the Savior's Name. Nevertheless, breaking into the pagan group and praying for them and the entire stadium was excessive, even for ELCA.

Today Benke identified himself with the anniversary of the Augsburg Confession. The irony is deep with this one.

He has "It's OK to pray" on his Ovaltine posts, which are frequent and informative about LCMS colleges going down hard. He even wore the hat in a successful effort to become District President again. Wallace Schulz was fired for writing that letter when a cautious Preus would not. The LCMS motto then and today is - "When in doubt, doubt."

Luther's Ascension Day Sermon Obliterates Objective Faithless Justification

 

Luther's Ascension Sermon. What a bitter day for the hopeless hapless salesmen of Objective Faithless Justification!

The Waltherian Four - LCMS, WELS, ELS, CLC (sic) - got away with their circus act for almost 200 years. When Bishop Martin Stephan stepped off the ship in New Orleans and CFW followed behind him - as the future pope  declare - "all Creation is again under the bright rays of mercy, as in the beginning; yea, in Christ we were justified before we were even born."

This nonsense really began at Halle University through Knapp and others, but it spread - like Bishop Stephan's syphilis - in America.

The poor, pathetic popes of the Waltherian Four continue to use Knapp and Preuss to inspire their equally confused members. When Matt Harrison raised his sanctified and sanctifying chubby hands to bless the 40th anniversary of the Purple Palace, he uttered his favorite snip and clip OJ passage from Romans 4, to wit -

NIV Romans 4: 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

And all God's people said, "What? Your Serene Highness - Why not honestly recite the verses?!"

KJV Romans 4:24 But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; 25 Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

The Waltherian Four leadership is incompetent and yet they strive to keep their boats from sinking even faster, adding masking tape here and there. Let us close with a quotation from the back cover of Herman Otten's book about Dr. Walther Maier (PhD Harvard).

Hermon Otten fiddled while Missouri burned, but at least he quoted Walter Maier on the Chief Article of the Christian Faith - Justification by Faith.

The Haunting of the Big Five - ELCA-LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic)

 

Also ELCA-ELS-CLC (sic)

The Photoshop above is not the Sistine Chapel ceiling, but it does convey the Big Five's love for every single expression of faith... except their own. See if you can find these notorious apostates, starting with Archbishop Weakland, who was invited to give a public speech (with some of his priests helping) at Wisconsin Lutheran College. WELS managers (they have no leaders) ran around saying it never happened, that it was private, etc. Yes, they are too dumb to lie effectively.

 Andy Stanley is truly a man of all faiths, like Ski, loving every faith except his own.

On Weakland's left is that lovable son of Charles Stanley, Andy Stanley, addicted to huge numbers of ministers and managers paying him enormous sums to learn how he does it. One savvy Lutheran pastor pointed out how mega-church rallies like Andy's are a sure sign of decay.

Directly above Andy Stanley is Bill Hybels with former President Bill Clinton, both womanizers who got away with it for decades. But wait, Bill got tossed out on his ear, leaving the Big Five bereft of his magic at Willow Creek Community Church. Team Jackson visited his cross-free church, listened to his empty message, and ate at his overpriced food court. It is not hyperbole to mention that WELS salivated whenever they brought up the glory of Willow Creek, sending pastors there to learn the effective incantations of a snake-oil salesman. WELS paid the tuition for their underlings to savor the sin of worshiping with Hybels. That reminds me of Herman Melville's allegory, noting that Jonah was anxious to leave town on a fast ship. "But he swiftly calls away the Captain from that scent. ‘I’ll sail with ye,’—he says,—‘the passage money how much is that?—I’ll pay now.’ For it is particularly written, shipmates, as if it were a thing not to be overlooked in this history, ‘that he paid the fare thereof’ ere the craft did sail. And taken with the context, this is full of meaning." 

Nothing is quite as tragic or comical as Lawrence Otto Olson (WELS) denying that he ever went to Fuller Seminary. He actually visited the Godfather of Church Growth, Donald McGavran. This Lawrence of the Doctrinal Dessert pedaled his bike uphill to get there. McGavran's book is like the novel Dorothy Parker detested. "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Dr. Olson has been the tip of the spear for WELS' Church Growth, anointed to leave his non-growing congregation (Love Park) to watch his little college and withering synod fade away.

Leonard Sweet was one of the strangest celebrities for all denominations.

 One pastor was openly and deeply offended that I pointed out his website's love for Sweet. 

 Groeschel put together a growth factory - not that it worked - enchanting more than one Lutheran to sign up for his sermons and trinkets.

No one says it better than C. Peter Wagner. He has been all over the spectrum, mostly in the Pentecostal spooky realm. Christina and I went to the library at Luther Seminary, where she dug up the Christianity Today magazine with the revealing quote, above. She also found the article that Cho (biggest church in the world, S. Korea) was kicked out of the Assemblies of God. "Where did you get that?" Christianity Today asked. I said, "From your magazine."

The Big Five Sects have prostrated themselves before Church Growth experts, many more than the ones I have noted above. They are not victims but the cause of the destruction. See below.

"Whee! DMins are on sale at Fuller Seminary. Let's get ours so we can be called Dr. for very little time served and lots of money spent!"

Who Won? The Champions of Apostasy - Slime Marches On

 

The Big Five - ELCA-WELS-LCMS-ELS-CLC (sic) - moved step by step into apostasy, which means they once were loyal to the Christian Faith and finally rejected it. The question is not whether this happened but how this was so massive in effect.

Here is a little factoid. ELCA began officially in 1987 with 5.4 million members. Wickedpedia has the current number at 2.9 million, almost half the size and going down rapidly.

Where did the 2.5 million - or, pick a number - go? The Big Four have lost members at the same time, so the promise of one consultant, "Expect a big chunk from ELCA members running to other Lutheran congregations" has failed.

That means all the Church Growth gimmicks have failed so badly - they could not even keep up their own precious numbers. Here are the reasons:

1. Their pastors do not teach faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
2. The managers (they are not leaders) despise the KJV and promote atrocious, devious Bibles, three from the gay National Council of Churches - RSV, ESV, NRSV.
3. District managers (they are not leaders) and pastors hate Luther and his Biblical doctrine. 
4. Pastors do not visit their own members, at home or in the hospital.
5. The synods worship themselves, not the Holy Trinity.
6. The managers (they are not leaders) spend lavishly on themselves and gimmick specialists.

 Fifty years of Church Growth - and then some.

Collapse of LCMS Colleges the Fruit of Missouri's Surrender to Seminex - Ditto WELS and ELS

 

ELCA, LCMS, and ELDONA agree - "We want to be papal, even popish."

One WELS teacher said, "Foreign students are walking bags of money." Various students from other countries pay for room, board, and books with cash from mom and dad. These students are a great asset to the school, but the schools have taken that for granted, part of the slippage that has become an avalanche of cost and disastrous budgets.

Synod schools are not based on quality but DNA. Only some of the Seminex "heroes" left, eager to join the nascent ELCA. The rest of Seminex burrowed into the woodwork and took over, step by step. The Preus brothers, Jack and Robert, claimed the orthodox won. Yay! But nobody had the spine to deal with the layers of ELCA wannabees - and no one did.

One little example - easily multiplied - was the CPH NIV Commentary. The editor of Psalms denied the many examples of Christ in the Psalms. I recall Herman Otten posting that fact, especially since Luther wrote a commentary on the Psalms which was just the opposite. How does one get around Psalm 2, or Psalm 22? I have had Old Testament gasp at how literal Psalm 22 is. One student said, "That is a verbatim description of the crucifixion!" 

Was anything done about this? No. I met that Psalms NIV-CPH editor at a little gathering of LCMS pastors about that time. He retired. Nobody fussed about him. Otten, oddly enough, always defended anyone who graduated from the St. Louis or Ft. Wayne seminaries, even when some of them bolted for the Elysian fields of ELCA. Herman said to me, "The Seminex professors at LSTC were not the problem!" 

Another example was his support and promotion of an ex-LCMS pastor on the man's third marriage. I said to Herman, "That's three now, and you are putting him on the front page of CN." He tried to remember, so I said. "The first wife left him because he chose the other as the mother of his child. You told me they broke up too, so this is either a third wife or that pastor re-married #1 or #2." He conceded that fact, but it made no difference. 

The Otten-Preus amalgamation worried most about Objective Faithless Justification. The current raging pipsqueak Christian News editor - just kidding, it's worse - can only carry on the task of sanctifying anyone who graduated from one or the other seminary. Jack and Robert Preus are given a pass because they touched the nerve of the LCMS laity, who were far more conservative than the pastors as a whole. Even then, the pastors on Otten's side staged a huge dinner in the early days, to show their support of Otten and the good old days.

The ELCA wannabees realized they could purify LCMS by burials over time, and that worked. Who is left of the ones who fought apostasy? CPH became very ELCA-ish, worse than ever before. The seminaries were so Romanized that Robert Preus wrote Justification and Rome, repudiating OJ with many great citations from the post-Book of Concord theologians. Preus saw it coming, but even the two sons, as editors, did not see or accept Justification by Faith. One cannot win a war going to battle with cardboard swords and newsprint shields.

Back to the Schools of Higher Education

LutherQuest and the ALPB Online Forum Ovaltines are trying to float the colleges a little longer. Matt the Fatt's regime has closed Selma, the NYC college, and the Chinese campus. The HotChalk school - Portland - is teetering with a huge lawsuit. The great brains who thought they could make a fortune from the HotChalk learning platform were dumber than any salesman might hope to meet. 

1. How could anyone say "HotChalk" without laughing? 
2. How could these LCMS genius types overlook the online fad already fading away?
3. If every college in America goes online, how much smaller is the Portland piece of pie?

Matt (without a beard) never stops reaching out to the Left.

The Tree Was Slowly Killed by Cutting the Root - Just Like LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC(sic).

Link -

 The Concordia University System schools appear to be following this "trend":

• Concordia University-Wisconsin has their "Diversity and Belonging."
• Concordia University-Ann Arbor has their Office of Multicultural Engagement."
• Concordia University-Irvine holds a "Unity Week" with Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Coach, "Ms. Mo".
• Concordia University-Chicago has a course (EDU-6300 - Perspectives in Research and Literature Across all Grade Ranges) that includes using literature and research across all grades as "a basis for the promotion of diversity, equity and culturally responsive instruction."
• Concordia University-Nebraska has their "Acts 2 Commission" (a renamed Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity).

I posted long ago about the previous tenant of this house, now dubbed Ichabode III. He decided to cut the major root when pruning a small tree in the backyard. I slowly cleaned up the back and found that one small tree was wobbly. My neighbor across the fence said, "Do you know what happened? The guy before you cut the root. I told him that would kill it, but he did not listen." 

I told my father-in-law about the same disaster, when he cut the roots sticking out of the ground. He finally told me it died and had to be removed.

Children were not allowed to climb on my wobbly tree. The tree remained for years before falling over from a gentle push. Some roots survived but even the branches were dead and brittle.

Some entities will be able to use facilities, repurposed, soon enough.

Now - much too late - the crybabies are saying something must be done to keep their LCMS-WELS-ELS colleges alive. Nota bene - two new gymnasia are being completed - one for the ELS and one for WELS, about 35 miles away from each other.

The nation's colleges probably all imagined that online education would lift them up and give them more options for overpricing student tuition, board (?), books, and amenities. Everyone jumped on UOP's wagon and all were keen on educating a receding population. HotChalk (online services) and one LCMS are in the courts figuring out who wins.

ELCA colleges were tanking a few decades ago. Now it is time for LCMS-ELS-WELS to face the executioners. Church magazines went kaput too, even with Thrivent subsidies. The synods had their fun with the Campus Growth Movement, and it is failing.

The root cause is simple - faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, Teacher, miracle worker, Who healed the blind and deaf, raised the dead, and suffered torture and death to atone for the sins of the world, rising from the dead, ascending to Heaven, and governing His Church on the right hand of God.

ELCA is DOA, so let's ask about the Big Four above - LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC(sic). They collectively followed ELCA into the Slough of Despond, gathering their demographics, stunned with fear and alarm, gobbling the business trash - "robbing the Egyptians" - at Fuller Seminary.

The Big Four do not teach faith in Jesus Christ. Without faith in Jesus Christ, nothing good happens. The supposedly conservative managers (not leaders, no guts) are crying like the disciples in a storm, the wind howling, the sky black, the waves crashing and swamping the boat. 

They have made matters worse by creating their own Tower of Babel, a rainbow coalition of Scriptures. Some pastors who hate the NIV will use the ESV, which is like getting a better Edsel. The members and the youth may pick up on "Living" and "Amplified" Bibles, which are no better than badly written commentaries. The gay National Council of Unbelieving Churches have licensed the RSV, ESV, NRSV, etc. Everyone knows, anything goes.

Those who trust in Jesus Christ will be rewarded with many blessings. Lacking faith, they cannot even imagine the efficacy of the Word (an upcoming book). That is why Calvinists and Pietists succumb to the Unitarian-Universalist Creed.

Instructor - "You Are My Favorite Demographic." The Synods Knew the Demographics Years Ago, And Skimmed the Cream

 

HAL, a tribute to IBM, knew the future of synods.

I signed onto my class - toward an online teaching degree (MA, Adult Education) and read this greeting from one of the instructors. "You are my favorite demographic." She read too many statistics, and that sounded ominous.

Decades ago, the LCA was projecting the future using statistics. They said, "It used to be that half the babies baptized would be in confirmation. Now there are very few to stay in the same church where they were baptized." I looked up the figures of my first call. Earlier, half the baptized members were there for confirmation. Later, very few. America was mobile and having fewer children. Christina and I attended a big LCA conference where one staffer predicted everything from statistics.

The LCMS, WELS, and others did the same thing. AAL/Lutheran Brotherhood naturally used statistics to gain from the synodical trends, just as they did with mortality. Large numbers do not lie. The synodicals were afraid, so they latched onto the worst possible influencers - Robert Schuller (covert), Fuller Seminary (Paradise on earth), Trinity Divinity (a WELS fave), and others. The executive managers (no real leaders spotted) were eager to pretend future prosperity when they should have known they were thieves and robbers claiming to lay up treasures in heaven. They were quite willing to keep the farce growing while they poured out millions to give themselves a better future.

When I plant roses, I use all the best organic ingredients to provide rich soil without the poisons from the chemical business. Anyone can dose the plants, often fatally, but the successes come from God's Creation and all the things done to grow beautiful roses. Moreover, the Creation combinations bring even more good to the garden. John 15 is strikingly like this parallel.

 KJV John 15 I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

2 Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

3 Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you.

4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

6 If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned.

7 If ye abide in me, and my words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it shall be done unto you.

8 Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.

9 As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.

10 If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love.

11 These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.

The synods bet on fakey gimmicks fermented in the limited minds of useful idiots (Evangelism committees, mandates, programs, posters, films, and slide shows). They never thought about faith in Jesus Christ because they were there for the loot, the bonus for being close with the most obnoxious managers (district and synod presidents). Those are the charlatans who built brand new gyms for the ELS and WELS, knowing their student bodies would shrink as fast as the synod waistbands expand. 

WELS famously spent $30 million on merging Dr. Martin Luther College with Northwestern College. Add their gym and other luxuries - where does one start?

The ELS is finishing a gym worth $15 million - or is it $17 million - for a demographic that will demand more shuffle board room for the last few players.

Let Not the LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic) Brag They Are Not ELCA - They Are on the Same Spiral Path Downward And Share the Same Habits

 

Yes, they have worked and planned together since Eaton was elected.

Scott Barefoot with everyone but Lassie.

The Synodicals - proudly bearing the banner of Walter and his syphilitic Bishop Stephan - are going the same way as the ELCA seminaries and colleges, the congregations and managers. 

James 3:1 Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. (NIV, so the Synodicals can understand it.)

Thrivent is clearly steering the synods and other entities down the same path. 

Does anyone gain from the Thrivent freebies?

Only the managers gain from the "called" Giving Counselors, who step into a home and have the elderly sign an Irrevocable Charity Remainder Trust. That means Granny and Grampy just signed off a big chunk of their equity and no lawyer can get it back. The counselors have to pass an insurance license, and you can bet it is guided by Thrivent, which almost went bankrupt from their previous insurance problems with Universal Life.

Point not your fingers at ELCA if you are involved with Thrivent, its shenanigans, its crafts and assaults.

Is It Worth the Fight? Yes.

Long ago and far away, two people from different parts of the country continued in their support of Objective Faithless Justification. That was many years ago. As Luther stated many times before, the opposition is good for us because without it, we would become indolent, lazy, and lax in our study of the Scriptures.

Recently, those two people - coming from various parts of the country - have emphasized the blessing of Justification By Faith.

I can list many pastors and some laity who saw the light, embraced the "Chief Article of the Christian Religion," and walked themselves back into Objective Faithless Justification. One pastor was very clever and managed to secure calls at a Lutheran Masonic church and congregations belonging to the Anything Goes United Church of Christ. I found his last location in the obituaries. 

Another pastor divided his congregation and became an atheist, mocking his family whenever they went to church. The mission board chair had been hotter than Georgia asphalt for that pastor to come to Ohio.

One bishop promoted Objective Faithless Justification and knowingly formed alliances with  OJ Lutheran clergy. He stated on film lately that he was shocked, shocked - just recently learning about OJ! The same person sat next to me years before and was appalled that the speaker denied OJ.

KJV James 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Whatever we claim to be, the only source of truth is the Scriptures, which teaches faith in Jesus Christ, our Good Shepherd. Those who pretend to be pastors are wolves in sheep's clothing, using dogma to set the trap and destroy the faith they hate so much. Or - maybe they just enjoy lying. The Wisconsin Sect has a cluster of declining schools where they teach verbal and physical abuse. Their key initiation rite upon entering the seminary is to wade in sewage water, undress outdoors, and smirk about the fun of using contradictory statements - GA. Lying and shunning are the two sacraments of WELS.