Walther the Fox and Felon - Draft

Walther the Fox and Felon

CFW followed his older brother Otto in studies at Leipzig. That meant being drawn into Pietistic circles and the conventicle led by Kuehn. The tutor felt alienated during his studies at Leipzig and taught a morbid, punitive style of sanctification, which cost Walther his health. After graduating, Walther served as a tutor, which was fairly common for theology students awaiting certification and a call.

The alienation experienced by Kuehn’s disciples was continued when they followed Stephan as their leader. Many episodes led to clergy finding fault with Stephan, from drawing their members to his church to the questionable walks at night with young women. Stephan only had permission to hold conventicles at his church, but he took advantage. He also collected offerings from his larger church, so there were also issues concerning the money and how it was used.

No one was allowed to share in the leadership circle unless he was absolutely subordinate to Stephan. Walther took on the role of enforcer, so anyone who offended Stephan was punished until his contrition was verified. This was certainly the basis for an abusive cult, since no one could question Stephan or argue with Stephan and remain in that circle. Stephan was considered a keen judge of human character – seducers often are – and he called Walther “a fox.”

Walther and his brother Otto were so sure of their rectitude that they worked together to kidnap their niece and nephew from their father’s parsonage. This crime is often excused by the Missouri myth machine. The children wanted to go to America! No one needs to guess if taking minors across the ocean - without their parents - would be excused today. In addition, other minors wanted to leave Europe and were allowed on the ship.

The police put out a warrant for Walther’s arrest, but he evaded capture. His future mother-in-law and the lawyers helped in concealing the children, and Mrs. Buenger was jailed. CFW sailed away as fast as he could. Mrs. Buenger was released from jail, but Stephan did not want her on the original group of ships. She came later and became an important connection for Walther in Perryville.

The deciding factor in the Saxon migration was Stephan’s final court investigation, which detailed his adultery and money management issues. He no longer had a church position, so he made the long-planned call to pack up and leave for Zion in America. Stephan’s oldest son, his main mistress Louise Gunther, his lawyers at the trial, and Otto Walther were on the same ship. The claim of a sermon-wrought adultery confession (or two) is impossible to consider as anything but a clumsy lie. The Walther circle seemed to waver between their warrant for the riot and the fact they knew all along, wondering out loud how they turned a blind eye to it all along.

The Stephanites made him their bishop before he stepped foot in America. CFW signed the bishop’s enthronement paper.[1] The group traveled by ship to St. Louis, decamped, and began planning for a new home. Stephan continued to be extravagant in his plans and decisions, as well as irrational. He chose Perryville over a much better and less expensive purchase in St. Louis. One motif might have been getting away from the extremely critical scrutiny he was getting in St. Louis, with his mistress living above him in a rooming house and various women in and out, but no wife and family there. The Americans were not as blind as the Stephanites.

Perryville might have also appealed as a distant parcel allowing the group to have their own little Eden. Nevertheless, the followers accepted what Stephan ordered, and they bought the Perryville land from the Mormons, paying too much.

Pastor Loeber’s May 5, 1839, Rogate Sermon

Two women who heard Pastor Loeber’s moving sermon on May 5, 1839, went to him and confessed their adulterous activities with Bishop Stephan. Forster’s detailed footnote only reveals the confusion of facts surrounding this story.[2] The traditional seal of the confessional was not observed at all. Loeber immediately told Walther. No one asked Stephan about the truth of the matter, but it was spread throughout the group. Given the foreknowledge of the Walther circle and the lawyers, this scenario is hollow and sadly comical. Vehse “was told” but he was on the same ship as Stephan and Louise Gunther.[3] Forster admits that nothing was new in Stephan’s behavior; the same issues had been discussed in Dresden, sometimes believed, sometimes dismissed as gossip, finally part of the final court decision against Stephan, where his mistress and his wife were both questioned in front of Marbach and Vehse.

Extravagant and absurd demands by Bishop Stephan at this time were noted by Forster and by Stephan’s In Search of Religious Freedom.[4] However, no one seems to connect these neurological symptoms of syphilis with the bishop’s rashes and other medical complaints. Since the sudden and shocking discovery of adultery is completely bogus, something else must have generated a riot that swept down from St. Louis to Perryville, a ministerial approach to sin not included in Walther’s Pastoral Theology.

First, Walther had to travel to Perryville, on May 13, to take back secretly the 40 acres of land given to the bishop as a gift, without even talking to Stephan.[5] The pastors wrote to the newspaper that they were taking action, but still did not tell Stephan. This was described as a way to limit the scandal and potential vigilante justice, with multiple hangings. But this also points to an outbreak of syphilis among the young women of the group and hard questions for the Walther circle of pastors. The pastors confessed their silence to the newspaper but also claimed all accusations in the past were unproven![6]

May 28, 300 Roared Off the Steamship

Walther organized the mob that arrived in Perryville and surrounded the bishop’s cabin. Only those against the bishop were allowed to take the trip. They threatened his life, held him at gunpoint, forced him out of his home, stole all his money, took all his books and personal possessions, and forced him across the river to Illinois. They even disrobed him to make sure he was not hiding any money.[7]

---

[1] Zion, p. 303. Missouri myth-makers claim that CFW did not sign the bishop’s elevation paper or that it was forged. However, both fig leaves drop off when the document is examined.

[2] Zion, p.392, footnote #5.

[3] Zion, p. 392.

[4] In Search of Religious Freedom, p. 179f.

[5] Ibid, p. 181.

[6] Ibid, p. 182.

[7] Servant of the Word, cane story.

Two Charismatic Pietists - The Weaver Messiah and the Wheat Flour Messiah

 Eric Jansson (1808-1850), his family and others left Sweden for freedom in America.

I asked our seminarian to visit Bishop Hill, near Moline, Illinois, which netted me a book called the Wheat Flour Messiah. The parallels with Bishop Martin Stephan are striking. Jansson was a wheat flour salesman.

Both men were poorly educated but charismatic leaders who attracted hundreds of followers and the hostility of the state officials. Stephan was a weaver.

Both were Pietists with extreme views about their holy lives. Their promiscuity was known by their followers but overlooked. Jansson traveled the Swedish countryside and pursued women in the style of Rasputin. Advocating holiness, his followers concluded his mind was pure but his body was adulterous. Traveling with some of his disciples, staying here and there, he became quite notorious.

 Walther did not suddenly discover his bishop's adultery. The Stephanites left Europe because their leader was under house arrest. The outbreak of syphilis among the young women was the cause for rioting, robbing, and deposing Stephan.

Martin Stephan was so active that he contracted syphilis, finding relief from his symptoms by walking late at night with young women and going to spas for medicinal baths. At one he stayed with his mistress but sent his pleading wife home. He installed one young woman in the parsonage and took his favorite mistress along when the Stephanites left for America. The Walther circle knew this but enforced his rigid and often bizarre rule over the followers.

Jansson considered himself the exemplar of the holy, the preacher, the teacher, the hymn-writer, and the catechism author.

Stephan's people had to agree with his exalted notion that the bishop was the Means of Grace, that Europe no longer had the Means of Grace when he left for America. Dissent from that position was punished.

• Jansson founded Bishop Hill, Illinois, in 1846. He forced celibacy on everyone but soon allowed marriage. Cholera and financial troubles set back their "New Jerusalem" and Jansson was shot dead by an angry husband.
• Bishop Stephan took his group to St. Louis and Perryville in 1839. Walther organized a riot, taking the bishop's land, gold, books, and personal possessions. Stephan was forced at gunpoint to cross over to Illinois. His mistress followed. He died in 1846.

Both men left behind historical landmarks, but the Missouri Synod has fabricated its history to hide the cult behavior, the extreme Pietism, and the complicity of the Walther circle. Perryville-Altenburg site is a shrine to the Great Walther. I was shown the chest that held the bishop's gold, with no thought of shame about it being stolen. In fact, the cult accused the bishop of getting away with some of his own gold hidden in his cane, which was false.

Walther was an expert at photoshopping his own history, confessing that Stephan was "a bit of a Pietist." He said that Stephan's marital problems were the fault of his long-suffering wife, who died with all of her children but one, of his disease.

 Walther carried out the plan of Jansson and Stephan, creating his own dogmatics. Jansson burned Luther's works. Walther buried Luther under his pile of publications.

How Dishonest Is Walther's Synodical Conference History? Answer - A Carefully Woven Basket of Lies

 A generous Schwan donation would allow the LCMS to turn this famous structure into their Basket of Lies Building.
Too late - a developer bought it.

Alec Satin asked about the dishonesty of LCMS history, which began with CFW Walther forbidding any early histories from being published.

Most of the truth is published in Zion on the Mississippi, but the hypnotized sheep and wolves repeat the slander that Zion was written "by a disgruntled LCMS pastor." The Stephan memoir - In Search of Religious Freedom - is illuminating but fails to disclose the big story - Bishop Stephan's syphilis, passing it onto his wife, his children, and the young women of his cult. The Walther circle "saw nothing" and said nothing until the opportune time, when they "suddenly heard" about the adultery and organized a mob to threaten, rob, and kidnap the bishop. Are they not the three steps of church discipline? After all, Walther was an expert in pastoral theology.

On the behavior side, the Perryville founders have nothing to boast about. They were felons who had the advantage of taking over an area from the Mormons and being their own law, telling their own stories, as they still do today. Their current historians point at the chest that held the bishop's gold, implying he needed robbing, but they do not admit to the carefully organized riot, the theft of 120 acres, the clothes, the books, and personal possessions seized.

 This Photoshop fake made people think the basket building was vandalized! They were furious. LCMS acts the same way when someone opens up their basket of lies.

Worst of all, Walther constructed a line of succession so that his false doctrine would be protected, taught, and marketed as the purest Christian doctrine ever. He made sure that F. Pieper, newly ordained, would replace him and replicate his style and dogma.

Walther took the Calvinist-Pietistic Easter absolution and expanded it into election without faith, denouncing anyone who did not agree with him. What qualified him as the theologian of the Synodical Conference? His rationalistic BA from Leipzig? His lack of Biblical languages? His publications from within his own sect?

Notice that the modern "conservative" Lutheran synods love to appoint the new, the inept, and the hopelessly compromised to positions of power. Thus they rise up as one to defend every error, to hide every felony, to rob the widows and orphans so they can paint a layer of gild on Holy Mother Sect. Amen.

Garden Myths and Lutheran Myths - So Much Alike

"This evil weed must be destroyed...
Dandelions are herbs? I still hate them."

I read the hilarious Cascione review of Scaer's article about Bishop Martin Stephan, eight years after the fact - fast response, Jack. Cascione's and Scaer's claims sounded so much like the gardening myths I have often heard repeated.

This link has some good resources on Bishop Martin Stephan and the Perryville disaster.

This is Scaer's original article about Stephan.

Gardening myths are repeated back and forth, even though they have little or no factual basis.

• Birds will starve if we stop feeding them. 
• Egg shells will improve the soil, by adding calcium. 
• Roses are difficult to grow and need constant attention, with lots of fungicides and pesticides.
• Organic matter should be rototilled into the soil - the more tilling, the better.
• Epsom salt is perfect for improving the soil - at least, according to the Epsom Salt Council and Martha Stewart.

Some basic facts about Stephan, Walther, and the Saxons:

1. Martin Stephan was the second abusive guru of Pietism that the Walther circle followed. Their education was rationalistic, but their voluntary associations were purely Pietistic, including cell groups. Guru is a Hindu term for someone with total control over one's life, and that title fit both of their Pietistic leaders.
2. Stephan was called to Dresden to be a Pietistic pastor for a Pietistic congregation, and he never finished his university education, which included time at Halle University.
3. Stephan cultivated an external organization of followers and clergy, which his own congregation resented. He had the Walther circle collect money for his needs.
4. Stephan did not leave with his group until the government took him to court for his promiscuity with young women and his financial dealings. He was long suspected of crimes in both areas, and his main mistress testified about him.
5. Walther and the others had no qualms about kidnapping children for their exodus to America, and they bragged about minors joining their throng. They urged divorce for those whose spouses did not want to join.
6. Stephan taught that he himself was the Means of Grace, and that the Gospel left Europe when they sailed away.
7. The St. Louis residents were suspicious of Stephan because of his female companions and lack of a wife. That is the reason he dictated the purchase of land around distant Perryville - far too much money for land they could not use very well. How ironic - they were snookered by the polygamous Mormons who sold it to them.
8. Yes, CFW Walther signed the document making Stephan their bishop-for-life. 
9. Walther organized the mob that threatened, robbed, and kidnapped Stephan. CFW also stole the bishop's land (given by the followers) and talked the bishop's healthy son into giving up the land that his father owned.
10. Walther's committed many felonies, which are all excused or simply forgotten in telling his glorious, mythical story. Walther blamed the bishop's wife (!) for Martin Stephan's pursuit of young women - confidentially of course and repeated in Servant of the Word.

 As one of these pastors claimed,
"Just because we are with McCain, laughing with him,
and taking photos - that does not mean we are friends."

Walther was the ultimate opportunist - not in the least bit sincere. How did he pass the pastoral exams in Europe when his friends were turned down for the crime of  being Pietists? No one seems to ask that.

Walther imposed Stephan's discipline on his fellow clergy, but the leader suspected Walther was "a fox." One minute Walther pledged lifelong support to the newly promoted bishop. A short time later, he was leading the mob against Bishop Stephan.

The lies told then and now do much to explain how eagerly the LCMS embraces opportunistic synodical leaders today. Money lights up their eyes and the only false doctrine in their minds is Justification by Faith.

The deification of Walther was completed at his 200th birthday, which was more solemnly recognized than the Reformation's 500th will be.

Essential Authors and Books for Lutherans - Printed Books

 If you want to know the best edition of Pilgrim's Progress, 
a work of art - this is one example -
email me. Good editions are abundant.

When Morn, the rosy fingered child of Dawn, arose, Sassy took me out for a walk. Instead of welcoming sun, we found dark thunder-clouds, wind to knock my Tilley hat off, and a damp chill. Autumn? We have several more weeks of unusually warm weather ahead.

Several have asked about best books and authors often overlooked, so this is my list, starting with the best reads of all.

Roland Bainton remains my favorite church historian.

Absolutely Essential Short List - For Being Well Read

1. The KJV and related books about it.
2. Luther's Sermons - The Lenker set is great, and CPH had an upgrade with the postils included. Everything was wrapped up in preaching, the Preaching Office, for Luther. 
3. The Book of Concord is the best one-volume commentary on the Bible. I like Tappert for readability. Luther's Large Catechism is overlooked and under-read. Melanchthon's passage on Justification by Faith in the Apology is unknown, unread, and uncited among the fake-conservative Lutherans of today.
4. Luther's Galatians Lectures are extolled by the Book of Concord as the best detailed explanation of Justification by Faith.
5. Pilgrim's Progess - Animated, Children's version, full-sized, and various movies. Those who have trouble with the book at first should get involved in the popular versions. The full version is really an allegorical commentary on the Bible. Bunyan's most read book, after the Bible, was Luther's Galatians Lectures.

Passavant

Second Tier Books - But Not Second-Rate - Best Of

• Luther's Genesis Commentary
• Luther's 1 and 2 Peter Commentary
• Luther's Sermons on the Gospel of John
• Luther's Romans Commentary
• Lenski New Testament Commentaries
• Chemniz Examination of the Council of Trent - a great way to learn the fine points of Biblical studies, theology, and humorous commentary. Any Chemnitz work is great, but this is the best - if most expensive - start.

Overlooked and Underappreciated by Their Descendants - Look for Works about Them Too

1. Krauth - Conservative Reformation. General Council.
2. Schmauk - Confessional Principle. General Council.
3. Jacobs - Doctrinal Outline. General Synod.
4. Reu - Difficult to find his works, but they are around the used market and the reprint market. Iowa Synod genius. He was a bit liberal at first but later wrote on Luther and inerrancy.
5. Life and Letters of Passavant - Passavant was a unique, faithful leader who continued as a great friend of the Augustana Synod and all charitable Christian projects - hospitals, missions, etc. The Lutheran magazine of ELCA has borrowed the name of their periodical from his own independent effort. 
6. Ludwig Fuerbringer's two little books on the early days of the LCMS are very good. 
7. Zion on the Mississippi may be the only non-mythological books the Stephan sex cult's trip to America and its weird, abusive, Pietistic and rationalistic origins. Each time I bought this volume, the cost was $10, used.

The Stephan-Walther Mythology Harms the Entire Synodical Conference. From 2012

Synodocat has a grim outlook,
because he must promote a mythology he knows is false.

I get into phone and email discussions with people who scratch their heads over peculiar attitudes of the Olde Synodical Conference.

The biggest single problem of the Olde Synodical Conference is the Walther mythology. Although the facts about Bishop Stephan and Walther are published, known, and circulated, the mythological view predominates - even among those who would never call themselves Waltherian.

One eye-opener was Herman Otten's grandson repeating the lie, told in Perry County, that Stephan was "given three choices" when caught in adultery. First of all, Stephan was an open serial adulterer, so there was no shock. Secondly, when a man's life is threatened and he is forced across a river at gunpoint, there are no choices.

Stephan's St. Louis residence was known for all the women hanging around.
That included C. F. W. Walther's young niece, who died in America.

Anyone can see how the various authors skip over the kidnapping of Walther's niece and nephew from his father's parsonage. Mrs. Buenger was so involved that she spent time in the hoosegow for her participation. C.F.W. married one Buenger daughter, and his brother married another. When Walther's brother died, Ottomar Fuerbringer married the widow, making the kidnapping epidsodes (the children and Stephan) basic to LCMS history and DNA. Ottomar begat Ludwig Fuerbringer, who skipped over the early years of Missouri in his two books, and Ludwig begat Fibby, who turned Concordia Seminary, St. Louis into a faculty for Seminex.

The Bohemians had no problem with slavery.
Stephan settled his group in a slave state, unlike the Scandinavians,
who loathed slavery and stayed away from slave states.
Quoting Walther on slavery is considered slander, especially today.

Bishop Stephan is often accused of mismanaging money. Doubtless his plans and insistence on Perry County were quite harmful, and he lived high on the hog. But he did not touch the money. Everything was approved by the pastors and the laity, sometimes by one group, sometimes by the whole group. The clergy took money out of the common fund for themselves, too. CFW's brother took $400 out, a huge sum, and never accounted for it, never repaid it.

Zion on the Mississippi goes into all these details, which are quite confusing and difficult to follow. The Society was running out of money when they robbed Stephan of all his gold, personal possessions, 1500 books, and land (120 acres, eventually).

C. F. W. Walther led the mob against Stephan, acted as the new leader in Perry County, and took over leadership of the group soon after the big event. Walther also controlled the history of the group, stifling attempts to write about those early days.

The Saxon mob, organized and led by Walther,
robbed Stephan of all his gold.
Where did it go?
The stolen chalice ended up being used in C. F. W.'s congregation in St. Louis.
Thieves love to show off their trophies from robbery.

A group of pious liars turned Stephan into an embezzler (who never held the funds), a false teacher - whom the clergy installed as bishop. The clergy pledged total obedience to Stephan, so it is not shocking that Walther simply took over that style of leadership, becoming the American Pope.

The pious liars have never disclosed Stephan's well known adultery, in Europe and in America, or how he doomed his wife and children by sharing his syphilis with them.

Stephan studied at Halle University.
Stephan changed Walther's concept of justification.

The doctrinal foundation of the Olde Synodical Conference comes from Stephan's cell group Pietism and his initial education at Halle University. The Saxon group came over as Pietists and kept their cell groups going for a long time. Their bizarre justification scheme came from Halle and Stephan. Walther never changed, never went beyond his rationalistic and Pietistic training. But many consider his every pronouncement infallible, inspired, and beyond criticism.

The Missouri Synod, like other Pietistic groups, moved closer to the Confessions and Luther in later years. In that regard the LCMS was no different from the Swedish Augustana Synod or the Tennessee Synod or the General Council. Even the General Synod became confessional enough to merge with General Council, forming the ULCA in 1918.

The Missouri Synod remained a mix of Pietism and Lutheran doctrine, which is why the group had their Seminex crisis, their surge of Pentecostalism, and their love affair with the Church Growth Movement.

What Have We Learned from the Property Brothers' Congregation in St. Louis - Which Bragged about Their Woman Staffer Preaching and Distributing Communion?

The brothers kidnapped their niece and nephew from their father's parsonage.
CFW stole 120 acres from Stephan and the bishop's son.
After stealing everything from the bishop, Walther's mob falsely
accused the robbery victim of keep back some of their loot.
They kidnapped Stephan at gunpoint and forced him over to Illinois.

http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2016/03/breaking-news-photo-of-woman-teaching.html

The LCMS constantly lies about their early history, which is well documented in Zion on the Mississippi and in the Stephan In Pursuit of Religious (sic) Freedom.

For hilarious hagiography, no one can top Servant of the Word, which rivals The Glories of Mary.

For starters, the LCMS was begun by a Bohemian Pietist who never finished college. That is where their UOJ came from - Halle Pietism reinforced by Bohemian Pietism.

The Property Brothers were raised by a rationalist father, trained in rationalism in Leipzig, and nurtured in abusive Pietism by two different gurus of Pietism, Stephan taking over for the one who died.

Walther was never trained in Lutheran doctrine at all, but Stephan did have an on and off relationship with the Book of Concord. One could allow that the Property Brothers had that background of Luther studies that any Protestant clergyman would have had, doubtless more than the zilch offered at the LCMS-ELS-WELS seminaries today.

Walther had no command of Lutheran doctrine but continued in his bifircuated rationalistic Pietism. He had little knowledge of the Biblical languages, so he paraded his knowledge by being boss of everything, writing his own doctrinal compend, and crazily lecturing in Latin.

CFW continued his Property Brothers reputation by taking over his dead brother's call and later asking that Loehe give them the Ft. Wayne seminary for free while continuing to support the school. No wonder Missouri grew - with the bishop's gold, the bishop's library, the bishop's property, and a free seminary in Ft. Wayne - with promised financial support from Loehe.

I get Christian News online, so I know the new edition decries Universalism, the hidden doctrine of LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic).  That came from Stephan and Walther, so they cannot give up the imaginary act of God pronouncing the entire world forgiven and saved.

The abusive tyranny of Stephan and Walther has continued in each generation, and so has the rationalism of the founders. Since UOJ is at war with Biblical, Lutheran doctrine, it was only a matter of time before Missouri came out with a clear declaration of women's ordination.

WELS already had women consecrating Holy Communion, and Missouri has had ELCA women students (Trinity ELCA Columbus) baptizing, preaching, and celebrating the eucharist--back to 1987, when I saw the official document at the Trinity Library.

Now Missouri is coming out in the open at Walthers' congregation, which is only appropriate, given their history, heritage, and hagiography.

How many founders steal the bishop's chalice and use it for Holy Communion, refusing to give it back to the Stephan family?

Child Victims Partly To Blame Say Catholic Bishop. Different from WELS Sharia Law? LCMS Policy Is To Destroy Evidence

This bishop was found dead  before his testimony was taken -
about his own crimes against children.

http://www.syracuse.com/news/index.ssf/2015/09/victims_partly_to_blame_in_priest_sex-abuse_cases_syracuse_bishop_testified.html

UPDATE: The bishop issued a public letter in response to this story.

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – The victims of child-molesting priests are partly to blame for their own abuse, the bishop of Syracuse said in a sworn deposition that revealed his views on the church's sex abuse scandal.

Bishop Robert Cunningham testified in a 2011 deposition in response to a federal lawsuit filed by a man who said a priest in the Syracuse diocese sexually abused him as a child.

The man's lawyer asked Cunningham whether, in the eyes of the church, a child molested by a priest has committed a sin.

"The boy is culpable," Cunningham said Oct. 14, 2011, according to a transcript of the deposition.

His sworn testimony provides rare insight into the thoughts of the highest-ranking Catholic in Syracuse about one of the most troubling chapters in the church's history.

Cunningham believes no child is responsible for being sexually abused, a diocese official said this week. It's unfair to use the deposition to characterize his position otherwise, the official said.

***

I had to add the evil Stephan and the excommunicated Loehe (boo hiss),
insert Knapp, and put a proper burglars's mask on Walther.

GJ - When an authority figure (teacher, doctor, therapist, minister, coach, priest) uses his or her position to take advantage of another person, this excuse if often used. 

According to WELS Sharia law, the woman or girl is always guilty. This is no different from the decadent Roman Catholic policy of protecting "a son of Holy Mother Church." Besides, it is easier to defenestrate and slander a woman than to admit the son of Holy Mother Church is an adulterous scoundrel willing to betray his wife, his children, and his Savior?

The LCMS has never abandoned its policy of lying about the facts, hiding the truth, inventing sainthood stories, and excommunicating victims from its history. Stephan's adultery was the "fault of his wife," according to a confidential statement by CFW Walther, confidentially published in a book with world-wide circulation (Servant of the Word). But Walther organized a mob at a time convenient to CFW rather than confront Bishop Stephan - according to Scripture - with his crimes. How perverted, to blame Mrs. Stephan for her husband spreading syphilis to her and their children, and then to the young women in the cult.

The LCMS cannot even tell the truth about its birth
as a Pietistic cult run by an abusive, dictatorial bishop
who was propped up the the clergy who became Missouri's founding fathers.

Myth and Revolution

I used to teach a class on myth, a term that can have different meanings for various people. A fairly neutral definition would be "a compelling idea that shapes the thoughts and actions of large groups, whether it is true or not."

I found a high school production of Les Miserables, which I prefer in many ways over the bombastic movie production. This Victor Hugo novel was one of my first big reads, many years ago, probably in high school. I found a used book store where I could buy classics for very little. They are still in business in Davenport, Iowa - The Source.

But there is a vast difference between the modern treatment and the novel. In the original, the future son-in-law Marius Pontmercy is tricked onto the barricades, looking for Valjean's daughter. There he almost dies from a wound, but is carried to safety through the sewers of Paris.

In the movie, the same man is now one of the revolutionary leaders, who is willing to set aside his romance to kick some royalists around. He even shows up after the carnage and bawls about his friends and what they died for. True, there is some debate about the meaning of violence, but the overall effect of the movie is to extol revolution and praise its martyrs. The ending makes revolution jolly good fun because the entire cast, living and dead, sings "One More Day." Yes, revolution is just around the corner but it will not be as pleasantly tuneful as the movie.

This graphic is from Dr. Lito Cruz, math and logic expert, Lutheran pastor.

The myth of evolution has displaced the doctrine of Creation. Everything is 455 millions years old or developed 300 million years ago, and so forth. I keep thinking, "But I read the original."

In our limo I carry Zion on the Mississippi, a carefully researched early history of the Missouri Synod. The person who bought it said of the gift to the younger generation in a signed inscription, "We are from the Buenger and Stellhorn families."

Stellhorn was a key figure in The Error of Modern Missouri. Ludwig Fuerbringer wrote favorably about him as a respected leader and teacher. Did everyone agree about Stephan and Walther's UOJ? Certainly not, but Missouri began kicking out those who dissented, losing the Lenski family in the split caused by Walther's false doctrine.

And to make everything look nice for the innocent - and those unlikely to read more than Christian News - the Missouri Synod has erased its early history as a sex cult following a bishop with syphilis. Everything about the early years is recast into the myth of  Walther as the savior of Lutheranism in America, not the truth about Walther and the clergy leaders backing Stephan 100% until they found an excuse to threaten his life, rob him of everything (rescuing them from insolvency), and kidnap him at the point of a gun to Illinois.

The myth is cast in stone and the myth-keepers guard it with ever-vigilant eyes, like the Watchers at the gates of Mordor.

• If someone questions UOJ, "you have criticized Walther, Pieper, the Brief Confession, and our Beloved synod."
• If someone teaches justification by faith, "you have criticized Walther, Pieper, the Brief Confession, and our Beloved synod."
• If someone mentions the strange conflicts between the historical record and the Missouri Synod version, "you have criticized Walther, Pieper, the Brief Confession, and our Beloved synod."

The Missouri Synod began as an abusive, controlling, and deviant cult,
perpetuated by the fake discovery of Stephan's adultery
and the convenient theft of all his gold, land, books, and personal possessions.
Walther led the mob that instigated so many felonies,
not exactly the Biblical remedy for adultery.