Protestia - ELCA Has Marvelous Method To Attract the Four Waltherian Cults - LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC (sic)

St. Paul Reformation Lutheran Church - ELCA.

From Protestia - edited by Ichabod.

Saint Paul Reformation Lutheran Church in St Paul, Minnesota, led by Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Shebeck, DMin, is “a Christian community rooted in the original community of the Holy Trinity.”

A member of the ELCA, they are active in their community in pushing LGBTQ propaganda during their local Pride parade, where they hand out stickers to gay, lesbian and trans passersby that read, “Not all Christians are A_______. God made you exactly the way you are.”

ELCA Archbishop Liz Eaton paused at a youth meeting to photograph herself and the audience. What does Liz say about St. Paul Reformation?
Did foul-mouthed Nadia Bolz-Weber start this?

PS - LCMS and WELS are closely knit with ELCA, as my aunt used to say, so they are the last to protest Protestia.

The rotten apple doth fall from the tree.

United Left-Wing Churches Putting the Squeeze on Congregations Leaving

"So long, and thanks for all the fish.
Too bad it had to come to this." 
Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy.

"Key points: The Lewis Center for Church Leadership has done a report that compares characteristics of disaffiliating churches with those remaining in The United Methodist Church. The large majority of exiting churches are in the South and Southwest. Disaffiliating churches are more likely than remaining churches to have a male pastor and to have a majority white membership. United Methodist Council of Bishops President Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton said the report has information that can help guide the denomination as it seeks to renew itself, including in areas where many churches have disaffiliated."

The United Methodist Church (or parts of it) backed the Social Gospel Movement at the very beginning of the 20th century. Every time a group of Methodist churches left Holy Mother Meth, the liberals cheered, increased their power, and Marxified their political agenda. Consequently, the conservative element within the United Methodists kept bringing up the Biblical errors being paraded by the denomination.

Like ELCA and the Episcopal Church, the Methodist leaders are making it as difficult as possible to leave with their buildings and savings. 

Similar exits among Lutherans have created congregations harkening back to the old days, with ELCA enjoying its emphasis on pride, empty churches, and failing seminaries.

One reader especially enjoys Nadia Bolz-Weber graphics and ELCA radicalism. Nadia tried to be a stand-up comedian, but Leftists have no sense of humor. Instead, she pioneered an ELCA congregation that "looks like her."

Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber

Nadia and HerChurch Circle the Drain: The Icha-peek for Late Night Readers

 I thought about using or only linking the latest from Nadia Bolts-Tattoos, but it was so foul-mouthed that linking it was an act of profanity, so I did not.

"As Priestess Witch for herchurch, Christine offers magical gifts to share and enhance the support and development of herchurch. The monthly astrological reading provides guidance from the stars and is a favorite among many. Together we honor the natural cycles of the year, the Solstices and Equinoxes, and thank the Earth for her bounty. Small group gatherings provide inspiration and direct our attention to instinct and intuition helping us to discover ways to connect to the divinity of nature and thereby the Divine."

https://www.herchurch.org/priestexx

How many years ago did I write about HerChurch and post photos? A dozen years ago!

==

Someone added a few details, to illustrate a point.

Making Idols of Canaanite goddess, Is that Still Okay, ELCA Leadership?

by Exposing the ELCA on Thursday, November 4, 2010 at 10:28pm

Exposing the ELCA has highlighted Ebenezer Lutheran Church/“her church” in San Francisco in the past (read here on page 6 and here).  This ELCA church is famous for goddess worship, praying the goddess rosary, praying to “Sophia” and “Mother,” as well as the use of female pronouns for the god they worship.  The ELCA has taken no action to stop these practices/beliefs.  We could only conclude that goddess worship is an acceptable practice in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Now we have an actual statement from ELCA leadership about the teachings of this San Francisco Lutheran Church.  Bishop Michael Burk of ELCA Southeastern Iowa Synod spoke with Ebenezer Lutheran Church’s  Bishop from the Sierra Pacific Synod (in August 2010).  Bishop Burk had questions about reports he had heard of non-orthodox practices happening at the church. Here is his account of that conversation,

“After visiting with the bishop and with another synod staff member who knows the congregation and the pastor well, there is an acknowledgement that this congregation ‘pushes around the edges’ on matters that make some of us uncomfortable. Things like what they refer to this ‘rosary’ are seen by many to be outside the bounds, but don't rise to level of anything in the disciplinary arena. Speaking explicitly about the pastor and regular worship experience there, when folks have ‘dropped in unannounced’ they have experienced preaching that is decidedly within Lutheran orthodoxy and worship that is familiar and done with integrity. It was said that this small congregation is serving the local community very well, especially when it comes to reaching out to the local community.”  (read here, go to comment 6)

We have now learned that Ebenezer Lutheran Church is offering women an interesting “spiritual retreat.”  The church website says,

“Celebrate ‘She Who Is’
Encounter the Divine Feminine
with body, mind and spirit”

At this spiritual retreat you will experience -

“Sacred Re-imaging, rituals and work(play)shops, sacred sounds, altar building, meditation with the Cosmic Mother, Christian Feminist stories, beach walks, free time and relaxing with beauty that is around, among and within!”

The experience will include presentations on -

“God/dess Around Us
Language of the Goddess – Pr. Boorn (ELCA pastor)

God/dess Within Us
Connecting with God/dess – J. Dancer

God/dess Beyond Us
Spirit Shrines – Linda Roberts”

The Retreat gets even more interesting unfortunately.  Ebenezer Lutheran Church’s website tells an attendee’s retreat experience where we read,

“Pastor Stacy reminded us of some of the discounted feminine images of God in the Old Testament—probably none of which were the products of female imaginations—and invited us to form our own images in clay of Asherah, the mother goddess of the Canaanites familiar to early Jewish inhabitants of Canaan. I am no artist. Warming and working the clay with my hands, I wondered whether my goddess would look anything like the photograph of an Asherah figure Stacy provided as a possible starting point . . .”

“The next project, led by Kathryn Wagner, was to make a mandala, a circular, meditative image of the self . . .”

“On the shore of Monterey Bay, on Saturday night and Sunday morning, all ten of us prayed the Goddess rosary [some beaded their own Goddess Rosary that afternoon] beside a cross erected of driftwood and draped with seaweed. Stacy called us to remember the sea as the primal water from which life emerged, to think of it as the amniotic fluid of our mother's wombs . . .”  (Read here) http://www.herchurch.org/id10.html

One could write five articles on the non-orthodox, troubling, and heretical statements written about this "spiritual retreat."  But we will just focus on "Asherah."

The image of Asherah, that ELCA pastor Stacy Boorn had the women on the retreat make, is a false god.  As was mentioned above, Asherah is "the mother goddess of the Canaanites" that God continually told the Israelites to stay away from.  Scripture speaks of Asherah and Asherah poles extensively and none of it is positive.  Here is one verse (see more verses at end of this article) -

Deuteronomy 12:3 - Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones and burn their Asherah poles in the fire; cut down the idols of their gods and wipe out their names from those places.

I would be interested in hearing from ELCA headquarters and the synod bishops as to whether this new documented information of "herchurch" making idols of a false god (one the Bible specifically mentions and which is forbidden in scripture) is still considered acceptable practices for ELCA members.  As you can read in the Bible verses below, it is not acceptable to God. 

If making idols and the worship of false gods does not warrant expulsion, I don’t know what does.  ELCA inaction here = acceptance/approval.

---------

More of what God’s Word says about Asherah/Asherah poles - 

Judges 3:7 - The Israelites did evil in the eyes of the LORD; they forgot the LORD their God and served the Baals and the Asherahs.

1 Kings 14:15 - And the LORD will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they aroused the LORD’s anger by making Asherah poles.

1 Kings 16:33 - Ahab also made an Asherah pole and did more to arouse the anger of the LORD, the God of Israel, than did all the kings of Israel before him.

2 Kings 17:16 - They forsook all the commands of the LORD their God and made for themselves two idols cast in the shape of calves, and an Asherah pole. They bowed down to all the starry hosts, and they worshiped Baal.

Deuteronomy 7:5 - This is what you are to do to them: Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire.

***

GJ - Notice that DP Doug Englebrecht sent the District VP to investigate The CORE and found exactly the same Lutheran orthodoxy! Twas practically Adolph Hoenecke come to life again.

Readers - HerChurch is a picture of WELS in the future.

No one thought HerChurch could happen when I published about this topic in 1987. Now the same people who ignored the warnings are shocked that it did happen - with their synod's blessing. My classmate from Yale, with a PhD in NT studies, blessed it as well. Now he is an ELCA seminary president.

The problem is with corrupt officials who seem to be spineless shiver-sisters, until someone dares to question the conduct of their office. Then, as Luther wrote, they are ready to tear up trees with their bare hands.

Or as Proverbs says, it is easier to rob a she-bear of her cubs than to encounter a fool in his folly. Prov. 17:12.

 Nadia allegedly had Covid. She may have visited HerChurch, but she started her own wackadoodle congregation and later was called by ELCA to do more of the same "as a witness."

Everyone's Favorite - And ELCA's - Nadia

 

 That is Nadia on the far left. The Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber, left, is installed as pastor of public witness Aug. 20, 2021, by Bishop Jim Gonia, right, of the Rocky Mountain Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in a service at Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Denver. 

 

Gonia has served as bishop of the Rocky Mountain Synod in Denver since 2012. He was ELCA program director for West Africa, Tanzania and Madagascar from 2009 to 2012, and he served as associate pastor of Atonement Lutheran Church in Lakewood, Colo., from 1999 to 2009.  

Gonia received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Valparaiso University in Valparaiso, Ind., in 1982. He received a Master of Divinity degree from Luther Northwestern Seminary (now Luther Seminary) in St. Paul, Minn. in 1988, and a Master of Theology degree in Islamic studies at Luther Seminary in 1997. Luther is one of seven ELCA seminaries.

LutherQueasies Falling Over Each Other To Defend Matt Harrison's Objective Justification Drivel, Adding Their Own Drool

 How dare he wield the Sword of the Spirit when we have the complete works of CFW Walther, B.A.!

The Enthusiasm Works, LLC, aka LutherQuacks, seemed incoherent with rage when I pointed out the ridiculousness of Walther's Law and Gospel thesis.

They began by defending Matt Harrison's Objective Justification drivel, then turned against my clarifying, gentle, and diplomatic comments about the kidnapper-pimp, CFW himself.

Their website, powered by recycled Fritos, does not have the horsepower to present graphics or Greek. Their extended rants do not have an appealing look when the site is only good for trivia, biting and devouring.

One MDiv pointed out that Harrison (or his ghost-writer) could not assemble a decent Biblical argument for Justification without Faith. As I tell my graduate students, "At least make a good argument, using logic, plain sentences, and research." Harrison (or McCain) missed on all three.

One Lutheran layman made the same point about Objective Justification in a recent message to me.

The Lutheran synods were healthy when they taught Justification by Faith, but that was a long time ago. Now they emulate ELCA in every possible way.

 The elephant in the LQ room - they lie down with ELCA dawgs and git up with fleas, taking it out on poor little defenseless Ichabod.

The LutherQuackers should defend Matt Harrison and his buddies Schroeder and Pope John for:

1. Working with ELCA and burning up Thrivent dollars for their agenda.
2. Turning their synods into tranny trains where Nadia Bolz-Weber is admired for being so cool.
3. Staying in the same room with female bishops (50% of the ELCA bishops) who espouse abortion on demand, fund abortion through their health plan, and teach Objective Justification.
4. Supporting fake evangelism programs, which are no more than regurgitated Calvinist gimmicks from Fuller, Willow Creek, and other Synagogues of Satan.

I appreciate the publicity from the LutherQuackers and the cub editor Christian News. But why do I upset them so much that they engage in endless, puerile name-calling fits?

A brief summary of my teaching and practice:

• Biblical inerrancy.
• Precise translations and the traditional text. Hence, the KJV in all books and services.
• The Book of Concord - subscriptions are meaningless.
• The Six-Day Creation through the Word of God.
• The efficacy of the Word.
• The Real Presence, weekly Holy Communion.
• Male leadership without excluding women, who are a priceless component of our media ministries.
• World mission in the Philippines.
• Marriage between one man and one woman only.
• Married 50+ years.

Missouri and WELS once taught and practiced this way, but no longer, so the LutherQuackers quake when I post and rage like Donald Duck.

There She Goes Again! NBW

I was warming up the keyboard when someone sent me a message about a tweet to read. I clicked the link and found it was already taken down.

Nadia Bolz-Weber bragged that she blocked parking spaces in New York, to gather kudos from the Left. That set off pages of commentary on the ALPB.org online forum, another discussion group famous for wasting precious bits and bytes.

Virtue-signaling gathers applause from the Left, and the gestures seem increasingly puerile.

"Fasten your seat-belts, kitties. It's going to be a bumpy ride."

ELCA Hits Bottom - First Things Expose by Dr. Robert Benne - Not from The Onion. I Apologize for the Nadia Ring Photo, But People Should Know the Truth.

 Just remember - these three apostates love working with ELCA via Thrivent: Matt the Fatt, Mirthless Mark, and Pope John the Malefactor. Mark and Avoid Jeske stirs the Thrivent brew with ELCA lady pastors and demonic laughter. He misspells the name of his ELCA-WELS-LCMS conferences, which should read - Change and Die!

https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/10/elca-hits-bottom

ELCA HITS BOTTOM

by Robert BenneOctober 2018Robert Benne is the Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion Emeritus and research associate at Roanoke College.

Below are some sections. Please read the entire article carefully, because the author had a long teaching career with the LCA and finally left ELCA in 2010 to be part of the NALC.

 This happened at the church where the meetings were taking place, after the key vote that caused Benne to leave ELCA. In CN, I wrote about this debacle already developing in 1987.

"We left after the cataclysmic ELCA assembly of 2009 accepted the blessing of gay unions (which quickly became the acceptance of gay marriage), the ordination of “married” gays, and a social statement on ­sexuality that was ambivalent about the institution of marriage and the place of sexual relations within it. (The last item was accompanied by a rogue tornado that knocked off the steeple of a nearby ELCA church!)"

"Whatever doubts I had were extinguished by recent events in the ELCA. The glaring departure from classic Christian teaching is so stunning it is scarcely believable. At the 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering held in Houston in late June, 31,000 youngsters of high school age listened to the most radical speakers the ELCA could possibly put forward. The prime keynoter was Nadia Bolz-­Weber, the tattooed and feisty founding pastor of an ELCA congregation called House for All Sinners and Saints. She has risen to become the featured celebrity of the ELCA and darling of progressive elites from NPR to the BBC."

 Diversity is only good and blessed when it is selective.

"These two keynoters not only reject traditional Christian notions of sexual identity; they also challenge classic teachings on sexual morality. Both signed a petition that was concocted by an organization called “Naked and Unashamed” (I’m not making this up) based at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, where I (blushingly) taught for seventeen years. The petition calls for the ELCA to stop “privileging marriage as the only acceptable form of sexual relationality” and to start “editing out language that perpetuates heteronormativity and sexual oppression” from its guiding documents. Fortunately, neither spoke about their notions of sexual morality to the ­hormone-driven teenagers who cheered them on. Needless to say, both support Planned Parenthood and a woman’s “right to choose.”

ELCA seminary student, Luther, Anders Nelson,lip-synched his heart out in the chapel.

"A third set of keynoters was a mother and her eleven-year-old child, the latter having “transitioned” from boy to girl. The mother, an ELCA pastor’s wife, opined that her child, though biologically a boy, “deeply knows herself to be a girl.” “She wasn’t a boy; we just didn’t know that yet.” The child’s congregation had a renaming ­ceremony on the tenth anniversary of “her” baptism, bestowing the name “Rebekah.”

"Then Rebekah spoke to the teens: “Being transgender is about being who God made me to be. God does not make ­mistakes. . . ."

 An ELCA professor of Confessional Theology was fast-tracked into the pastorate so he could be the first married bishop, like the disaster in The Episcopal Church USA that ended in divorce.

***

GJ - My message to everyone who was silent or abusive when I left the LCA before its doomed merger - I told you so. I published about it with all the sources in 1987. WELS was openly hostile about my little effort, so I published it in Christian News.

Later I wrote a series of articles for CN that Otten suggested for NPH:

Liberalism, Its Cause and Cure. 

The book sold very well and went into three editions, but NPH pulled the title and gave me permission to reprint it. Valleskey no lika - in fact, there was a big fight to keep it from being printed in the first place.

The message of the Fourth Gospel is this - If we believe, then we also witness to the truth, no matter what.

 Amazon printed the book, but it is better to order it from me at the author's price.

1. 
   

Louise Johnson, DD, Lands a Grant To Shorten One's Stay in Wartburg College and Seminary. To Dream the Impossible Dream. This Is My Quest To Follow That Star! No Matter How Hopeless No Matter How Far

 Wartburg posted this pose as her thrilled and excited photo
when they gave Louise Johnson an honorary D.D.

Wartburg Theological Seminary has received a $497,115 grant from The Kern Family Foundation to streamline preparation for pastoral ministry for first career ministerial students in partnership with Wartburg College, Waverly, Iowa. The grant allows for implementation of a fully integrated Bachelor of Arts/Master of Divinity degree program to provide leadership, theological education and spiritual formation embedded in congregational contexts.

This new program will include 3 years of BA education at Wartburg College with at least one semester interfacing with Wartburg Seminary, Dubuque, IA. The final 3 years (which includes a year to complete an internship required by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) will be located in a collaborative congregational context.

Louise N. Johnson, Wartburg Seminary President, explains, “The generosity of the Kern Foundation and the partnership of Wartburg College offer us an extraordinary opportunity to press into our calling to form young faith leaders, who can proclaim words of hope, healing, forgiveness, mercy, grace to a world desperately longing to hear and to know the living God.”

***

GJ - Without foundation grants, Mrs. Ichabod and I finished Augustana in three years and a quarter. I finished seminary, so that both degrees took six years, including a vicarage. Mrs. Ichabod earned a master's degree in German literature, where most of the classes were in German. So she also earned two degrees in six years, plus working at the UniWat library.

Reu has been forgotten. Where did he teach?
Wartburg? Really!

Louise Johnson, DD - “Vocation was a huge piece of what Martin Luther gave the church. His reframing of a sense of vocation was radical at the time, and in its own way, is still radical now,” she said. “It pushes us to think differently about how we spend our time and what God calls us to do and how we understand that. Those basic Reformation principles still sing in our culture today.”

 ELCA Bishop Liz Eaton has a lot more damage planned.
Most of her higher education appointments have been single women, so put a ring on it.

 ELCiC Bishop Susan Johnson

 Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber

Encore.

 Bishop April Larson

 Pastor Anita Hill paved the way for
Mark Hanson's career.

 Pastor Megan Rohrer is
ELCA's first openly transgender pastor.

 Dr. Robin Steinke is thrilled and excited to sell off
Luther Seminary property.

Washington Post Catches Up with Ichabod. No Lutheran Admits to Learning about the Tatt Preacher from Reading Here

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/bolz-webers-liberal-foulmouthed-articulation-of-christianity-speaks-to-fed-up-believers/2013/11/03/7139dc24-3cd3-11e3-a94f-b58017bfee6c_story.html

Bolz-Weber’s liberal, foulmouthed articulation of Christianity speaks to fed-up believers

View Photo Gallery — A budding star of progressive Christianity: Nadia Bolz-Weber, a tattooed Lutheran minister, represents a new, muscular form of progressive Christianity.

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By Michelle Boorstein, Published: November 3 E-mail the writer

AUSTIN — Nadia Bolz-Weber bounds into the University United Methodist Church sanctuary like a superhero from Planet Alternative Christian. Her 6-foot-1 frame is plastered with tattoos, her arms are sculpted by competitive weightlifting and, to show it all off, this pastor is wearing a tight tank top and jeans.

Looking out at the hundreds of people crowded into the pews to hear her present the gospel of Jesus Christ, she sees: Dockers and blazers. Sensible shoes. Grandmothers and soccer moms. Nary a facial piercing.

Photos of the day

Kenya eclipse, Belarusans commemorate victims of Stalin era, New York marathon and more.

• Friday's Photos of the day

To Bolz-Weber’s bafflement, this is now her congregation: mainstream America.

These are the people who put her memoir near the top of the New York Times bestseller list the week it came out in September. They are the ones who follow her every tweet and Facebook post by the thousands, and who have made the Lutheran minister a budding star for the liberal Christian set.

And who, as Bolz-Weber has described it in her frequently profane dialect, “are [mess]ing up my weird.”

A quick tour through her 44 years doesn’t seem likely to wind up here. It includes teen rebellion against her family’s fundamentalist Christianity, a nose dive into drug and alcohol addiction, a lifestyle of sleeping around and a stint doing stand-up in a grungy Denver comedy club. She is part of society’s outsiders, she writes in her memoir, its “underside dwellers . . . cynics, alcoholics and queers.”

Which is where — strangely enough — the match with her fans makes sense. The type of social liberals who typically fill the pews of mainline churches sometimes feel like outsiders among fellow liberals in their lives if they are truly believing Christians; if they are people who really experience Jesus and his resurrection, even if they can’t explain it scientifically; if they are people who want to hear words from the Apostles in church, not Thich Nhat Hanh or Barack Obama.

In her body and her theology, Bolz-Weber represents a new, muscular form of liberal Christianity, one that merges the passion and life-changing fervor of evangelicalism with the commitment to inclusiveness and social justice of mainline Protestantism. She’s a tatted-up, foul-mouthed champion to people sick of being belittled as not Christian enough for the right or too Jesus-y for the left.

“You show us all your dirty laundry! It’s all out there!” the Rev. John Elford of the University United Methodist Church booms, as if he is introducing a rock star, leading the cheering crowd into an impassioned round of hymn-singing.

Bolz-Weber springs onstage to do a reading from her book, but first she addresses the language that’s about to be unleashed on the pulpit: “I don’t think church leaders should pretend to be something they’re not.”

The crowd erupts into applause.

Bolz-Weber pulls out a few kitschy items that she raffles off to raise money for a local charity. She waves a gift certificate for a free tattoo. Then she speaks to her new reality:

“You ladies over 70 dig deep, because you know you want it!”

God without answers

Bolz-Weber’s appeal is unquestionably part packaging: dramatic back story, cool appearance, super-entertaining delivery. She launched a successful church for disaffected young people and has headlined youth gatherings tens of thousands strong. For a part of American religion that’s been in a long, slow institutional decline, this gives her major credibility.

More at the NYTimes website.

***

GJ - I have been covering this ELCA pastor for several years, simply because Ski is the Elijah for Bolz-Weber. Whatever you see in WELS is just a step behind ELCA and the Unitarian Universalists.

I predict she will be another flash in the pan, like Rev. "Love Wins."

Rob Bell got himself kicked out of his own congregation
for going Unitarian with his Love Wins book.
UOJ is essentially doctrine-neutral.

Classic Ichabod:

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

DID NADIA BOLZ-WEBER JUST CALL JESUS “A SCHMUCK”? : Apprising Ministries.
Emergent Church - What Missouri and WELS
And the Little Sect Love

ELCA Pastor - Emergent Church Speaker.

DID NADIA BOLZ-WEBER JUST CALL JESUS “A SCHMUCK”? : Apprising Ministries:

Apprising Ministries has long been maintaining thatMainstream Evangelicalism Is Now On The Rapid Slide To Apostasy because of its ongoing embrace of the egregiously ecumenical Emerging Church aka Emergent Church—morphing into Emergence Christianity—(EC). Along this line I have reminded you a few times now about the upcoming Emerging Church conference Christianity 21 (C 21) October 9-11. 

It’s important to keep in mind that C 21 is being put on by a most dubious duo of the EC, theologian Tony Jones and his quasi-universalist pastor Doug Pagitt. As AM previously pointed out Jo-Pa have informed us that “all 21 of these Voices,” women who’ll be revealing “the way the Christianity will be changing in coming days” are also going to “be in a pulpit somewhere in the Twin Cities that Sunday morning.”

One character among alleged “innovative” and “most important voices for the future of Christianity” who’ll “speak into our future” in order to “shape the future of our faith” at C 21 will be “queer inclusive” ELCA “pastor,” and former “professional f**k-up,” Nadia Bolz-Weber. I was actually thinking of not even publishing this article until I received the following email from a “hasty Bob” this morning:

Thanks for getting the word out about Nadia Bolz-Weber. I had never realized how much of an affront she is to those who disagree with her. Its interesting that she is such a great preacher and excellent expositor of the Word, which I’m sure you pride yourself upon being. “Pride goeth…

But thanks anyway for your contribution to the emerging church.

Well, we’ll ignore his little digs since there are undoubtedly people who think Pastrix Bolz-Weber—who really has no business whatsoever heading a church claiming Jesus Christ—is an “excellent expositor of the Word.” And as such, it now seems best in the Lord to further expose this pretending pastor. And if you’re tempted to think this is much ado about nothing then consider this from Bolz-Weber:

Wittenburg yesterday then spoke at a Lutheran seminary last night… (Online source) I’m loving GErmany. Spoke at a Lutheran Sem this AM (Online source)

So, as I said in Emergence Christianity Pastrix Nadia Bolz-Weber Expounds On Psalm 45 she was the one who alerted us to a podcast she’s just done with an Isaac Everett. Everett himself is also an EC pastor of sorts such as Bolz-Weber claims to be and in the introduction for his podcast Everett informs us:

Nadia Bolz-Weber, the Sarcastic Lutheran, discusses Psalm 45, the nerdiest love song in the Bible. Nadia is the pastor of the House for All Sinners and Saints in Denver and the author of Salvation on the Small Screen: 24 Hours of Christian Television. (Online source)

Pastrix Bolz-Weber calling Psalm 45 “the nerdiest Psalm ever” is precisely the focus of this particular piece. During the short “exposition” of Psalm 45 by this EC “Voice” Bolz-Weber will tell us that this Psalm talks about “like the chicks in your court, are like, totally hot,” and “it makes me think the person he’s writing about is actually kind of a schmuck and he doesn’t like him.” But Psalm 45 is a Messianic Psalm, it’s ultimately about the Christ—Jesus of Nazareth. 

Now what kind of a pastor actually sent by Jesus would dare to refer to a Messianic Psalm, inspired by God Himself, as the nerdiest Psalm ever; and especially one who makes the claim that she’s a Lutheran pastor. We already know from Luther’s Works, Vol 10 Lectures On The Psalms I, that Martin Luther held the position Psalm 45 was about Jesus; and now lets’s also consider the following from the great Bible commentator Matthew Henry:

This psalm is an illustrious prophecy of Messiah the Prince: it is all over gospel, and points at him only, as a bridegroom espousing the church to himself and as a king ruling in it and ruling for it. It is probable that our Saviour has reference to this psalm when he compares the kingdom of heaven, more than once, to a nuptial solemnity, the solemnity of a royal nuptial, Mt. 22:2; 25:1.

We have no reason to think it has any reference to Solomon’s marriage with Pharaoh’s daughter; if I thought that it had reference to any other than the mystical marriage between Christ and his church, I would rather apply it to some of David’s marriages, because he was a man of war, such a one as the bridegroom here is described to be, which Solomon was not. But I take it to be purely and only meant of Jesus Christ; of him speaks the prophet this, of him and of no other man; and to him (v. 6, 7) it is applied in the New Testament (Heb. 1:8), nor can it be understood of any other. (Online source)

Or how about this from Dr. Willem A. VanGemeren from the middle of the road evangelical Expositor’s Bible Commentary series: 

The psalm is a royal psalm and functioned as a wedding song at the occasion of the wedding of a royal couple. Because of the theological significance of the wedding and the function of the Davidic king within God’s order of life in Israel and Judah, the wedding song takes on typological significance. Applicable to any descendant of David, it extols the privileged position of his people and sets forth God’s expectations of his appointed vassal on earth (cf. Pss 2; 110).

In a special way the psalm also applies to our Lord, who rules as the Son of David (cf. Heb 1:8). However, the expositor must first listen to the psalm in the context of Israel and restrain himself from reading only the relationship of Christ and the church into this text. In this manner he can appreciate more the blessedness of the rule of the One born of a woman into the lineage of David: Jesus our Messiah. (Psalm 45, CR Rom)

It’s pretty clear for those with ears to hear that the inspired Psalmist, while likely intending to write simply of the royal wedding of someone in the Davidic line, was then guided by God the Holy Spirit (see—2 Peter 1:20-21) to also write concerning the Messiah Himself i.e. Christ Jesus. So with this proper Bibliology in mind I will point you to the clip below by Christian apologist Chris Rosebrough from his Fighting For The Faith program on his Pirate Christian Radio network where he further elucidates the proper Biblical context of Psalm 45. 

Among other things, as Rosebrough deconstructs the foolishness of Bolz-Weber and Everett from that aforementioned podcast, he brings out a key point in that God would inspire the writer of the Book of Hebrews to quote from Psalm 45 and apply it to Jesus the Christ:

Your throne, O God, is forever and ever. The scepter of your kingdom is a scepter of uprightness; you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. (Psalm 45:6-7, ESV)

But of the Son he says, ”Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, the scepter of uprightness is the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions.” (Hebrews 1:8-9, ESV)

Rosebrough happens to be dead-on-target when he says:

It is unmistakeable (sic) that, here in Psalm 45, we’re got this amazing—amazing—prophecy regarding Jesus Christ Himself. And so, in this royal wedding Psalm, there is embedded in it, a clear allusion to Jesus Christ; and I would even say the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. The coming future eschatological event when Jesus Christ, and the Bride of Christ—which is His Church—are joined together.

Which now brings me to my original question: Did Nadia Bolz-Weber just call Jesus Christ a schmuck? Answer: Yes, she did. And here’s the bigger question: Why doesn’t this seem to bother anyone? Well, as I told Bolz-Weber and her EC ilk before; here’s a newsflash: She’s the one foolish enough to attempt to pass herself off as a gay-affirming woman who’s supposedly a Lutheran pastor doing “Emerging Church ala Luther,” and then allows herself to be touted by two well-respected Emergent Church leaders as one of the “most important voices for the future of Christianity.”

And so she’d best be prepared for those like myself whom God has raised up and given forums where we can — reprove them severely so that they may be sound in the faith (Titus 1:13, NASB).

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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487631/Tattooed-female-weightlifter-Nadia-Bolz-Weber-hit-Lutheran-minister.html

'I swear like a truck driver': Tattooed female weightlifter who boozed and took drugs becomes rising star of the Lutheran church  

• Nadia Bolz-Weber's sermons may include the odd swear word
• The 44-year-old is covered in tattoos and admits taking drugs 
• Now she is preaching at a church in Denver and pulling in the crowds

By TARA BRADY

PUBLISHED: 05:12 EST, 5 November 2013 | UPDATED: 11:17 EST, 5 November 2013

 
 
 

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She's 6ft 1in tall, a former stand-up comic and now a competitive weightlifter but when she isn't down the gym working out, tattoo-covered Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran pastor. 

'I swear like a truck driver', she said. 

'I refuse to pretend I'm somebody I'm not', she told abc. 

SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO

New approach: Nadia Bolz-Weber is a rising star in the Lutheran church who has a growing congregation

Reverend Bolz-Weber, who has experimented with Wicca, is now the pastor of All Sinners and Saints - a Lutheran church in Denver, Colorado. 

While normal church events might end with the congregation blessing themselves on the way out, this church prefers to have a dance party featuring a chocolate fountain in the baptismal font. 

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But despite her alternative approach, her quirky sermons which are littered with profanities has worked. 

Her congregation is growing and hundreds of people now peer out from the among the pews to listen to her preach. 

'We are all about Jesus. But to have humor and lightness and irreverence is our version of piety,' 
she told Spirituality and Health. 

Nadia Bolz-Weber was once a drug and alcohol addict but turned to the church and hasn't looked back

The married mother-of-two has now written a spiritual memoir about her journey called Pastrix: The Cranky Faith of a Sinner and Saint. 

The book is near the top of the New York Times bestseller list after it was released in September. 

And she doesn't hold back. 

From a teenage rebellion against her fundamentalist Christianity, drug and alcohol addiction and doing stand-up in a comedy club in Denver, she describes herself as one of society's outsiders.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2487631/Tattooed-female-weightlifter-Nadia-Bolz-Weber-hit-Lutheran-minister.html#ixzz2jnOyuUS4
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