ELCA Warms Up for a Hot Phoenix Assembly

"One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them, One Ring to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them. ELCA+ installation."

"I am not Joe Biden's hospital chaplain!"

Source? - ALPB Ovaltines 

"By 2011, the ELCA's financial situation had changed significantly. According to reports, national donations decreased from $88 million in 2008 to $40 million in 2011. This decline in revenue was accompanied by a drop in membership, with over 600 congregations leaving the ELCA between August 2009 and January 2011." 

"Now, Brett. I was not going to be the first ELCA Archbishop to copy the Presbyterians. But they threatened me with Liz Eaton, because she learned choir music at Harvard Div. What followed was not my fault!!"

"Porgia, we are going to have a delicious lunch in Phoenix, thanks to Thrivent."

"You lied. You lied! You lied about lunch!"

Listen Up to the Great Slogan from the First Female Archbishop of ELCA.And Good Riddance!

 

According to the ELCA website, early in her tenure, Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton set forth her own convictions to guide the members of the ELCA in understanding our unique identity, and these convictions have become a recognized way of articulating who we are:

We are church.

We are Lutheran.

We are church together.

We are church for the sake of the world.

That sums up the tenure of Liz Eaton when she could have resigned.

All the ELCA seminaries are closing, so make sure your compost tumblers are ready to move.

***

And LCMS-WELS-ELS-etc Want To Work with ELCA?

From the ALPB Ovaltines

In 2008, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) approved a churchwide budget with a current fund income of $81.67 million and a World Hunger income proposal of $19.25 million, totaling approximately $100.92 million.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

By 2011, the ELCA's financial situation had changed significantly. According to reports, national donations decreased from $88 million in 2008 to $40 million in 2011. This decline in revenue was accompanied by a drop in membership, with over 600 congregations leaving the ELCA between August 2009 and January 2011

I had no idea. My impression was giving to churchwide was an slow downward slant, steadily evenly declining through the years. These numbers show another reality. The numbers went over a cliff.

Membership Stats:
2008: The ELCA reported approximately 4,633,887 baptized members.
2011: Membership 4,059,785
2024: 2,793,899 baptized

Funny, no one ever talks about this publicly at synod functions and such.

Send in the Clowns - Don't Worry They're Here

 

The famous Broadway show, "A Little Night Music," spawned one of those permanent clever songs. I could quote all of it, but the professionals frown on too much sharing. The famous line made me think of the disasters facing the hard work, enthusiasm, panic, blaming, plagiarism, and bankruptcy of the Lutherans. The top three - or rather the bottom three - absorb most of the Lutheran members left - ELCA, LCMS, WELS.

"Don't you love farce?"

 "My fault, I fear."

"I thought that you'd want what I want
Sorry, my dear."

These proud sentinels of the synods have trapped themselves in their own illusions. If only they could find the right excuses, the best financial numbers, the most easily blamed.... 

The bottom three (to be more blunt) perhaps fear the truth about their own work. They abhor the best and only English Bible - the King James Version. Their choices are ridiculous, unless one counts the corrupt Bibles that generate cash for their bleeding losses.

Their hymnals have excluded the best while trying to borrow as much as they can from anti-Lutheran song disasters.

Their efforts to have conferences give them the lift and sweetness of cotton candy.

If the Apostles did so much with nothing, why are the Apostates losing everything with the help of their Father Below?

 "Quick, send in the clowns
Don't bother they're here."

Before and After - Presiding Bishop Liz Eaton - Mysterious Leave of Absence

Before - Liz was elected in 2013

After - Two photographs were published showing a singular lack of joy in her work.

The ironic caption reminds everyone - why silent about the leave of absence for up to six months?

Four months after Eaton's leave-of-absence began, the Lutheran Forum Ovaline Newsletter asked the question, what is going on? Given the Ovaltines' knowledge of all things ELCA, the author should have known. Officially, ELCA is being silent and the Ovaltines wonder why nothing is being explained. The ELCA Constitution allows for a leave-of-absence and a male pastor has filled her role. Why such a stretch, four months, six months!? That anticipated quite a serious situation. The announcement and temporary replacement came after the leave-of-absence started. That suggests a serious crisis, as the photos suggest.

ELCA released a video with Liz featured and added, "This was taped before the leave of absence began."

As I have suggest before, Eaton started a blaze that is now consuming ELCA. I recall her uppity remarks about the 2009 ELCA vote to go all out for all genders. As a local bishop in Ohio, she was publicly sarcastic about people cringing over that vote. Nothing much was going to happen. But it was more like the signs of a tsunami - quiet at first, no worries, the water is actually receding. But then - run, run, run!

They had the keen idea to recruit a new set of male pastors -

Heterosexual men were not going to rush to spend large amounts of money where they would not feel welcome among the feminine males and the masculine females. Seminary enrollments declined anyway and those institutions have caved in, moved to smaller headquarters, and even sold the property, as the Lutheran School of Theology.

There were a few women bishops at first, but now they dominate ELCA's bishop roster. The male bishops list their wives and children, but the female bishops are silent about their domestic relationships. I might have missed that detail. I hope someone fills me in. 

Guy Erwin became the first acknowledged homosexual ELCA bishop - also an Osage Indian. Just as quickly, he became the president of the United (but divided) Seminary in Philadelphia. The previous seminary president was a woman, which was heartening to many, but she had a serious hetero past, which defenestrated her. Megan was there when Guy was promoted to pastor to bishop in California. Megan is suing ELCA for forcing her to resign as bishop. She was stricken from the role of pastors and is now working at Glide Memorial "Church" - as anti-Christian as it can be, but that is ELCA's natural role now.

My conclusion is - the upheaval in California and Eaton's reaction combined to create an ongoing crisis among various political groups in ELCA. Yanking Rohrer from her position - and the pastoral role - made it that much easier to focus on Eaton. Nobody seems to be "Reconciling in Christ," their strange slogan, given what they promote.

"In 1867, Krauth and his schoolmate Rev. William Passavant founded the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The General Council had seven regional bodies which had withdrawn from the General Synod.

During Krauth's lifetime, the LTSP was at Franklin Square.^[4] In 1889 it moved to Mount Airy.^[4] In 1908 its new library there was dedicated as the Krauth Memorial Library in memory of Krauth.^[4]"

^{Yes, Erwin is now the president of the Philadelphia/Gettysburg Seminary.} 

^{I was interviewed for a job at the Philadelphia Seminary and happily dodged that bullet.}

Schmauk was president of the Philadelphia Seminary and a superb author. Augustana College in Rock Island gave him an honorary degree. I refuse to accept Augustana's mail.

ELCA - The Biggest, Best, Most Leftwing Synod - Sinking Fast

 

This train's not bound for glory this train.

Before - Liz Eaton became the first woman to be elected Presiding Bishop in ELCA. She defeated Mark Hanson, seen applauding behind her on her right. Love the matchy matchy robes.

After - "The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Church Council Executive Committee approved Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton's request for a 4-to-6-month leave of absence. Her leave starts Nov. 17, 2023."

"The head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will take a leave of absence for at least four months.

The ELCA announced on Thursday that Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton will take a four-to-six-month leave of absence effective Nov. 17, as approved by the ELCA Church Council Executive Committee. 

The Rev. Michael Burk, former bishop of the ELCA Southeastern Iowa Synod, will serve as "Presiding Bishop Pro Tem" while Eaton is on leave."

"We give thanks for Bishop Eaton's tireless dedication and leadership and pray for her during this time of rest and rejuvenation," stated the ELCA in the announcement.

The Christian Post reached out to the denomination for more information on the reasons surrounding Eaton's leave of absence. However, a response was not returned by press time.

***

ELCA photoshopped this sweater picture with different messages, suggesting a need to show more activity.

GJ - I was startled recently by the two Eaton photos showing a decided downhill trend caused by stress. The sweaters were ugly and added to the worn, vacant look on her face. I have not heard of a national church leader asking for up to six months of leave from work. Moreover, ELCA had nothing more to say about it.

 

If I were still strolling through the Elysian fields of ELCA - which I never joined and told people as much - I would conclude that the Presiding Bishop had a can of worms blow up in her face with the Megan Rohrer expulsion and subsequent reactions. My favorite boring newsletter, from the ALPB Ovaltines, suggested that Megan Rohrer never should have been ordained, let alone elevated to the bishop's throne. Megan created numerous raging fires and was fired as the first trans-sexual ELCA bishop (as far as we know). Megan became a staffer at Glide Memorial, the famously radical "Methodist" congregation.

Archbishop Liz Eaton, Harvard MDiv - Not Unlike Matt the MDiv - Make Us Covet Their Silence

 

Let it begin, Liz, with ELCA and the Sparkle creed. And please get another housecoat.

This comes with a free YouTube video but you really don't want to suffer through it. Out of respect and awe, let us leave them alone with their medications - I mean - meditations.

Your Thrivent Managed Money Is Recruiting on the Net for ELCA Seminarians

 

If you are reading this blog regularly, you already know that there are no costs and no ads, no commercial agenda. Moreover, many non-profit sources are linked so that more information is available about... 

1. The Lutheran Library Publishing Ministry, 
2. Norma A. Boeckler's Christian art, 
3. Scriptural sources, 
4. The Church of England, and
5. Lutheran apostate sects.

Rev. O'Rear States...

ELCA Research and Evaluation shows pastors are retiring in record numbers, and there has been a sharp decrease in seminary enrollment. The result is a shortage of ministers—a growing problem. [Boo hoo!]

To help stem that tide, the seven ELCA seminaries are now working together through a new website designed to enlarge the pool of qualified candidates prepared to answer a call to ministry. Through grants from the Richard Hay Barkalow Charitable Fund at InFaith Community Foundation, elcaseminaries.org launched this past summer.

“We want to see the pool of candidates for ministry increase to meet the needs of the church and God’s mission in the world,” said Matthew O’Rear, assistant to the president for strategic initiatives at Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa. O’Rear is also the executive director of the ELCA seminaries’ InFaith grant.

“Before [the new website] there was no central place to allow the seminaries to showcase campuses, scholarships and other resources,” O’Rear said. “The seven seminaries reflect the larger church, and as the church is facing a decline in attendance, so are the ministries. We have a common mission together and this is a unified spot.”

Editor's mistake - this is the recruiting video for WELS' Martin Luther College. And it worked well - everyone in the video received a divine call.

 

 

The Luther Sermon Quotes Will Change Your Religion and Purge Your Resistant Ignorance

 

The Luther Sermon Quotes Will Change Your Religion

But, the greatest abuse occurs in spiritual matters, which pertain to the conscience, when false preachers rise up and offer their lying vanities as God’s Word.

Behold, all this is decorating one’s self with God’s name, or wishing to be fair and maintain our cause, whether it occur in gross, worldly business or in sublime, subtle matters of faith and doctrine. And among liars belong also blasphemers, not alone those who are very gross, well known to every one, who, without fear, disgrace God’s name (they be long not to our school, but to that of the hang man); but also those who publicly traduce the truth and God’s Word, and refer it to the devil. Large Catechism, Jacobs' Book of Concord, not to be confused with the CPH parade of blasphemers, always producing their own drivel so we can bow down to them.

This may take some time, get away from Resistant Ignorance, a term related to nutrition. Resistant starch means that some foods seem much higher in calories than they are in reality. Whole grains,  fresh fruit, and beans are a good example - a vast difference between apparent calories and their actual benefits. Resistant Ignorance is fed to seminary students and the laity, so that the true, inspired doctrines of the Bible are replaced with the Enthusiasm of the false teachers, anything separately divined without the Spirit at work in the Word (efficacy - a hymnal and New Testament word used often there but never found in the synods today).

Imagine Jacobs being tolerated in any synod today, especially his own - ELCA - not his fault.

The current sects - ELCA, WELS, ELS, LCMS,  CLC (sic), ELDONUTS - place their confidence in their organizations, in whom they trust. Rolf Preus hilariously defines orthodoxy as belonging to the correct sect, not as conforming to God's Word through faith - a dirty concept for those listed above. 

Luther defined anyone teaching the Scriptures in order to change the meaning of those passages - as blasphemy, a direct attack against God.

Their infidelity in picking and praising corrupted Bibles - the Evil Four plus Beck - proves why the deleted passages of their Bibles reveal opposition to faith in Jesus Christ and acknowledging His divine nature. Those are the targets of Tischendorf, Wescott-Hort, Nestle, Beck, and Kurt Aland: genius level frauds who labored for the last century - consistently repeating, as a group, the same errors they fostered to set aside the apostolic Traditional Greek New Testament.

Proof of Resistant Ignorance comes from the fetid dogma of the sects listed above. With great seriousness, they sell their blasphemous Bibles and patiently claim that Paul taught against faith in Jesus Christ, His resurrection absolving the entire world! - as justified!, as guilt-free saints!

Liz Eaton is selling the same dope Bibles as Mark Schroeder, Matt the Fatt, and other notables. The executives and professors are unified by their rejection of the King James Bible. They are delicate in their advocacy - which dope Bible they approve - any modern Bible but definitely not the KJV. The flawed New KJV suffers from bowing to the apostate readings of the moderns, but the New KJV is still too beholden to the classic KJV and Luther Bible.

The Church Growth sororities model themselves after the Church of Rome.

Resistant Ignorance is very powerful, useful, and effective. That is how the Lutheran sects above promote the errancy of the Bible (scholars are divided!) and the necessity of Fuller Seminary's Church Growth tactics. Strangely, the Pasadena poltergeists replace the alleged devotion of the synods to the Book of Concord, which assumes faith in the Scriptures and agreement with the Scriptures. 

The synods define right and wrong as obedience to them. They are run by politicians who bided their time to enjoy the perks. 

1. They have succeeded and climbed to the top, 
2. Genuflecting to a unrepentant adulterer, 
3. Building monuments through irrevocable trusts, covering up for the felons, and 
4. Treating any reference to Biblical doctrine as worse than a felony - TREASON! OFF WITH HIS HEAD! WRECKING HOLY MOTHER SYNOD.