Treasure Trove ?

Some of you are new to these parts. I would invite you to peruse through the older posts for some interesting reading, valuable insights, and some worthless comments.

Posted below is just a sampling of the treasure trove hidden inside BW. Of course, you will need to plow throught the muck to find the context of these statements:
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#1 : ) I nominated 'Bailing Water' as the 2007 blog of the year. I said that you generated many comments and that you must be read by many persons.

Cheers,
Norman TeigenELS layman(I am not Mr. Anonymous)
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RTMM said...
The office is instituted.
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C.L. Merts said...
If all of you are so scared of your synod, why are you still in it? "Come to the WELS" to live in abject terror of setting a toe out of line!?
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Never, ever read Luther, Chemnitz or the Lutheran Confessions, you will be floored.

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With the holidays fast approaching plus a wedding, I'll be brief, but you ask excellent questions. In all seriousness, I would recommend that you read The Motley Magpie (no, I'm not a relative of any of the editors, but I am a reader and really found it helpful personally). The editors dealt with many of the questions you have raised. They use Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions in their explanations and criticisms, which are very helpful to those of us who grew up not really being taught the Lutheran Confessions. Some of the back issues can be found at MotleyMagpie UP
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Rev. Fr. John W. Berg said...
Kind bloggers,

And if anyone would actually wish to discuss/refute etc. what we wrote, even show us how nasty we are (which no one has, to date), they are welcome to e-mail me at jwhberg@juno.com. We will print your letter in our next reissued Magpie, with our reply, of course.
Pax,
Rev. Fr. John W. Berg, a.k.a.The Most High and Mighty Berg
(but don't look behind that curtain!)
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Anonymous said...
The Magpie advocated communing infants.That's false doctrine.Case closed.
September 11, 2007 6:45 AM

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A few words for the "brave" soul who hides behind the skirts of "anonymous" and who charged the Motley Magpie with heresy for its advocacy of the practice of infant communion: If you haven't read Fr. James Frey's excellent article on the subject, then shut up.

If you have read it, then grace us with a scholarly rebuttal. Better yet, wait for the two-part article on the subject in the next two issues of the MM soon to be put online (www.motleymagpie.org).

The piece deals with the demise of the practice in the West, and offers an analysis of the objections to this ancient catholic practice (which are all specious and in the end lead to a denial of infant faith). Incidentally, your namesake did not call the practice heretical, but then again Luther wouldn't pass a colloquy into the wels if he were alive today.

Until then, Anonymous, hoist your skirt and stay off the playing field.

Rev. Peter M. Berg
September 12, 2007 11:51 AM
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The inaccurate claim that President Schroeder is excited is now gone from the Church and Change website.
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Think Green. Drink Wine. Go to Mass. Read the text. Read a bike -save the world. Vote for me.The B.
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Thanks for the compliment. And thanks for all your work running this site--I do appreciate it.
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To signatory "Pax,"And shalom to you.

Considering this forum a short answer will have to suffice. The article penned by Fr. Peter Berg was apparently labeled false doctrine by the WELS conference of presidents. Paul Janke wrote to me and said little more than it was not WELS, he did not provide any Scriptural or Confessional proof or analysis, really (You can ask him to see his March 11, 2004 letter to me if you do not believe me).

For example Fr. Berg took issue with the use of the word "public" as it is used in WELS literature. Janke countered that the WELS uses the word, period. (Oh, the Magpie offered him the pages of our journal to respond, he didn't even respond to that offer.) He said it was "classic" Missouri teaching. Good enough, I guess.I was asked to disavow that article and I declined. I repeatedly asked him to show me where the errors were in that paper and in what I personally wrote in the Motley Magpie. He never showed me where I was in error. The Magpie found the soft spots of WELS doctrine and practice and it had to be silenced. There were a couple attendant matters that are really immaterial to discuss at this point and you would not believe it unless you saw all the letters and witnessed the meetings.

Fr. Berg's article as well as his "lutheran lady lectors" and "lutheran lady celebrants" will help you begin to understand. The WELS does not look ontologically at these matters but centers all its prohibitions in the law. As the relationship between Christ and the church reflects the ontological reality of the Holy Trinity, so the Ministry of Christ continues through his called and ordained men who serve His Holy Bride. That Christologically iconic relationship (Christ and his Bride) is created in man, this is a part of the image of God, the husband-wife, giver-receiver relationship. All authority which Christ has, he has given to his church to be exercised through those who stand in his stead and give mouth and hand in service to the church. This is not the authority of the world, to boss about, bind wills and so forth (per the WELS) but the authority to serve with the blessed mysteries.

This a man must do who stands in an iconic relationship to Christ, thus the prohibitions in 1 Corinthians 14 and 1 Timothy 2-3. And yes, the women stands in an iconic relationship to Christ, but not in this manner - as husband or pastor as one in stead of Christ in this relationship. Look at 1 Timothy 2. She must be silent for Adam was formed first. Eve's sin was not simply that she got the command wrong, that too, but that she spoke. Pastor Adam had that job, failed and so the second Adam came, and men born of Adam must speak in the stead of the second Adam (no estrogen here) to the Bride, the Church.

The WELS does not understand that these Christologically iconic relationships do not exist outside of these relationships that God has given. Where those relationships exist, the husband or pastor loves his wife or church as Christ the Bridegroom and Shepherd loves the Bride or church. The pastor/Christ serves the church/Bride of Christ with the blessed means of salvation. This is the office. That is the authority. No women. Yet outside of those relationship the law or reason reigns. The WELS sends her women out to be subservient to men with whom they do not have these relationships. The WELS rightly appeals to the order of creation, but they miss the ontological underpinnings of the relationship and they miss the scope of the relationship. In short, my wife gives her submission (which means to receive) to me and to her pastor, oh that would be me, too. She doesn't have to submit to any other man, other than constituted authorities, be they men or women. She is polite and demur and too good for me (like I had to say that), and like many Christian women she has had authority over men, and votes.

The article by Fr. Peter Berg discusses these things and the WELS would have none of it for it saw the implications. This too is the short answer. But it will give you something to chew on. There are other matters that we took issue with the WELS and you can read all about it in the Motley Magpie.
Cordially,
Rev. Fr. John W. Berg
October 18, 2007 9:43 PM

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The post receiving the most comments and attention: (316 comments)

http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2007/11/how-lutheran-are-you.html

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