tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-88182423040341822192024-02-08T04:54:54.496-06:00Bailing WaterTo be Lutheran is to always be pointing to Christ.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger200125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-33211720614295719522022-01-14T21:28:00.000-06:002022-01-14T21:28:00.416-06:00Winter WELS conference in Florida <p> I am intrigued how the WELS Conference of Presidents can always justify a winter get-away meeting in Florida.</p><p>"Follow the money? "</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-1003879318737679382011-12-17T17:18:00.002-06:002011-12-19T20:35:47.227-06:00Life Under the SonIn today's pop culture world a wonderfully theological sound book written from a Lutheran perspective has emerged just in time for Christmas.If you order it quickly it might arrive in time to be a stocking stuffer.<br />
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The author, Pastor John Parcher passed away this past year. However, before his passing he allowed a son-in-law and a daughter access to his files. They chose notes from his sermons and Bible studies on the timeless book of Ecclesiastes in which Pastor Parcher explores two key themes "Meaningless" (NIV) or "Vanity" (KJV) and life "Under the Sun." The Preacher is pointing to the folly of the creature when fixes his eyes upon the creation "under the sun" while leaving the Creator out of his life.<br />
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This book is edifying, engaging and easy to read. Pastor Parcher ends the book by stating that, "Jesus calls you to come along, as you are and where you are. Knowing everything there is to know about you, even the worst, and He still says, '<em>Follow me.'</em> Even if the Bible did not teach of heaven, and even if the Bible did not teach there is a hell, I would still follow Jesus, for the sheer adventure of it."<br />
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<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Life-Under-Abkhazian-John-Parcher/dp/1619043300">http://www.amazon.com/Life-Under-Abkhazian-John-Parcher/dp/1619043300</a> </div>
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<a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-under-the-son-john-parcher/1107168797">http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/life-under-the-son-john-parcher/1107168797</a><br />
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If there is a tidy way of summarizing the varied topics of Ecclesiastes, I do not know of it. The subject matter is too rich for small minded encapsulation. There have been countless books written on the purpose and meaning of life. This author takes us on a grand tour of all this life has to offer, and leaves it up to you to decide. What is a worthy pursuit for the Christian? John Parcher was a parish pastor for forty-two years. He began his ministry at a country church in Minnesota with his wife, Ann, at his side. They received a call to La Crosse, WI in 1968 to pastor the congregation at the corner of St. Paul St. and Avon St. He preached nearly every Sunday for the next thirty-four years. John and Ann are enjoying retirement in La Crosse with their family of eighteen children near by.</div>
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<br /></div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-3377564785904858902011-07-23T10:07:00.000-05:002011-07-23T10:07:11.596-05:00Roman Catholic Papacy fits the biblical characteristics of the Antichrist<a href="http://www.wels.net/news-events/wels-view-scripture-alone">http://www.wels.net/news-events/wels-view-scripture-alone</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-29671678049820675142011-06-07T06:14:00.001-05:002011-06-07T09:35:36.035-05:00Excommunication - An Open Letter to the Members of Holy Word Lutheran Church<a href="http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/">http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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Dear Members of Holy Word,<br />
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As Lutherans, we believe that the Holy Spirit is never separated from the Word or the Means of Grace. It is mentioned throughout Scripture and in the Lutheran Confessions in the explanation of the Third Article of the Apostles Creed. Note that the forgiveness of sins is here and not in the Second Article; it is a work of the Holy Spirit:<br />
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"I believe that I cannot by my own reason or strength believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to Him; but the Holy Ghost has called me by the Gospel, enlightened me with His gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith; even as He calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth, and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith; in which Christian Church He forgives daily and richly all sins to me and all believers, and at the last day will raise up me and all the dead, and will give to me and to all believers in Christ everlasting life. This is most certainly true."<br />
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As Lutherans we also believe this statement to be true and the hallmark of our faith:<br />
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"The sinner is justified by grace for Christ’s sake through faith."<br />
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You can not separate that sentence in any way shape or form or you end up teaching falsely.<br />
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And this from The Apology IV, 57; it talks of the object of our justification and the remission of sins through faith alone:<br />
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"57] And throughout the prophets and the psalms this worship, this latreiva, is highly praised, although the Law does not teach the gratuitous remission of sins. But the Fathers knew the promise concerning Christ, that God for Christ's sake wished to remit sins. Therefore, since they understood that Christ would be the price for our sins, they knew that our works are not a price for so great a matter [could not pay so great a debt]. Accordingly, they received gratuitous mercy and remission of sins by faith, just as the saints in the New Testament.<br />
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More on justification hence forgiveness through faith alone. Apology XII, 53 &54:<br />
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53] For the two chief works of God in men are these, to terrify, and to justify and quicken those who have been terrified. Into these two works all Scripture has been distributed. The one part is the Law, which shows, reproves, and condemns sins. The other part is the Gospel, i.e., the promise of grace bestowed in Christ, and this promise is constantly repeated in the whole of Scripture, first having been delivered to Adam [I will put enmity, etc., Gen. 3:15, afterwards to the patriarchs; then, still more clearly proclaimed by the prophets; lastly, preached and set forth among the Jews by Christ, and disseminated over the entire world by the apostles. 54] For all the saints were justified by faith in this promise, and not by their own attrition or contrition. <br />
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Nowhere in Scripture or the Confessions does it say that the forgiveness of sins/justification is imputed to anyone before they were born as Pastor Patterson preaches and teaches. The work of the Holy Spirit is working faith and the forgiveness of sins. We know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. (Rom 10:17) If we are not yet born, how do we hear it?<br />
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Since you are entrusting your spiritual welfare to the leadership at Holy Word, you are culpable to their actions on your behalf. I have stood on Biblical truth and the Book of Concord, your profession of faith.<br />
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This from the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod website concerning excommunication:<br />
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"Congregations must excommunicate members who have sinned and refuse to repent even though their fellow Christians have warned them according to the steps described in Matthew 18:15-18. An excommunicated person cannot attend the Lord's Supper or exercise any rights of membership in the congregation.<br />
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A member can be excommunicated only if his (or her) action is clearly against God's law, if it is proven that he is guilty of sin, and if he has refused warnings to repent. Scripture says an impenitent person has no forgiveness of sins. Excommunication, therefore, does not simply exclude an individual from membership in the congregation, but declares that the offender has excluded himself from eternal life since no impenitent person has forgiveness of sins and no unforgiven person can enter heaven.<br />
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The congregation excommunicates a person in the hope that this drastic step will lead the sinner to come to his senses and repent. The excommunicated person will then be welcomed back to the congregation. <br />
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Excommunication, therefore, is an act of love for sinners, aimed at saving them from the eternal consequences of impenitence.<br />
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When the case has not yet proceeded to the point of excommunication, a pastor who knows that a person is impenitent should warn him or her not to come to communion, since it offers forgiveness only to the repentant. Those who come without repentance bring harm upon themselves by misuse of the sacrament. Exclusion from the Lord's Supper has the same evangelical purpose as excommunication: to bring the sinner to repentance. The pastor can take such action only if the guilt and impenitence of the person are clearly established but the congregation has not yet had an opportunity to act on the case."<br />
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Where have we broken God's Law?<br />
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We pray you realize the graveness in all of this.<br />
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In His Grace,<br />
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Joe and LisaUnknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-65874307145761953452011-06-02T05:54:00.000-05:002011-06-02T05:54:54.055-05:00A Pastor with a backbone vs Pastor for sale<a href="http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/">http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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Rev. Paul A. Rydecki said...<br />
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Hi Joe,<br />
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(Say, the next time you write an open letter to Intrepid Lutherans, be sure to actually send a copy to Intrepid Lutherans. Someone directed me to your letter, or else I would never have seen it.)<br />
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First, I sympathize with you and your family over the turmoil you're going through. I don't know your whole situation, but I wish the dialogue on justification between you and your pastor hadn't been so quickly taken "off the table," as it were. It sounds like there's lots to talk about and study yet.<br />
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To your letter: I disagree that my comment above was convoluted and "esoteric," and I also disagree with your answer of "No" to the question, "Was forgiveness acquired before repentance?", so I'm not sure if we're on the same page here or not. As I explained in the first part of my comment above, forgiveness was most certainly acquired by Christ for all people of all times (therefore, without respect to anyone's repentance). Forgiveness is not distributed to anyone apart from the Means of Grace. The forgiveness that Christ acquired for all is acquired by an individual through faith alone, worked by the Holy Spirit through the Means of Grace.<br />
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I think you're actually confusing the issue when you bring repentance into it. It just adds another dimension that is not necessary if your point is to keep it simple. "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness." Whether quoting from Genesis 15 or from Romans 3 or 4, repentance isn't brought into the picture. But faith is. Stick with talking about faith, in my opinion. This would also be in keeping with the historical Lutheran understanding of the "ingredients" of justification: 1) The grace of God, 2) The merit of Christ, 3) The promise (Means of Grace), and 4) Faith in the promise.<br />
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I think I would agree with you (not having read everything you've written on the matter) that it is not right to say that you, Joe Krohn, were forgiven before you were born. Scripture does not talk that way, nor do our Confessions, nor does Chemnitz in his Examination. Is there forgiveness in Christ for all? Yes. Did God love you before you were born and see to it that his Gospel was preached to you that you might believe and be saved? Yes. But before you were in Christ, you, like the rest of us, were still counted among "the wicked."<br />
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Again, I don't know enough of your particular situation, but speaking in general, I can't imagine why anyone would be excommunicated (from a Lutheran church) for holding to justification by faith alone in Christ, as long as "faith" is not ascribed to man as man's good work, and as long as "faith" is defined as nothing more than to believe in God's promise of mercy for Christ's sake.<br />
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Peace be with you.<br />
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Pr. RydeckiUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-44729058031137982922011-05-30T07:46:00.004-05:002011-05-30T07:50:32.619-05:00Holy Word - 30 + year old congregation receives extensive mission dollars<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"></div> <br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNgxZaGs4Mg/TeORug8cUpI/AAAAAAAAAGg/vfuJco2kE1o/s1600/zoo.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="163" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jNgxZaGs4Mg/TeORug8cUpI/AAAAAAAAAGg/vfuJco2kE1o/s200/zoo.png" t8="true" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.holyword.net/">http://www.holyword.net/</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table> <a href="http://scdwels.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/2011-05-dmb.pdf">http://scdwels.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/2011-05-dmb.pdf</a><br />
<ul><li><a href="http://www.holyword.net/">http://www.holyword.net/</a></li>
<li>Vicar in Mission Setting - Sent to Holy Word-</li>
<li>Mission Encouragment resources sent to Holy Word North</li>
<li>The Antioch Foundtion looking to support Church Growth methods:</li>
</ul> <a href="http://www.theantiochfoundation.org/index.cfm">http://www.theantiochfoundation.org/index.cfm</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-32944132095013728582011-05-28T18:34:00.003-05:002011-05-28T18:39:21.884-05:00A Pastor for Sale - WELS Pastor- for profit<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6381jx0Weo8/TeGGotXXxfI/AAAAAAAAAGU/A-Za_bVGPbQ/s1600/136_donphoto3e.jpg"><img style="MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 136px; FLOAT: right; HEIGHT: 150px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5611914644610860530" border="0" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6381jx0Weo8/TeGGotXXxfI/AAAAAAAAAGU/A-Za_bVGPbQ/s200/136_donphoto3e.jpg" /></a><br />I may not have time to Admister the Means of Grace but for $1200 I can be your life coach..<br /><br /><a href="http://www.nextdisciple.com/giaprojects/crosstraincoaching.html">http://www.nextdisciple.com/giaprojects/crosstraincoaching.html</a><br /><br />Coaching fees are based on the services provided. We will meet and have follow-up sessions until you feel that you have accomplished your personal and professional goals. <strong>The fee schedule is $1200.00</strong> for one year (a monthly webinar and personal meeting). Emails are always available between visits.<br /><br /><strong>Additional meetings can be negotiated</strong> on an individual basis. 24-hour notice is requested for cancellation of a coaching session. “No-shows” will be counted as completed services. We will talk as often as needed in accomplishing your goals, typically on the telephone or via web based methodology. If possible and necessary to enhance your performance, we will schedule to meet in person. Helping you achieve greater success is always our primary objective.<br /><br />-------------------------------<br /><br />Here we thought - Saving souls was his business.....Unknownnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-24135581804065763692011-05-28T17:57:00.005-05:002011-05-30T07:30:58.836-05:00Will WELS Pastor be Disciplined?Pastor Don Patterson has been making use of Church Growth methods as documented on this blog and others. Currently a WELS member is documenting his journey here: <a href="http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/">http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/</a><br />
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One has to wonder if any discpline will come down on Patterson. Patterson is noterious throughout the South Central district for disciplining pastors who don't follow his lead.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-4343798430061260622011-05-28T16:41:00.003-05:002011-05-28T16:45:59.116-05:00Holy Word Pastor Saves Souls ?From Luther Rocks Blog...<br /><br />On May 18th we submitted the following via email to the leadership at Holy Word Lutheran Church which precipitated what has been chronicled earlier on this blog. <br /><br />"Pastor Patterson et al, <br /><br /><br />I have to disagree when you say (I believe you are saying this) that 1 Cor. 5:19 says that all men are reconciled to God; as in forgiven therefore justified and righteous before faith. This is certainly not the case with say for instance Cain or Edom of the OT. The two verses preceding contradict this as the context refers to those ‘in Christ’ as in ‘have faith in Christ’. I believe the Bible does speak about believers the same way whether it is before or after Christ’s passion. The trouble is that many in WELS are teaching that UOJ is in the wrong place. It is displaced from Christ and on the whole unbelieving world. Therefore in order to make the teaching work you have to change the meanings and context of words. It is confusing.<br /><br /><br />Our focus is on Christ as it has been for all believers of all time; beginning with the promise in the Garden of Eden. God was (and is) reconciling (ongoing) the world (since it is God’s will for all to be saved) for the sake of Christ so that by faith believers (who are sinners) would be saved. As Job said in the OT…I know that my Redeemer liveth! Christ possesses the forgiveness, righteousness and justification that He won (or would win) – objectively - for all and it is imputed to those who believe in Him as their Savior for all times. By Grace through FAITH ALONE. Christ stands in no one’s place aside from faith. He that believes…will be saved…He who doesn’t is damned…no belief in Christ…means you remain in your sins.<br /><br /><br />It is troublesome how you handled a meeting with my wife Lisa. You acknowledged that you did not want to hop over my headship in your email of 4-20-11 and yet you communicated with her via email on 4-18-11 unbeknownst to me. Here is the brief email in its entirety; “I have no desire to get between you and Joe on the things that he has recently taken a stand on. Just want you to know if you and Joe desire to talk to me or confront me together I am willing. Otherwise, I will leave you to follow your husband and seek God's will in the Scriptures. I trust that you are thoughtful Christians.” You did not hear from her. I told you in my email two days later that she was right with me. Instead of leaving her to me, on the 28th of April, approximately 15 minutes before arriving at her place of employment to have your vehicle serviced, you texted Lisa if you could speak to her for a minute and ended up leaving almost 90 minutes later. Needless to say it was in my opinion as well as that of Lisa and her employer (also a member of your congregation) that you took advantage of the situation. You have said more than once that these kinds of discussions are a waste of time for you; that they entangle and keep you from doing your job. It was disturbingly evident when you emphatically declared to Lisa more than once that “your job is to save souls”. She called you on it and I am thankful for that. She IS my better half. Lisa was right by correcting you that it is the work of the Holy Ghost to save souls and that your job is to merely proclaim the Word. When she pressed you as to why you would say such a thing, you changed the subject.<br /><br /><br />Pastor Patterson’s background from the Holy Word website:” In addition to serving the congregation of Holy Word, he has also served the church at large. In 1996, he was appointed second Vice President of the South Central District of the WELS, and in 2000 he was appointed first Vice President. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors for Wisconsin Lutheran Child and Famliy(sic) Services, and he has spoken at numerous conferences, marriage retreats, and seminars. He has also written several articles for various synod publications such as Forward in Christ, Meditations, Lutheran Parenting, Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, and Lutheran Leadership.” And when in the short time I was an Elder and saw what Pastor had on his plate…my first thought (sic) was, ‘Hey! He works for Holy Word!Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-13792729971016340762011-05-28T07:57:00.003-05:002011-05-28T08:00:27.629-05:00Austin WELS Pastor becomes vindictiveHoly Word Lutheran Church and WELS has broken Fellowship With Us<br /><a href="http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/2011/05/holy-word-lutheran-church-and-wels-has.html"></a><br /><br />http://hereistand2011.blogspot.com/2011/05/holy-word-lutheran-church-and-wels-has.html<br /><br />Friday, May 27, 2011Holy Word Lutheran Church and WELS has broken Fellowship With Us <br />Last fall Pastor Patterson again approached me about becoming an Elder for Holy Word. I had mixed emotions about accepting a nomination. So much study about worship and practice had been done and it became clear to me that Christ the Rock and Holy Word to a lesser extent did not have "quia" subscriptions to the Lutheran Confessions and the Book of Concord. From my perspective through these two churches, I wondered if WELS still had one.(Pastors and Teachers swear an oath to uphold them both in light of the Scriptures.) After prayerful considerations and discussions with my wife I accepted. <br /><br />In mid-November I had an orientation lunch with Pastor. I remember him stressing that if I had any hidden agendas that I should reconsider my nomination. Since I thought what I would be bringing to the table would be scriptural...how would one construe this as 'hidden'? I also initiated a conversation about justification and brought up Becker's paper regarding Kokomo and my desire to have a meaningful discussion about it. He stressed that he came from the Wauwatosa Theology camp and that we would reciprocate papers; me sending the Becker Paper and him sending me a recent paper by Pastor Rautenberg reviewing an essay by JP Koehler regarding legalism and bravado of orthodoxy. A discussion about justification did not take place prior to election of church officers in December; though I did send a reminder.<br /><br />After I became an Elder I again tried to initiate a discussion regarding justification. I had a need to know where he stood on Objective Justification. I got my answer the last Sunday of January. You can hear it at approximately 22:22 of this sermon audio (click on the second sermon for January 30th, 2011 & play it from 21:00 - 24:00+ for context):<br /><br />http://www.holyword.net/site/audiodownloads.asp?sec_id=140005270<br /><br />There are many flavors of this doctrine of Objective Justification being preached. It is confusing. I took exception that Pastor Patterson was preaching that my sins were forgiven before I was born. What good was my baptism? What good are the Means of Grace? What good is the Ministry of the Keys? How does this work with Old Testament believers...where they forgiven too before they were born? <br /><br />Discussions ensued until last Saturday (May 21st) when we received this email from the leadership at Holy Word:<br /><br />Dear Joe and Lisa,<br /><br />We received your latest email and read through all of your concerns. We honestly disagree on all of your points and conclusions. All of your concerns are about practical matters over which God's people have freedom to disagree without the charge of sin - except for one. Your unbelief in objective justification is doctrinal and is not acceptable. In short, it is the deal breaker. I have talked to you about this in person on two occasions. On one of those Pastor Gurgel and Brad Johnston were also present. Pastor Gurgel has talked to both of you in person on two different occasions and elders have engaged you in emails about the very same subject. We are all convinced that your doctrine is unscriptural or unconfessional. Therefore we cannot be in fellowship with you until you repent of this. Your fellowship at the Lord's Table is therefore suspended until you recant your teachings and your writings regarding objective justification. <br /><br />In addition, your ways of attacking me and the many recent decisions of our congregation are not appropriate. So, even if you repent of your false doctrine regarding objective justification, we have so much more to talk about regarding your critical spirit. <br /><br />If you wish to pursue this any further, we will meet with you both. In that meeting, we will have two elders and me present. We will not discuss objective justification as if it is a debatable doctrine. We will not entertain changing our decision regarding the use of Cornerstone, we will not change Jocelyn's title from deaconess to anything else, and we will not change our plans to help lay people teach God's Word to God's people. We are convinced that all of these things are good and right in our fellowship and since you have been heard and we have decided not to follow you - you have to accept them. In short, the debate is over. No more discussion! The mission of making disciples must go on!<br /><br />Our stance is firm but so is our love for you in Christ. Our highest goal is to see you in heaven some day. <br /><br />To God be the Glory,<br /><br />Pastor Patterson and the Board of Elders <br />Holy Word Lutheran Church<br /><br /><br />We responded May 22nd:<br /><br /><br />Dear Leadership of Holy Word,<br /><br />Thank you for your email.<br /><br />For those who may be scratching their heads as to why we are discussing all of this, it originated from a message preached by Pastor Patterson the last Sunday in January. I have attached a clip of the comment in context. It occurs at approximately 1:14.<br /><br />Firstly, you falsely accuse us of unbelief in Objective Justification. (OJ) Nowhere have we denied OJ! We have rejected how Pastor Patterson teaches it along with many in the WELS. It is wrong to preach that one's sins are forgiven before they were born. It is not true for me as a New Testament believer in Christ anymore than it was for Old Testament believers or anyone for that matter. When Pr. Patterson in his email of 4-20-2011 says, “Truly, so much that we proclaim about the work of Christ cannot be said in the exact same words about the OT saints and their faith.” He is teaching a kind of dispensationalism. We sing on Easter ‘I know that my Redeemer Lives just as Job proclaimed in Job 19:25. St. Paul goes to great lengths in the 4th chapter of Romans to show us that the NT believers are the offspring of Abraham just as the OT believers are. The end of the chapter dovetails perfectly into chapter 5 to drive the point home the sinner is justified by grace for Christ’s sake through faith. <br /><br />NIV Romans 4:22 – 5:2 “22 This is why “it was credited to him as righteousness.” 23 The words “it was credited to him” were written not for him alone, 24 but also for us, to whom God will credit righteousness—for us who believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead. 25 He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification. 1 Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[b] rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”<br /><br />And this from The Apology IV, 57<br /><br />“57] And throughout the prophets and the psalms this worship, this latreiva, is highly praised, although the Law does not teach the gratuitous remission of sins. But the Fathers knew the promise concerning Christ, that God for Christ's sake wished to remit sins. Therefore, since they understood that Christ would be the price for our sins, they knew that our works are not a price for so great a matter [could not pay so great a debt]. Accordingly, they received gratuitous mercy and remission of sins by faith, just as the saints in the New Testament.”<br /><br />When Pr. Patterson teaches that a person’s sins were forgiven (and therefore absolved and saved as Pr. Buchholz proclaims) without faith is a type of universalism. The passages used to support these teachings are always in the context of faith. Even Pastor Gurgel in his last visit left assured that our confession was Biblical. He acknowledged the way words are used regarding OJ creates confusion; in fact he opined that 'the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction with regard to Kokomo'. I would add too that the teaching of forgiveness is flawed in the clip as well after 1:14. As the Apology quote shows, God has it in His heart to forgive those who are truly repentant. And He gladly does forgive those in faith for the sake of Christ. But there can be no forgiveness if there is no contrition. So to teach forgiveness without repentance does the offender no good any more than teaching absolution without the Law. Ironically, you are asking me for contrition and yet Patterson preaches I am already forgiven. <br /><br />Secondly, to break fellowship with us would require you to forbid us at the Lord’s Table. But you say you are suspending our participation in Communion pending a recanting of alleged false doctrine. This is a mixing of processes. Please clarify for us if you are releasing/ex-communicating us pending a repentance of sin or are you retaining our membership and suspending Communion pending contrition?<br /><br />Finally, there are at least two of you that are not convinced that we are unscriptural and/or unconfessional on all counts. Pastor Gurgel visited and genuinely discussed with us regarding our confession and was assured we were not in error. Brad Johnston who admitted in our meeting that ‘it was all over his head’ regarding OJ should have been disqualified.<br /><br />Regarding your comment about my critical spirit I will take it as a compliment as Martin Luther would have. However I will let the Lord judge whether your inference of the assuredness of our salvation is a sin.<br /><br />We will await your reply regarding our membership.<br /><br />In His Grace and Mercy,<br /><br />Joe<br /><br /><br />Holy Word replied back to us on May 26th:<br /><br /><br />Joe and Lisa,<br /><br />If I understand all of your recent emails correctly, you wish to remain members of Holy Word only if you can convince us of the errors of our ways in regard to my preaching that "we were forgiven by God in Christ before we believed that we are forgiven" and the 8 practical matters you have listed. <br /><br />Since we do not believe we have erred on any of these issues that you have sited, we cannot acknowledge that we are still in doctrinal agreement with you. Therefore, we should not commune together. In keeping with a consistent practice of the doctrine of fellowship you should mark and avoid us as persistent errorists and we are marking and avoiding you as persistent errorists as well. (Romans 16:17-18). This posture is never pleasant but necessary to protect God's people from divisive teachings. <br /><br />Jack Parrish and Matt Wordell have agreed to join me in meeting with both of you to offer any clarifications you need regarding our doctrine of fellowship and the issue of your membership at Holy Word and the WELS. We will not meet with you to discuss objective justification or the 8 points you outlined as your plan to change the direction of Holy Word. You have been heard on those issues and we honestly disagree with you. <br /><br />We are all free next Wednesday night, June 1 at 6:30PM or 7:00 PM, whichever time suits you. We would like to meet at church in the conference room. Are you willing to meet us?<br /><br />In Him,<br /><br />Pastor Don Patterson <br /><br /><br />We responded later in the day:<br /><br /><br />All,<br /><br />Since the agenda would already be set; since there would be no discussion allowed and since we do not care to be subjected in such manner as previous meetings, we respectfully decline. There are many people who do not believe as you do about justification. There are many pastors who do not believe nor preach it as you do. Since you refuse discussion and have made your position clear to us, there is nothing more to say.<br /><br />I pray that this explanation is satisfactory.<br /><br />By Grace through faith in Christ,<br />Joe<br /><br /><br />I will be talking more about the other 7 issues in coming blogs.<br /><br />Robert Preus in his book "Justification and Rome" talks about the vast arrays of variation on the doctrine of Justification among Lutherans. How have we become so disjointed on this pillar by which the Church stands or falls? The doctrine that our church fathers from the 16th century so eloquently exposed from the heretics of the day? I can only think of one passage that answers this question...Genesis 3:4-5, " 4And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: 5For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." - KJV <br /><br />To preach a forgiveness of sins apart from faith is a type of universalism that some Reformed preachers are already preaching. WELS has been wistfully gazing towards the Reformed for some time now on 'how to do church'.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-25915489447267290962011-03-23T15:24:00.004-05:002011-03-23T15:31:44.531-05:00The demise of Church and Change -Did the<span style="font-weight:bold;"> blog-o-sphere </span>help end Church and Change? For several years Bailing Water helped spur on the conversation on the net and now the Eulogy ----<br />--------------------------------------------------------------------------<br /><br />Celebrate with Church and Change!<br /><br />We invite you to celebrate with us! It was more than fifteen years ago that the first seeds were sown for Church and Change. God put it into the hearts of the Church and Change pioneers to find new approaches for sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ with our communities and world. Church and Change brought together many WELS members; people passionate about understanding and reaching the lost and to better serving God’s people living in this changing world. Church and Change also helped the WELS stay biblically-focused as Christian leaders made the compelling case for true Christian freedom. It is our prayer that Christian freedom continue to be part of our Lutheran fabric as we “practice” our beliefs. <br /><br />Many were strengthened and encouraged over the years through Church and Change. Ministry leaders improved and expanded their ministries and networked with other WELS leaders across the country. Those leaders who became part of Church and Change learned new approaches and methods to reach out and are now teaching and leading others to do the same. The goals of Church and Change have been achieved.<br /><br />So, it’s time for Church and Change to make a change of its own. It’s time to let others take the lead. As of today, Church and Change has finished its run. We are confident that the “spirit of change” will continue. We believe that Jesus, who called us to share his name with as many as possible and in as many different ways, will continue to lead us. We pray that Jesus will give you strength and wisdom to march forward! It has been a privilege to get to know, work with, encourage, and learn from so many of you. We thank our Lord for the blessing of Church and Change and for you!<br /><br />Please contact Pastor Ron Ash at rvash@new.rr.com.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-60238069919420996602011-03-19T08:07:00.002-05:002011-03-19T08:08:33.359-05:00Fellow servants in God’s churchWe have begun the season of Lent, with its proper emphasis on humble repentance before the cross and with its singular focus on the journey that our Savior took to reach that same destination. No one needs these reminders more than those who have the privilege of proclaiming and teaching law and gospel in the public ministry.<br /><br />As we lead God’s people to acknowledge and confess their sin, how important and necessary it is that all of us examine our hearts, our actions, and our words with blunt and brutal honesty. Can we begin to encourage God’s people to godly repentance without first saying with the apostle, “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). Can we call upon sinners to acknowledge and confess their sin and guilt without first applying the words of the hymn to ourselves: “My burden in thy passion, Lord, thou hast borne for me, for it was my transgression which brought this woe on thee” (The Lutheran Hymnal 172:4).<br /><br />When we do that, of course, we will find things in ourselves that we do not want to find. Pride and arrogance. Laziness. Worry. Self-love. Hateful anger. Slander and lying. Neglect of God’s Word. Thoughtless worship. Neglected prayer life. Thirst for material security. If we are honest we will see those things in ourselves—and much more. And if we are really listening to the law of God that we are called to preach and teach, we will fall on our knees with the tax collector, despairing and desperate, and say, “God be merciful to me a sinner!”<br /><br />But there is more to that message that God has entrusted us to preach and teach. There is the message of a Savior, setting his face toward Jerusalem, fully aware of what was waiting for him there. There is the message of the Lamb of God, soon to sacrifice himself for rebels and prodigals and scoundrels—for us. There is the message of the One who took the world’s guilt—my guilt—on himself, paid the price demanded by a righteous God, and completed the task of crushing the head of the serpent once and for all. Can we dare to preach and teach that good news without first embracing that message for ourselves in faith and joy? Will we be able to be faithful heralds of the good news unless that good news that “It is finished!” penetrates our hearts and lives?<br /><br />Let Paul’s words lead you to the cross as you prepare to lead God’s people to the cross through Word and sacrament: “So do not be ashamed to testify about our Lord. . . . This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time, but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel. And of this gospel I was appointed a herald and an apostle and a teacher. . . . Yet I am not ashamed, because I know whom I have believed” (2 Timothy 1:8-12). Throughout this Lenten season, may God lead you to humble, heartfelt repentance over your sin and to the incredible joy of knowing and believing that your sins are forgiven. And then preach that message with zeal and power, because you know whom you have believed.<br /><br />Serving with you in Christ,<br /><br />President Mark SchroederUnknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-83421602327024420012010-06-01T11:36:00.003-05:002010-06-02T09:12:19.949-05:00Taking up the Sword of FaithI commend to you <a href="http://www.intrepidlutherans.com/">http://www.intrepidlutherans.com/</a>. This is a blog that takes up the sword and mantle of Confessional Lutheranism in the WELS.<br /><br />Several years ago Aaron started this blog, Bailing Water, as a way to open up discussion on the inroads of the Church growth methods in the WELS. Aaron started this blog about the time the 2006 convention got underway. He gave up and I took up the mantle.<br /><br />Bailing Water provided fruitful discussion on important topics and brought to surface many hidden agendas. For many the true agenda and players list of the Church and Change group was revealed.<br /><br />The WELS has changed. There is disunity. Is Jeske WELS or LCMS?<br /><br />As time and need arise new posts may rise to the surface here on Bailing Water. But, rest assured, for the years to come Bailing Water will remain a Confessional and historical resource.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-26717001950838721982010-04-07T13:17:00.002-05:002010-04-07T13:24:01.644-05:00Another point of view<p>Anonymous --<br /></p><p>This article is typical of so many articles on the doctrine of the ministry. It pits human writers against human writers without even one (that's right, not even one) clearly expounded scripture, leave alone a majority of scriptures which speak to the doctrine. I have struggled to fully grasp both sides of the old Synodical Conference's doctrine of the ministry for years and find flaws in both when they are carried to their logical extremes in practice (which both have been in the history of the WELS and LC-MS).</p><p><br />This lack of biblical evidence warps this article as it does so many others. It seems to come across that we understand the Bible in light of the confessions instead of saying we understand the confessions in light of the Bible. Which is the ultimate authority and sheds light on the other?<br />There is a reason why the doctrine of the ministy was not devisive in the Synodical Conference. With the wholesome tension, neither WELS nor LC-MS could carry its doctrine to its logical extreme. Now, almost fifty years after the break in fellowship, both WELS and LC-MS have factions which are taking their doctrine of the ministry to its logical extreme and the weaknesses in the logical extremes of both are showing.<br /><br />At the Diet of Worms Luther asked to be shown from scripture or sound reason what was not true about his teachings. In this current case of the doctrine of the ministry, sound reason has not prevailed because there has been mostly an unending pitting of the church fathers against each other to no avail. What we need is clear and determinative exegesis of the sedes passages on the ministry, followed by clear and determinative exegesis of non-sedes doctrines on the ministry. Even there one problem will be to find unbiased exegetes on either side. It seems we are more interested in doing exegesis of Walther, Pieper, Schaller, and Meyer, rather than the scriptures. That has led to confusion and to the weakness of our arguments. If we can only "prove" a position by quoting the church fathers, but cannot "prove" the same position by quoting sola scriptura, we have gone the way of Rome.</p> <p class="comment-timestamp">April 7, 2010 11:06 AM</p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-3362237460226704102010-02-13T11:36:00.001-06:002010-02-13T11:37:52.980-06:00The Office of the Holy Ministry (sic) in Wisconsin<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm">http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm</a><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:20pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:24pt;" ><img src="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2_files/image001.jpg" width="523" height="463" /></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:16pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:16pt;" >Faculty + Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary + Circa 1961</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:14pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:22pt;" >Oktoberfest Seminar</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:18pt;" > + </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:22pt;" >October 13, 2008</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:22pt;" >St. Paul Lutheran + Kewaunee, Illinois</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:16pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:16pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:16pt;" >Rev. Fr. John W. Berg</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:16pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><i><span style="font-size:11pt;">This presentation was delivered at the thirteenth annual Oktoberfest held at St. Paul Lutheran Church, Kewanee, Illinois (October 13, 2008) and is presented here in edited form. It was one of four presentations delivered by former members of the Wisconsin Synod, now members of the Missouri Synod, about the differences between the two former Synodical Conference partners. </span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:22pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><b><span style="text-transform: uppercase;font-size:11pt;" >The Office of the Holy Ministry (</span></b><b><span style="text-transform: uppercase;font-size:2pt;" > </span></b><b><span style="text-transform: uppercase;font-size:11pt;" >sic) in Wisconsin</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">In 1961 it was a matter relating to church, not ministry, that was the final death blow dealt to the Synodical Conference by the Wisconsin Synod as it withdrew the hand of fellowship from Missouri - the Evangelical Lutheran Synod already having exited. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">While church issues took the foreground, looming in the background were issues of ministry. Yet as late as 1948 the Synodical Conference was still able to amicably take up the issue. The joint committee assigned the task issued a majority report which represented the so called Missouri view, signed onto by two Wisconsin men, and a minority report representing the so called Wisconsin view authored by a lone Wisconsinite. Yet even in those tense times the Wisconsin minority report was still able to state with great comity</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">There are two marked differences in the [Evangelical Lutheran] Synodical Conference in the matter of Church and Ministry. These are not differences in doctrine as such… They are differences in application.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[1]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">However, freed of Missouri restraint Wisconsin forged ahead to develop her doctrine on her own. And did she! And though it was thought that the two Synod’s doctrines of ministry were not divisive of fellowship for their first 110 years, barring the intervention of the Spirit these differences present an insurmountable obstacle today. This would depend on whether Missouri corrects a WELSward drift from its confessional moorings, a drift retired Bishop Roger Pittelko observed reacting to the Council of Presidents study entitled “Holy Ministry,” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Notice the exclusion and avoidance of the definite article. This is extremely significant, <i>I assure you!<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[2]</span></b></span></span></a></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Once tolerant of Missouri Wisconsin will no longer be. The Missouri Doctrine, which, frankly, the WELS does not quite understand, has received the official <i>anathema sit</i>. And my fellow Missourians you may not realize how heretically wrong the Wisconsin Synod finds you! The magisterially entitled booklet <i>WELS and Other Lutherans </i>in its summary of differences between WELS and… other… Lutherans lists eight differences between itself and ELCA and with no less than 15 differences between itself and Missouri<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[3]</span></span></span></a> with a full fourteen of those “differences” involving ministry related issues. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">To be charged a “Missourian” in Wisconsin nowadays marks you as an agitator. Those foolish enough to wear a collar remain under suspicion, the “Packer” tie or polo shirt being the clerical of choice. Indeed, as Bishop Pittelko noted in Missouri, articulating the word “ministry” will raise red flags, let alone if you accord it an uppercase “M.” Speaking of a concrete Office of the Holy Ministry restricted to qualified men was enough for the inquisitors in their bright red ties to ignite the faggots and set two of this seminar’s speakers ablaze.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">As I began to associate with those outside the sect, a breech of fellowship <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[4]</span></span></span></a> I was warned, and began to enjoy the fellowship of those in the Missouri Synod, I quickly learned that many Missourians know little more about Wisconsin than Wisconsin knows about Missouri. This was true nowhere more so than in regards to the issue of the Ministry. “Really?!” was the comment I most often heard from Missourians when I explained Wisconsin’s views. So, let me dispel any doubts or illusions you might have about Wisconsin in regards to “ministry.” As Bishop Pittelko said, the lack of a definite article is extremely significant, <i>I assure you!</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now Wisconsin, unlike Missouri, is quite monolithic in her thinking about most things. Allegiance is demanded to their Doctrinal Statements and though accorded confessional status in its midst they aren’t always helpful in divining its teachings as they are often little more than general statements with a catena of Bible passages to “proof text” the point in question. Where true Wisconsin is found is in the Talmudic writings of its seminary professors. But to truly understand Wisconsin though you must read the seminal article from which its admittedly novel doctrine found its genesis, the Holy Grail of Wisconsin’s view of the ministry lauded as “breathtakingly bold,” and “Lutheresque”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn5" name="_ftnref5" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[5]</span></span></span></a> Wauwatosa theologian John Schaller’s “The Origin and Development of the New Testament Ministry.” Your reading it will spare me the charge of overkill.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">The Office (sic) of the Holy Ministry</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The first of the official statements on the ministry which we consider today might have you wondering if poor Wisconsin is being unfairly criticized here. It reads,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> Christ instituted one office in His Church, the ministry of the Gospel.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">But as good Lutherans we must ask, what does this mean? Let me assure you, aside from the word “Christ,” this does not mean what you think it means. Vital in understanding Wisconsin is to know that Augustana V’s “Ministry of the Gospel,” the <i>ministerium Evangelii</i>, or in the mother tongue, <i>das Predigtamt,</i> is not the Office of Preaching, but the function of proclaiming the Gospel. As seminary professor and Wisconsin’s point man on the issue John Brug bluntly says, “The <i>Predigtamt</i> is the Gospel.” <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn6" name="_ftnref6" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[6]</span></span></span></a> Schaller for his part is more incarnational and finds this office incarnated in the royal priesthood, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">This [New Testament Ministry] is basically nothing other than the doctrine of the spiritual priesthood.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn7" name="_ftnref7" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[7]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Curiously, Brug, perhaps not checking the bullet points on the issue or his own history, bristles,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">We must reject [Kurt] Marquart’s opinion that the Wisconsin Statements lead to a “virtual identification of the universal priesthood and the ministry.” <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn8" name="_ftnref8" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[8]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">What is historically called the office of the Holy Ministry, the OHM as the cognoscenti say, Wisconsin calls the “<i>public</i> ministry” which itself for Wisconsin is not an office, but the approved carrying out of the tasks assigned it by the church. For Wisconsin, Augustana V does not create an office that Augustana XIV fills, even abstractly. Leaving the argument to the gnesio, neo, anti or pseudo Waltherians about that term, Walther says in Thesis II of <i>Kircke und Amt</i> <i> </i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">This statement [AC V] does not speak of the ministry of the Word <i>in concreto</i>, but only of the ministry of the Word <i>in abstracto<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn9" name="_ftnref9" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><b><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[9]</span></b></span></span></a>.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Schaller without naming names takes dead aim at Walther </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">God did not institute a ministry <i>in abstracto</i>, but he continually creates the ministry of preaching [<i>Predigtdienst</i>] through his Gospel. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><i><span style="font-size:11pt;">Predigtamt</span></i><span style="font-size:11pt;"> becomes <i>Predigtdienst</i> for Schaller I suspect in order to completely distance any thought of an office from the <i>amt</i>.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn10" name="_ftnref10" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[10]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">For Wisconsin “<i>Predigtamt</i>” is simply function. Typical of the attempts to cobble this view to the Confessions is illustrated in a set of Theses by a Michigan District conference of the Wisconsin Synod which was commissioned to extinguish the pernicious error of a reprobate who wrote a paper making the audacious claim that God created an office. This sacred congregation for the defense of the faith without quoting Luther or the Confessions proclaimed</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Luther and the confessors understood <i>Predigtamt </i>as synonymous with the Means of Grace… Amt is a very elastic word.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn11" name="_ftnref11" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[11]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Or one might say wax. And follow this logic closely; in explaining that the ministry is not an office they schooled the writer, who suggested that the office of the ministry is an office,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">To say “the ministry is an office” is about like saying “an automobile is a car.” “Ministry” and office” are synonyms.” “Office” does not necessarily define or clarify the meaning of “ministry.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I’m not sure how synonyms don’t bring clarity to each other, but the Tractatus (25) uses <i>Predigtamt </i>as preaching office, not means of grace, which of course are what the office is all about,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Christ addresses [Peter] as a minister of this office (<i>amt</i>) in which this confession and doctrine is to be in operation and says “Upon this rock, i.e., this preaching (<i>Predigt</i>) and ministry (<i>Predigtamt</i>). </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now, indeed “amt” is used in this sense in the Smalcald Articles in discussing the functions of the law and Gospel, as is “ministry,” but couple <i>Amt </i>with <i>Predigt</i>, which presumes a <i>Prediger</i>, the <i>Amt</i>, dare I say, becomes quite fleshy even if the function of the office is the matter at hand. To the committee we offer Luther himself in the “Answer to the Hyperchristian, Hyperspiritual, and Hyperlearned Book by Goat Emser in Leipzig-Including Some Thoughts Regarding His Companion, the Fool Murner” which would test their assertion,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Scripture, I say, calls the spiritual and priestly estate a service, caretaking, an office, an elder, an attendant, a guardian, a preaching office, and a shepherd.</span> <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn12" name="_ftnref12" title=""><sup><sup><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >[12]</span></sup></sup></a><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The problem with Rome, as Luther so clearly points out in his <i>De Ministerio,</i> is that the Papists separated the evangelical functions from the office, indeed turned it into a sacrificial office. The problem with the Schwaermer on the other hand is that they unhinged the functions from the office and clandestinely snuck about. Luther spoke of such office-less functions</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">If a layman should perform all the outward functions of a priest, celebrating Mass, confirming, absolving, administering the sacraments, dedicating altars, churches, vestments, vessels, etc., it is certain that these actions in all respects would be similar to those of a true priest, in fact, they might be performed more reverently and properly than the real ones. But because he has not been consecrated and ordained and sanctified, he performs nothing at all, but is only playing church and deceiving himself and his followers. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn13" name="_ftnref13" title=""><sup><sup><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[13]</span></sup></sup></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The answer to the Romanism is not enthusiasm. But this is the fear in Wisconsin. So to find an office in AC V will find you suffering the calumny expressed by Professor Brug, who says about many in this crowd, I suspect,</span></p> <p class="Default" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="Default" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">This is why Romanizing Lutherans must battle to inject the institution of the pastoral ministry into AC V, just as they often battle to inject it into Matthew 28.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn14" name="_ftnref14" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;color:black;" >[14]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Martin Chemnitz, too, must suffer this calumny as he in his <i>Examination of the Council of Trent </i>of all places<i> </i>applies the Matthew 28 citation to those in this teaching office.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn15" name="_ftnref15" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[15]</span></span></span></a> In fact he refers to the John 20 text of Jesus breathing out on his disciples as their Ordination, though rejecting the idea that such an exsufflation is necessary today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">For Wisconsin uses of the term “ministry,” “<i>Predigtamt”</i> or even the “Office of the Holy Ministry” by the Confessions or Luther or other Lutheran fathers are all fair game to be considered as equal to the Gospel or the royal priesthood. On this very point John Brug in a paper entitled “The Meaning of <i>Predigtamt</i> in AC V” cites a passage from Apology XIII (7ff) in which he maintains its use of <i>Predigtamt</i> is equivalent to “means of grace.” That passage,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The adversaries do not understand the sacrament of orders and priesthood as the ministry of the Word (<i>Predigtamt</i>) or the office (amt) of administering the sacraments for others, but they understand it of priests who are ordained to offer sacrifices…If ordination is understood as carrying out the ministry of the Word we are willing to call ordination a sacrament. For the ministry of the Word (<i>Predigtamt</i>) has God’s command and glorious promises. For the church has the command to appoint ministers, which should be most pleasing to us, because we know that God approves this ministry and is present in the ministry. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Unless you are approaching this text with a predetermined position, you cannot help but see that this passage, whose subject that ordination which can rise to sacramental status (sorry Jack), speaks of an office. Brug later chides those who view AC V or even the public ministry as an office with this straw man,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The Holy Spirit is efficacious through the gospel. It is a Romanizing trait to make the pastor a means of grace. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn16" name="_ftnref16" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[16]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now who says that? But is it Romanizing to say “how can they believe in Him of whom they have not heard? And how shall they hear without a preacher? And how shall they preach unless they are sent?” Well, I guess it is Romanizing. Perhaps Wisconsin needs a gentle reminder that the Gospel and Sacraments save no one. The Gospel preached and the Sacraments administered do. But that a pious believer gives an answer for the hope he has and a parent speaks to her child the love of Christ does not put them into office.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Wisconsin</span><span style="font-size:11pt;"> hinges much on the term “public” before ministry and so without it, you just have ministry without an office. It is interesting to note that the word “public” as an adjective before “ministry,” if Larson’s concordance is reliable, occurs only once in the Confessions, although it is translated into <i>Predigtamt </i>or <i>ministerium</i> several times. The lone occurrence is in an inconsequential reference in the Apology in “The Marriage of Priests.” (Rome reasoned that since priests should always pray and since praying was an exercise of their office, they didn’t have time for “conjugal intercourse.” The lusty Lutherans said, sex doesn’t prevent us from praying.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Augustana XIV, of course, uses it adverbially. The ministry is by nature and institution <i>publice.</i> One certainly can turn the Confessions and Luther on their heads if one were to say they were speaking of the witness of all the royal priesthood which Wisconsin says <i>Predigtamt</i> is, when they may be talking about the Office<i>.</i> Again, that all things belong to all Christians, yes, the ministry of the keys, does not mean there is no office of preaching. The Tractatus (26) reminds us that </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The <i>Predigtamt</i> of the New Testament is not bound to places and persons as the Levitical ministry, but is dispersed throughout the whole world and is there where God gives His gifts, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers; neither does this ministry avail on account of the authority of any person, but on account of the Word given by Christ. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The lone confessional citation which Wisconsin in all of its official writings uses to prove its point is from the Formula in which the errors of the Schwenckfeldians are condemned when they</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">[Assert] that the ministry of the Church, the word preached and heard, is not a means whereby God the Holy Ghost teaches men and works in them saving knowledge of Christ.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn17" name="_ftnref17" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[17]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">However the authoritative German does not use <i>Predigtamt</i> here, but <i>Kirchendienst</i>, and the issue here with the Stink-fledians was not the office per se, but a fluttering Spirit not fettered to the word. The Formula doesn’t simply say the “Word,” but the “word preached,” and the last I heard is that they cannot hear without a preacher and he can’t preach unless he is sent. Simply ignored by Wisconsin are the many uses of <i>Predigtamt</i> later in the Augustana, the Apology, and the Smalcald articles, for example</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Therefore the bishop has the power of the order, i.e., the ministry of Word and Sacraments.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn18" name="_ftnref18" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[18]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">So the “office” in Wisconsin’s “Christ instituted one office in His Church” is not an office. In fact in the first explanatory comment on this thesis in the Doctrinal Statement we read, “It is the task of proclaiming the Gospel.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">Institution</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Though adamantly insisting that the <i>Predigtamt</i> is divinely instituted, vain, in Wisconsin, is the hunt for a red citation, that is, a red lettered word of institution from Christ. Schaller says</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">It is clear from this in which sense we can speak of the <i>divine institution</i> of the New Testament ministry. God very obviously wills the preaching of the gospel. He accomplished this will by calling people to the fellowship of the gospel… Jesus commands to preach are not the original institution of the gospel ministry; they substantiate the fact that it had been instituted. He couldn’t give a command to preach if he didn’t already have preachers.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn19" name="_ftnref19" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[19]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Yes, the Gospel is preaching because the Gospel is the Word, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and the Hypostatic Word was inscribed for us and must as a word be preached to us. The eternal Word did not need to be instituted; it the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. So isn’t it a bit odd, then, to say as our Confession says that God instituted something that needs no institution? As Schaller himself says,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> But if one wishes to speak about an institution, one must, of course, be able to cite the instituting command.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn20" name="_ftnref20" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[20]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Though its Doctrinal Statements cite Matthew 28, Mark 16, Matthew 16, and John 20, along with 1 Peter 2:9 and Matthew 18 under its theses, upon closer examination you see that these Apostolic commissionings are not cited as instituting words, which most would be led to believe, but as passages which confirm the “task,” that, is to “proclaim the Gospel in Word and Sacrament.” There is no difference made between Christ granting the keys to the church and to the Eleven. Wisconsin virtually equates the priesthood with the apostolate and their successors. Seminary professor Leroy Dobberstein places the Matthew 28, Mark 16 and John 20 citations under the title of “the institution of the universal priesthood.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn21" name="_ftnref21" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[21]</span></span></span></a> Dobberstein also owns up,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">In asserting this [that there is no <i>mandatum Dei</i> for the New Testament Ministry] the Wauwatosa men were in fact departing from the earlier position of Adolf Hoenecke and the position held by Franz Pieper and others in the Missouri Synod. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn22" name="_ftnref22" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[22]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">No <i>mandatum</i> <i>Dei</i>. But there you have it in AC V, “instituted.” And so “instituted” becomes “instituted in this sense” in Wisconsin’s confession “Christ instituted one office in His Church, the ministry of the Gospel.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">The “Public” Ministry</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Again, Wisconsin uses the term “public ministry” for what you would call the Office of the Holy Ministry. And again, Wisconsin maintains that the public ministry is divinely instituted. And again, when you ask for the instituting word, you come up empty, again. Schaller writes, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">But if one wishes to speak about an institution, one must, of course, be able to cite the instituting command. It was supposed, to be sure, that the divine institution of at least one form of the public ministry had been indirectly established. But it is certainly a questionable undertaking to try to establish a divine command, and hence a positive moral precept, by means of circumstantial evidence. Is it God’s practice in other in serious matters that directly concern our soul’s salvation to leave it to our reason to make a deduction concerning a particular act of the will? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Erling Teigen of the ELS in Logia notes that the translator of Schaller’s work gets a bit hinky here and footnotes Schaller’s comments that Scripture does speak about the necessity of a public ministry. Teigen notes, however, that there is nothing in Schaller’s essay that would lead us to believe Schaller believed that. Schaller not only says no forms are instituted, but no office is. Teigen opines whether Schaller and his compatriot August Pieper were the real but unnamed coconspirators of brother Franz’s attack on Hoefling in his Dogmatics. This view, however, is not unique to Schaller. Dobberstein writes, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The fact of the matter is that the WELS position from the time of the Wauwatosa theologians has not looked to legal commands of God to establish the public ministry.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn23" name="_ftnref23" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[23]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Dobberstein quotes another Wisconsinite, Peter Prange, who lauds the Wauwatosa theologians </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The Wauwatosa men didn’t pay mere lip service to the power of the gospel and, therefore, never felt the need to resort to the legalistic idea of <i>mandata Dei</i>. They didn’t depend upon legal regulations to guide the life of the Church. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">In their rush <i>ad fontes</i> these Wauwatosa theologians too quickly by-passed our Lutheran Confession which notes that, the public Office of the Holy Ministry,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Has God’s command, <i>mandatum Dei</i>, and glorious promises. For the Church has the <i>mandatum</i>, to appoint ministers, which should be most pleasing to us because we know that God approves this ministry, and is present in this ministry. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Indeed, all the Sacraments, however many you have, 3, 4 1/2 , 7 or more, have the <i>mandatum Dei.</i> What Wisconsin misses is that the Office of the Holy Ministry is, like Baptism and the Lord’s Supper, an evangelical institution.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">As regards the divine institution of the public ministry Wisconsin’s doctrinal statement rather than saying that the public ministry is divinely “instituted” says, that</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The public ministry constitutes a special God-ordained way of practicing the one ministry of the Gospel. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">An otherwise innocent and pious sounding “God ordained” in the absence of an instituting word is simply human presumption. Dobberstein clears up the matter so that you can see that I am not engaging in mere leptological hairsplitting,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">When the WELS speaks of a divine institution for the public ministry it is not referring to a specific command of institution.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn24" name="_ftnref24" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[24]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Incredible, a divine institution with no divine institution! So the public ministry with no <i>mandatum Dei </i>is a special God-ordained way of practicing the one ministry of the Gospel, but no form of it is. This always puzzled me, forms. Preaching and administering are, by the way, its form. The WELS Doctrinal Statement enlightens us, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">There is, however, no direct word of institution for any particular form of the public ministry. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">What does this mean? Schaller provides the answer. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">We come thus to the indisputable conclusion that God can indeed recognize something that has been established under his invisible dominion and yet also according to human decision.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn25" name="_ftnref25" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[25]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Also,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The pastoral ministry as such is not a Biblical, but rather in each individual case a historically developed concept. That means the pastoral ministry is for each time and in each place, what the <i>church </i>so says.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn26" name="_ftnref26" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[26]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Talk about Voter’s Assembly’s run wild! Wisconsin says that though an instituting word for the public ministry is lacking, the public ministry and any form it devises is divinely instituted <i>a posteriori</i>. So, forms of the ministry developed by man are divinely instituted but no form is divinely instituted. It is here where the language of diplomacy with the ELS, Wisconsin’s little Norwegian buddy, is important. The ELS says the pastoral ministry is divinely instituted, which to maintain peace Wisconsin interprets; yes any form is, <i>a posteriori</i>. I won’t try to stir the pot, too much, by whispering that the ELS means this <i>a priori.</i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">David Vallesky former Seminary president also finds no <i>mandatum Dei</i> and incredibly cites Apology XIII (11) which says</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The church has the command to appoint ministers, which should be most pleasing to us, because we know that God approves this ministry and is present in the ministry </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">And then concludes,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">This Confessional Statement echoes they way the Scriptures speak. Though one will search in vain for a direct word of institution for the public ministry, e.g. for baptism, the Scriptures assume the existence of what we have come to call the public ministry.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn27" name="_ftnref27" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[27]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">It is ironic, that Vallesky says that <i>Predigtamt</i> here is speaking of the public ministry, whereas Brug cites the same passage to say that <i>Predigtamt</i> here does not speak of the public ministry. Whatever, for Wisconsin there is no <i>mandatum Dei</i>, but a divine assumption. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The “divine institution” of the public ministry is, however, substantiated by the Doctrinal Statement for other three related reasons, first that a call is necessary. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The authority to call is <i>implied (emphasis in original)</i> in the authority to administer the Gospel given to the ‘Church.’ Hence, it is proper to speak of the <i>derived</i> right of local congregations to call. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">So what is meant by a “divine institution” of the public ministry for Wisconsin? They assume there is such from the call to preach from which the church infers the authority to call from which the local congregation derives its right to call. So I guess we pastors should speak of being derivatively called to serve in a Divine Inference. Other reasons cited by the Doctrinal Statements are that God is a God of order, not all are equally qualified, God gave these gifts to people and who is to deny anyone their gift, even the so called gift of pastoring or pastoretting and finally that these public ministers were appointed by God.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">One does sense the specter of Johann Hoefling floating about. Yet Wisconsin bristles at the suggestion, for though Hoefling did not reject the divine institution of the Gospel, he did reject the divine institution of the <i>public</i> ministry, which Wisconsin maintains, sort of. Kurt Marquardt of blessed memory writes that Hoefling maintained against Loehe, that </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The concrete office of Word and Sacrament does not arise out of a direct divine command and institution. Rather, it emerges by an inner necessity out of the priesthood itself, that is, by the latter’s delegation [Ubertragung] of its individual member’ spiritual rights and powers to one of themselves, for the sake of good order.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn28" name="_ftnref28" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[28]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Marquart labels Hoefling’s later attempts to “make this scheme add up to a divine institution of the concrete preaching office,” only “cosmetic.” Or as Schaller said earlier</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">But it is certainly a questionable undertaking to try to establish a divine command, and hence a positive moral precept, by means of circumstantial evidence. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">No one would quarrel that this is all true of a divinely instituted office, the need for a call and so forth, but does it add up to one? Is Wisconsin’s “divine assumption” with inferred rights a cosmetic cover up for a blemished doctrine? Wisconsin’s angry denials ring a bit hollow to me, such as this by John Brug in his dim review of Kurt Marquart’s book “The Church and Her Fellowship, Ministry and Governance,” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">It should be emphasized that the so-called Wisconsin Synod position asserts the divine institution of the public ministry, including the pastoral ministry, every bit as fully as the “Missouri position.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn29" name="_ftnref29" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[29]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Ever bit as <i>fully</i>? An assumption from an inference with no <i>mandatum Dei</i>? Ok.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now, what does Wisconsin do with the dominical commands and institution of Matthew 28, Mark 16 to which Chemnitz appeals and most certainly the John 20 text to which the Tractatus appeals? Those have been taken off the table by Wisconsin as they are said to be spoken not to the apostles, but to the church as a whole. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Yet we see that Melanchthon cites John 20:21ff and Mark 16:15 in the Apology and in the Tractatus he cites Matthew 28 and John 21 when speaking of this responsibility given the Apostles. When speaking of the Church’s possession of the keys he uses Matthew 18 and reminds us that the Church has the right to elect and ordain ministers since it alone has the priesthood (69) which the Papists claimed for themselves.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Equally surprising to all those who long for the second coming of the Synodical Conference is the view of the Tractatus (10) as to the origin of the office, that this “<i>Predigtamt</i>“ proceeds from the general call of the apostles.” One such would be John Brug, who writes,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Nothing in Scripture indicates that the office of pastor or any other public ministry of the Word is derived from the apostolic office.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn30" name="_ftnref30" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[30]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now that would be surprising to those who penned and subscribed with their own hands the Tractatus.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">Forms</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The answer to the question “What is the difference between Missouri and Wisconsin?” given by the average Wisconsinite reflects the presentations that we four apostates are giving today:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">- Missourians pray at Yankee stadium with pagans; we don’t pray with our LCMS grandmother. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">- Missourians base their teachings on the Confessions; we base ours on the Bible.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">- Missourians let their women vote; we make our ministers, and</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">- Missourians say only parish pastors are in the public ministry; we say that anyone who does anything on behalf of the church is.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">To illustrate, first, that Wisconsin does not understand the term “pastoral ministry” and thus Missouri, listen to Tom Nass who, on the attack, writes, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">There does not need to be someone called “pastor.” The work of shepherding must be done. But the office of pastor, as we know it, is not essential. The work could be delegated and accomplished in another way.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn31" name="_ftnref31" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[31]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Pastors are not needed although pastoral ministry needs to be done. Ok. Does he really think this is about titles? Or is there more to this distinction without a difference?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now I jest not when I say that in Wisconsin anyone doing anything on behalf of the church is in the public ministry in the WELS. The issue of forms of the public ministry is at the heart of Wisconsin’s teaching. Behind this Doctrinal Statement “The one public ministry of the Gospel may assume various forms as circumstances demand” you will find lurking, Ac 6:1-6. In Wisconsin, the one Gospel ministry has expanded exponentially beyond AC V’s tasks to table service and beyond. This goes far beyond the question of whether theological professors and Synodical executives are in the Office. Staunchly conservative seminary professor John Brenner writes,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Already in apostolic times the public ministry was exercised in a variety of ways. The Christians in Jerusalem chose seven deacons to supervise charitable work in their name.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn32" name="_ftnref32" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[32]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now yes, I know what you are thinking. This form of ministry was instituted by the church so that the apostles would not neglect the “ministry of the word.” That problem is generally brushed aside as here we see in former Seminary president Armin Schuetze’s little tome entitled “Church-Mission-Ministry” that such ministers </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Contribute to the public proclamation of the Word so that the church may be edified. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn33" name="_ftnref33" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[33]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">His recently retired successor David Vallesky flings open the doors left ajar by Schuetze’s ambiguous “contribute,” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoFootnoteText" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Including staff ministry and member ministry, even that which supports rather than directly participates in word and sacrament ministry, under the term public ministry is biblical.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn34" name="_ftnref34" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[34]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">A former synodical vice president and former seminary professor, Wayne Mueller delivers the WELS <i>improbat</i> on any contrary opinion (even that of AC V),</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Christian ministry is misconstrued or torn from its biblical moorings (when) ministry is thought of too narrowly as though it included only the ministry of the keys…<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn35" name="_ftnref35" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[35]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Mueller insists that all that a Christian does is the one Ministry given the Church, AC V a subcategory. Now years ago Wisconsin would attempt to shelter its ever burgeoning list of ministries under the tent of AC V by showing they use the “Word.” The same happens today generally only when writing for public consumption. Tom Nass, for example, in Logia says</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Even the physical education professors at Martin Luther College are called into the public ministry, because they are expected to use the Word of God with students. As coaches, they may lead their teams in prayer. As faculty advisors for students, they are expected to counsel students with God’s Word.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn36" name="_ftnref36" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[36]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Yet Nass should know from Wisconsin doctrine such use of the Word is not a <i>sine qua non</i> for the Ministry.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">Functions</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The formlessness of this public ministry is supported by this assertion which we find in the People’s Bible book on the subject, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">A list of duties outlining the responsibilities of everyone who is called into the public ministry does not exist.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn37" name="_ftnref37" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[37]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">This would be news to the cosignatories of the Lutheran Confessions who believe such a list does indeed exist, and provided it! The Tractatus (60), for example, echoing Augustana XXVIII,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The Gospel assigns to those who preside over churches the command to teach the Gospel, to remit sins, to administer the Sacraments, and besides jurisdiction, namely, the command to excommunicate those who crimes are known, and again to absolve those who repent. And by the confession of all, even of the adversaries, it is clear that this power by divine right is common to all who preside over the churches, whether they are called pastors, or elders, or bishops. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Aside from appealing to the various titles the incumbents of the Office of the Holy Ministry are given in Scripture, pastor, bishop, elder and so forth and the Acts 6 passage the other passage always marshaled for support in Wisconsin is 1 Timothy 5:17. The NIV, not always to be confused with the New Testament, translates (<i>sic</i>), </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The elders who direct the affairs of the church well are worthy of double honor, especially those who work is preaching and teaching.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">However, the blessed Apostle literally wrote</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Let the well ruling elders be worthy of double honor especially the one laboring in word and teaching.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The words “affairs of the church,” you quickly note, are <i>not</i> in the text. Are these <i><span style="">presbyteroi</span></i> lay ministers of the church maintaining the church’s non-Word and Sacrament “ministries?” Or is not Paul simply encouraging people - in this list of encouragements - to honor older men, which, of course, is what <i>presbyteroi</i> means, like the <i><span style="">presbyteros</span></i> or older man of verse one of this chapter whom Paul encourages Timothy not to rebuke too harshly. Also, the word Paul uses here <i><span style="">proestote</span></i>, is used in chapter 3 informing us that bishops and deacons must “manage” their households well. Paul undoubtedly is simply saying, “older men who manage (their households) well, are worthy of double honor, honor, for we always honor our “elders” and honor, for being good household managers, especially those (elders) who work in word and teaching.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Yet upon these two passages Wisconsin has expanded the ministry to anyone doing anything on behalf of the church. These passages were appealed to when Wisconsin instituted its staff ministry program. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">While all forms of public ministry derive their authority from the gospel, not every office of ministry in the New Testament was directly involved in teaching the Word and administering the sacraments.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn38" name="_ftnref38" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[38]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The authority from the Gospel not to preach the Gospel?! Vallesky notes about these non Word and Sacrament forms, that they need a divine call </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Even if the staff ministry role as designed by a particular congregation does not involve direct use of Word and Sacraments.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn39" name="_ftnref39" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[39]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">For a Synod that prides itself in its <i>ad fontes</i> it is surprising that Wisconsin eschewed exegetical investigation and employed the Reformed NIV’s translation. To illustrate the lengths to which this goes see this notice from the WELS run Wisconsin Lutheran College from one of its mailers, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Wisconsin Lutheran, under the auspices of the Southeastern Wisconsin District presidium, is seeking faculty candidates for <i>divine calls</i> in the following disciplines: anthropology, art, biology, business, chemistry, communication, computer science, early childhood education, economics, education, English, finance, German, history, mathematics, music (instrumental), philosophy, physics, political science, psychology, sociology, Spanish, theatre (sic).<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn40" name="_ftnref40" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[40]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">The Call and Qualifications</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">To this amorphous and atomized public ministry an equally amorphous divine call is the order of the day. An essay given to the 1965 WELS’ synod convention spoke of the call</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Not all…receive formal calls, diplomas of vocation. Some are ordained, some installed, some inducted, some commissioned, some merely introduced and some are simply put to work, perhaps even without special mention. Be all of that as it may, as long as members of the church, in whatever way they have gathered to express themselves, have asked the service of these people… they all have divine calls.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn41" name="_ftnref41" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[41]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">To illustrate the lengths to which this all can go, at Wisconsin Lutheran College the campus pastor desired to have all the students recite the general confession and absolution in chapel. But since the general absolution in Christian Worship reads, “therefore, as a called servant of Christ” the pastor, to insure that all things met Augustana XIV muster, I assume, <i>called</i> all the students so they could publicly absolve each other “as called servants of Christ.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">Qualifications</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">This broad view of the ministry will have implications when it comes to the qualifications for this ministry. When 1 Timothy 3 is examined WELS writers instinctively talk about the “form” of the ministry called the pastorate and not about all the other so called forms. Dobberstein, almost misty-eyed, writing on the “apt to teach” clause speaks of the Wisconsin Synod’s worker training program for the “public ministry” that it is “second to none” and “might well be the envy of any other church body.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn42" name="_ftnref42" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[42]</span></span></span></a> Of course he was only speaking of pastors and teachers. But when pressed 1 Timothy 3’s qualifications are cited as applicable for any form of this public ministry because they are said to apply to <i>all</i> Christians. The People’s Bible commentary incredibly notes </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">That [these qualifications] are stated here does not set up a unique standard for overseers or pastors. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn43" name="_ftnref43" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[43]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;">For they are found, he says in a “greater or lesser degree” in all Christians. Dobberstein writes </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The longer lists of characteristics for such reliable and qualified men are nothing other than an enumeration of the characteristics God wants all Christians to have.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn44" name="_ftnref44" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[44]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">So logic demands if one needs to be 1 Timothy 3 qualified to teach art, then one is 1 Timothy 3 qualified for the office of bishop. Everyone a bishop! To illustrate the lengths to which this goes I offer an anecdote. In a discussion of a conference paper on 1 Timothy 3’s bishop’s qualifications the presenter ultimately concluded, in a real life scenario I put to him, that a man who had been imprisoned for child molestation, who repented and was absolved and humbly returned to his church where all knew of his sin, would have been judged by him to be disqualified from serving in the form of the public ministry called the “buildings and grounds committee.” His “scandalous life” disqualified him from taking his turn mowing the grass. Just an anecdote? Noting that the WELS People’s Bible commentary says the word “respectable” means that the chap among other things “should not be slovenly in his appearance”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn45" name="_ftnref45" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[45]</span></span></span></a> listen to, at the time, parish pastor Tom Nass in the <i>Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly.</i> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">What is most interesting is simply to notice the sizable and well organized <i>public ministry</i> which existed [at St. Mary’s] in Wittenberg, and the variety of different offices. It reminds me a little of the congregation I presently serve which has three pastors and twelve Christian day school teachers, plus secretaries and janitors, who are all ministering in some sense. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn46" name="_ftnref46" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[46]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">Women</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Now I do not wish to steal the next presenter’s thunder, but if I do she will submissively endure it. But briefly, I will quote her father, a Missouri Synod pastor and friend, who when asked “what is the difference between the WELS and ELCA in regards to women in the pastoral ministry?” quipped “about 20 years.” I thought him pessimistic. However there is no theological barrier here to women pastors. The WELS addendum to the Book of Concord, “This We Believe,” notes,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">We believe that women may participate in offices and activities of the public ministry except where that work involves authority over men (1 Timothy 2:11, 12). This means that women may not serve as pastors nor participate in assemblies of the church <i>in ways</i> that exercise authority over men (1 Corinthians 11:3; 14:33-35). (<i>Emphasis</i> added.) </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Carefully note the wording, “Women may not serve as pastors… <i>in ways</i> that exercise authority over men.” Now Wisconsin is too conservative to ever call its women ministers, “pastors” though they may do the pastor things. In theology Wisconsin beat ELCA by several generations, in terminology it remains stealthily behind, in practice it is closing fast. A conference paper given at a conference I was at in California was accepted as sound theology in which the presenter told the case of a female teacher manning the paten at a pastor-teacher conference who could do so because male ushers fenced the rail. The only hubbub was that the ministerette’s red dress was on the short side. Woo-hoo!</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">As you know Wisconsin for a time ordained its male teachers and though David Scaer was angrily denounced for suggesting that there was no reason not to ordain its female teachers, the very angry critic in question, John Brug, wrote in a paper on the misconceptions Missouri has,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Since ordination is not a scriptural term, and Scripture does not limit the laying on of hands to the pastoral ministry, women could be installed into permitted forms of public ministry with the laying on of hands.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn47" name="_ftnref47" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[47]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">All Equal?</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Ordaining or installing men, women and children into the Office of the Holy Ministry and all the WELS forms thereof, VBS assistants, custodians, ushers, mowers, greeters, coffee servers, would seem to make nonsensical the Tractatus which reminds us that “all ministers are equal” and which citing John 20:21 says,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Christ sends forth His disciples on an equality, without any distinction [so that no one of them was to have more or less power than any other.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn48" name="_ftnref48" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[48]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Yet, Tom Nass in his public apologetic on Wisconsin’s revised “This We Believe” flatly denies what the Tractatus says is true of the Lutheran confession is true of the Wisconsin Synod,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">So if someone says that all forms of public ministry in the WELS are equal and on the same level, that is not a fair and complete statement. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn49" name="_ftnref49" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[49]</span></span></span></a></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">As you delve deeper into the writings of the Wauwatosa theologians, you encounter one bit of irony after another. Bizarre is the kindest word I can think of to describe the harsh critique offered at their seminary’s recent symposium of Matt Harrison who wrote </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I am convinced that there is an overwhelming explicit and implicit mandate for mercy as a corporate churchly task, inherent in biblical Lutheran theology.” </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;">The author, one Tom Nass, chided Harrison for this “social gospel, and says of Harrison</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Where is this mandate? As we have seen, it is not in the commission passages, nor in the apostles’ description of their work, nor in the Lutheran Confessions. I agree with Armin Schuetze: “Claiming the church is to provide ministries and services for all the needs of ‘the whole man’ places upon it responsibilities that go beyond Scripture and sidetrack it from its saving mission and the means entrusted to it by God.” <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn50" name="_ftnref50" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[50]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Ironic in that it is Schuetze, as well as Wisconsin’s doctrinal statements, who cite the charitable act of food distribution in Acts as their <i>sedes doctrinae</i> for forms of the ministry! For its part, Wisconsin has invested much into its social efforts aimed at growing the church. One highly touted mission offers Starbucks Coffee and Krispy Kreme doughnuts and for those who are bored by church, they promise “fun” in learning about God. (“You learned about God, Uzzah. Having fun yet? Krispy Kreme Donut?”) Believe me, Missouri, this isn’t your grandfather’s reclusively oddball brother’s church anymore.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style=""><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">Summary</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Our Lord Jesus Christ breathed out the Spirit from the cross in blood and he died. The stigmatized and risen Lord breathed out his Spirit upon the apostles this ministry of the New Testament in his blood. The completed sacrifice of the cross is the New Testament ministry in his blood justifying and absolving all from Adam to you and to me. This ministry did not begin in time at the cross or in the upper room as Schaller insists you teach. For the Lamb was slain from the creation of the world. The New Testament ministry in his blood was completed, instituted on the day, the holy Triduum of his death, burial and resurrection which fulfilled the New Testament in his blood by which we are crucified, buried and raised with him, the New Testament in his blood with which we are sprinkled with the aspergillum of the tongue, the New Testament in his blood which we drink. This one completed sacrifice was the substance of the Old Testament preaching and, dare I say, of its sacramental rites.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The New Testament ministry was instituted when Christ breathed out on his disciples, commissioned his disciples and instructed his disciples, go, baptize, teach, do this, forgive and restore. He did not simply repeat things but he completed things in blood on the cross which completeness covers all time, from the beginning of time to the end of time. This New Testament ministry was conducted imperfectly in regards to time in the Old Testament, completed in time in the New Testament and breathed out. It is an office given to the church, possessed by the church, filled by the church, judged by the church, accountable to the church, to serve the church. In it Christ is present among his people; it is a Christological office, a Christologically iconic office that is accordingly fenced.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><b><span style="font-size:11pt;">Conclusion</span></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">On the surface and in practice the ministry of the WELS for the most part is often indistinguishable from the ministry of the LC-MS. In its literature you find orthodox statements as well as orthodox sounding statements. A haven for a beleaguered and weary Missourian? “Be forewarned before you swim the Mississippi, for to say that a VBS assistant was in the Office of the Holy Ministry 30 years ago would have brought guffaws of disbelief, today to say she isn’t will bring the discipline of district officials. Incarnate proof is here today.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Some, recently, have, as the 1948 Synodical Conference committee’s minority report on the issue, suggested there are just semantic differences between old mates and plead in Rodney King fashion “Can’t we all just get along?”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn51" name="_ftnref51" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[51]</span></span></span></a> There are profound differences here and grave consequences as well. When everyone is a minister and everything is a ministry then the church’s mission is muddled. When those not properly and theologically trained assume the mantle of teacher (i.e. the proliferation of lay ministers [<i>sic</i>]) then the church is threatened, for the sole marks of the church, the preaching of the Gospel and the administering of the Sacraments are in jeopardy. For example, in a recent issue of Wisconsin’s lay magazine in an articled entitled “The Many Faces of Volunteering” the writer, a pastor, says of volunteering in the church’s multitudinous ministries “To have a meaningful relationship with the church and God, you need to be involved.”<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn52" name="_ftnref52" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[52]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">As you suspect Wisconsin Synod’s view of the Ministry of the Word confuses justification and sanctification. Indeed the Christological nature of the Office of the Holy Ministry is fading into the background. Recently one student embedded at their Seminary covertly reported that the editors of the <i>Motley Magpie,</i> whose bones are regularly dug up and burned, were wrong in stating that Christ speaks through the pastor. Rare these days in Wisconsin is an “<i>in loco Christi</i>” sighting.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn53" name="_ftnref53" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[53]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">The title of this presentation was “The Office of the Holy Ministry (<i>sic</i>) in the Wisconsin Synod.” Now you know. Now you can judge my insouciant <i>sic</i>. In his apologetic published in Logia a rather sanguine and cloistered Tom Nass for his part writes</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">I would not be surprised if there are readers who have always imagined that the WELS is on the extreme fringe in Lutheranism when it comes to the doctrine of the ministry, based on impressions (or sometimes misinformation) that have circulated. As a person who has grown up in the WELS and preached and taught in the WELS, however, I have just the opposite impression. One could argue that the doctrine of This We Believe presents a wholesome middle ground that avoids saying more or less than Scripture on the topic of the ministry.<a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/bonus_a2.htm#_ftn54" name="_ftnref54" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:11pt;" >[54]</span></span></span></a> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">That I argued the contrary finds me here today. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;"> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.5in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size:11pt;">Thank you very much.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-45997378075824303482010-01-08T13:46:00.007-06:002010-01-09T08:26:43.417-06:00A New Year - A New Identity<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bJhQBx8nFg4/S0iSFd-xQtI/AAAAAAAAAF8/NmIq_n1JPRA/s1600-h/fic.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 169px; height: 225px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_bJhQBx8nFg4/S0iSFd-xQtI/AAAAAAAAAF8/NmIq_n1JPRA/s200/fic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5424746373812667090" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/switt/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot.png" alt="" /><br /><img src="file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/switt/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/moz-screenshot-1.png" alt="" /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.wels.net/news-events/forward-in-christ">http://www.wels.net/news-events/forward-in-christ</a><br /><br /> <!--paging_filter--><p style="font-style: italic;">It's a new year, and you'll notice some new things in <em>Forward in Christ.</em></p> <p style="font-style: italic;">Probably the most obvious change is the new look. We've updated the inside pages as well as the cover with new styles, fonts, and photos. We've also added the synod logo and tagline, "Christ's Love, Our Calling." That message of love—from Christ to us and from us to others—is not new to FIC, but it is one that we will continue to communicate.</p><p style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">A Lutheran voice?</span><br /></p><p style="font-style: italic;"><br /></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-45586919315096510892009-10-30T06:57:00.002-05:002009-10-30T07:08:18.650-05:00Reformation RestorationAs we celebrate the Reformation, we take a moment to reflect on the power of the sacraments. The following article was published several years ago but has become even more relevant today.<br /><br />Maybe we can post this on the church door.<br /><br /><br /><div style="border: 1pt solid windowtext; padding: 1pt 1pt 1pt 0in; font-weight: bold;"> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="border: medium none ; padding: 0in;"><a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/v3n2_a1.htm"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:12pt;" >The Art of Confessing the Sacrament</span></a></p> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="border: medium none ; padding: 0in;"><i><span style=";font-family:";font-size:10pt;" >a look at Lutheran liturgical practice by James A. Frey</span></i></p> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="border: medium none ; padding: 0in;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:2pt;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoBodyText" style="border: medium none ; padding: 0in;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:2pt;" > </span></p> </div> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center; font-weight: bold;" align="center"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >(This article was originally published in March of 2005 of the Motley Magpie)</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >It’s another one of those chicken and egg questions: What came first, bad doctrine or sloppy talk? And as with most chicken and egg questions the answer is, it doesn’t matter. Bad doctrine inevitably leads to sloppy talk, and sloppy talk inevitably leads to bad doctrine.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Because this is so, the art of confessing what one believes is an extremely difficult one. For not only must one say what is true, but he must say it in such a way that it cannot be misinterpreted. And that is no easy task. Indeed, it is one of the hardest aspects of the Holy Ministry in that it requires the minister not only to know the doctrine well but also to have a good command of the language. Yet even then many will attempt to twist and turn his words around so that they say and assert what they want to hear and not what he intended to say. We know how hard Jesus’ enemies tried to do this, and no servant is greater than his master. If they misused and abused his words, then surely the enemies of Christ will attempt the same with the words of his ministers.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Thus it is as I said, the art of confession is an extremely difficult one, and yet one that the minister of Christ must learn to do to the best of his ability, since sloppy talk leads to bad doctrine.<sup>1</sup> Nowhere has this proven to be more true than when it comes to the Holy Sacrament, which in a protestant country like America is constantly under attack. How we speak about it is a clear indication of what we believe about it, and what we believe about it is going to show itself clearly in how we speak about it. The purpose of this article is to compare certain ways people today are speaking about the Sacrament to the way Luther and our Lutheran Confessions spoke.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >“The consecrated elements are bread and wine.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >To speak like this is perhaps more a matter of carelessness than anything else. For our Lord’s words as to what is distributed and received in the Holy Sacrament are simple and clear, “Take; eat; this is my body which is given for you…Take, drink of it, all of you; this cup is the New Testament in my blood, which is shed for you for the forgiveness of sins” (SC). Thus in answer to the question: “What is the Sacrament of the Altar?” Dr. Luther rightly answers: “It is the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ under bread and wine, instituted by Christ himself, for us Christians to eat and to drink” (SC).</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >The Lutherans did not have a problem with the Romanists on this,<sup>2</sup> but with the Sacramentarians: with Zwingli, who saw the bread only as a picture of Christ’s body, and with Calvin, who spoke of Jesus’ spiritual presence at the Sacrament and not in such a way that we actually eat his true body and drink his true blood. And not surprising, it is their spiritual descendants today who consistently speak of the consecrated elements as “bread” and “wine.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Now this writer does not wish to be accused of denying the presence of bread and wine in the Sacrament. And he readily admits that Blessed St. Paul at times spoke of the bread and the cup (1 Cor. 11:28), though he was careful to point out that they were in communion (<i>koinonia</i>) with Christ’s body and blood (1 Cor. 10:16). So to flush out the crypto-Calvinists who had infiltrated the Church in Luther’s day one simple question was asked: “What is the minister holding in his hand?” And if the person answered, “Bread,” then he was identified as a Calvinist and was promptly removed. <sup>3</sup> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >There’s the art of confessing in practice. It wasn’t enough just to say what is true, but it was to be said in such a way that it could not be misunderstood. No Lutheran denies the presence of bread and wine in the Sacrament. But confessional Lutherans realize that it is not the bread and wine that make this a Sacrament. It is Christ’s true Body and true Blood distributed to us by the hand of his minister, for us Christians to eat and to drink for the forgiveness of sins, salvation and eternal life. Therefore, when speaking of what has been consecrated, we say it best when we stick to the simple words of our Lord, “This is my body… This cup is the New Testament in my blood.” <sup>4</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Moments</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >A favorite tactic today is to throw the invective “you’re setting a moment of presence.” Indeed, the Church of Rome, has gone so far as to fix the precise moment of this change, claiming that it happens after the “cor” in “Hoc est corpus meum.” Before that moment if the priest should not be able to complete the statement, it remains only bread and wine. But after he speaks that syllable, then the transubstantiation has taken place and what is on the Altar is now Christ’s body and blood.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Though some of them may deny this, receptionists also tend to fix a moment for the Sacramental Union. Together with their father Melanchthon, they narrow down the presence to the communicant’s reception of the elements, and eliminate the consecration as the means through which Christ effects the Real Presence, reasoning that there is no sacrament outside of its use. <sup>5</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Historically Lutherans have not concerned themselves with fixing a moment, for to do so is to fall into the trap of trying to logically explain the inexplicable. Instead, listen to what our confessions have to say on this matter:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >For the true and almighty words of Jesus Christ, which he spoke in the first institution of the Supper, were not only effective in the first Supper; they remain so. They retain their validity and power and are still effective, so that in all places in which the Supper is observed according to Christ’s institution and his words are used, the body and blood of Christ <i>are truly present, distributed and received</i> on the basis of the power and might of the very same words that Christ spoke in the first Supper. (<i>Emphasis</i> added) <sup>6</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >And quoting Luther they say,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >This command and institution of his has the power to accomplish this, that we do not <i>distribute and receive</i> simple bread and wine but <i>his body and blood</i>, as his words indicate: ‘This is my body, this is my blood.’” (<i>Emphasis</i> added) <sup>7</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.2in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Once more,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >In the administration of the Holy Supper, the Words of Institution are to be clearly and plainly spoken or sung in the congregation, and in no case are to be omitted… so that the elements of bread and wine are sanctified and consecrated in this holy practice whereby <i>Christ’s body and blood are offered</i> to us to eat and to drink, as Paul says (1 Cor. 10:16): ‘The cup of blessing that we bless…’ <i>This of course takes place in no other way than through the repetition and recitation of the Words of Institution.</i> (<i>Emphasis</i> added) <sup>8</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >To sum this up, while Lutherans refuse to fix a moment as to when the Union takes place - and even believe it foolish to do so - nevertheless, we believe, teach and confess that because Christ does not and cannot lie, when he through the voice of his minister says, “This is my body,” then it is his body. We don’t know how; we don’t know when. We just know and believe that it is. </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Perhaps this would be a good time also to discuss the question of the <i>reliquiae</i>, what to do with the body and blood that are left over. Are we to just throw them back in with the unconsecrated, as if they are no longer Christ’s body and blood? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Why the obsession with fixing moments? Just as our Lord was silent as to when the Sacramental Union takes place, so he is silent as to when, or even if, it ever ends. Those who deny this statement I challenge to show me where he does.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >What I can relate to you is how Dr. Luther dealt with one Simon Wolferinus, who, being a disciple of Melanchthon, was found mixing the consecrated with the unconsecrated. It is reported that such a practice caused Luther “great grief” and that he labeled it “a scandal.” Finally, he felt compelled to ask this man if he wanted to be considered a Zwinglian and even suggested that he was perhaps afflicted with the insanity of Zwingli. And what did the great Reformer instruct in regard to the reliquiae? “Therefore see to it that if anything is left over of the sacrament, either some communicants or the priest himself and his assistants receive it, so that it is not only a curate or someone else who drinks what is left over in the chalice, but he gives it to the others who were also participants in the body of Christ.” <sup>9</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >What of shut-ins? Can they be regarded as part of these “others” who are to consume the <i>reliquiae</i>? I see no reason why not. Indeed, this would include them in the Service that they are not physically able to attend and quite frankly is to me much more in accord with what Luther proclaimed as an appropriate practice than simply putting them back in with the unconsecrated, which Luther clearly saw as encroaching Zwinglianism.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >The Distribution Formula</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >For all my life the churches of which I have been a member, have used for their distribution formula the Words of Institution, and yet a study of this practice reveals that it is of relatively recent origin, and that it originated in the Union Churches of Germany! Indeed, it became a compromise to the members of these churches, as the Reformed could take these words in light of their false interpretation of them - that Jesus is spiritually present, and the Lutherans in light of their literal meaning: “This is Christ’s body and blood.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >But once again, I direct you to the art of confessing: that one must not only say what is right but say it in such a way that it cannot be misinterpreted. For that very reason we at St. Paul’s Evangelical-Lutheran Church of Belleville observe, and most appropriately so I believe, the old formula of distribution that was in use in Luther’s day and is still in use throughout most of Christendom today. It is as follows: </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >The Pastor holds the consecrated Host before the communicant’s eyes and says: </span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >“The Body of Christ.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >The communicant may respond as a confession of faith: </span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >“Amen.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >The pastor then puts it into his mouth, saying: </span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >“Given for you.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >After which he holds the consecrated Cup before his eyes and says: </span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >“The Blood of Christ.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >Again, the communicant may respond in agreement: </span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >“Amen.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >The pastor puts it to his mouth, saying: </span></i><span style=";font-family:";" >“Shed for you.”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Let’s face it. No Zwinglian or Calvinist can accept such a formula, for it states in such a way that cannot be misinterpreted what is distributed in this Sacrament, the body and blood of Christ given and shed for you.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Women Communing Women???</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >It’s a question that is being asked by some within the WELS, and how it is being answered makes me wonder if we are not leaving the door open for women pastors in the future. Here’s what Blessed Dr. Luther had to say about this and about passages like 1 Cor 14 and 1 Tim 2, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >For to the pastor is committed the pulpit, baptism, the sacrament (of the Altar), and he is charged with the care of souls… A parish pastor can claim that he possesses the office of the ministry, baptism, the sacrament, the care of souls, and is commissioned, publicly and legally. <i>Therefore the people should go to him for these things</i>. (Emphasis added) <sup>10</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Also,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >The church is recognized externally by the fact that it consecrates or calls ministers, or has offices that it is to administer. There must be bishops, pastors, or preachers, who publicly and privately give, administer, and use the aforementioned four things (preaching, baptism, communion, the keys) or holy possessions in behalf of and in the name of the church, or rather by reason of their institution by Christ, as St. Paul states in Ephesians 4(:8), “He received gifts among men…” – his gifts were that some should be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some teachers and governors, etc. The people as a whole cannot do these things, but must entrust or have them entrusted to one person. Otherwise, what would happen if everyone wanted to speak or administer, and no one wanted to give way to the other? It must be entrusted to one person, and he alone should be allowed to preach, to baptize, to absolve, and to administer the sacraments… <sup>11</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >And what of women? The blessed Reformer continues:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >But in the congregations or churches where there is a ministry women are to be silent and not preach (1 Tim. 2:12). Otherwise they may pray, sing, praise and say “Amen,” and read at home, teach each other, exhort, comfort and interpret the Scriptures as best they can. <sup>12</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >And even more succinctly:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >It is, however, true that the Holy Spirit has excepted women, children, and incompetent people from this function, but chooses (except in emergencies) only competent males to fill this office, as one reads here and there in the epistles of St. Paul that a bishop must be pious, able to teach, and the husband of one wife - and in 1 Corinthians 14:34 he says, ‘The women should keep silence in the churches.” In summary, it must be a competent and chosen man. Children, women, and other persons are not qualified for this office, even though they are able to hear God’s word, to receive baptism, the sacrament, absolution, and are also true, holy Christians, as St. Peter says (1 Peter 3:7). Even nature and God’s creation makes this distinction, implying that women (much less children or fools) cannot and shall not occupy positions of sovereignty, as experience also suggests and as Moses says in Genesis 3 (:16), “You shall be subject to man.” The gospel, however, does not abrogate this natural law, but confirms it as the ordinance and creation of God.<sup>13</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >And lest you write all this off as a man who couldn’t fully rid himself of his papistic past or whose writings are not confessional, I conclude with this simple statement from our confessions:</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0.5in 0.0001pt; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Because Dr. Luther must deservedly be regarded as the foremost teacher of the churches that subscribe to the Augsburg Confession, since his entire teaching in sum and content was set down in the articles of the Augsburg Confession and presented to Emperor Charles V, the actual intention and meaning of the Augsburg Confession should not and cannot be derived more properly and better from any other place than from Dr. Luther’s doctrinal and polemical writings. (Once more, emphasis mine) <sup>14</sup></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: 0.2in; text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><span style=";font-family:";" >Something to think about, seriously. </span><span style="font-family:Symbol;">§</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"> </p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify; font-weight: bold;"><i><span style=";font-family:";" >The Reverend James A. Frey is pastor of St. Paul Evangelical-Lutheran Church in Belleville, Michigan.</span></i></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:9pt;" > </span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-1753623826161049952009-09-25T07:09:00.002-05:002009-09-25T07:12:38.650-05:00Kind opts out<a href="http://www.jsonline.com/news/statepolitics/61383067.html">http://www.jsonline.com/news/</a><br /><br /><br /><br />U.S. Rep. Ron Kind's decision to stay out of the 2010 governor's race came after a poll showed that few Wisconsinites knew him, Democrats said Thursday.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-55480589716712331022009-09-02T18:54:00.005-05:002009-09-02T19:07:44.509-05:00WELS members could face-off in battle for WI govenorTwo WELS members with differing worldviews could could square off against each other for the office of Wisconsin governor.<br /><br />Mark Neuman -<br /><a href="http://markforgov.com/">http://markforgov.com/</a><br /><a href="http://www.issues2000.org/House/Mark_Neumann.htm">www.issues2000.org</a><br /><br />--------------------------------------------------------------------<br />Ron Kind<br /><br /><a href="http://www.wsaw.com/politics/headlines/53430922.html">http://www.wsaw.com/politics/headlines/53430922.html</a><br /><a href="http://wwwwww.wsaw.com/politics/headlines/53430922.html%3C/a%3E%3Cbr%3E%3Ca%20href=" org="" house="" htm="">http://www.ontheissues.Ron_Kind.htm</a><br /><br />It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will a WELS pastor lead the state legislature in prayer?<br /><br />If my wife doesn't follow my lead and vote for my WELS candidate of choice is she sinning?Unknownnoreply@blogger.com88tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-9414024518021452582009-07-28T08:27:00.003-05:002022-04-18T11:26:41.347-05:00HomerunI finally had time to listen to President Schroeder's address. I believe he hit a homerun to tie the score. He made continual reference to being a confessional Lutheran church body. It made me wonder if he is a Confessional crusader. You could tell his staunch position against the Church and Change crowd. Practice does influence doctrine.
It is unfortunate that the elected VP is a supporter of Church and Change.
Pres. Schroeder also laid out the financial disaster that faces the WELS. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the convention goes. Right now it looks like the score is tied.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com115tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-15927484183109695002009-07-23T18:12:00.001-05:002009-07-23T18:13:35.026-05:00Oktoberfest papersDear Mr. Administrator,<br /><br />Sorry to interrupt this thread but it seems that it has come to its usual end. I was alerted a while back to a thread on the Oktoberfest conference held in Kewaunee, IL last October at which four former, now LCMS, members spoke. They were asked to give presentations on four topics which usually enter into the "differences between the WELS and LCMS" discussion.<br /><br />The Bailing Water thread was quite entertaining! You might want to reread it. Anyway, two of the papers were just posted on the Motley Magpie web site. <a href="http://www.motleymagpie.org/">www.motleymagpie.org</a><br /><br />Only those presentations which were given by Motley Magpie editors are posted there as they are the only ones to which we have rights.I thought, since you were looking to post them, that you would give us this plug on your site, especially in light of the calumny which we suffered on this site (which we quite enjoyed, miscreants that we are!)<br /><br />Of all the comments posted on that thread discussing our motives etc. there were several that actually spoke the truth, the following:"They [the Motley Magpie types] call themselves catholics!""Ditto.<br /><br />They talk about the Mass and private confession and call themselves 'father.'"<br /><br />And I might add, so do the Confessors!Pax vobiscum,<br /><br />Rev. Father John W. BergUnknownnoreply@blogger.com47tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-54248487262632607492009-07-13T21:58:00.002-05:002009-07-16T02:24:12.405-05:00Civil War in the WELS ?Greetings!<br /><br />I've been following this blog since its inception, most of the time in general amusement, and often in perplexity. However, I have decided to weigh in on a comment I read recently - actually, a couple. The individual surmised that perhaps the WELS is heading toward a "civil war." Others then made reference to the incorrectly-named conflict among the states of the United States. As the Confederacy was in no way interested in taking over the U.S. Federal government - that conflagration was not a "civil war" per se, i.e. Wars of the Roses. However, what we're looking at in the WELS is a "real" civil war, or more correctly - we have already been at war for at least the last 20 years, with a good many small battles before that. The WELS is hopelessly (and I say that admitting that God can do anything) divided into 3 camps. One camp consists of the C&C folks and their hangers-on. Then there's another camp made up of the "Issues in WELS" men and various allies. But by far the largest camp is right in the middle, most of whom want little or nothing to do with the war at all. The battle is for the hearts and minds of this third group. The camp that convinces them that their way is best will win - pure and simple. I should add that there is a very small group who basically feel - "a pox on all your houses!" This then leads to my last observation concerning the comment about whether or not doctrinal issues will be dealt with at the convention. Most WELS Pastors, and a lot of laymen, know that the "real" actual work of the convention is done in the floor committees. In turn, the Presidium has pretty much carte blanche in deciding who chairs these groups and also their make-up. Thus, if the SP has done his work well - and I believe he has - the issues will be dealt with in those meetings, and the memorials which come out of those committees will tell the tale. Also, the recent Ad Hoc Committee obviously dealt with doctrine and practice and called it like it is. I believe the same will be true in the floor committees. Regarding elections: The C&Cers are on the run and hoping to get a man they can depend on into the 1st VP slot. As to finances, it really won't matter too much what is decided since our nation's leaders will continue horrible policies and the economy will not recover any time soon - with the result that more cuts will be needed anyway, regardless of how the convention goes.So, in short, a nasty little quiet war has been raging in WELS behind the scenes for decades. While LCMS and ELCA often do their fighting out in the open, that is seldom, if ever, the case in WELS. I don't see any reason for this pattern to change. I seriously doubt any group will arise at Saginaw and "walk out" of the synod, and I don't think any group will be "thrown out" either. Thus, it may look to many as though very little was done. But I believe our SP will most likely get 75 to 80% of what he needs done, and we will be on our way to fixing many problems that have accumulated over the past 20 years. From my keyboard to God's ear!<br /><br />Deo Vindice!<br /><br />Fr. SpenceUnknownnoreply@blogger.com111tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-31030213209631474022009-06-25T15:50:00.002-05:002009-06-25T15:55:04.906-05:00New BlogI would like to share with you a new blog that has entered the arena.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://freddyfinkelstein.blogspot.com/"><span class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1245963070_1">http://freddyfinkelstein.blogspot.com/</span></a><br /><br /><br />I think that it is important to invite more voices into the discussion. This summer could be a pivotal point in Lutheranism as a new direction maybe chosen.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com62tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-72989308217901992672009-06-22T15:17:00.003-05:002009-06-22T21:12:56.463-05:00An open letter to WELS laymen in advance of the synod convention<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;">The letter below was sent to me for discussion...<br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><span style="font-size:85%;">--------------------------------------------------------------------<br /></span></span></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >[Dear Friend in Christ],<br /><br />[A number of folks] and I have been corresponding for some time regarding pressing issues of Church Practice in the WELS, issues which are potentially revealing doctrinal disunity, and which with all certainty, are going to surface during the 2009 WELS Synod Convention. Although I doubt these issues will be agenda items, they will undoubtedly surface in conversation among laymen, in committee discussion, and possibly in floor discussion resulting from committee reports, motions or even Memorials. I have been in contact with many individuals across Synod. I know that these topics will be raised, whether on the agenda proper, or not. Indeed, one internet source has proclaimed, "This 2009 convention will be the great divide. The laity will have to do their share -- and more than their share -- to move toward sound doctrine."<br /><br />[Someone] informed me that he had briefly spoken to you regarding these issues, and he has asked me to share these issues with you by having me to forward to you pertinent information. There is a lot of it. I hope you don't mind reading. I will list the internet and attached document sources below, in order, providing a developing picture of the issues. My intent is to provide you with a reading of source material so that you can come to your own understanding of the gravity of these issues, can develop your own opinions, and be prepared for what may well be one of the most important Conventions since the amalgamation debate. I will provide an overview, and then only brief summaries for each source I link to.</span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>Summary</b></span></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Briefly stated, there seems to be a growing rift in our Synod's unity resulting from decades of tolerating the aberrations of the "Church Growth Movement" (CGM). While those who have imported these teachings from sources in greater American evangelicalism, and have promoted them among us, claim to have "cleaned them up" and "made them Lutheran," the damage created by these teachings is now surfacing in the form of divergent and sectarian practices within our congregations, especially worship practices, which are in turn not only exposing possibly divergent theological convictions of those in WELS who engage in these practices, but are most certainly exposing our people to heterodox perspectives as the practices themselves teach them, are watering down our public confession as our distinctiveness from the sectarians becomes less acute, and are eroding the consistency of our Fellowship standards, and thus also the firm testimony against doctrinal error that Fellowship is intended to communicate. This trend has not gone unnoticed by Synod. As a result of growing, and vocal concern, the WELS Council of Presidents (CoP) has recognized such influences among us, declaring under the "Doctrine" heading of its January meeting minutes:</span></p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>5.D.03 Establishment of "non-traditional" ("new style") congregations</b> We feel that the underpinnings of this "non-traditional" type of worship cannot be ignored. We also feel that the issue is extremely complex and will take great care to be careful to walk the "narrow Lutheran road" between legalism and ignoring and failing to admonish where practices are contrary to or a danger to the principles of gospel proclamation and the efficacy of the means of grace. We move that an <i>ad hoc</i> committee be convened that can study and address this issue and produce a study document that can be shared with circuits and also congregations for study and careful evaluation of practices in worship, sacraments, outreach, organization, music selection, etc. Motion carried. <b><br /><br />5.D.05 C & C and outside speakers</b> We recommend that our Synod President and District President(s) continue to work with the representatives of <i>Church and Change</i> to come to an understanding of our desire for them to withdraw their invitation to the speaker proposed for their next conference.</span></blockquote> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >The speaker referred to by the CoP, in 5.D.05 above, is Baptist "Church Growth" expert, Ed Stetzer -- and this specific issue has been a lightning-rod of controversy in the WELS for almost a year. But this is nothing new for the group </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>Church and Change</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >(C&C) -- an external group of WELS laymen, pastors, and theologians who seem to thrive on such controversy. In 2005, they invited the Methodist "Emergent Church" expert, Dr. Leonard Sweet, to instruct them, in order to disseminate his advice directly to WELS congregations through their organization. C&C was asked at that time by Synod to cancel their Conference because of their invitation, but C&C ignored this request. Because of the political positions in Synod occupied by those associated with this organization, C&C seems to have had free reign to "largely ignore them" (a quote from one of the papers I source, below). This year, it seems, they have finally been effectively pressured to "uninvite" the heterodox teacher, Ed Stetzer, but it remains to be seen whether the inclination to invite similar experts has also been reversed. In addition, many of our wealthy members seem to have gravitated to C&C leaders, perhaps because of their celebrity status, perhaps because of the “success” that their meticulously researched marketing plans seem to guarantee. As a result, several individuals have set up large endowment funds to finance the efforts of C&C -- perhaps without realizing the theological compromises and dangers of the Church Growth Movement that they are supporting. The fact is, C&C and its constituency have been active doing this sort of thing for decades, exposing laymen to "Church Growth" theology/methodology by sponsoring trips to evangelical Mission events, like the </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.exponentialconference.org/"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Exponential Conference</i></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" > and the </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.driveconference.com/"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Drive Conference</i></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, by holding their own Conferences celebrating heterodox keynote speakers, by encouraging our pastors and professors to attend grossly heterodox institutions (like <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.fuller.edu/">Fuller</a> in Pasadena, CA) to learn and import these practices into our Synod, by erecting supporting power structures within Synod (the Board for Parish Services, for instance), and by ultimately implementing these -- often very expensive -- CGM practices in their own congregations and by encouraging others to do the same. The sad fact is, even the statistical measures by which CGM promises “numeric growth,” CGM has instead proven to be an utter failure in those church bodies that have believed in its statistical promises and practiced its methods over the past generation. No evidence of growth in the Church can be found as a result of the methods promoted by CGM. Even Barna Research -- a Christian research firm founded many years ago with the purpose of providing congregations with marketing data and various other forms of research as they seek to implement the methods of CGM -- has declared CGM a statistical failure, showing that over the past generation of its use in greater American Christianity, despite over $500 billion invested in CGM methods over the past 30 years, no evidence of growth is discernible. At most, all that can be seen is denominational shift. Barna, almost five years ago, publicly has given up on CGM. If you think that the decline in numbers we face in WELS today is bad, the fact is, American Evangelicalism is in </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>precipitous</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>decline</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, the youth are leaving in droves for either liturgical churches, for the open apostasy of the Emergent Church (which seems to be overtaking Evangelicalism), or for nothing at all, and the ineffective Church Growth missions and mega-churches are closing down. CGM, far from helping, has ruined Evangelicalism in America. It has ruined most of Lutheranism in America, and threatens us, now.<br /><br />Many are tempted to say, "Since false teaching is not tolerated among us, the 'Church Growth Movement' must be orthodox." The first problem is that CGM falsehoods are subtle yet insidious, and when cloaked in otherwise wholesome evangelical zeal, these subtleties (which expose horribly false foundations when they are closely examined, such as the decentralization of the Marks of the Church and the replacement of the Means of Grace with the means of man) are easily overlooked. The second problem is that CGM, in order to bring about the results it promises, requires an organizational power structure, and creates this power structure for itself as its "programs" are carried out. Thus the vaunted role of Parish Services. The Church Growth Movement has transformed WELS into a political institution (this is shown in one of the papers sourced, below). The fact is, several of our pastors and theologians have reportedly come out </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>against</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>the errors</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >of CGM, and as a result have been forced out of their positions and parishes through political pressure. Others have left for reasons of conscience. Reportedly, many pastors are reluctant to say anything as a result. But the struggle continues. One of the papers sourced, below, is a paper received by the 2008 Michigan District Convention -- a sweeping condemnation of CGM, and a call to repentance issued to those who have been deceived by it. </span> </p> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >What follows is a listing of the sources I have found compelling, and which I invite you to read in order to be up to date on the issues as they are being considered today, and in order to understand how the "Church Growth Movement" has negatively impacted not only doctrine and practice and created division in our Synod, but is in large part responsible for our current financial situation (outside of ambient economic conditions that effect everyone equally, that is).<br /></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span></p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>The Details</b></span></p> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>What is the "Church Growth Movement?"</b> </span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Read the attached paper, </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Tendrils of the Church Growth Movement</i></span></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. (also reproduced online, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2008/09/tendrils-of-church-growth-movement.html">here</a>)</span></blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This is the paper that was delivered to the 2008 Michigan District Convention. It was commissioned by the MI District Convention in 2003, and represents five years of research by a team of WELS pastors and laymen. Presented in 2008, it is a comprehensive analysis, and sweeping condemnation, of the "Church Growth Movement." As I understand it, Rev. Aaron Frey (who was principal author of this paper), is active on C&C lists calling "Church Growth" adherents to repentance. He has been doing this for a number of years now, but it is unclear if there has been any change of heart among them.</span></div> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>The Plague of "Contemporary Worship" and the Role of the Lutheran Confessions</b> </span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >So-called "Contemporary Worship" is one of the hallmarks of CGM theology/methodology. In order for man to "grow the church," he must make it inviting for the unregenerate, by presenting worship in a way that is entertaining. It is easy to promote among us, since the prevailing thought is that "worship practice is </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>adiaphora</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >without qualification." The fact is, there </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>are</i></span><span style="font-size:100%;"> </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >bounds to worship practice -- Scriptural bounds which are elucidated in our Confessions. The Lutheran church, as our Confessions inform us, is not only </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>evangelical</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, it is also </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>catholic</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>apostolic</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, and </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>orthodox</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, and these facts underly the use of traditional hymnody and liturgical forms. Worship practice is not merely and entirely a matter of personal choice. Among the leading voices against the "Church Growth Movement" in WELS is a layman who writes under the name of "Freddy Finkelstein." He has contributed mainly to the blog, </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>Bailing Water</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, a blog created and maintained by another WELS layman that is dedicated to discussing issues in Confessional Lutheranism, particularly in the WELS.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/11/traditonal-service-contempo-service-rob.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/11/traditonal-service-contempo-service-rob.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Read Freddy Finkelstein's post in response to "Ben." The links he provides to other blog entries and articles on Bailing Water are quite important, so follow those links and read their content. Some of the blog entries he links to are quite extended with commentary, so search these pages for "Freddy," and specifically read his contributions. Read the surrounding material too, if you've got the time.</span></div> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/10/reformation-and-restoration.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/10/reformation-and-restoration.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >R</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >ead Freddy's light commentary regarding Confessionalism, and his response to those supposed Lutherans who find the Lutheran Confessions irrelevant -- especially since they restrict supposed adiaphora in practice. Read also a full and authoritative Confessional assessment (by Rev. David Jay Webber, ELS) regarding Communion frequency, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.angelfire.com/ny4/djw/lutherantheology.communionfreq.html">here.</a></span></div><blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> <span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" > </span> </blockquote> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/10/crusaders-unite.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/10/crusaders-unite.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >R</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >ead Freddy's quote from C.P. Krauth's </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>Conservative Reformation</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. It was reposted on Bailing Water (<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/10/fundamental-non-fundamental.html">here</a>) and elsewhere on the internet. Also in this blog entry, read Freddy's response to "Mr. Seeking Truth, not Hysteria." </span></div><blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-miracle.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2008/12/christmas-miracle.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Read the "extended reparté" between Freddy Finkelstein and Rev. Tomczak (WELS). Read the articles referenced by Freddy, as well -- especially the list of articles in his final comment. </span></div><blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/01/anything-that-isnt-unbiblical-is-fair.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/01/anything-that-isnt-unbiblical-is-fair.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >T</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >his is an excellent commentary, as Freddy sounds off on an "alternative WELS church" that is running a coffee shop and calling it Divine Worship (now known on the internet as "Latte Lutheran"), and is then grilled by C&C Church Growth advocates. </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><u>Worship is not a Means of Grace</u></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><u>Worship is not evangelism</u></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><u>Sectarian worship is not catholic worship</u></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><u>Profane amusements have no place in an Ecclesiastical worship setting</u></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. Etcetera. Of great benefit, is the old worship resource he points to: Dr. P.E. Kretzmann's 1921 book, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=Gk8rAAAAYAAJ&dq=Christian+Art,+In+the+Place+and+in+the+Form+of+Lutheran+Worship&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=IpQkQar0os&sig=b8xjnsEEOii86y9Z50uVZNZY6Hg&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP2,M1"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Christian Art, in the Place and in the Form of Lutheran Worship</i></span></a> </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >(this is a full length book, worth perusing if you have the interest -- it is not necessary reading to get a grasp of the issues at hand).</span></div> <p style="margin-left: 0.42in;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/04/they-sold-their-soul-for-rock-and-roll.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/04/they-sold-their-soul-for-rock-and-roll.html</a> </span> </p> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This blog entry started off with a commenter warning of the inherently pagan nature of modern entertainments, and on this basis, questioning their use in the Divine Service. Freddy chimes in somewhere in the middle with two back-to-back posts, one addressing "Cultural Discernment" in our selection of forms, and the second, a lengthy quotation from C.P. Krauth defining the Confessional Principle, particularly "the independently normative nature of the Lutheran Confessions."</span></div> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>The Lutheran Church is a Liturgical Church, according to the Lutheran Confessions... </b></span> </p> <blockquote><span style="font-size:100%;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.blc.edu/comm/gargy/gargy1/liturgical_church.html"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;">http://www.blc.edu/comm/gargy/gargy1/liturgical_church.html </span></a></span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This article is linked to at least twice in Freddy's commentary, above, but I link to it directly for the sake of this email, because I agree with Freddy regarding its importance and helpfulness. An anthology of statements from the Book of Concord, this article was compiled and edited by Rev. David Jay Webber of the ELS, and was published originally in 1992, in their theological journal, <i>Lutheran Synod Quarterly</i>. This online version includes an addendum that has since been included, indicating the suitability of certain Byzantine Rite liturgies in addition to the Western Rite, based on the recent experience of the Ukrainian Lutheran Church. Liturgical worship forms and traditional hymnody are antithetical to the objectives of the "Church Growth Movement," hence its insistence on so-called "Contemporary Worship". The Confessions very clearly indicate, however, that <i>rites are necessary</i>, that the liturgy belongs to the Church, not to individuals or to single congregations, and that catholic practice by definition is to embrace the expression of the Church, not that of the sectarians. </span></div><blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>What is "catholicity"? </b></span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://four-and-twenty-something.blogspot.com/2008/12/congregational-catholicity-pastoral.html">http://four-and-twenty-something.blogspot.com/2008/12/congregational-catholicity-pastoral.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This is a good blog entry on Lutheran catholicity from a conservative LCMS pastor (Gene Veith pointed this one out on his blog). He starts out defining and describing catholicity, and indicates how it is manifest in both doctrine and practice (first several paragraphs). He then goes on to apply it to the specific political problems in LCMS -- which may or may not be interesting. This, in combination with the previous link and with Freddy's numerous quotes from C.P. Krauth, should provide clarity on this term regarding how it is used in reference to Worship practice.</span></div> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>What is "<i>lex orandi, lex credendi</i>"? </b></span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/lex-orandi-lex-credendi/">http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/2009/02/05/lex-orandi-lex-credendi/</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >T</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >his is a blog entry from Rev. Johnold Strey (WELS), defining and defending the latin liturgical term </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>lex orandi, lex credendi</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, which seems to pop up frequently in these discussions. He recently wrote an article that appeared in WELS' theological journal, </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >(WLQ), to which I link, immediately below. Another excellent resource discussing this phrase, and sound Confessional Lutheran practice in general, is a recent book by Rev. Klemet Preus (LCMS) entitled, </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.amazon.com/Fire-Staff-Lutheran-Theology-Practice/dp/0758604041/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1234565409&sr=1-1"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>The Fire and the Staff: Lutheran Theology in Practice</i></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. It is a very accessibly written book, suitable for consumption by laymen and clergy. </span></div> <blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>"Contemporary Worship" teaches that Worship is a Means of Grace </b></span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Read the attached paper, </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Proclaiming the Gospel in Worship</i></span></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. (accessible online, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/proclaiming-the-gospel-in-worship/">here</a>)</span></blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >T</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >his is the paper that Rev. Johnold Strey (WELS) wrote and which was published in the Fall 2008 issue of WLQ. It can also be accessed online via his blog, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://pastorstrey.wordpress.com/2008/10/11/proclaiming-the-gospel-in-worship/">here</a>. In it, he examines the worship practices of the sectarians, especially the phenomenon of so-called "Contemporary Worship" and insists that the false teaching of "Worship as a Means of Grace" is at the root of it. Freddy Finkelstein, in many of the links, above, observes this same fact. Not only is "Contemporary Worship" rooted in false doctrine, it teaches these same false doctrines through its use (</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>lex orandi, lex credendi</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >).</span></div> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>"Church Growth" is not Lutheran evangelism</b> </span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/01/calling-all-confessional-pastors.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/01/calling-all-confessional-pastors.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This is another Bailing Water blog entry, highlighting the recent sermon by Rev. Webber (ELS) in which he calls out and condemns "Church Growth" by name. More of our pastors need to do this. In the course of discussion, it became clear that there was confusion regarding how to interpret Christ's statements in the Great Commission. Freddy Finkelstein offered two posts, one of exceptional importance which explained the Great Commission, and further demonstrated how Church Growthers, for all of their evangelical zeal and despite the fact that they use the Great Commission as their clarion call, are in reality teaching and acting contrary to Christ's Commission.</span></div> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://web.me.com/trinityh/Site/LCMS_Convention_Blog/Entries/2007/7/15_Pastor_Henson_Blog.html">http://web.me.com/trinityh/Site/LCMS_Convention_Blog/Entries/2007/7/15_Pastor_Henson_Blog.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >T</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >he issue of Evangelism is central to "Church Growth" theology/methodology, but it is a </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>wrong approach</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >to evangelism. One of the hallmarks of CGM practices is to turn the Divine Service into an Outreach Event -- to turn Worship into Evangelism. Freddy sounds off on this at length, multiple times, in the links, above (especially, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/01/anything-that-isnt-unbiblical-is-fair.html">here</a>). But this is not unique to Freddy. It is a legitimate concern in greater Confessional Lutheranism. The link at the head of this sub-section is to "Day One" of Rev. Henson's (LCMS) 2007 LCMS Convention blog. His congregation memorialized the Convention, calling the LCMS to repentance for many of the issues also outlined by Freddy. One of these issues is the nonsense that "Worship is Evangelism." Read through "Day One" -- it is relatively benign -- and at the bottom, click "Next." It will take you to "Day Two." Read through "Day Two", etc., through "Day Five." Pay attention to <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://web.me.com/trinityh/Site/LCMS_Convention_Blog/Entries/2007/7/17_Day_THREE.html">"Day Three"</a>, however, where Rev. Henson points out that "[t]here are some in the LCMS who maintain that by 'natural knowledge' non-Christians can worship the true God, though they are not saved." This is the rationale used by Church Growthers to justify the ordering of worship around the preferences of the unregenerate. Needless to say, Rev. Henson's congregation left the LCMS. Many others have followed him, most recently, and notably, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.confessionallutheran.org/content/view/178/91/">Rev. Heimbigner's Texas congregation</a> (his bio is <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.confessionallutheran.org/content/view/27/76/">here</a>). Most LCMS congregations who leave under these circumstances continue as independent Lutheran congregations.</span></div> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>The Political Nature of "Church Growth" in WELS</b> </span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Read the attached paper, </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Fifteen Years Under the MOV</i></span></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. (also reproduced online, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2009/02/15-years-under-wels-mov.html">here</a>)</span></blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This is a paper that was (presumably) written by Rev. Marcus Manthey (WELS) and delivered to an "Issues in WELS" conference in 2005, prior to that year's Synod Convention. He traces the development of Synod reorganization with respect to Strategic Planning efforts that are necessary for the "success" of CGM, and centered on the creation of the Board for Parish Services. This Board subsequently declared for itself in 1992 that "Parish Services has primary responsibility for carrying out the goals of the synod's Mission-Objectives-Vision Statement". Naming many of the names associated with the Church Growth Movement in our Synod, he examines their statements in light of the Scriptures, in light of the WELS Constitution, and in light of the scripture doctrines of Church and Ministry, and very politely deprives CGM advocates of sound foundation. He expresses grave concern over the unbiblical and unbrotherly centralization of power (which is called for by "Church Growth" programs), noting that it bypasses the local congregation and deprives the Pastor of his Divine Call. Further, he emphasizes, the creation and centralization of distinct power structures has transformed WELS into a political animal, into something that, twenty-five years ago, it was not. </span></div><blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Read the attached paper, </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Reflections, Concerns, and Questions about our Beloved WELS. </i></span></span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><span style="font-style: normal;">(also reproduced online, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2009/03/corky-koelpin-essay.html">here</a>)</span></span></span></div> <blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in; font-style: normal;"> </blockquote><div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >T</span><span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;">his is a letter written by Rev. Kurt Koelpin (WELS) in 1992. Originally meant for internal consumption among the clergy only, this letter has since seen fairly wide public dispersal. In it, Rev. Koelpin clearly recognizes aberrations caused by the Church Growth Movement in WELS, even at that time, and warns against them. Shortly after writing this letter, Rev. Koeplin suffered a stroke. In an apparent effort to protect the designs of CGM, its proponents in WELS allegedly responded by referred to Rev. Koelpin as having been “brain damaged” when he wrote the letter, and thus successfully kept his concerns from being regarded seriously enough to prevent CGM from advancing among us.</span></span></div> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://randomintolerance.blogspot.com/2009/01/promised-rant.html">http://randomintolerance.blogspot.com/2009/01/promised-rant.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >I</span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >n this blog entry "Random Dan" (a WELS layman of some connection, it seems), complains, first, about the C&C Ed Stetzer invitation, mentioned above. Then, he goes on to detail some of the internal politics involved in the recent call of Rev. Paul Kelm (WELS) back to the Board for Parish Services, to serve (again) as a BPS consultant. He was called from St. Mark in DePere, WI, where he was serving with Rev. John Parlow. For your information, St. Mark seems to be “the seat of Church Growth" in our Synod - "contemporary" or "new style" congregations in our synod almost universally look to St. Mark as their model. Other hotspots that I am aware of include southern Ohio, Texas, Arizona, and the West Coast -- with the leaven of "Church Growth" teachings working just about everywhere nowadays. In this blog post, Random Dan makes plain some additional issues. One of them is the infamous practice among "Church Growth" congregations of "borrowing" from heterodox sources, verbatim. Often, entire sermons are regurgitated nearly word-for-word, and heterodox "outreach resources" are used verbatim and without qualification. This has happened at St. Mark more than once, and even though these issues have been brought before their DP several times, nothing has been done. More importantly, in one of the final paragraphs of Random Dan's blog post, he points out that St. Mark DePere is a member of the </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.willowcreek.com/"><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>Willow Creek Association</i></span></a></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >(WCA). Read WCA's "<a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.willowcreek.com/AboutUs/">About Us</a>" section, and you'll see that WCA is an </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>ecumenical </i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i><u>ministry</u></i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >, and that its members are collaborators and beneficiaries of this ministry. Further, members are required to subscribe to <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.willowcreek.com/aboutus/statement-faith.asp">WCA's Statement of Faith</a>. WCA, in <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.willowcreek.com/wca_info/find_a_church/profilesearch.asp">describing membership</a>, states: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >"While we do not oversee the ministry expressions of individual churches, WCA Membership is intended solely for churches that hold an orthodox understanding of biblical Christianity. <u>All WCA Member Churches </u><i><u>have affirmed the central doctrines of the Bible reflected in the WCA Statement of Faith</u></i><u> and also presented in the historic creeds of the Christian faith</u>. WCA Membership is <i>open to churches of any size or denomination</i> that are marked by a deep commitment to furthering the cause of Christ." </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span></div><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >St. Mark stands in "ministerial association" with WCA, and is in clear violation of the Bible's teaching on Church Fellowship (and, yes, their membership in WCA has been widely reported and is well-known in WELS). Their union with WCA unites the congregations of WELS with all "Christian groups" in WCA (this is called pan-unionism), including the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Chicago, the ELCA, LCMS, various Reformed and pop-church Evangelical groups, and Pentecostals. In addition, there are Unitarian congregations (congregations that </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>reject</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >the teaching of the Trinity) which are also members of this Association -- if you recall from the </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><i>Athanasian Creed</i></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" > </span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >(which we confess without reservation) such congregations cannot be regarded as Christian. St. Mark unites us in fellowship with them. Click <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.willowcreek.com/wca_info/find_a_church/SearchResult.asp">here</a> to view all of the churches on the WCA roster. The commentary accompanying Random Dan's blog entry illustrates the purely political nature of continued tolerance toward St. Mark, and other WELS congregations who follow them. </span></div> <blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://together.wels.net/2009/1/19">http://together.wels.net/2009/1/19</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This is President Schroeder's 1/19/2009 entry on the WELS Insight blog, a WELS news service, in which he addresses the resolutions of the CoP, mentioned above. President Schroeder is a strong, confessional leader, and is, by all reports, working against the inroads of the "Church Growth Movement." Because of the institutional power structures erected by "Church Growth" advocates over the past two decades, this is by definition as much a political task as it is a Confessional and doctrinal one. He needs the help of the laity -- the WELS ministerium, while not powerless, seems to have been rendered impotent with reluctance or fear (apart from a few who are outspoken and bold). Here is an example of his attempt to communicate with the laity and build support. </span></div><blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-kind-of-pastors-do-we-need.html">http://bailingwater.blogspot.com/2009/01/what-kind-of-pastors-do-we-need.html</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >In case you hadn't received your February issue of <i>Forward in Christ</i> (and oddly, at mid-February, many people still had not received it...), you can read President Schroeder's article at the head of this blog article. Apparently, Bailing Water received an advanced copy of Schroeder's article, and published it online. It is tremendous, and represents a frontal assault against the "Church Growth Movement." Several C&C Church Growthers responded on Bailing Water by jeering at Schroeder, and at those who support him and sound Confessional Lutheranism in WELS. Several "Confessional Crusaders" responded by expressing relief, as if their job is finished. Freddy Finkelstein wrote two responses illustrating the doctrinal complexities involved, and indicating that the real work has only begun.</span></div> <p><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>The Great Financial Cost of "Church Growth" Spending</b> </span> </p> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >Read the attached paper, </span><span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 255);font-size:100%;" ><span style="font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;"><i>The Kuske Report</i></span></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >. (also reproduced online, <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2007/05/kuske-report-on-wels-mismanagement.html">here</a>)</span></blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This paper is a research paper that Rev. Paul Kuske (WELS) wrote and posted on the "Issues in WELS" website in February of 2007. This site has been taken down (since the "Issues" were seemingly resolved with the change in Synod leadership), but the document is available from various individuals in WELS. This is the paper which exposed the extent of mind-boggling and irrational "Church Growth" spending and financial mismanagement that WELS has suffered over the past 20 years, and which is in many ways responsible for our Synod's current financial condition. It covers the same period of history as Manthey's <i>Fifteen Years Under the MOV</i>, above, and together they paint an interesting picture of how "Church Growth" power structures and financial control seem to go together. </span></div><blockquote style="margin-left: 1.18in; margin-right: 1.18in;"> </blockquote> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://together.wels.net/2009/2/16">http://together.wels.net/2009/2/16</a> </span> </blockquote> <div style="margin-left: 80px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >This is President Schroeder's 2/16/2009 entry on the WELS Insight blog. While his article paints a bleak financial picture, he echoes key points made by Rev. Manthey and Rev. Kuske in the papers referenced above. Here are some excerpts (<i>emphasis </i>mine): </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><br /></span><div style="margin-left: 40px;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >We are faced with the simple and painful fact that the level of funding available to support our synod's mission and ministry will be significantly less in the next two years than it is today. While support from congregations has been commendable and steady in these difficult times, expected support from other sources has dropped significantly. The blunt reality is that we will need to reduce our synod's budget by approximately $8 million, from about $38 million today to approximately $30 million in the next fiscal year. When the Synodical Council presents a balanced budget to the convention in July, which it is required by the constitution to do, significant reductions will need to be made in all areas of our synod's work. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >...Our desire to proclaim the gospel to more and more people <i>has led us to adopt ambitious plans across the synod</i>. That is a noble goal, <i>but we have often looked to support those plans on anticipated gifts from foundations, individuals, and other sources</i>. We are now in a situation where some of those large gifts have been suddenly reduced. As commendable as our plans may have been, we simply do not have the financial means to continue at the same level as before. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >...the Synodical Council will not simply be wrestling with the short-term reduction in the budget. It will also be looking to the need for providing long-term stability to our finances. The Synodical Council will be considering at least one proposal to achieve this goal. This proposal for long-term stability will not enable us to avoid difficult cuts now, but it will <i>seek to provide a new approach to budgeting and planning that will greatly reduce the likelihood of a similar situation occurring in the future</i>. One main element of the proposal is a commitment to planning our ongoing ministry based primarily on our most stable source of funding (Congregation Mission Offerings) and using large donations from other sources for one-time or limited-time programs. </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /></span></div><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><br />The first paragraph I cite, above, is a straightforward high-level explanation of the reality. However, the second paragraph I cite admits that the funding priorities and methods of Church Growth have gotten us to our current situation (as the <i>The Kuske Report</i> obviates), and the final paragraph I cite indicates the currently favored solution as one which <i>restructures budgeting and planning</i> -- from one dictated by centralized Church Growth priorities to one reflecting our congregational polity. Elsewhere in Schroeder's article, he admits that sweeping Administration cuts and changes will need to be made, reminiscent of the concerns expressed in Manthey's <i>Fifteen Years Under the MOV</i>.</span></div> <blockquote><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >There are other, more salacious, internet sources detailing the massive costs of CGM methods, the extent to which many congregations in WELS have given themselves over to such ideas, and the willingness of our Synod's wealthy to underwrite these efforts through the establishment of external Trusts and Foundations devoted to the issuing grants for these purposes. It is too bad that this money, given in good faith, is used to support efforts founded on such ill-conceived financial notions as those expressed in <i>The Kuske Report</i>. Just because you build it, doesn't at all mean that they will come...</span></blockquote> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;" align="center"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" ><b>Conclusion</b> </span> </p> <p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style=";font-family:Century Schoolbook,serif;font-size:100%;" >It is amazing that, in a church body such as WELS, which upholds purity in doctrine and true confessional unity, CGM has gained such a foothold among us, and now poses such a threat. After years of failed action in some cases, and of inaction in most other cases, Confessional Lutherans in the WELS stand exposed, organizationally, financially, ecumenically, and doctrinally. Today, there is a suggestive lack of unity in Practice among us as a result of "Church Growth" teachings/methodologies, a lack of unity that is, more-and-more, exposing a growing divergence of opinion among us regarding Scripture teaching. Left unaddressed and uncorrected, the result can only be a rank disunity of the sort tolerated in LCMS -- even celebrated among them in some quarters. Yet, it is tempting for our pastors, in an effort to emphasize our unity, to downplay the reality of these threats. After all, to admit the reality would only prove disturbing for lay members who may not have the capacity to fully understand or appreciate the issues, and would only erode confidence in their leadership and in the Synod's guidance. Regardless, these issues are real, they are serious, and they are going to surface one way or the other. I would encourage you to read the documentation above. Do so without interference from others, and draw your own independent conclusions. I would also encourage you to send this information, along with the attachments, to your fellow laymen, whether delegates to the 2009 Convention or not, that they, too, may be prepared for the 2009 WELS Synod Convention and will be prepared to respond to these issues as they may arise in their own congregations.<br /><br />In Christ,<br /><br />[Your Friend] </span> </p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com39tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8818242304034182219.post-38724941995183805082009-06-16T17:58:00.002-05:002009-06-16T18:03:15.002-05:00Open ThreadI am happy use this post to expand our discussions. In this thread you may open discussion on synod cuts, convention proposals, the Anti-Christ, NWO, contempo worship, or any faith-based issue or concern.<br /><br />I would ask that the discussion on UOJ remain in the thread below. I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the semantics involved in that discussion.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com52