The Reformation is all but forgotten. I asked the undergraduates about the importance of October 31st. Everyone said, "It's Halloween."
I said, "Is this a Christian college or Hogwart's School of Witchcraft? This is Reformation Day!" I went through the basics of the Reformation with one class, and they were agog about indulgences buying forgiveness.
Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill religious enterprises went through their final meltdown, with his home base dissolving completely and planning to sell off all assets. This will provide a fine cover for the settlement of lawsuits filed on account of his abusive behavior.
I predicted this years ago, giving readers one more reason follow Ichabod - to be several years ahead of the the media.
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| Glende and Ski both worked for Jeske. Now the synod presidents do too, because Mark and Avoid is on the Thrivent Board. |
No one else is going to publish the obvious parallels between the odious behavior of Tim Glende and Ski, who took Bishop Katie with them to study under Mark Driscoll. Glende, never one to tell the truth. posted in his bulletin that they were going to a "pastor conference," implying a WELS pastoral meeting.
Katie suddenly quit at The CORE, but "not for any reason", they all claimed. Another staffer quit and tried to get WELS to do something about Ski's abusive behavior, but WELS piled the abuse on her and her husband instead. Glende, Ski, and two staffers took the victim's husband to court. That reminds me of Mark Driscoll saying "There will be piles of dead bodies outside the church soon."
The difference is that Driscoll's peers forced him into public repentance and resignation of his position, first in their denomination, then in the church he founded.
WELS does not do that. WELS leaders protect the worst ministers and expel the believers. The really big crimes are erased from everyone's memories, just like the novel 1984. The church workers of the Anything Goes district voted for another Engelbrecht as DP.
One of Driscoll's crimes was plagiarism, and reason enough for him to leave his position and the ministry. Paul McCain is a proven plagiarist, so they simply forced him to erase the blog. Never happened. No evidence (except I copied so many of his Roman and Lutheran thefts).
Searching for Justification by Faith
I looked around the Net for justification by faith articles. One dependable Stormtrooper--LCMS Pastor Charles Henrickson--wrote a lame article where he hid his UOJ agenda and tried to market it as Luther's doctrine. That is one more case of promoting justification without faith as the Chief Article of the Christian religion, as supposedly taught by Luther. Has Charles ever read Romans 4? Galatians? Genesis 15?
The ALPB Online Forum had nothing about the Reformation (as far as I could tell).
Intrepid Lutherans posted a long article by Doug Lindee today.
Predictions
The Protestant world will continue to feature massive meltdowns of the media heroes, who are usually protected far too obsessively by their peers until the police arrive.
So far:
- Robert Schuller ended his career by resigning and seeing that altar to his ego, the Crystal Cathedral, sold off to the Catholics in bankruptcy.
- Rob Bell was forced out of his enormous church when the members realized he did not believe much at all - a fact he denies in his latest effort to sell books.
- Benny Hinn was forced by his peers to go back to his wife. Given her craziness and crudeness, that may be the worst punishment they could hand him.
WELS/LCMS - the Sears/Kmart of Lutherdom
We will see WELS and Missouri draw even closer together as they arrange a morganatic marriage brokered by Jeske's Church and Change plus Thrivent.
The marriage between unequals will simply mask the decline of both. Kmart and Sears will close their doors soon. WELS and Missouri will last a few years longer.
The Reformation of 2017, the 500th anniversary, will be a sad affair - just as this year's is for most.
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| Otten promoted a hate-filled and fraudulent anti-Luther book, for the Reformation! Yes, sell a book that indulges in the worst papist drivel. His Holiness, Pope Herman I, said, "I sell to both sides of the issue." |