The Nihil Rule

Honored Sir, This morning I received your worthy letter, written on the 19th of the month. In your letter you ask for my opinion on whether it is advisable to introduce the singing of Getty songs in a Lutheran Divine Service. May what follows serve as a helpful reply to your questions: No, this is not advisable, rather very incorrect and pernicious. 1. Our church is so rich in hymns that you could justifiably state that if one were to introduce Getty songs in a Lutheran Divine Service this would be like carrying coals to Newcastle. The singing of such songs would make the rich Lutheran Church into a beggar which is forced to beg from a miserable sect. Two hundred years ago a Lutheran preacher might well have been forgiven this. For at that time the Lutheran Church in our country was as poor as a beggar when it comes to song books for Lutheran children. A preacher scarcely knew where he might obtain such little hymn books. Now, however, since our church itself has everything it needs, i

Rev. Michael Holmen translated John Schaller's article " The Fight for the Christian School as a Fight for the Christian Worldview " which was originally published in the Theologische Quartalschrift,  Vol. 7, 1910, pg. 204-221. This is a fantastic article that provides a glimpse into the mind of theologians of the prior century and shows the zeal we seem to be lacking today for Christ and His Church.  Schaller starts by defining the only two worldviews that exist: the Christian worldview and it's inverse the anthropocentric worldview. As Christ said in Matthew 12:30 "He who is not with Me is against Me, and he who does not gather with Me scatters abroad," so Schaller contrasts the two worldviews in the context of education: It is therefore important in our circles to be crystal clear: the public school, as it is among us, is not grounded in the godly worldview, does not advocate for it, and therefore can only produce its opposite.  Schaller goes on to explai

" We thought for too long that if we were out of step with the world around us, nobody would bother with the Church.  What happened is that we did such a good job of being in tune with the world that there was no compelling reason for anyone to give us a second look.  Only the vain enjoy the echo of their own voices and that is what we gave them -- a faint echo instead of the sword of God's Word.  In order to save the patient, we killed it and the Church has been on life support ever since.  Of course we are out of step with the world.  That is how Christ intended us to be.  We speak the Gospel of the set apart to set apart those who by the Spirit's power will hear and believe.  This Church will never die but the Church we created to listen and fall in line with the world is dead already." - Pastoral Meanderings: The problem. . .

TGC 311 — Patterns of Holiness — Gottesdienst Another excellent interview with Fr. Karl Fabrizius on the patterns of holiness in the Old Testament and how they inform the new - after all, we are not functional Marcionites , are we ? You need to listen to get the whole thing, but a few interesting insights:  -  Ananias and Sapphira as a parallel to Nadab and Abihu  - Oholah and Oholibah bringing the world in the sanctuary  - Miriam wanting the office and God striking her with leprosy as a parallel to Simon the Sorcerer and his simony Fr. Fabrizius also took a nice shot at ' the fruit of the vine ' argument. And the conclusion which earns a hearty Amen in these parts:   ...Methodist hymns lead to everything else...

    The screen capture above comes from an excellent paper by David Gard in CTQ 74. You can watch part of the presentation  on this paper he gave at a symposium (incomplete due to technical difficulties). While the WELS does not formally subscribe to the idea of "everyone a minister," it certainly exists in practice when a "functional" view of ministry can take the Office of the Holy Ministry and perform a functional decomposition and delegate tasks to just about anyone in the congregation (subject to the headship principle) - (or is this just good old "Lutheran Leadership TM "?) For instance: Elders are instructed and encouraged to consecrate the sacrament for shut-ins in some congregations Laymen and women serve as lectors Laymen commune the Pastor Laymen commune congregation in absence of Pastor in some congregations Women communing other women A seminary professor stating, "Scripture does not say that a woman should not be ordained or that she s

Everybody Loves Raymond - Season 9, Episode 7 "Debra's Parents" My wife and I have a soft spot for several old TV shows including Everybody Loves Raymond. We were poor college students and our idea of good clean Christian premarital fun included watching TV while eating dinner, and the lineup included the sturdy sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond.  We were recently traveling and flipping through the channels in a hotel room we stumbled on a re-run. The gist of the episode: Debra's parents had recently been divorced. They were staying in town for Thanskgiving - separately - but were caught consummating the marriage they no longer had. And of course the whole family, including Raymond's parents Marie and Frank caught wind of it. Deb's parents tried to defend it by saying they were just trying to have fun, and appealed to their personal happiness, to which Marie replies: "If we all did what made us happy this world would be a terrible place" Marie is spot o

"I did not have to believe anything simply because it was in the Bible. How stunning that conclusion was.” -HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK Harry Emerson Fosdick wrote the hymn "God of Grace and God of Glory", Hymn 770 in CW:H (don't look too smug, LCMS-bros, it's in your hymnal too!). He was a theological liberal, an opponent of the fundamentalists such as J. Gresham Machen (author of "Christianity and Liberalism", a staunch defender of what we would call conservative Christianity, the inerrancy of Scripture, etc.). You can read a well written history and exposition of Fosdick at Chailles.com Fosdick was supported by John D. Rockefeller. Fosdick's sermon "Shall the Fundamentalists Win?" had over 100,000 copies distributed with the intent of pushing liberal Christianity over and against orthodox Christianity. Rockefeller was so enamored with Fosdick he coordinated with him and built Riverside Church , with Fosdick presiding. Fosdick insisted the chu

  Courage Is A Habit This is a fantastic resource for any parent who is not homeschooling their kids (including parents who send their children to WELS parochial schools - since MLC is teaching the teachers SEL  we should expect to see it spread throughout our WELS affiliated schools - and indeed, it already is being used in Fox Valley Lutheran (FVL) affiliated grade schools through curriculum from Savvas and FOSS) Friendly reminder: homeschool your kids!

" Nothing will induce me to reveal how my friend Dr. Ransom got hold of the script which is translated in the following pages..."   A Cosmic Find in The Screwtape Letters

  The Boniface Option - A Strategy for Christian Counteroffensive in a Post-Christian Nation - Adrew Isker Dear Lutherans: Yes, justification is the doctrine on which the Church stands and falls. Yes, the primary end of Christianity is the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation of souls. But we are not to be so heavenly minded that we are of no earthly good. Recall, the greatest commandment is to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind" but the second is like it: "Love your neighbor as yourself". We love our neighbors when we expose the lies and the framework that modern industrial society (which enables 'fake and gay') has created for us to sustain a consumer environment. For the pearl-clutchers hung up on a 'winsome witness' - are you going to allow modern society to frame your witness? God forbit it! No, rather, we must fight the frame of the world and present Christ as He truly is: unwilling to snuff the smoldering wick, but

"Then they demolished the pillar of Baal, and destroyed the temple of Baal, and made it a latrine to this day" (2 Kings 10:27). Good king Hezekiah turned idol shrines into toilets.

To round out the MLC arc of "Woke in the WELS" we will be taking a look at a presentation by Professor Peter Bangaz at MLC. The presentation is entitled "The Lutheran Middle" and riffs off the title of a fairly well-known book by a well-loved Seminary Professor, Daniel M. Deutschlander, "The Narrow Lutheran Middle." As you might imagine the book talks about the tension in many theological principles, and how we as Lutherans navigate them. The presentation from Professor Bangaz attempts to find his own Lutheran middle in the area of social studies. The presentation  can be found here (mlc-wels.edu)  and should it become memory-holed I will update the link with an archived copy. My critique will not be exhaustive but focus on the areas of my expertise.  Starting with "Real-life Scenarios" on Slide 4: "President Gurgel received e-mails accusing MLC of teaching CRT." Well, of course when you proudly publish blurbs in your colleges' mag

  This is not a chance quote. The WELS promoted it shortly after Hein's presentation at the WELS synod convention. And it was brought up again in this months' WELS Connection which was recorded months in advance. If, "So that we may obtain this faith, the ministry of teaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments was instituted" (AC V) it would sure seem to me that fewer Pastors overseeing fewer Divine Services would be less ministry. Unless they define 'ministry' as something other than Word and Sacrament (the question to ask: what are you administering? If it isn't word and sacrament, it isn't ministry as defined in AC V). This would seem to reveal a deficient view of the  Office of the Holy Ministry . Of course, our sainted Dr. Hoenecke correctly identifies the OHM as the pastorate, full stop. The English editors of his dogmatics, of course had to try and deflect  by appeals to later authority. Remember, too, we are in a midst of the  WELS 1

  The above excerpt came from Page 33 of Martin Luther College's  InFocus  magazine, Fall 2020 edition. You can find it online  here  - the same issue where we found Prof. Schwartz writing in support of BLM, White Privilege and Anti-Racism . So what is Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) and why is it a problem? Social-Emotional Learning is "composed of psychological and social work–based interventions on children performed by teachers and other non-professionals (in psychology and social work) in uncontrolled, non-therapeutic spaces in order to teach them “right” and “wrong” answers to socially and emotionally relevant circumstances." ( James Lindsay, New Discourses ) "the intentional implementation of Social-Emotional Learning in schools should be a felony and involve the relevant administrators going to prison. Some states in the United States, such as North Carolina, seemed to preemptively anticipate this potential issue with the implementation of SEL and proactively

Apologies for the abrupt stand-down in May. There was a memorial at the WELS Synod Convention  requesting that the Conference of Presidents write a pastoral brief on Critical Theory and Social Justice, and I was politely asked - in the interest of advancing the memorial - to 'lay low' for a few months. I gladly obliged.  The memorial was debated on the floor late Wednesday afternoon and then tabled until  Thursday morning  at the convention. On Thursday morning the memorial was retracted and replaced by a revision with softened  language . The revised version was approved, requesting the CoP to create a pastoral brief discussing justice and critical theories. The LCMS convention occurred the same week on the opposite shore of Lake Michigan. There were a number of overtures offered regarding critical theory and social justice (overtures 11-04 thorough 11-09 in the workbook ). None of them made it out of committee.  So maybe we're not just 'Woke in the WELS'. Maybe w

"Beer is objective. It has value and power apart from me. Drinking beer is subjective. It's the way I get the beer" - Klemet Preus, The Fire and the Staff , pg 70.

An excellent article from Dr. Allen and Mrs. Julie Quist on the dangers of Social Emotional Learning (SEL). Dr. Quist is a former professor at Bethany Lutheran College (ELS, in fellowship with WELS) This is extremely timely (for me) as the next Woke in the WELS will be dealing with SEL. Social and Emotional Learning and the Christian School – Christian News (christiannewsmissouri.com) They rightly point out the Marxist basis for SEL and the connections to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and how it feeds into a global citizenship. The punchline (from the full .pdf paper linked in the Christian News article): "Is it possible to have a Christian form of Social and Emotional Learning? No. Christian schools are being misled. SEL and Christianity are opposites. All schools that are using SEL are being misled. Cultural Marxists are skilled in manipulation. Cultural Marxists believe there is no morality, no right or wrong, no Ten Commandments. Don’t expect them to tell the truth a

 

  The above excerpt came from Page 34 of Martin Luther College's InFocus magazine, Fall 2020 edition. You can find it online here . This magazine is distributed widely within the WELS including to local congregations. Professor Schwartz is part of MLC's Cultural Engagement Center . The excerpt proudly enumerates a number of presentations by Prof. Schwartz, two of which are troublesome: - "Brain Facts and Parenting Tips - Social-Emotional Learning and Executive Functions" - "Getting Educated on Anti-Racism and Breaking the Silence," published in Chinese on WeChat. We will save Social-Emotional Learning for a future post.  I wonder if anyone at MLC actually took the time to read what Prof. Schwartz wrote about anti-racism. If they did; did they agree with it, or did they think being in a foreign language it would slide under the radar? If they didn't read it, why did they mention it in a publication shared widely across the synod? Let's dig in. The or

  The picture above was provided by way of a student at Martin Luther College (MLC), the worker-training school of the WELS. This bulletin board was posted on campus in anticipation of MLK Day 2023, featuring a black power fist.  Besides the use of the black power fist, the panel left-center reads "culturally responsive teaching session" - the "other CRT" peddled by Gloria Ladson-Billings  - a repackaging a Paulo Friere's generative-themes model and cousin to Social-Emotional Learning, of which I have much to say, and hard to explain, for MLC has bought into woke education models... But we'll save SEL for a future installment.

Heisenberg's other uncertainty.... "When I meet God, I am going to ask him two questions: Why relativity? And why turbulence? I really believe he will have an answer for the first." -Heisenberg (or, possibly, Horace Lamb) (As an aerospace engineer whose career has centered around turbulence... this rings true.)

(they forgot "your log my plank" and "winsomeness")  

Another great insight from Pr. Peters:  " The problem is always Christ -- not the failings of the Christians even though they are many.  Christ is the offense, the stumbling stone.  He says so Himself.  The prophets said it before Him.  So why do we keep crawling into the same pothole of self-importance presuming that our goodness makes people believe and become part of the community of faith or if they don't we must have done something wrong?  This is, by the way, the presumption of half the parachurch organizations out there who want to help us fix ourselves so that we will grow." Pastoral Meanderings: On the offense of truth. . .

"The Lutheran theologian Matthias Flacius reported that he had heard the papal legate Antonius say that one should not read Paul's letters; 'for I know,' he said, 'some people who have become Lutherans merely by reading Paul's letters.' The papal legate Antonius was right." - Der Lutheraner, 1917

 I found this chart very interesting. Click the link to download a PDF version.  From the authors: "I want to be crystal clear about something: bigotry and racial discrimination are real and they have no place in society. Yes, there is ongoing racism. Yes, there is ongoing homophobia. Yes, there is ongoing hatred of trans people. These are morally abhorrent and we all need to work together to bring about their end. The woke religion, however, is not the way to stop these moral horrors. It is making our shared problems more difficult to solve. This is the spirit in which we offer this taxonomy." The second to the last statement is key. The woke region does not want to fix problems, instead of makes our societal problems more difficult to solve. 

  "The root of the problem is buried much deeper than who a beer company wants to put on their can. How did we get here and arrive so rapidly? How should the Church faithfully respond? May I suggest being theologians of the cross and calling things what they actually are instead of bowing in cowardice or in fear of offending someone? Homosexuality is an abomination. Transgenderism calls God a liar. Boys cannot be girls and girls cannot be boys (or cats, dogs, or horses). Cohabitation and divorce destroy families and are sinful. “Inclusivity” targets Christians. Organizations that act as if they love people and will fight for (fill-in-the blank) justice are also abominations in the eyes of God seeking to build up the dividing wall of hostility that Christ, by His blood, has torn down (see Ephesians 2). Fighting against this is Synod’s next significant hurdle to cross. It is much higher than it would have been, but in our silence over the years, we allowed many of these things into

“Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether.” - Neil Postman

  This is a book review of  Resisting the Dragon's Beast: What if God's Servant of the Government Behaves Like Satan's Servant?  by Michael Zarling, a WELS pastor. In it he discusses the beast from the sea from Revelation 13 which is representative of a persecuting government.  The book starts out with the first chapter entitled "Romans 13," dismissing the obvious elephant in the room by explaining by defining submission as 'yielding to authority' and not 'surrendering to power'. This is made clear in other sections of Scripture - wives submit to husbands, but do not have to suffer abuse, likewise with slaves. One thing that surfaced a few times but was not explicitly addressed, but would improve the book: clearly delineate the difference between authority an power. Someone in (or under) authority has the right to do something. Someone in power has the ability, regardless of right. Zarling appeals to the Augsburg Confession article 16 to defend the

"The advantage of a fixed form of service is that we know what is coming. Ex tempore public prayer has this difficulty: we don't know whether we can mentally join in it until we've heard it - it might be phoney or heretical. We are therefore called upon to carry on a critical and a devotional activity at the same moment: two things hardly compatible. In a fixed form we ought to have 'gone through the motions' before in our private prayers; the rigid form really sets our devotions free . I also find the more rigid it is, the easier it is to keep one's thoughts from straying. Also it prevents getting too completely eaten up by whatever happens to be the preoccupation of the moment (i.e. war, an election, or what not). The  permanent  shape of Christianity shows through."  - C. S. Lewis, Letters (1 April 1952)

God be praised. I'm pleased to share this presentation , hat tip to  🥓Texas Morning Coffee ☕️ (@BYECAHELLOTEXAS) / Twitter . This presentation was given at a  South Central District  (WELS) conference by Rev. Paul Seager. My observations:  - Clearly, he's been listening to James Lindsay. The 13 tenants are a dead giveaway, James in a podcast explained how books like to give 5 tenants, but if you read enough books they overlap and give you thirteen. Same with the "long shaft" comment. - He correctly comes to the conclusion (Slide 78, presentation comments) that CRT is antithetical to the Gospel. This mantra is repeated throughout subsequent slides. - Slides 66 and following present an excellent thesis/antithesis between the Bible and CRT on key doctrines. You can download the presentation or use the embedded viewer below. I suggest downloading it as Rev. Seager has notes that the embedded viewer does not present.