The Nihil Rule

  Marxist inroads into Minnesota Christian colleges (substack.com) "The Upper Midwest Law Center is seeking a Christian college [in Minnesota] to be a plaintiff in a lawsuit (pro-bono) to challenge the constitutionality of these new standards. Will any Christian college join the resistance and become a plaintiff?"

I've posted before about  Social and Emotional Learning  (SEL) making  inroads  in the WELS, and  actionable strategies  for parents to counter SEL. I've also expressed why a Christian might be  concerned  about the proliferation of Early Childhood Education (ECE) centers. Previous posts centered around teacher's conferences and master's theses. But now the rubber hits the road for the broader synod as the WELS is actively advertising their four-tier accreditation system in the latest  WELS Connection . I noticed during the WELS Connection as they spoke of certification the teacher had a manual issued by the CDA Council , which could have just been any book off the shelf to stage the shot, but my suspicions were confirmed later that week when the WELS came asking for money, as I found out, to support SEL in WELS ECE's The WELS chose The Child Development Associate accreditation for teachers in WELS ECE's. The CDA Council "sets the standard for ECE Competenc

 

  On the Line with Dr. Harold Ristau - YouTube This is a really fantastic interview with Rev. Dr. Maj. Harold Ristau, a Lutheran pastor who has written on his experiences with exorcism , participated in the Canadian Trucker Convoy protest, served honorably as  chaplain for the Canadian Armed Forces , and is an  excellent selection for the President of Luther Classical College. The interview and his biography show a man actively engaged with faith in the public square. Listen to the whole thing, and consider subscribing to On the Line , they have had a number of impressive long-form episodes. A few highlights.  The conversation starts with a discussion of COVID. Around the 20 minute mark Dr. Ristau eviscerates the "remote distance of evil" arguments with respect to the COVID vaccines, moving on to the Lord's Supper a few minutes later, including the theology of the Common Cup and "shooter cups." Next up is exorcisms. Dr. Ristau is very measured here trying not

(footnote from the Apology of the Formula of Concord, Chemnitz' Works, Vol. 10)  

  Evangelical Lutheran Breviary - buy at lulu.com I've had my copy for a little less than a week so this is an initial impression. First - the quality is excellent, Caleb did a great job with the typesetting and formatting. The hardcover has a dust jacket with the ELH logo and under the dust jacket is a simply labeled spine. (a much better job that NPH did on their print-on-demand Volumes 1 & 2 of Adolf Hoenecke's Evangelical Lutheran Dogmatics. On the right is a traditionally published volume in 1999, on the left the print-on-demand from 2009.) The Table of Contents: Following the table of contents is a brief description of how to use the offices, explaining the liturgical elements and the use of the psalter and Propers. Then follows the four offices (note that if there is a bracketed page number, this is where you can locate the office in the Evangelical Lutheran Hymnal), a section of prayers (the Litany, Prayers for the Sick and Dying, and The Suffrages) followed by seve

  Well done, WELS Southerner. (but please get that fire alarm looked at) (If I ever get doxed, I'm totally moving to this format)

"Become a Surrogate - Earn $69,000+" Surrogacy is a perversion of God's gift of marriage. God blesses man and woman with the fruit of the womb in a one-flesh union and places a child in the context of that particular mother and a father, because that child needs both a mother and father. But that doesn't mean that a heterosexual Christian couple (but I repeat myself) who can't conceive can rightfully use a surrogate: if God denies you the natural ability to create life, we should seek to live within the parameters our God set for us (the same applies to IVF - even more so given the number of embryos destroyed or indefinitely suspended in the process). A godly option, if you can accept it, would be adoption. But let's be frank - surrogacy is a conduit for creating "fashion accessories" for homosexuals (Lord, have mercy). A quick perusal of SimpleSurrogacy.com shows the last two blog posts feature gay parents playing with a child: The "Intended Pa

There are always blasphemy laws.  It is simply a matter of who defines them.

“Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven. “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace but a sword. For I have come to ‘set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law’; and ‘a man’s enemies will be those of his own household.’ He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me. He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it." -Matthew 10:32–39, the appointed Gospel for the Presentation of the Augsburg Confession “Most gracious Emperor, this is a Confession that will even prevail against the gates of hell, with the grace and help of God.” - Grego

Let's talk about how many of our churches avoid talking about the LGBTQ specifically but other contemporaneous social issues more generally. I think there is a flavor of antinomianism towards issues that would make us unpopular with the culture, even in churches that would staunchly oppose the antinomian spirit in all other circumstances. The article that got me thinking about this is  The Antinomian Captivity of the Church  by Matthew Cochran. He specifically applies antinomianism to the case of Mr. Ryan Turnipseed, but the template has obvious applications elsewhere. Allow me to extract a paragraph: "This restriction they place on God’s Law has consequences for their preaching and teaching. They deliberately avoid teaching on specific sins, lest one who avoids them thinks themselves more righteous than one who hasn’t. All sins are equal in their sight to ensure no one thinks they’re better than their neighbor. They reduce sanctification to nothing more than getting used to j

Rosaria Butterfield - a former lesbian and now a former advocate of the Christian use of pronouns - writes a compelling article on why not to use transgender pronouns . She correctly identifies the use of preferred pronouns as sin. and debunks the relationship argument we heard from "Pastor Mike" Novotny. 'Transgenderism is satanic. We who once promoted “pronoun hospitality” lent false credibility to a wolfish theology that fails to protect the sheep. Instead, it eats them alive.' I have been told her book is worth reading . 

In a welcome (pri)DEMON(th) surprise, Pastor Tyrel Bramwell reviews Pastor Novotny's equivocation on pronouns .  You should watch the whole thing; the broader discussion starts  around the 14 minute mark with the video review starting  around the 18 minute mark .  A few choice quotes (on evangelism, 23 minutes) "Even confidence is a no-no now, which you can tell from [Novotny's] demeanor in this video" (on sin, 26 minutes) "I'm not looking back at the 50s with any rose-colored glasses, I know there was just as much sin as there is now, but there was also repentance then that is completely absent now. Now, there is an intentional queering of God's norm, His order going on so much so that we even see pastors buying into the language and trying to work within the Godless structure and vocabulary..." Bramwell's arguments rest on two points. The first is that the Devil wants to trick us into thinking we have time, that there is no particularly urgenc

  The Church Among the Deathworks | Carl R. Trueman Long ago, Nietzsche’s Madman asked the rhetorical question, “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?” Sadly, it seems that too many of the gravediggers these days are members of the clergy. "Deathworks" is a term which Carl Trueman introduces in his book " The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self ." The term was coined by sociologist Philip Rieff as "the act of using the sacred symbols of a previous era in order to subvert, then destroy, their original significance and purpose." While there are many deathworks among us none are as vibrant or forceful as those of the LGBTQ and the inroads they have made into the Church. This article is a quick introduction to the idea with application; if you enjoy his writing, I do recommend his book as an expansive discussion of what is wrong with modern man.

The WELS Conference of Presidents published a Statement on Human Sexuality, Personhood, Identity, and the Historic Christian Faith in October of 2019. It's quite good; I encourage you to read the whole thing and I'll make a few observations here. First, this statement is not held to the same standards as a doctrinal statement, so while it is considered pure doctrine and provides guidance for pastors and laity it is not "enforceable" per see.  Second, the document references similar statements by the ELS and the  LCMS . The ELS document is a single paragraph with fourteen Scripture references. It is incredibly concise but provides no specific guidance. The LCMS document spends its first third discussing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders defining terms and getting a secular perspective and noting the changes from release IV to 5, where the views on transgenderism started to liberalize. The next third bring Scripture to bear, noting that Jesus

  "No Christian churchman should dream of complaining when Truth is given precedence over Love, or, more accurately, love for God and His Word over love for man." -Kurt Marquart, The Question of Procedure in Theological Controversies (note the obvious application to affirming pronouns, etc.)

  Pride month is upon us, and it is a doctrine of demons. Many of us will not hear anything of it from our pulpits this month. Some might get vague references curbed by the caveats that "all sins are equal" and "look at the plank in your own eye before the spec in theirs." Very few will have a Pastor willing to speak against these sins as being distinctively evil and damaging to both body and soul.  This month I intend to be being laser-focused on the cultural sins of our age because I fall in the former camp - my pastor will not touch these things with a ten-foot pole even when he is given encouragement to do so.  To start - let us make it abundantly clear that pride month is a doctrine of demons. Paul in 1 Corinthians 6:9 calls out both the "active" and "passive" participants in homosexual relationships, using the sexual slang of his day. A chapter earlier he tells the Corinthian congregation to "deliver over to Satan" a man in the co

  Hat tip to OldLuth (worth a follow!) With some commentary:

Following up on The Devil put Dinosaurs Here , permit me a thought experiment. What if oil is not really a fossil fuel? It isn't a terribly far-fetched idea. We know methane in particular can be generated abiotically and can be detected on planets where scientists have no reason to believe life exists or ever existed. There is evidence for the abiogenesis of methane  on planet earth. If oil is somehow found out to renewable, then the link between oil and fossils is broken. The problem would be that Dr. Eggert's explanation is now nonsensical. The argument that God made fossils because fossils go along with oil longer makes sense. Dr. Eggert is left holding the bag. Again, this is a hypothetical, but this demonstrates a broader problem: using the framework of science to explain difficulties in our theology is liable to backfire because science has no concrete basis in eternal Truth. Science is based on observations which can be invalidated and replaced by new observations. Newto

Yes, Mike, it is. I wish I could say that Pastor Novotny spends ten minutes beating around the bush to get to the correct answer, but if that were the case I wouldn't be posting it as Woke in the WELS. Pastor Novotny ultimately says somewhere around the seven minute mark that you can't transition your gender. It is a sin to choose your own gender. This is correct. However, Pastor Novotny equivocates on the question of using a chosen pronoun. Around 2:25 he says "Preferred pronouns, attending [gay] weddings like that, these are issues where I really think the Christians who love the truth of the Bible and love of Jesus might end up in different places." Not right places, not wrong places, different places. He frames this in terms of the supposed quandary "[H]ow do we decide whether this is the time to be bold with the truth or to patiently love someone and deepen a relationship?" which is repeated more verbosely to close out the video. Pastor Novotny makes a

I'm behind on my BHoP but I just listened to Episode 222 - wherein they answered a listener question submitted by a Pastor Mark Schroeder who identifies himself as 70 years old ... does the WELS synod president listen to BHoP? Big, if true!

   (* there is no Alice in Chains without Layne Staley. Don't do drugs, kids.) This post is going to investigate one of the arguments made by Dr. Arthur A. Eggert in an article entitled "Genesis 1 and Science" published in the Wisconsin Lutheran Quarterly, Vol 117, No. 4 (Fall 2020). As this article is subject to copyright, I will not reproduce it in full, but I'll excerpt a few paragraphs under fair-use. Overall the article is a fair articulation of the Lutheran young-earth-creationist (but I repeat myself) position with a number of "Science Background Notes" which pull in information regarding radiation, tectonic plates and such. The only thing I quibble with (well, ok there's two things, the other being that he doesn't capitalize pronouns referring to God) is his explanation of the fossil record. Quoting his "Science Background Note 11":  " To scientists , soil and fossils are closely related. Each of them is the product of the deat

 

H.R.6090  was passed on May 1, 2024. This bill criminalizes speech which can be characterized as antisemitic, as defined by the  International Holocaust Rememberance Alliance  or IHRA, a lobbying group. The definition is not provided in the bill and may be changed in the future by the IHRA. Besides the obvious implications to free speech, this has grave theological concerns. One of the classifications of antisemitic speech by the IHRA is Using the symbols and images associated with classic antisemitism (e.g., claims of Jews killing Jesus or blood libel) to characterize Israel or Israelis. This means portion of the Bible, for instance 1 Thessalonians 2:14-15 "For you, brothers, became imitators of the churches of God in Christ Jesus that are in Judea. For you suffered the same things from your own countrymen as they did from the Jews, who killed both the Lord Jesus and the prophets, and drove us out, and displease God and oppose all mankind by hindering us from speaking to the Gent

So it has been found out that Forward in Christ has been using stock AI photos for the last few covers of their magazine. You can find a vigorous discussion on the WELS Discussions Facebook page. The following two images are from the March and April covers. I made an account with Adobe Stock to download the full resolution images. My license limits me to 500k views, so don't go blowing this post up :) So let us take a closer look at these photos. March has Jesus praying in what ostensibly appears to be the Mount of Olives. But look at those hands. I think there are three of them - maybe it's a hidden message of the Triune nature of God, but most like it's the fact that AI has yet to successfully traverse the uncanny valley .  April is more interesting. Let us start with the obvious - the resurrected Christ has no nail marks in His hands or feet. The AI could not contextualize that the risen Christ was also the crucified Christ. But then let's take a closer look at His