The Nihil Rule

  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!

  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...

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 On Thursday morning the memorial was retracted and replaced by a revision with softened  language .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'...

  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.

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.

Compiled from anonymous sources.     This is the follow-on to the leaked email from Rev. Dr. Ken Fischer addressing woke shenanigans at the Black History (month) Presentation. According to my sources, more went on than was alluded to in Ken's email to delegates and pastors of the WLHS conference.  There were several rap songs performed including "This is How We Do It" by Montell Jordan and "Crank Dat" by Soulja Boy.  "This is How We Do It" is a party song. The protagonist drinks a "40" (ounce bottle of liquor) and spends time admiring "honeys" in their "summertime skirts." Themes inappropriate for teenagers. "Crank Dat" is more concerning. Soulja Boy uses the word "ho" quite liberally throughout and uses two sexually loaded phrases. The first is "superman dat hoe" which Urban Dictionary defines as  "When a male ejaculates on a blanket and sticks it on a female's back, creating a cape...

An anonymous source forwarded the following email regarding a Black History (month) Program at Wisconsin Lutheran High School on Tuesday, March 14th: ========================================================= Dear delegates and pastors of the WLHS Conference, I am writing to apologize for any offense and harm that was caused by parts of our Black History Program from last Tuesday. On behalf of the school’s administration, I ask for your forgiveness for our failure to preview all of the details of the final program. Although Principal Leyrer and I had met with our faculty advisor and the choreographer early in the process and the principal met several times later with the faculty advisor, we never saw, nor reviewed the final product. Next year’s final program will be reviewed completely by the principal and president for content. Please understand we were proud to showcase student-led presentations celebrating Black history in honor of Black History Month. The students worked for months...

Dr. Ken Fisher is the president of Wisconsin Lutheran High School (aka WISCO). He was the co-presenter with Dr. Joan Prince ( see these posts) as keynote speaker at the WELS Lutheran Leadership Conference in January.  Today I'd like to look at the " January 20, 2021 Thanksgiving for Civil Rights " which Ken officiated and I feel has some concerning elements to it. In a future post we'll look at the 2022 service. Curiously, the 2023 service was not posted although chapel services the day before and after were posted, the 2023 service just has a one second clip of an image of MLK with a quote. We'll start with the call and response which juxtaposes MLK quotes (read by 'M' for 'Minister') with Bible passages (read by 'C' for 'Congregation') ... First, this juxtaposition seems to impute MLK as a church authority, since his comments are flanked with 'supporting' scripture. Typically, this kind of call-and-response it is either ...

I've been reading James Lindsay's The Marxification of Education for reasons that will become clear in future blog posts. In chapter 6, "Generative Themes and the Theft of Education" on pages 135-138, James quotes Gloria Ladson-Billings. I thought to myself, that name rings a bell.... Gloria... Gloria... ...Joan Prince! Indeed, Gloria and Joan appeared together on the Real Talk Racial Justice Summit . Gloria published two seminal papers in 1995 entitled " Toward a Critical Race Theory in Education " and “ Toward a Theory of Culturally Relevant Pedagogy .” The latter according to Lindsay 'is a simple repackaging of [Paulo] Freire's generative-themes model that uses racial and other identity politics as the source for generative material'. I read her paper on culturally relevant pedagogy. To quote Gloria "Teachers... must help students recognize, understand, and critique current social inequities" (pg. 476). "Knowledge is not static...

  (Note: This is not character assassination or an eighth commandment violation. I take her words and actions in the kindest possible way by taking her at her word. Dr. Prince is a very smart woman. She's achieved a Ph.D., she was Vice Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, she was an ambassador to the UN. Clearly, she's smart. She's also a public figure and can speak for herself.  I simply take Dr. Prince at her word. The WELS has made her a public figure  by giving her top billing at the WELS Lutheran Leadership Conference, and the views she holds to are expressed in the slides from her presentation  and in the materials handed out during that presentation . This content was presented to pastors, called workers and laymen with Synods' approval. This is the necessary context to have that discussion. Prior to the conference I shared these notes with my Pastor, Council and conference leadership. No one questioned their factuality although they dis...