Lutheran Ping!
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Posted on 03/27/2008 8:48:07 PM PDT by The Shrew
Usually radio hosts have to offend sacred moral sensibilities to be thrown off the air. Opie and Anthony were fired after they encouraged a couple to have sex in St. Patrick's Cathedral. Don Imus lost his job after using racist and sexist epithets against the Rutgers University women's basketball team.
But when the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod canceled its popular, nationally syndicated radio program "Issues, Etc.," listeners were baffled. Billed as "talk radio for the thinking Christian," the show was known for its lively discussions analyzing cultural influences on the American church. It seemed like precisely the thing that the Missouri Synod, a 2.4-million-member denomination whose system of belief is firmly grounded in Scripture and an intellectually rigorous theology, would enthusiastically support.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Regards,
TS
They must have said something that did follow the Kieschnick line. The current LCMS presidents seems to only be concerned about his own power and interests.
The Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, the synod's current president, has pushed church marketing over the Lutherans' historic confession of faith by repeatedly telling the laity, "This is not your grandfather's church."...
While "Issues, Etc." never criticized Mr. Kieschnick or his colleagues, its attacks against shallow church marketing included mention of some approaches embraced by the current leadership. It opposed, for instance, the emergent church -- an attempt to accommodate postmodern culture by blending philosophies and practices from throughout the church's history -- and the Purpose Driven Church movement, which reorients the church's message toward self-help and self-improvement.
It's more difficult to spell his name than it is to figure out his agenda.
TS
First they came for the Missouri Synod, but I was Wisconsin Synod...
Then they can for the Wisconsin Synod, but I was ELCA. . . .
If the LCMS gets any further toward the liberal cliff, I’m joining the Catholic Church. It’ll be the only conservative, orthodox, confessional, liturgical denomination left.
Speaking as an LCMS member, it is frightening how liberal LCMS has become.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Where does this leave a conservative Protestant who seeks a liturgical, confessional, orthodox church? So far as I can tell, only the Greek Orthodox or Catholics are viable options. I see the ELCA as being only about 10 years ahead of the LCMS. I see women pastors, same-sex "blessings", and the whole ELCA mess coming to the LCMS just a few years down the road.
Oh well, I like this Pope...
www.alpb.org/forum/index.php?topic=1312.0
and
Welcome to Catholicism! The first AND original Christian "denomination".
So do I: His Introduction to Christianity contains many statements on faith as God's gift which could just as well have been written by Luther or Melancthon.
Then they came for the ELCA, and there was no one left to bake a hotdish for me!
ping! The cockroaches are trying VERY hard not to scatter from the lights being shone on their little party.
The current prez Kieschnick is purpose driven. That very morning he did a vision casting segment on KFUO that sounded like so many purpose driven takeover sermons I’ve heard.
WAIT a minute -- ELCA has been off the map for a LONG time....
Are you being facetious? You are, aren't you?
“So if the LCMS falls to the liberals, where does an LCMS member go? There’s no viable Protestant denominations left.... Where does this leave a conservative Protestant who seeks a liturgical, confessional, orthodox church?”
It may be that you have to try another tack and consider something like the Presbyterian Church in America (PCA): very conservative, traditional music, know the Bible inside and out. (As apposed to the Presbyterian (USA) which is liberal and doing the homosexual thing.)
Or try an Evangelical church if you want conservative, Bible-based teaching, and a fun celebration. (My wife doesn’t care for the celebration stuff, but I do!)
AFLC - maybe.
can't believe you're serious about Catholicism or Greek Orthodoxy. Do you know your doctrine at all? Catholicism is completely at odds with Lutheranism. (not the Lutheranism Kieschnick is advocating but the real teachings of Luther and the other reformers).
BTW none of that happens overnight. If you missed the part where Jesus and the gospel got kicked out, then the next signpost will be these aberrations being sneaked in. Frankly I'd rather leave when Jesus and the whole counsel of God are no longer welcome than wait until homosexuals ARE welcomed. If a person waits until those signposts, that tells me their religion is more about outward adherence to a set of behavioral standards (E.g. works based religion) than an inner surrender to the fact that it is CHRIST who works everything in us, including any ability to respond to the gospel.
I think that'd be out of the frying pan into the fire. I couldn't be part of a denomination that thinks I can add to grace by my works.
Then they came for the ELCA, but by that time I had married and gone to the Southern Baptists! True story!
PCA? I thought they were liberal too. Reformed Presby maybe. Or reformed baptist. There are also Lutheran Brethren churches here and there. Small though. And there’s the AFLC which is also still small.
I will warn people that you cannot assume anything by a denominational name anymore though. This social gospel works driven purpose driven nuttiness is in every denomination. Only a very few are speaking out against it.
Paul Proctor spoke of it as a sifting of the saints, and I think he is right. The Lord is calling his people out of the apostate churches. And sometimes they’re getting kicked out for being too biblical.
Self ping to your post
I’ve moved to AFLC from the ELCA. Good stuff. I’d never consider becoming a Catholic. Ever.
The local WELS church, although it calls itself "conservative," features pop music and purpose-driven sermons. Yawn.
The LCMS church around here has a "traditional" service. They also have two contemporary services -- the difference is that one contemporary service features sappy Christian pop music and the other contemporary service offers loud Christian rock music. To each his own. I guess I shouldn't complain but I am increasingly alienated from American pop culture and I am tired of how it takes over everything -- everything is supposed to be chaos and noise and "positive thinking" or whatever the fad is.
Ahem.
The PCA is an interesting denomination. Some churches are liturgical. Some have a bit of modern flair.
But: the PCA is firmly anti-abortion, no women in the pulpit, Scripture is the inerrant inspired word of God. In every PCA church I have attended (>20) and everyone of the countless PCA ministers I have ever met are firmly committed to faithfully preached Christ died for sinners.
There was an issue with the New Perspective On Paul in one Presbytery and the denomination didn't blink and declared that heresy outside of the bounds of Scriptural teaching. Several churches teaching the heresy left the denomination and the Presbytery was disciplined for not providing spiritual oversight.
The interesting thing about the PCA is that the "home office" has very little power. The local bodies are very suspicious of the home office for a good reason: when we left the PC(USA) we lost buildings and had very little to call our own. The home office don't own the churches, they must appeal to the local churches for money, etc. All power flows from the churches up, via the General Assembly, not from the top down.
Are there some liberal churches in the PCA? I'm sure there are. But that hardly makes us a liberal denomination any more than a conservative UMC/ELCA/ECUS church makes that denomination conservative.
< /rant>
It is a shame that a discernment ministry like Issues, Etc. gets cancelled. If one tunes into so-called Christian radio or T.V., one will mostly hear the false “prosperity” gospel or spectacular “prophetic” sermons about the Anti-Christ (they preach not so much about Christ). The “ministries” that preach a false gospel seem to never lack money.
bttt
You’re kidding, right? Which Catholic church are you talking about? Do you not know about the liberalism that has crept into the Catholic church. You’re going to find far more liberalism in the Catholic church than the LCMS.
We have only been LCMS about 14 years but the congregations to which we have belonged are a long way from going off the cliff. They are theologically solid and so are our pastors.
Being a very conservative LCMS (formerly ELCA), I will never attend a church where I do not hear the firm Word of God. Nor will I attend a church where the pastor thinks he's a Democrat for it indicates to me the pastor does not get the connection between his politics and his believes.
But Catholic being conservative? No. Not with any consistency.
Thanks for the ping. We all need to be alerted as to what is happening.
Anyone who seeks refuge in a denomination is off target. Christ is our refuge and He protects His church - not that of man. There may a Methodist church and Baptist church, et al., that each submit to the Word and make disciples of men - but each denomination and religion is merely a brick facade on a house of straw.
In Houston, big Southern Baptist churches had gag-a-maggot TV commercials before Easter. 2nd Baptist: “Even the Easter Bunny knows, 2nd is the place!”. The Met: “We want you to be comfortable.” I forget what “cirque d Shook” at Fellowship of Woodlands did, but it was putrid.
sigh
Put no confidence in the flesh - including that of your favorite pastor. Have faith in God. He alone is trustworthy.
25 or 30 years ago, all of the modernist church growth people decided that the traditional liturgy (which was essentially an English translation of Luther's mass) was no longer relevant, so most congregations threw out 450 years of tradition and adopted the new hymnal and its modern liturgy. Now, of course, the modernists refer to the blue hymnal as containing the "traditional" liturgy and argue that it is no longer relevant.
The PCA churches I’ve been to (three) have been quite conservative, solidly grounded in Biblical teaching and free of purpose-driven balderdash. Then again, it’s a fairly de-centralized denomination from what I understand, so your local church may vary. My wife and I have gone to the local PCUSA church a couple of times since we landed here in North Carolina, and I’m not impressed. Female associate pastor, too much “social responsibility” preaching, just a general squishiness about the entire place. My first PCA pastor in South Carolina, the man who married me and my wife, was a brilliant, no-BS Michigander who brought me into the fold and taught me so, so much.
}:-)4
We have the new LCMS hymnal and like it very much.
The National Council of Churches is BAD news.
• African Methodist Episcopal Church
• The African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church
• Alliance of Baptists
• American Baptist Churches in the USA
• Diocese of the Armenian Church of America
• Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
• Christian Methodist Episcopal Church
• Church of the Brethren
• The Coptic Orthodox Church in North America
• The Episcopal Church
• Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
• Friends United Meeting
• Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America
• Hungarian Reformed Church in America
• International Council of Community Churches
• Korean Presbyterian Church in America
• Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church
• Mar Thoma Church
• Moravian Church in America Northern Province and Southern Province
• National Baptist Convention of America
• National Baptist Convention, U.S.A., Inc.
• National Missionary Baptist Convention of America
• Orthodox Church in America
• Patriarchal Parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church in the USA
• Philadelphia Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends
• Polish National Catholic Church of America
• Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
• Progressive National Baptist Convention, Inc.
• Reformed Church in America
• Serbian Orthodox Church in the U.S.A. and Canada
• The Swedenborgian Church
• Syrian Orthodox Church of Antioch
• Ukrainian Orthodox Church of America
• United Church of Christ
• The United Methodist Church •
The liturgy (or lack thereof) in my LCMS congregation is far less traditional than the liturgy used 30 years ago in my old ELCA congregation.
Do I really have to swim the Tiber or could Rome send a ferry?
I realize that Catholics can be liberal too, but as an LCMS Lutheran I feel closer to the Catholics by far than all of the liberal apostate Protestant denominations. I disagree with the Catholics on many points of doctrine, but I don't personally believe the division with Catholicism is as severe or cut and dried as I guess most Protestants would. I don't think Catholics think they can be saved by works (no Catholic I ever met thought so) and no Catholic is required to pray to saints or to Mary. Still, if it comes down to liturgy, creedal and confessional orthodoxy or off-the-deep-end liberalism, women pastors, same-sex unions, and removing belief in Biblical inerrancy...I guess I have to find a Protestant denomination that I can support or it's off with the Catholics (provided I can find a conservative parish - I know how liberal some Catholic parishes are).
Trust me, all of this makes me quite sad. I love the LCMS. It's perfect for me. It's right in between the Catholics and the uber-protestants, and so it fits exactly with my own doctrinal beliefs. But, as I said, I can see the handwriting on the wall. Kieschnik and Co. are doing a number on the LCMS, IMHO. The church will be unrecognizable in ten years, let alone twenty.
It's the same pattern in every Protestant denomination. First the liberals get themselves elected to the local leadership. Then they get themselves elected to the district leadership. Then they end up delegates or voters at the parish/synod national voters meeting or equivalent.
Before you know it, they have hijacked an entire denomination from the vast conservative majority and begin to twist it into something unbiblical and unrecognizable. It always starts with "committees" to "explore" the "issue" of, say, women pastors, or same-sex unions, or biblical inerrancy...and before you can say "apostasy" they've plunged the denomination into chaos and discord, overturning the wishes of the majority and telling them in no uncertain terms to go to hell. This is what happened with the ELCA, the PC USA, the United Methodists, the Episcopalians, etc. The first stages of the same thing are underway in the LCMS with Kieschnik or whatever his name is. "This isn't your grandfather's church". Nice attitude. That's his way of telling the conservative majority to go to hell.
So it begins.
On Sundays during the summer, there is no LCMS congregation anywhere near so I attend Mass. Whether the parish priest is personally heretical (he's not), the liturgy is sound and the doctrine, with minor exception, differs not a whit from that announced in the Augsburg Confession. I find it much easier to think about baseball during a prayer for the magisterium than I do to think about Scripture during a hymn accompanied by bongo drums.
So heartbreaking !!! My LCMS church is hanging tough for the most part. However, our conservative pastor is hounded constantly by the “let’s-be-modern-and-GROW-the-church” crowd.
We have the great misfortune of having a wealthy man (and his co-elites) who has let it be known that he basically represents Kieschnick as he moved here from St. Louis and still maintains a seat on one of the boards. He trots back there periodically.
I could go on for hours or days. It is so upsetting and the tension in our congregation is severe. We continue to pray.
Their ploy is to go heavily after visitors and unchurched folks who lack a scriptural foundation. They are ripe for the picking and don’t get that “We are in the world but not of it.” That is one of my biggest disgusts. Many of these people are unwittingly duped.
Pray for the survival of our dear LCMS. Jesus can do anything.
I can assure you that the liturgy in our LCMS is very traditional and we’re using the new hymnal.
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