Friday, August 29, 2003

I have thought about the lodge question, and I have decided I will from here on out refer to Daystar and Jesus First as the Holy Order of the Daystar and Jees, Us First. I will refer to them in such terms until such a time that they open up their forums of discussion to the rest of the Synod. The Devil likes to hide in the shadows, but the truth lives in the light.
Being that I have started ranting against the environmentalists, I thought I would include this small gem.

Energy Tax Blacks Out Many Lives in Europe

If figures the French would do this to themselves. They laid down for Hitler, so they might as well help the environmental movement practice their own form of eugenics. Anyway, the article points out that energy is taxed at such a rate that air conditioning is unaffordable for most, to the point where hospitals and nursing homes cannot afford it. Good job. Not only that, the bodies are piling up because, like the rest of the country, all the morticians are all currently on vacation. The next delivery of French goods could be delievered by a truck that was carrying bodies! Just one more reason why the French suck.

Thursday, August 28, 2003

Markets Reward Eco-Terror. So Let's Fix Them

I came across this link via Instapundit

A very nice, simple way to punish environmental terrorists for their own nitwittery.

I had been wanting to blog on the ELF and their own stupidity, but I kept forgetting. I remembered wanting to cover this thanks to the above story.

The ELF has to be a bunch of morons, setting fire, thus releasing carbon dioxide and a variety of other nasty chemicals and particulates into our atmosphere. It's just like a bunch of egostical, narcisistical morons to think that buring a few buildings and setting SUVs on fire will save the envioronment. It doesn't take a genius to realize buring tires are not a bright thing for an environmentalist to do. Then again, most of these people do not think through the consequences of their actions.

Tuesday, August 26, 2003

Jesus First is at it again, using tactics that never would have been approved of just 20 years ago. This is an e-mail sent by Rev. Eric Stefanski on the Cat41 e-mail lists.

The past five years have seen an unprecedented secularization of the Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. Whereas throughout the rest of her history it was thought that "the office should seek the man, not the man the office," and that it was unseemly to seek to influence the nominations process, much less to criticize an incumbent for anything except false doctrine, immorality, or gross--provable--malfeasance.

All of this changed with the vicious attacks made against the Rev. Al Barry by the blasphemously-named political influence group 'Jesus First'. This group could find no actual false doctrine in Barry or his
administration, so they simply asserted evil intent in every action he or anyone else took during his time in office. When the 1998 synodical convention voted to give the synodical president the sort of supervision
of district presidents that district presidents have over pastors, the so-called 'Jesus First' bunch took this as Barry's seeking to 'consolidate power in the office of the president'. (Funny, then, that the current president sought to retain power in the David Benke case, refusing to recuse himself from sitting in judgment of a case wherein he had both given prior approval to and made a subsequent defense of Benke's words and actions...but this is now declared meet, right, and salutary by the misnamed 'Jesus First'.)

An overture was offered to the 2001 LCMS convention specifically condemning the idea that anyone should be organizing lists of people *to nominate*, skewing the process of staffing the synodical bureaucracy. Apparently, that overture never became a resolution, as now this group of political thugs who has misappropriated and tarnished our Lord's name by their brutal attacks on Dr. Barry and others, as well as their consistent twisting of the truth to present their unscriptural and anti-confessional notions has decided to tell you *exactly* whom you are to nominate if you wish to be "Gospel-Centered, Mission-Driven, Future Oriented." (Forget the fact that they think tacking "in the precious name of Jesus" onto the end of a prayer and comments that made Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and anyone else think that their 'gods' and their proclamation was valid and 'strengthening' is somehow "a bold witness to the Gospel.")

Further, they desire a corruption of the whole system from its very roots! "We also hope you have organized your electoral circuit for the delegate election process that will elect delegates and alternates to the 2004 Synodical Convention in St. Louis," they write. They have now politicized and secularized the whole process down to the congregational and circuit levels, brazenly doing things that real Lutherans would shy away from.

As they profane the name of our Lord, 'Jesus First' has shown openly that their idea of 'Gospel-Centered, Mission-Driven' is nothing but a 'churchification' of law-based, secular power politics; it's not about Jesus and the lost to them: it's all about power and control.


From: "Jesus First Coordinator"


JESUS FIRST E-MAIL UPDATE
For Gospel-Centered, Mission-Driven, Future Oriented Leadership in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod

August 24, 2003

----------

Dear Fellow Laborer for the Lord,

Your congregation will soon be receiving the official nominating ballots for President and for the Vice Presidents of Synod. We are writing to encourage your congregations participation in this process. Our Synod has been besieged by those who seem intent on splitting it apart. They do so with inaccurate portrayals of recent events in the church and with character assaults upon many in the church, especially our President, Jerry Kieschnick. We cannot sit idly while this group actively seeks to change the gospel-centered direction of our beloved church body. In order to elect a Presidium of Synod that will support President Kieschnicks vision of One Mission, One Message, One People, that is centered on the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ we recommend the following pastors for nomination: (Note: President and Vice President of Synod positions are constitutionally limited to pastors)

* Each congregation is allowed two nominees for President of Synod; therefore we recommend for nomination REV. DR. GERALD KIESCHNICK and one of the following: Rev. Bill Diekelman or the Rev. Vern Gundermann.
* Each congregation is allowed two nominees for 1st.Vice President of Synod; therefore we recommend for nomination Rev. Bill Diekelman and Rev. Vern Gundermann.
* Each congregation is allowed four nominees for Vice Presidents two through five of Synod; therefore we recommend for nomination the following: Rev. Victor Belton, Rev. David Buegler, Rev. Paul Maier, Rev. Dean Nadasdy, and Rev. Tom Zehnder.
It is important to note that all individuals recommended as nominees have agreed to serve if nominated and elected.

The deadline for receipt of the nominations is March 10, 2004; however, we plead with you not to procrastinate in this process.

Your active support - making sure these men are nominated, will do much to help our Synod in this hour of trial and opportunity. There is much work to do that will uplift the name of the Lord! God will work his mighty wonders among us and will restore his people as together we keep our eyes on Jesus, the Alpha and Omega, our Lord and our Redeemer.

Joy in Jesus,

The Leadership Team of Jesus First
For Gospel Centered, Mission Driven and Future Oriented Leadership in the LCMS

* PS We also hope you have organized your electoral circuit for the delegate election process that will elect delegates and alternates to the 2004 Synodical Convention in St. Louis. Most of those electoral circuit elections take place this fall. Having supportive folks elected from our electoral circuits is essential. Make a difference by getting involved in the process! For information on the process read the Jesus First monthly publication or visit our website at www.JesusFirst.net

It's me again. Please do get involved to keep these people out of office!

Sunday, August 24, 2003

Friday, August 22, 2003

Thursday, August 21, 2003

Looking For Something

I have been looking for quite a while now for open gatherings of Jesus First or Daystar types on the internet. There are none. Pastor Bischoff mentioned that the way these groups are hiding is similar to the way some of the lodges hide. That begs the question of how do you define a lodge?

Lodges have a few characteristics:

1. They do not plan and convene in the open. Jesus First and Daystar both have e-mail lists not open to the public and, in order to access them, you must be invited and "initiated." Check.

2. Hierarchies with a very strict pecking order. Heck, JF and death, errr, Daystar are known to have a pretty strict pecking order, including people rostered in the ELCA. Check.

3. Teach universalism. With their affiliations with the ELCA, it's close enough. Check.

Having now discovered the true nature of these two groups, I propose two new names for these two groups. I have yet to find names satirical enough for me to actually use. I will sleep on this problem. Either that or post it on LutherQuest, where they will eat up the challenge.
Our dear SP has done it again. Who knows how much we are spending, but the SP is flushing synod money into a consultant named J. David Schmidt. You may be asking the same question I am: why are we spending money on a consultant when he wacked a third of our missionaries? Of course, the fact that his office's budget is incresing while making everybody else take cuts goes to show the grand and wonderful leadership of a man who (I was told this by someone with a straight face) would, "unite the synod." Way to go! Cut missions! Cut youth! Cut Campus Missions! Create disunity! What great leadership from a great man. Earth to McFly! Hello McFly! Anybody there! Helloooooo!

After much thought, I must say that out SP is a threat to the health of our synod and must be removed from office ASAP. Rather than keeping missionaries in the field, he spends money to have his wife come with him on trips. Rather than keep the Office of Campus Ministry open, he hired another assistant, thus removing another rostered pastor from a congregation and exasorbating our vacancy crisis. Cut the purse strings. Do not send any money to the synod. If you want to support missions, send it to the office of missions. Also, quit sending money to DP's who end up spending it on things like the bureaucracy and district cars. We need leadership at all levels, and the word needs to get out amoung everybody what a financial mess this man is making.

Wednesday, August 20, 2003

I have finished (again) the first two parts on what is looking to be a very long Bible study series on music. I will not reveal what I have finished, just that it has been done and it should be, well, interesting. From here on out, to quote Simon Cowell, "It's all about song selection." I am making sure to include music styles that should annoy everyone around me. The problem is, I'll listen to just about anything and like it, so they have to cater (somewhat) to my tastes in music. I'll ask if I can start this soon. I shall go get five more songs to love and annoy...

Merde in France
Dissident Frogman

I have to give a couple of plugs to two of my favorite sites on the internet.
Some interesting news stories of late thanks to Fark.com

Eagles battle giant gerbils
Man jailed in Quebec hit-and-run case
Wisconsin Priests Want Celibacy To Be Optional
Congress to hear anti-BCS talk
GLOBAL warming is caused by the hot flashes of millions of Baby Boomer women

Tuesday, August 19, 2003

Astrologers fail to predict proof they are wrong

Nice.
I appologize for not blogging regularly. It's not that there isn't a multitude of ideas to blog about. It is just that, sometimes, I do not make it to the computer...

Sunday was, well, interesting. Synergism in sanctification. I could have gone across the street if I wanted to hear that. The problem is the study leader was reading the law in Ephesians 4 without reading the Gospel in Galatians 3. God lives in us and we are dead. How does a dead man cooperate with God on anything?

Monday, August 11, 2003

The Joys of Friendship...

Last night, we had dinner at the center, like we have every night, and an incident occured. Now, mind you, we are all friends here (supposedly), and I have seen this guy (we'll call him Mike to protect the guilty) act stupid and do things to people before. We've even been kind of mean to each other, but we both realize it's all in fun and understand that we are not trying to inflict too much pain upon each other. The problem is Mike doesn't know when to stop with others. He grabbed the leg of the chair of this gal (who we'll call Tammy to protect the guilty) and pulled up upon it (I don't even know why) and she spilled off the chair. Tammy gets off the ground about to cry, sits down for a second, and then decides to get up and leave. Her sister (we'll call her Erin) goes to try to talk to her. Now, at this point, I have one thing going through my head: GROW UP BOTH OF YOU!!!!!! Erin comes back and orders Mike to appologize, to which Mike tells her she is not his mother. Mike decides that it is time to bail and leaves, leaving his girlfriend (Annie for this story) to defend him. Annie talks to Tammy and they get into a big argument. Annie leaves pissed off at Tammy.

I've already made one piece of commentary on the situation, which is the basic framework under which I will work. Mike needs to grow up a little and realize he cannot pull stunts off on everyone. Tammy needs to realize that Mike didn't actually mean to dump her on her rear, and that he is immature so, when things like this happen, she is the mature one and not acting like she's 5 or 6. Erin needs to realize she's not Mike's mom and, rather than ordering him like a drill seargent, ask him to appologize. At any of these points, if someone had stepped up and been the better Christian, the whole situation could have been diffused. Instead, everyone involved went home mad. The biggest problem is, I didn't think of all of this until after the fact. That, in a way, is my failing since I could have diffused the situation. Rather, I kept my mouth shut and watched this whole thing disintegrate. Good job on my part.

Thursday, August 07, 2003

My day started bad, but has slowly gotten better, I think.

The Episcopalians are out shooting themselves in the foot again. You figure the Church would have learned after they allowed and agnostic named John Shelby Spong to become a "bishop" would get a clue, but it didn't. Of course, just as disturbing, is the fact these same "conservatives" didn't raise nearly as much noise when Spong was elected bishop. I hate to say this, but they deserve what they get. You let Spong in, the whole bloody culture comes spilling in after.

Thankfully, we've all been so fascinated by the the trainwreck that is the ECUSA that nothing has developed in the LCMS. Let the ELCA deal with this mess...