Some Shrinkers from this class of stars are: Paul Jahnke as DP protected Jeff Gunn (CrossWalk), cosy classmates; Mark Freier helped start CrossRoads, now Evangelical Covenant; Joel Fredrich endorsed the Great Commission as "manufacturing disciples," the Reformed view; James Mattek - WLCFS; Bruce Becker, Perish Services, Chicanery Board, Jeske Inc.; Peter Pan-denominational promotes The Simple Church, another Babtist fad. CrossWalk in Phoenix copies CrossRoads in Michigan - similar name, similar confession of unfaith, classmates.
The class of 1983 featured such Shrinker heroes as Lawrence Olson(DMin, Fuller), Mark Birkholz, Rich Krause (DMin under Larry Olson), Robert Fleischmann, Al Sorum, Dapper Don Pieper.
Wayne Mueller and David Valleskey were in the faculty line-up for the first time 1985, so CG advocacy preceded their teaching. Gerlach was last seen in the 1977 graduate photo. He was pushed out for Reformed teaching, according to Slick Brenner. Sparky Brenner happened to graduate that year.
In contrast, the class of 1981 has a number of known Confessional opponents of the Shrinkers.
Which professors started these guys on the road to perdition? The most likely candidates are Sig Becker, an Enthusiast (UOJ and Receptionism) and Ernie Wendland, from world missions. Fuller began their first assault on all denominations by training the world missions leaders, because McGavran and Wagner were from that field.
Their second assault was focused on American mission people. That is when Norm Berg, Joel Gerlach, Valleskey, Kelm, Bivens, and the Home Mission Board people of WELS were trained.
The ones listed above are simply the ones I know most about. Knowing how conformists the graduates of the Sausage Factory are, I have to assume they were carefully trained for the journey to apostasy.
TELL began already in 1977, with Ron Roth, so it is clear the Shrinkers had a little influence already at that time. Seminary training was clearly Reformed by 1982, judging by the well known results.
Inept Copycats
Bad plagiarism has been the saga of the last 33 years of WELS. I have shown copious evidence of WELS and Missouri copying their insights from Fuller and Willow Creek. (The ELS and CLC (sic) - ditto.) Kelm, Bivens, Valleskey, Huebner, and Olson have made careers out of echoing what they learned at unionistic, Pente-babtist training sessions.
In Missouri, WELS, ELS, and the CLC (sic) - the more they copied, the more they were advanced in their synodical careers. A drive-by DMin empowered apostates to call themselves Dr. and assume teaching roles to spread the cancer.
Mary Lou College and Mequon continue to be franchises of Fuller, Willow Creek, and Trinity Deerfield. Rich Gurgle shares his Trinity Deerfield insights with WELS/ELS clergy.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Money Changers - A History of Bad Plagi...":
Fredrich?
Did you even read all 78 pages of his essay... or just scan it? I don't see any evidence of the former in your comments about him.
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GJ - You disagree? You have to read all 3500 posts before you can disagree. "Making disciples" is the foundation of Church Shrinkage Pietism. That essay was another example of inept plagiarism.
I have nothing against plagiarizing Luther. Inept plagiarism involves echoing the Zwinglians, Calvinists, and Babtists.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Money Changers - A History of Bad Plagi...":
To put 1981 and 1982 into perspective, the Kokomo Statements debacle was in 1979. In other words, by 1982 the seminary may have been hardened into enthusiasm after the Kokomo affair.
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GJ - UOJ (Kokomo Justification) has a strange effect on people. Ministers first react to its absurdity. Once their brains are thorough washed, rinsed, and spun dry, they are eager to pounce on anyone questioning justification without faith.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Church and Money Changers - A History of Bad Plagi...":
"Wayne Mueller and David Valleskey were in the faculty line-up for the first time 1985, so CG advocacy preceded their teaching."
Mueller and Valleskey still remain culpable. Do not give them a get-out-of-jail-free card.
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GJ - What? I am trying to find the Ur-Church Growth leaders, not all of Shrinkers who taught at the Sausage Factory. Valleskey and Wayne Mueller are obvious. Who got things going? I think Joel Gerlach and Ernie Wendland were the seminal apostates, the bad seed. Wendland wrote favorably about CG in 1974. Gerlach wrote to Otten and me that he was trained at Fuller Seminary. I will look up the Wendland quotes and publish them a little later today.
Fuller's strategy was to start with world mission leaders in all the denominations. They had such a roaring success at fooling them bozos that they moved to the home mission drones, who were equally gullible spendthrifts. WELS and all the other denominations (Catholics, Unitarians too) sent their clergy to Fuller and similar beehives.
The Enthusiasts of WELS, Missouri, and the ELS felt right at home at Fuller. They could greet their ELCA pays they knew from joint AAL-LB religious efforts. Those programs used to be called unionism, but under the new thinking they were called "using the money so's nobody else got to it."
12 comments:
At West Point the class of 1915 is known as the "Class the Stars Fell On" because so many generals came from that class...
What should this class be called?
Fredrich?
Did you even read all 78 pages of his essay... or just scan it? I don't see any evidence of the former in your comments about him.
Try the beam in the eye of WELS.
To put 1981 and 1982 into perspective, the Kokomo Statements debacle was in 1979. In other words, by 1982 the seminary may have been hardened into enthusiasm after the Kokomo affair.
"I have to assume they were carefully trained for the journey to apostasy."
Definitely they were trained for apostasy, or at least have support from the top for any deviations that they make. The system threatens them with severe sanctions if they do otherwise. Obviously Jeske has special dispensation of some kind.
Good afternonn Pastor GJ! I started typing this comment yesterday, but I had to wash dishes and do other "women's" work.
This is the piece on Dr. C.F. Little's Disputed Doctrines. Koehler, who wrote A Summary Of Christian Doctrine, used Little as a source. Here is the statements on Justification from Little's book from 1933:
"Objective Justification may be described as God's declaration of amnestyof the world of sinners on the basis of the vicarious obedience of Christ, by which He secured a perfect riteousness for all mankind, which God accepted as a reconciliation of the worls to Himself, imputing to mankind the merit of the Redeemer."
"While this form of Justification is not what is usually understood by the term, it has abundant testimony from Scripture, as the following quotations will show.[KJV-Rom5:18-19, Rom4:25, 2Cor5:19, 2Cor5:21, 1John2:2] Subjective, or Personal or Individual Justification, or the act of God by which, out of pure mercy and grace for Christ's sake, He pronounces the believers free from guilt and punishment and actually clothed with the imputed riteousness of Christ while he is in a state of faith is the actual acceptance by faith of the Objective Justification."
"In the Gospel God announced to all men His grace and mercy in Christ offers to all who hear it the forgiveness of sins and merit of Christ, and actually operates these effects wherever they are not rendered void by obstinate resistance.[Formula of Concord, 2Thess2:10,13 , Rom1:16, Matt23:37, Luke19:41-42] If personal or Subjective Justification is the acceptance by faith of Objective Justification , it is manifest that is does not take place "in view of faith." Thus a synergistic view of Justification is avoided. This is the advantage in treating the subject under these two forms."
What is interesting is that Little does not use the term universal justification, although Koehler uses both terms. This being said about Little, he was orthodox in his teaching about Buchmanism and Lodge Membership. Briefly, Buchmanism is striving to be perfect like Christ, for example, The Salvation Army. As a Confessinal Lutheran, I will paraphrase and say that Little was "right on" on his statements convering lodge membership. I will continue to look for the sources that he used, as I was unable to see any listed. What gets me is in the second paragraph where little states that this form of justification is what is not usually what is understood by the term.(meaning it ain't in Scripture)
In Christ,
from WELS church lady
WELS lady,
There is no Formula of Concord REFERENCE given in the quotation you provided from Little (3rd para)
Can you please be be so kind as to re-look Little's work up again - just to check and see if a FoC reference actually was provided by Little? (Thanks !)
Dear Anon at 7:37p.m.
Very good observation! You are right. Little only "NOTED" the FoC(or using his abbreviation, CF);however, he failed to include an actual statement. I also found that rather odd. That's the whole issue with these writers trying to say that the Foc or Bible says something that it does not "really" say. You may want to go to the Disputed Doctrines Book on-line.(key in DR. C.H. Little disputed doctrines and the first choices will get you to the book)
Correct me if I am wrong, but I assumed that "CF" ment FoC, being that it was inserted were the Biblical souces were indicated.(there is no biblical book with the name CF, then I thought, oh, he must mean the FoC) I hope this clears things up.
In Christ,
from WELS church lady
To follow up on the point made by the WELS church lady, the WELS UOJ theologian Siegbert W. Becker made these statements in his often quoted essay on Justification:
Siegbert W. Becker on the first Kokomo Statement, "1) Objectively speaking, without any reference to an individual sinner’s attitude toward Christ’s sacrifice, purely on the basis of God’s verdict, every sinner, whether he knows it or not, whether he believes it or not, has received the status of a saint."
Becker, "One really becomes a guilt-free saint only through faith, if we limit ourselves to the biblical usage of the word. However, since our holiness, as Augustine says, consists in sin’s remission rather than in life’s perfection, we could say that when God forgave the sins of the whole world he regarded all sinners as guilt-free, but if they are guilt-free we might also say that they are considered sinless in the sight of God. But a sinless person is a holy person, a saint. The fact that unbelievers do not consider themselves to be forgiven does not change the truth of God’s Word that tells us that God does not impute the sins of all men to them, or that through one man justification has come upon all men." Page 14
Note how Becker is unable to support his false doctrine if he limits himself to the Biblical usage of the word. So he doesn't, and neither do the false teachers in WELS who sow the wicked seed within Christ's Church.
One class of rotten apples damaged the entire synod.
"Wayne Mueller and David Valleskey were in the faculty line-up for the first time 1985, so CG advocacy preceded their teaching."
Mueller and Valleskey still remain culpable. Do not give them a get-out-of-jail-free card.
To WELS church lady,
Thanks for your reply of January 25th, and for the attempt to clear up "CF".
You did say "Correct me if I am wrong, but I assumed that CF meant F o C (for Formula of Concord).
Briefly, your assumiing that Little's use of "CF" MUST stand for for Formula of Concord was incorrect.
In fact "cf" has a lower case, rather than uppercase "CF" as was last reported by you..
And "cf" is actually the abbreviation for the word "compare".
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