The material on this post can be shared freely, without asking permission. I have put this together to promote the great doctrine, praise, and comfort hymns of Paul Gerhardt.

Bethany Lutheran Worship, 7PM  

• Words are linked on the hymn number.
• The melody is linked on the hymn name.

My Lutheran Hymnal contains lyrics only in historical order, arranged by author.

Worship and Praise

TLH#25 – I Will Sing My Master’s Praises

Advent

TLH#58 – O Lord How Shall I Meet Thee – Advent

Christmas

TLH#77 – All My Heart This Night Rejoices

TLH#81 – O Jesus Christ, Thy Manger Is

TLH#90 – Come Your Hearts and Voices Raising

TLH#108 – We Sing Immanuel, Thy Praise

New Year

TLH#122 – Now Let Us Come Before Him

Lent

TLH#142 – A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth

Good Friday

TLH#171 – Upon the Cross Extended

TLH#172 – O Sacred Head Now Wounded

Easter

TLH#192 – Awake My Heart with Gladness

Pentecost

TLH#228 – Oh Enter Lord Thy Temple

The Redeemer

TLH#349 – Jesus Thy Boundless Love  

Cross and Comfort

TLH#520 – Commit Whatever Grieves Thee – Sacred Head

TLH#523 – Why Should Cross and Trial Grieve Me?

TLH#528 – If God Himself Be For Me

Evening

TLH#554 – Now Rest Beneath Night’s Shadow

Harvest and Thanksgiving

TLH#569 – O Lord, I Sing with Lips and Heart

The Nation

TLH#581 – All Ye Who on Earth Do Dwell

Death and Burial

TLH#586 – A Pilgrim and a Stranger

Evening and Morning, Sunset and Dawning – Not in TLH, but the hymn is in other Lutheran hymnals and very popular.

Below is a great Gerhardt hymn in German. I have not found it in English.

Paul Gerhardt was born in 1607, and grew up in the era after the Book of Concord (1580). The Calvinists worked hard to suppress Lutheran doctrine. He studied to be a pastor at Wittenberg, with good orthodox professors. One of them had a habit of combining sermons with hymn texts.

Gerhardt graduated in 1642 but did not receive a pastoral call until 9 years later. During that time his poetic talents were discovered and he began working with another person on hymns. He was a tutor for the children in one family, which explains his choice of child-like terms and vivid picture language. That is somewhat obscured by the stuffy translations of his hymns into English. See A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth – the “bark” was a “little ship” in German. “To and fro” in German was “zum und zum.”

Gerhardt was known for being an orthodox, Book of Concord pastor, but the Calvinist elector wanted peace between the Calvinists and Lutherans. As a result, Gerhardt was forced out of his Berlin call, where he was loved and respected by both sides. He had to get by for a year in Berlin without a call, then was in limbo entirely. Finally he had a call to a difficult parish where he lived and worked until he died.

More details about Gerhardt’s life can be found here. – 

Three of his five children had already died in infancy, and now he lost one of his two remaining sons, the child on whose death he wrote his touching hymn,

“Thou’rt mine, yes, still Thou art mine own,”

while his wife, worn out by sorrow and anxiety, fell into a long and slow decline. When she died, Gerhardt was left with only one child, a boy of 6 years. Many of his most beautiful hymns were written at this time, and among others, “If God be on my side.”

The Lübben congregation commissioned a life sized painting of him for the church where it still hangs. Beneath it one can read the inscription, “Theologus in cribro Satanae versatus” (“A theologian sifted in Satan’s sieve”).
As a poet he undoubtedly holds the highest place among the hymn-writers of Germany. His hymns seem to be the spontaneous outpouring of a heart that overflows with love, trust, and praise; his language is simple and pure; if it has sometimes a touch of homeliness, it has no vulgarism,1 and at times it rises to a beauty and grace, which always give the impression of being unstudied, yet could hardly have been improved by art. His tenderness and fervor never degenerate into the sentimentality and petty conceits which were already becoming fashionable in his days; nor his penitence and sorrow into that morbid despondency which we find in Gryphius, and for which the disappointments of his own life might have furnished some excuse.
If he is not altogether free from the long-windedness and repetition which are the besetting sins of so many German writers, and especially hymn-writers, he at least more rarely succumbs to them: and in his days they were not considered a blemish. One of his contemporaries, a certain Andreas Bucholz, who wrote a great deal of religious poetry which was then highly esteemed formally announces in his preface that he has spun out his poems as long as he could, for he observed that when people were reading sacred poems at home, they preferred long ones.
Gervinus, a severe judge of sacred poetry in general, says of Gerhardt: “If one man among the poets of the seventeenth century makes an attractive impression on us, it is Gerhardt. He recurred, as no one else had done, to Luther’s genuine type of the popular religious song, only with such modifications as the altered circumstances demanded.In Luther’s time the old wrathful, implacable God of the Romanists had assumed the heavenly aspect of grace and compassion; with Gerhardt the Merciful and just One is a loving and benignant Man, whom he addresses with reverential intimacy. With Luther, it was the belief in free grace and the work of Atonement, in the Redemption which had burst the gates of hell, which inspired the Christian singer with his joyous confidence; with Gerhardt it is his faith in the love of God.

https://www.hymnsandcarolsofchristmas.com/Hymns_and_Carols/Biographies/paul_gerhardt.htm

TLH#349 – Jesus Thy Boundless Love   
                       
TLH#142 – A Lamb Goes Uncomplaining Forth

                 
The Lection                            The Passion History

TLH#171 – Upon the Cross Extended                   

Gerhardt – Confession and Bearing the Cross

TLH#528 – If God Himself Be For Me

verses 1, 11-15


The Prayers

The Lord’s Prayer

The Collect for Grace                                            p. 45

TLH#554 – Now Rest Beneath Night’s Shadow

Those Days on the Farm

Those Days on the Farm – Norma A. Boeckler – Print Version

Those Days on the Farm – Norma A. Boeckler – Kindle e-Book

Norma A. Boeckler is our artist-in-residence at Bethany Lutheran Church. This is her art website.

A number of people have asked me, “How do you know Norma Boeckler?” That happened again in Perryville, Missouri, when the LCMS pastor asked that question. She is a member of our congregation and lives in Midland, Michigan, where we also lived for six years. However, we did not know her at that time.

Various events among Lutherans led a number of us to form an independent Lutheran congregation. Norma is not only our member, but also our artist-in-residence, designing the covers and interiors of our books, providing an endless number of Scripture illustrations for those books, the classes I teach, and her Facebook audience.

My wife Christina thought I was a city guy until I suddenly identified the inner farmer in me, during our years in Midland, 1982-1987, devoured the organic gardening books at Grace Dow Library, and began writing about the subject.

This is Norma Boeckler’s garden in Midland, Michigan. Her Amazon page is here.

Books about growing up on a farm fascinate me, and they should interest everyone, because America was once mostly rural. I encouraged Norma to carry out her intention to write this – and soon it was done.

Those Days on the Farm is a portrait of family farming. I considered a stay at the farm of my Uncle Howard Noel and Aunt Grace quite a treat when I was growing up. The memories – and farm equipment – in this book are familiar to me and stir up  many happy memories.

Another treat in this book is not only the past but the present of the farm. Norma’s sister took over the farm and transformed it in various ways, so the past has merged into the present.

The first story tells how Norma did not like milking, so her sister got to do that work. Norma stayed in to do the kitchen work, so one day her sister Marian kept ordering pancake after pancake, to get even. They still laugh about that episode.

Some memories are not pleasant. The barn burned down and Norma watched the tragedy unfold from a block away, while she was at school. A greater sadness is the loss of her mother when Norma was only one year old. From that loss came a lot of time spent drawing and the unfolding of many different creative talents.

Norma’s father worked at Dow Chemical, headquartered in Midland, Michigan, and the family farm at the same time. Many with small farms did the same, keeping a non-farm job to produce cash year-around. That meant everyone had work to do, but the children growing up this way learned many skills, developed a can-do attitude, and still had time to play in idyllic surroundings.

The loss of practical knowledge about God’s Creation is obvious everywhere. I bought two Salvia plants for for their appeal to bees. There were on clearance at Walmart because the poor things were almost dead. I told the cashier, “I will revive them in rainwater.” Cashier, “Rainwater, as in water than fell as rain? How do you do that?” I told her, “Buckets catch the rain from the roof and I use that to revive plants and strengthen special plants.” Cashier – “How does that work?” I explained, “The rain contains natural fertilizer and no bleach.” She said, “Bleach?” I went on to say, “Yes, they use chlorine gas to purify tap water, but rain water is free of that and works better. Tap water is OK, but rain is the best.” Cashier – “And you think that will work?”

One Midland farmer told me, “I pity the children who never grew up on a farm. There are countless lessons no one could ever teach them in school.”

That is why Norma Boeckler is an artist of God’s Creation. She grew up surrounded by the beauty and realities of the farm, and that became the foundation for all her work.

One of my jobs on the farm was watching the cows graze in a field without a fence several days a week. As a budding artist, I saw many interesting wild flowers and trees in the field that I could spend time drawing. Putting my imagination to work, I created pictures, using old pieces of slab wood left behind from the old saw mill. They worked perfectly as a drawing board. And I used old rotted stump pieces that had turned to chalk for drawing.

Boeckler, Norma. Those Days on the Farm (p. 3). Kindle Edition.

Most people will smile warmly as they read this book. Most of us drawing some kind of retirement had far more experience outdoors than the kids today. One neighbor shook her head in wonder at me when I walked our dog Sassy on a cold, snowing, icy day. Living in Arkansas means hiding inside until the snow melts.

Children stay indoors when it is too cold and also when it is too hot. I know the weather is perfect when children are playing outdoors. But that obscures the changes caused by the weather and lessons learned from the definite signs and warnings of Creation.


Explanations – Like the Separator

The separator machine, was a needed item on the farm that I learned how to use. It had a large metal bowl and two separate spouts, the milk would be poured into the separator bowl, and the handle had to be turned for a long time, until finally, the cream would separate from the milk and come out its spout into a cream can and the skim milk came out the other spout into another can. They call that centrifugal force.

Boeckler, Norma. Those Days on the Farm (p. 4). Kindle Edition.

I remember Aunt Grace showing me the separator on their farm. She was amused that I thought she was giving me cream on my cereal. That was whole milk! My mother loved whipped cream but she thought skim milk was better for us children. Aunt Grace learned how much I loved cream, so I  had cream on my cereal every day after that. Grace was correctly named, because she smiled all the time, patient and understanding with her city-slicker visitor.

Norma has combines her memories of the separator with its origin and the general work involving the dairy cattle. They even had a butter churn to turn the cream into butter. Photographs make the book even more interesting.

The Farm Continues
One of the best parts of the book is the continuing story of that farm, since Norma’s older sister Marian bought the farm and worked it with her husband until he passed away. Now the farm itself is rented out and the new home is remodeled for current needs. The original farmhouse burned down from an electrical problem.

Valuable History
This personal history will always be valuable to Midland historians and Norma’s extended family. Most of us do not have that much information about where our parents worked and grew up.

Norma’s early adult life is also interesting. She met Walter Boeckler, a scientist at Dow Chemical. Together they built the home she lives in now. Walter and Norma supported Lutheran congregations in the area and generously helped the start of independent congregations.

Norma has been invaluable with all of my Amazon books, and she has a list of her own here.

Those Days on the Farm will make a wonderful gift for family and friends at Christmas. Anyone who enjoys farm nostalgia will appreciate the memories and feel the paradoxical joy and sadness of reliving those days.

Born forgiven? Cascione adores UOJ dogma, the wackier, the better.

Doctor David Scaer writes
a sympathetic review of “Martin Stephan: The Other Side of the Story or At Least Part of It” in the October 2008 issue of The Concordia Theological Quarterly. <I embedded the actual link to the Scaer article.

Scaer may be even more full of himself and his dogmas than Cascione. We will let God sort that out.

Stephan was the leader of
approximately 700 Lutheran
colonists who migrated from
Dresden, Germany in 1839 to
flee religious persecution and
founded what would eventually
become the Lutheran
Church-Missouri Synod.

GJ – False. Stephan was not being persecuted. He was under house arrest and had no career left after his adulteries and financial misdeeds became known to the court system.

Their leader, the orthodox
Stephan, fell victim to the demonic
teaching that pastors
rule the congregation by divine
right. He taught that his
decisions were God’s decisions.
He used the colonists’
and their assets for his own
lavish life style. When it was
discovered that eight unmarried
women had slept with
Stephan, they threw him out
of the colony.

Quenstedt seems to be arguing against Rambach the Pietist. He is certainly refuting UOJ.

Jay Webber, a Ft. Wayne graduate, favors Rambach over Martin Chemnitz.

GJ – False. Stephan was a Pietist of the worst sort – dictatorial, abusive, in constant pursuit of young women. Everyone knew it, but Walther still served as his enforcer and sycophant. Stephan taught Walther UOJ, which makes the bishop “orthodox” in the scale-covered eyes of Cascione.

Scaer wants us to look at
Stephan as more of a victim
than a villain. This approach
necessarily paints C. F. W.
Walther, the founder of the
LCMS, as the villain. Scaer
has never agreed with
Walther’s “Church and Ministry”
the consequent result
of Stephan’s removal from
the colony. From Scaer’s perspective,
all LCMS pastors
are victims of Walther’s “voters’
assemblies” who practice
voter’ supremacy, the only official
polity of the LCMS.

GJ – Jacky One-Note’s Chief Doctrine – the Voters’ Assembly is the Master, the Prince, the judge of all articles of the Christian faith – or unfaith in his and Scaer’s twisted opinion.

Scaer writes: “A certain
bias can be expected in a book
written by a descendant of its
subject, but in this case it is a
useful antidote in coming to
terms with a man who, in
spite of his infraction tilled
the ground from which the
LCMS sprang.”

Rather than say that
Stephan was wrong but that
Lutheran theology is correct,
Scaer tries to defend Stephan
while criticizing the very foundation of the LCMS.

GJ – The infallibility of Walther is hard to defend, especially since he wanted the early LCMS history hidden away and forgotten. Today’s LCMS misleaders do not seem to have read the Stephan book or Zion on the Mississippi or Servant of the Word. The Fuerbringer books? Nope. And worst of all, they have never comprehended Luther, Paul, or the work of the Holy Spirit.

Scaer writes: “When Pastor
Georg Loeber shared
Louise Guenther’s confession
with Pastors Keyl, Buerger,
and C. F. W. Walther, they
were embarrassed by their
published defense of their
bishop (May 4, 1839), which
they retracted on May 27.”
“Louise Guenther was unaware
that her private confession
had become the
reason for deposing Stephan
as Bishop.”

GJ – Zion on the Mississippi records the obvious – the confession story was a lie. The Walther gang admitted the lie, and anyone can guess that much about the bishop’s promiscuity. Stephan left Germany with his mistress in a cabin close by, but his wife and children – dying of syphilis – were left behind. Stephan and Louise sail away, sail away, sail away, enjoying an ocean voyage to the Promised Land, and there is something left to confess? Hahahahahahaha.

What Scaer doesn’t point
out is that Stephan was also
the victim of his own Sacerdotalism.
He claimed he was
the “Chief mediator of the
Means of Grace.” He made
everyone in the colony including
all of the clergy, swear an
oath of allegiance to him.

It is almost humorous to
read Scaer’s observation that
Stephan didn’t receive justice,
when it was Stephan
who claimed that he was the
judge of everything and
everyone in the colony including
their assets, by the divine
right of ordination. The misguided
clergy only practiced
the justice that Stephan
taught them.
Scaer writes, “These pastors
served as his accusers and judges in requiring him
to leave the community.”
Well, first, they were not pastors;
they were assistants to
Stephan. Stephan had so
much control over them their
sacraments were not valid
without Stephan’s permission.
After Stephan was deposed,
they realized that
none of them had valid calls.
They debated whether they
should go back to Germany or
invite Swedish Bishops to ordain
them.

GJ – Walther organized the mob that threatened Stephan’s life, kicked him outside his cabin, stripped him of his clothing, robbed him of his gold and land, and then took all his books and personal possessions. Except in the LCMS, that is not the way pastors deal with adultery. No, this was the convenient discovery – Stephan gave his syphilis to the young girls of the colony. He told them he controlled their spiritual lives and their bodies. Everyone went along with until the horrible disease became obvious. That is also why Stephan’s behavior was increasingly more bizarre and illogical.

Scaer’s sympathetic view
of Stephan ignores the fact
that as many as 25% of the
colony died from bad administration,
disease, and exposure
while Stephan insisted
that his house be completed
and including a wine cellar.

GJ – The real crime was teaching them the rationalistic Pietism of UOJ – universal forgiveness without that – that makes adultery so easy to ignore. Stephan killed more souls than people, and Walther carried out this demonic task of teaching against Luther in the name of Luther.

Scaer states that four
ships arrived but he doesn’t
mention that five had set sail
for America. They also
booked a cheap ship, the
Amelia, to save money and
125 of the colonists drowned
on the way to America. One of
those terrible attorneys Scaer
refers to as Stephan’s accuser, lost five children to disease,
following Stephan into
the wilderness.

GJ – The attorneys defended Stephan in court in Germany, but no one seems to remember that fact. They all knew what Louise and the other girls were to Stephan. 

Scaer writes: “At first
Stephan refused what he considered
an illegally constituted
tribunal, but in seeing
a mob armed with whips outside
his cabin, he acquiesced
and was deprived of his possessions.”
Scaer ignores the fact that
if these colonists had not
been Christians they most
certainly would have lynched
Stephan, and we doubt that
St. Louis authorities would
have done anything about it.

GJ – There he goes again. Walther’s merciful hand kept the murderous mob from mauling the bishop he helped install upon landing in America. But who organized the mob and left the pro-bishop people behind in St. Louis? Walther did. Hmm.

Scaer laments that the private
confession of Louise
Guenther should have been
privileged information and
facts of Stephan’s fornication
should have been kept secret.
Of course all of these young
girls were convinced that
they were honored by God to
have sex with, their
Bishop/cult leader.

GJ – Fake news from the 19th century. The private confession was invented to excuse the mob. Walther wanted the bishop’s job, the bishop’s land, and the bishop’s gold, and the bishop’s chalice. 

Scaer writes: “First, a confession
made privately to a
pastor is privileged information.”
In most cases I would
agree, but not when it places
the lives of the members and
the existence of the congregation
in jeopardy. Scaer uses
false ethics to protect the
clergy at peril of the church.

GJ – I long to study ethics under these two gasbags.

Scaer writes: “Though current
LCMS guidelines disallow
making confessions public, the deposal of
Stephan might be a warning
for some to withhold potentially
disastrous sins from
their pastor. What was then
considered a sacrament is
looked on with suspicions
now.” Just think of all the
honorable people who kept
quiet about Jim Jones.

Let the layman beware.
Even if the life and safety of
members and/or the congregation
are at risk, the LCMS
believes clergy indiscretions
about fornication, adultery,
and misappropriation of
funds should be kept confidential
because that’s the
way God wants it.

Fortunately, this was not
practiced by Walther and the
people who deposed Stephan
or else there wouldn’t be an
LCMS. When people can’t
trust their pastors the church
and Synod must die.

GJ – The dictatorial Cascione appeals to the laity, one of the ironies of this age of posing, primping, and pimping. What rescued the LCMS was a strong Luther element that evidenced itself in the outstanding German Luther edition – a work of art in printing. German Lutherans could and did read the original documents. Now the LCMS is devoted to Fuller, Willow Creek, and Kent Hunter clones of the same.

Scaer’s defense of successive
generations of the
Stephan family is completely
justified. We don’t practice
visiting the sins of the fathers
on the children.

Scaer calls the Lutheran
colony an experiment in communal
living and compares it
to Quakers in New Harmony,
Indiana, and Mormons in
Nauvoo, Illinois. What about
correct doctrine? Doesn’t that
count for anything?

GJ – Since you asked, Jack. How is Stephan’s dogma different from Walther’s, his disciple who covered for him until the time to replace Stephan came along?

I’ve been to New Harmony.
They practiced celibacy as
they waited for the end of the
world. Their false doctrine actually
led to the end of them,
not the end of the world.
What about Joseph Smith
who was shot and hung as a
horse thief in Illinois. He
wasn’t as fortunate as Martin
Stephan. Of course, Smith
practiced open polygamy
while Stephan kept things
quiet.

Now we get to the quote
that led Herman Otten to ask
me to take a look at Scaer’s
article. Scaer writes: “This is
the dilemma of any church
which sees itself as the true,
visible church on earth.”

GJ – The real issue is – when will the LCMS give back the chalice that Walther stole from Stephan and used in his church in St. Louis? The Stephan family would like it back, since it was a personal gift.

No, Scaer’s hatred of congregational
polity and affection
for Sacerdotalism, along
with the majority of the
Fort Wayne Faculty, is the
death knell of the LCMS.

GJ – Jack and Otten and Scaer did their best to kill the LCMS with UOJ and Church Growth. But the Gospel will survive the fools that attack Justification by Faith.

How much of a contributing
factor is a lack of trust in
the LCMS clergy to a consistent
loss of 25,000 to 35,000
baptized members a year?

GJ – It is not a loss to get away from abusive tyrants who teach against the Chief Article and call themselves “orthodox.”

The LCMS forefathers
would have had no trouble
sending Scaer, his cronies,
and the COP across the river
with Stephan for presenting
the warm and fuzzy side of
Martin Stephan. Just think
how talented and misunderstood
Pope Leo X, Benedict
Arnold, Napoleon, and Mussolini
really were.

GJ – Whoa, Jack. Go easy on the airplane glue. Open a window for a while and rethink this tirade. Walther and his mob made Stephan get even sicker, sleeping outside for the night, then forced him at gunpoint across the river (probably on a steamer). They gave him almost nothing and refused to help him at all afterwards. But they gleefully accused him of keeping a gold coin or two from what they stole. Even Servant of the Word, which promoted Walther for sainthood, had to admit the “stolen coins” story was another fib.

Walther’s mob reaped great rewards when they kidnapped Stephan and robbed him. But as, Cascione reminds us, it could have been worse. They could have given CFW a life-time subscription to Reclaim News.

The full color edition of The Sermons of Martin Luther, Volume II, is now published.

The author’s price is $21.57 without shipping and taxes, about 1/3 the retail price. Shipping goes up very little with multiple copies sent to the same address.

The Kindle e-book version of The Sermons of Martin Luther, Volume II,  is also available, and naturally, it is full color too. The Kindle costs $5.99.

The no-excuses edition of Luther’s Sermons, Volume II, black and white interior, is also in print now.

The author’s price is $4.40 without shipping and taxes, also about 1/3 the retail price. Shipping goes up very little with multiple copies sent to the same address.

The author’s price is much less than the retail, especially in the full-color version. I used the retail links because clicking on them will increase visibility on the Internet. Everyone has a book about Luther this year, but clearly, few are reading his sermons. The professors are the worst in this category.

Question – How do I get the books at the author’s price?


Answer – Tell me which volumes and how many you want, by email. I will order them and tell you the total. You may then send a check. You can add other titles from the Gregory L. Jackson author’s page.
Email – greg.jackson.edlp@gmail.com. Label the field – book order.
Include your mailing address in the email.

Posting a review will greatly increase the results of Google searches. Some are doing posting their reviews.

So will clicking on my Gregory Lee Jackson Amazon Author’s Page.

I will sending out copies of Volume II now. I was waiting for the black and white one to finish – another glitch – but settled. When all the print titles are done, the full color versions will be named

• The Sermons of Martin Luther on Amazon.

and the black and white student economy editions will be named

• Luther’s Sermons on Amazon.

Such love – for whatever is wrong.

WELS average attendance is under 150,000 or roughly 41.4% of their baptized
members.

WELSians love to say, with a smirk, “In our circles, it means…”

The hip WELS churches make the Resurrection of Christ all about the Easter Bunny. “Pet live bunnies!” Ask DP Kudu Don Patterson for tips.

Nida and Dynamic Equivalence – from 2011


Best Translations of the Bible – from 2018


From the “Intrepids” – WELS Makes It Official – NIV! – from 2015


Text Criticism Paved the Way for Bad Translations – from 2016


The Great Divide – See How New Testament Passages Are Erased – from 2017


Staggering Dishonesty


A Trio of Frauds, Tischendorf, Wescott, Hort – From 2016

The navigation for Defeat the New NIV Translation is linked here. 

Karl Barth – my conservative Calvinist professor friend wigged out when I called the Great Barth a fraud. More connections are linked here.

Biographies are fun to read. So are biographical novels and movies – like Cheaper by the Dozen – which move us to check out the actual facts. I just ordered the autobiography of Pioneer Woman, because she turned blogging into a national business and TV show. Some biographies are meant to be edifying – like Plutarch’s Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans.

Best of all are the hagiographies, which combine a smattering of facts with hilarious exaggerations. The term hagiography was first used about saints who were portrayed as nearly perfect and almost divine – to promote the income at Roman Catholic shrines and congregations. The Glories of Mary is a classic. Hagiographies have a certain style, which strikes the analytical historian as energetic, comical, and contrived. Walther biographies, like Servant of the Word, are excellent examples of this genre.

Charlotte Kirschbaum worked for pennies and did the most difficult research work for Barth, who was ill-equipped for his professor’s position. He plagiarized her work, giving her no credit and no salary, and he also plagiarized those who gave him extensive contributions, simply copying them into “his” Dogmatics. I blame Barth for Ski, Glende, and Engelbrecht.

Napoleon Hill and Karl Barth
Napoleon Hill is synonymous with the success, get-rich-quick, sales people. Some Napoleon Hill Foundation winners are Robert Schuller and Mary Kay, who won the honors for exemplifying the principles of that life-long criminal and self-centered fraud.

Karl Barth is doubtless the leading figure of Protestant and Catholic theology today. Former Barth Society President Frank Fiorenza taught in the 1970s at Notre Dame that Barth’s mistress wrote the small-print in the Dogmatics, and Karl the large print. But there is far more to the tale than that. Fiorenza is now at Harvard, enjoying an endowed chair, so his opinions did not hamper his academic career. He did not dedicate any volumes to his wife Nellie until his mistress Charlotte died. Understandably, Barth’s writing ended with the death of his mistress.

Robert Schuller claimed, with justice, to be the founder of the Church Growth Movement. Fuller Seminary, so close to Disneyland, became its academic center. Like Halle University, other cancerous Church Growth nodes have spread and lay claim to the same dogmas, but they remain centered, fostered, and festering at Fuller. No liberal activist mainline church leader is taken seriously unless he praises Walter Rauschenbusch, and no Evangelical or Lutheran leader is promoted unless he has been trained in some way at Fuller Seminary or its clones.

Valleskey and the rest of the liars are not Church Growth – oh no! But say one word against their precious dogma and they get out the Find him, Kill him! rubber stamp. I caught Waldo Werning lying about Fuller Seminary and he went nuts (behind my back, of course.)

The leadership of Fuller Seminary took their weak version of inerrancy and replaced it with Barth’s concept of the Bible “containing the Word of God” but “not being the Word of God.” Barth was a Universalist who did not even bother with the Subjective Justification evasion of Universal Objective Justification. I read and quoted Fuller’s repudiation of any form of inerrancy because they did not have time to quarrel about such topics when they had so much mission work to do. Doubtless my students of John’s Gospel in Greek would have much to say about that!

A WELS pastor who studied at Fuller Seminary wrote to me to say, “You were correct. Barth is the official theologian of Fuller.”

Hill
Napoleon Hill is especially significant because the anti-faith, marketing attitude of Fuller lives in perfect harmony with the dogma and deceptions of Napoleon Hill. If evangelism is nothing but salesmanship and persuasion, then the ultimate lying salesman is Napoleon Hill.

Hill changed his first name from Oliver to his middle name – Napoleon. Many people were looking for him in his early days of buying on credit, selling cheaply, and running away with the money. He was also known for keeping company with prostitutes. He married five times, treating his wives and his own children with great cruelty. He enjoyed being on the move and had to be, to avoid the people he swindled.

Probably no one can really discover what is the actual doctrine of Hill. Like Barth, he was a pompous and insecure plagiarist, who always put on airs about being a great genius. Some, like Nightingale Conant and W. Clement Stone, honestly claim to be Hill followers, but the canonical laws of success are endlessly repeated and recirculated. As Little Ichabod said to me, “There are 50 statements they all use.”

Hill began with the false claim that he interviewed Andrew Carnegie to learn the secrets of his success. Later, Hill added many other famous names to his list of successful Americans, all eager to teach him. But all Hill did was give Carnegie a medal, which the steel magnate returned to the little phony.

The official biography is full of hilarious quotations and claims from Hill, including a long passage at the end about what Carnegie supposedly said to him. The way other details are piled on reminds me of many other hagiographies, funny and sad at the same time. Hill never interviewed any famous person and he was not a counselor to several US presidents, as he claimed.

Some parallels in Walther hagiography – 

• “He did not sign the document making Stephan his bishop.”
• “Walther did not know about Stephan’s adultery until one woman confessed.” The confession legend was based on the woman who had a cabin near Stephan on the trip to America, while Mrs. Stephan was left in Dresden. Hanky-panky that no one knew about? Or a co-inky-dinky that they were dumb and mute until they had a chance to rob and kidnap their bishop-for-life?
• Walther allowed that Stephan’s marriage problems were the fault of his wife! Servant of the Word. Senator Franken take note.
• Walther said, “Stephan was a bit of a Pietist.” That claim overlooks Walther’s solid devotion to Pietism and cell groups.
• “Walther studied Luther!” At one time, every decent theology student did. Now they study Fuller and Barth.

The Think System
The Music Man has a great satire of Napoleon Hill and all lying salesmen in the great Think System promoted by Professor Harold Hill. Was the last name a coincidence?

The children do not need training in music, They only need “to think!” They think the song and out comes a horrid cacophony of burbling and honks. One mother shouts out, “That’s my Barney. That tuba’s my Barney!” She is pleased, weeping with joy.

Napoleon Hill’s famous best seller is Thing and Grow Rich. The book was largely written by his fourth wife. He assigned all royalties to her, so he could not be tapped for the money he owed to various creditors. They made a fortune, lost a fortune and a half. Then she sued him for divorce, took what Napoleon had left, and married the divorce lawyer.

Hill was broke but started over again, making a partnership with a leader in a small town, marrying a fifth and final time, and later partnering with W. Clement Stone, the insurance guru who stuck to Hill and became president of his foundation, modestly named The Napoleon Hill Foundation.

Barth used the same two-step to excuse his struggle with marriage versus love, and how he had to live with both – both concepts and both women. Barth’s mom called him an adulterer, so there we have it. The Church Growth pastors are known for the adultery and perversions. One pastor was a LCMS CG hero, arrested in a men’s restroom….

Bivens, like Valleskey, has two stories about Fuller. They went there and loved it – or they never went there.  That is a lie!

Some Fuller and Napoleon Hill Co-Inky-Dinks
Hill promoted the idea of master partnerships where both people help each other.

WELS pastors David Valleskey and Frosty Bivens were pals out West. Both went to Fuller Seminary and lied about it. Valleskey was first to become a professor at Mordor in Mequon. Then Bivens was nominated and became a professor too. Both were in the mould of Barth and UOJ. Master partnerships?

Master partnership?

I am not sure Barth’s reputation will suffer permanent harm from everyone knowing what was commonly discussed. After all, when he toured America with his mistress and stayed at someone’s home, he only needed on bedroom.

Nor has Fuller’s reputation for creating soap bubble congregations suffered much from reality.

The glorious founder of Church Growth, Robert Schuller, ended his career with no congregation and the entire church campus sold to the Roman Catholics, an act apparently done to spite him. Another offer was made to turn it into a secular academic campus.

Partners in crime – this makes Patterson so angry!

Soap Bubbles Pop
How many yuuuuuuuge congregations can be named where everyone scattered when the Church Growth pastor was discovered in flagrante delicto? My Wesleyan friend said his congregation of 2,000 was wrecked by one such minister with a great personality, a gift for embezzling, and a penchant for adultery. The scandals made it to the front pages of the local paper.

Of course, the Lutheran officials, so keen to protect their reputations, never admit to the smaller scandals that led to the bigger ones. As Gaylin Schmeling warned, glaring at me, “Airing dirty laundry hurts the face of the church.” So we must be enemies of the truth to promote the pristine reputation of doctrinal and marital adulterers?

Mark Jeske’s Cathedral
You’re bringing me down
You coulda been Lutheran
But now you’re a clown.

You could have shunned ELCA
But you didn’t try
You sold out to Thrivent
You built a pig sty.


Now everyone knows just how much we needed a church.
She wouldn’t have gone far downhill
If only you hadn’t acted like jerks.


Mark Jeske’s Cathedral
You’re bringing me down
You coulda been Lutheran
But now you’re a clown.

Loehe’s Other Seminary is headed by Louise Johnson, DD.

BREAKING NEWS – $50.5 MILLION IN GIFTS TOTAL – FOR UNITED, LUTHER, AND WARTBURG

Muslims Buy ELCA’s Pacific Lutheran Seminary

Zaytuna College Takes over ELCA’s Pacific Seminary – Video.

Louise Johnson, DD, Lands Grant To Shorten Stay at Wartburg

Summary of ELCA Seminary Shrinkage – It Will Only Get Worse

Pagan Blasphemous Worship at Luther Seminary – YouTube Link

ELCA Seminary Failures Should Raise Questions for the Others

WELS Dedicated to UOJ and Church Growth Long Ago

Rebuild the Lutheran Church by Disassociation with ELCA/Thrivent

Let’s Visit Another Failing ELCA Seminary – Trinity (Cap) in Columbus

ELCA Seminaries Disappearing – Fund-Raising Continues


Luther Seminary Thrilled and Excited To Sell Off Land

A Letter from Wartburg, ELCA’s Least Solvent Seminary

CLC (sic) Pastoral Installation Garb

History – United Lutheran Seminary Headed by Presbyterian Woman

New Fund-Raiser for ELCA’s Chicago Seminary – Lettuce Entertain You

The Two Canadian Lutheran Seminaries Are Shrinking and Backing Away from Their Original Mission

Latini, a former Associate Dean of Diversity, will use her Presbyterian wisdom to build up the Gettysburg and Philadelphia combined seminaries.

Most Viewed in the Last 30 Days – 

Summary

In 2009, ELCA voted itself into extinction. Thrivent has LCMS-WELS-ELS linked with them in every way.