The Nihil Rule

  For just over three years now (minus a summer off in 2023) I've been blogging twice a week, a quick hitter on Wednesdays and a more substantial post on Sunday. This has worked well; in fact I have at least a years' backlog of skeleton posts in draft that could be fleshed out.  My original intention with blogging was to dabble in writing and engage the creative side of my brain that often goes dormant, and I consider that a success. I'm going to tweak things in 2025. Many of my posts are "observe and report" with the occasional original content and going forward I'd like to stretch my brain by doing more long form original content, which takes time. What I'm thinking is a quick hitter each Wednesday and two Sunday posts a month, one along the lines of what you've come to expect and another hopefully longer form, creative post. Of course, if something "Woke in the WELS" caliber comes to my attention, it'll take pride of place and weekly p...

  Why the ESV Should Not Be Used At Christmas — Gottesdienst From a friend ... A nice article for Christmas day discussing how small changes in language can have large theological repercussions. Note that NIV11 suffers the same flaw as the ESV. Merry Christmas!

Professor Nichole LaGrow is Director of Non-Traditional Education and Professor of Education at Martin Luther College. Prior to joining MLC she was on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin - Green Bay. She recently gave a presentation at the 2024 Peralta Online Equity Conference, entitled When Equity is Fundamental: Building a Program with Equity at its Center . This presentation was heralded by InFocus magazine  on page 33, much like Prof. Schwartz' presentation on antiracism and BLM . Let's dig in, shall we? We get off on the wrong foot in the introduction, when Professor LaGrow shares her preferred pronouns and her intersectionalities ( 2m56s ).  The use of preferred pronouns is an affront to our God. When Jesus was asked about divorce in Mark chapter 10, He did not appeal to the law of Moses, or the institution of marriage, but rather to the creation account in Genesis chapter 1: "male and female, He created them". The fundamental principle behind marriage ...

I read Taboo, so you don't have to. "Before you assume, 'I'm not racist,' let's not make racism a black-and-white, yes-or-no issue any more than jealousy, pride, or impatience. Racism, like any other sin, is on a spectrum that stretches from pure godlessness to absolute holiness, from Hitler/slave traders on one end to Jesus on the other. The question, therefore, isn't 'Am I racist like Hitler?' Instead, it's 'How racist am I these days? How often do I prejudge people from other ethnic backgrounds? Where and when do I show favoritism based on the color of one's skin or the sound of one's accent?' " It's a neat trick to try and say that sin isn't "black and white." If it's black, we have to repent. If it is white, we are in the clear. If it's grey - then we find ourselves in a perpetual 'struggle session' questioning our status. We've heard other WELS pastors and presenters echo sentiment...

"Grok, generate an image based on this blog post" It's four years old, but I would endorse reading the whole thing.  Recognizing Critical Theory | Stand Firm (standfirminfaith.com) . I'll focus on two pieces. The first is the narrative: "In broad terms, the narrative tends to work along the following lines. The Gospel is less about God saving sinners from eternal condemnation through the righteous life, substitutionary death, and glorious resurrection of his Son than it is about God’s solidarity with the oppressed and his demand for justice. God identifies with the poor, the victim, the minority, the immigrant. God picked a particular group, the Jews, liberating them from slavery. He sent his prophets to speak truth to power, offending exploiters and giving hope to the exploited. He came in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, as an impoverished peasant, a refugee threatened by a murderous king, an immigrant born to an unwed mother. He sought social justice. He refus...

I read Taboo, so you don't have to. "You shouldn't publicly share your views on gay marriage. You shouldn't try to convince gay non-Christians to stop living like they are. There is a time, after lots and lots of love and lots and lots of gospel, when you can talk to your LGBTQ+ friends who profess Christianity about their biblical sexuality" So we see why Mike Novotny gave us poor advice last week : he inverts the proper ordering of law and gospel. Speratus, help us out! The law reveals the guilt of sin and makes us conscience-stricken; but then the gospel enters in the sinful soul to quicken. Come to the cross, trust Christ, and live; the law no peace can ever give, no comfort and no blessing. You cannot profess Christianity while living in active unrepentant sin. We have to be shown our sin before we recognize our need for a Savior. The WELS statement on human sexuality , Third Article, point 6, identifies this correctly:  We cannot accept that a Christian with...

Year C - Advent - A Real Christmas on Vimeo This post brought to you by the mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren. Take one minute and watch the teaser video for the current WELS-ordained sermon series "A Real Christmas." Pay attention to the signals we are sending. The scene opens with two children of differing race interacting with an Advent calendar. The words on the screen speak to guilt over not creating a 'perfect' Christmas. An almost faceless mother (we presume, based on the wedding band) a few shades darker is reading a Bible to her kids. Now let me be clear - I have no issue with interracial marriage or adoption. Both are free, but very serious choices for the Christian to make after careful and prayerful consideration that God's will be done. What I take issue with is the projection of values that our synod leaders criticize us for lacking, namely WELS Congregational Services is the same entity that distributes the WELS statistical summary...

  I read Taboo, so you don't have to. "[T]here's something I need to tell you about transgender people, something that deserves 110% of your attention, especially if you are a follower of God who loves the entire world. The experience of gender dysphoria is so agonizing that, according to the America Academy of Pediatrics, 42 percent of trans teenagers have attempted to kill themselves. Forty-two percent! And not just thought about it, but actually tried it. That means 42 percent of those precious souls have grabbed a razor blade or a bottle of pills or a gun and attempted to escape the brutal battle in their brains. The daily struggle of gender dysphoria is so heavy that trans teens will try to end their lives three times more often than their non-trans friends. I need you to understand that. Before you minimize this with some crude joke like, 'well, I'm identifying as a unicorn today,' before you post some snarky meme, remember those kids are killing themselv...

  MLC is at it again - or was at it again: I stumbled on a 2022 Open Learning seminar entitled " Ministering in an Age of Diversity " which ticks all the wrong boxes. Six presentations and at least four of them are deemed worthy of the title Woke in the WELS . Let's dig in! The first presentation is entitled "Theory to Practice: Navigating Through Today's Curriculum" by Dr. Kari Muente . We start out with a woke woke wordsalad par excellence : ...it is a continual practice and it is important that we are constantly reflecting on that practice and growing and as our WELS classrooms do become more academically culturally socially emotionally and linguistically diverse it is our responsibility to then go beyond just best practices but engage in evidence-based instruction and curriculum that ensures that all of our students have equal access to the curriculum... Around the 23 minute mark we are introduced to five philosophies of education ranging from perenniali...

I read Taboo, so you don't have to. "I'm not sure about Sodom, but the rest of Scripture is clear." On page 79, Mike Novotny wants to be too cool for school by attempting to disprove that the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah had anything to do with homosexual relations. Skip back a few pages and you'll find his reasoning. "Let's start with Genesis 19, the story of Sodom. Do you know it? Sodom stinks. God says its stench wafts up to heaven and turns his stomach. God send angels in disguise to investigate. A man named Lot welcomes them into his home, but that's when the men of Sodom pound on the door. "Where are those men?!" they demand. "Bring them out so we can have sex with them." When they try to break down the door, the angels step forward, strike the sex-crazed mob blind, and rush Lot's family out of Sodom just as fire falls from heaven and destroys them all. And if you grew up in church, that's all the proof you need...

(Dropping this at 4PM on a Friday is rather ominous) The Conference of Presidents (COP) has finished their work on a pastoral brief addressing Critical Theory and justice . (Note: the link is to my Google drive. The WELS distributed this initially to Pastors, and it will be published online next month.) The CoP is comprised by the Presidents of the twelve WELS districts and this document was authored by them and any consultants they chose to bring on. The impetus for this document was a memorial for the 2023 Synod Convention. Here is the original memorial as published in the BORAM : During the convention there was a fair bit of conversation on the memorial and it's wording. Much of the conversation belied a poor understanding of critical theory and social justice (although a few Pastors were very on point in their comments) and how it is affecting the laity. Ultimately the memorial was revised and accepted. The revised language follows: Comparing the two, you can see the 'mista...

I read Taboo so you don't have to. In chapter 9, Mike describes something that made him want to hide under a pew: "Our church invited a guest speaker to talk about his struggle with same-sex desires. The speaker was honest and vulnerable. He admitted that despite all the attempts, he couldn't pray the gay away. That's when an older Christian raised his hand. "Hiow can you feel that way?" he yucked. "I can't imagine feeling that way about another man."  We talked about homosexual ideation in our discussion on Video 1 when Ben told us that empathy necessitates putting ourselves in homosexual shoes and in Video 3 where Bill tells us that LGBTQ+ stories that are not in line with God's will and word are worth listening to. In both cases we appealed to Scripture - Psalm 1, where the blessed man is described as not walking in the counsel of the wicked or stands among the sinners, but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and likewise to Jude whe...

  Following on the heels of the recent  post on seminary accreditation , I received a copy of Knruxate , the annual magazine of Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary, which featured an article entitled  Commendation From Outsiders  offering Presidents Treptow's perspective on accreditation. The Lord's timing is fantastic as it offers me an opportunity to critique with the groundwork already laid (also, did you notice Let the Little Children Come to Me landed on Pentecost 20, which featured Mark 10:2-16? That wasn't planned, fam, but it gave me a smile during the Gospel reading. God is good!) One of the reasons Wisconsin Lutheran Seminary (WLS) decided to pursue accreditation was a desire to have outside eyes look at its overall program. The seminary’s governing board and the faculty, desiring to improve in their synod-assigned work of preparing men for service as pastors in WELS, sought out an accrediting agency to provide an objective assessment of the seminary’s work. An ob...

  I read Taboo, so you don't have to. Over the next few months I'm going to drip out midweek installments of Mike Novotny's Taboo. I do not recommend you read this book, and the posts here will help explain why. This week we'll kick it off with a softball anecdote from the last chapter of the book: "Earlier this year, I met a man who, along with his wife, worked for a pro-life ministry. He told me how they invited a young woman to stay in their guest bedroom while she got on her feet. But the girl liked to party and, one day, found herself pregnant." *record scratch* One does not go to a party and simply find herself pregnant  like catching the common cold. This soft-pedalling of sin particularly when it comes to LGBTQ and women is pervasive throughout the book. 

What follows is the skeleton for a blog post that, God be praised, I did not have to flesh out on Wednesday morning following the election. The outline shows a progression of starting with individual scriptures, using scripture to define principles, using principles to interpret biblical stories, and finally using our doctrinal statements (the least authoritative source of the four) to show the witness of the Scriptures is that a woman in authority is a sign of God's judgement. God be praised that we were spared the greater judgement by God in two of the last three election cycles.  Thesis: A vote for a woman President is a vote for God's judgment.  1. Biblical Admonitions We start with specific Biblical directives. a. God, in announcing His judgement on Judah: Isaiah 1:7 - the current immigration crisis is a sign of judgement Your country is desolate, Your cities are burned with fire; Strangers devour your land in your presence; And it is desolate, as overthrown by strang...