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Wisconsin Lutheran College said Vice President Mike Pence won't serve as the school's commencement speaker Thursday after "careful consideration of the escalating events in Kenosha." The college, which is in Milwaukee, said it has chosen Rev. Mark Jeske of St. Marcus Lutheran Church as a substitute speaker for Saturday's event. During his acceptance speech Wednesday night, Pence made reference to the unrest in Kenosha. "Let me be clear: the violence must stop – whether in Minneapolis, Portland, or Kenosha," Pence said. "Too many heroes have died defending our freedoms to see Americans strike each other down. We will have law...

STATEMENT ON THE ANTICHRIST Introduction to the StatementAs Martin Luther grew in his appreciation of the gospel, he also grew in his recognition that the Papacy is the Antichrist. A 1954 WELS pamphlet entitled Antichrist put it this way: “It was because Luther cherished the Gospel so dearly that his faith instinctively recoiled and protested in unmistakable terms when the Pope put himself in the place of Christ and declared His work insufficient and in vain. That is the use to which Luther’s faith put the prophecy of Scripture. For him the tenet that the Pope is the Antichrist was...

Since shortly after its formation in 1988 the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been fixated on deviant sexual behavior, culminating in the endorsement of homosexual pastors in 2009, homosexual “marriage” in 2011, and the election last month of their first homosexual bishop. Dr. James Nestingen, a highly respected scholar and retired ELCA seminary professor, recently concluded that promoting acceptance of deviant sexual behavior has actually replaced the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the primary mission and message of the ELCA. Those within the ELCA demanding these radical changes asserted it is necessary for the ELCA’s very survival. Supposedly, they...

Michele Bachmann Leaves Church Accused of Anti-Catholic Bias By James Oliphant July 15, 2011 Taking a page from President Obama’s political playbook, Michele Bachmann has formally left a church in Minnesota accused of holding anti-Catholic views. According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination. The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request...

An unusually ignorant story in The Atlantic--with a completely misleading headline—questions the religious affiliation of Rep. Michelle Bachman Republican presidential candidate. Bachman was—but no longer is—a member of a Minnesota Lutheran congregation that belongs to the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod. The latter, a theologically conservative group, teaches that the Roman Catholic Church embodies the spirit of Antichrist—although a representative of the group reports that this view is rarely expressed today. Columnist Joshua Green asks whether Catholic voters will find Bachman’s beliefs offensive. But Bachman herself never professed that belief. When questioned about it, she repudiated it, and said that she...

....some of my colleagues in the world of Catholic media, journalism and the Press have attributed the positions of this Church and Bachmanns past membership to just "being a Protestant." As someone who has worked ecumenically for decades I reject that dismissal. The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod does not represent many Protestants. It is an Anti-Catholic body. ....I have worked with, prayed with and collaborated with MANY Protestant Christians, for over three decades, who would NEVER call the successor of Peter the Antichrist. The colleagues to which I refer go further, they seemingly accept the notion that if Protestant Christians...

Aug. 21, 2009 WELS president expresses regret at ELCA decision on gay clergy Milwaukee, Wis.—Rev. Mark Schroeder, president of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS), is expressing regret at the vote of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) convention regarding homosexual clergy. Friday, delegates approved a resolution committing the church to find a way for “people in such publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships” to serve as professional leaders of the church. “To view same-sex relationships as acceptable to God is to place cultural viewpoint and human opinions above the clear Word of God,” says Schroeder. “The Wisconsin Evangelical...

Did you know the Augsburg Confession has its 475th anniversary in June? by Dr. Mary Jane Haemig WordAlone Board member Professor, Luther Seminary St. Paul, Minn. Why not mark the 475th anniversary of the Augsburg Confession in your congregation or WordAlone group? On June 25, 1530, seven Lutheran princes and two municipal governments presented the confession to the emperor at Augsburg. To this day, Lutheran churches around the world are identified by their adherence to the Augsburg Confession. The ELCA Constitution states: 2.05. This church accepts the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a true witness to the Gospel, acknowledging as one...