This message was originally sent to the Issues Etc. studio on 9/18/2021. For anyone who questioned my zeal in tagging Rev. Wilken and Issues, Etc. on Twitter in stories of harm from the injections and new developments in what can properly be termed Covid Vaccine Syndrome, know that I took this to them privately first in the form of the below. To their credit, they were staunchly against gene juice mandates the entire time. Unfortunately, they have still never apologized to their listenership for statements made by themselves and their guests which suggested absolute safety and efficacy for these products.

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Dear Rev. Wilken,

In your interview with Dr. Jeff Barrows about the vaccine mandates, the doctor states that he looks at such mandates through an ethical lens, rather than a moral one. He goes on to articulate a position in which, in order to qualify as ethical, the positive brought about by a vaccine mandate must exceed the negative of stripping away consent.

For the doctor, the positive does not outweigh the negative, in a broad sense. However, if we grant his premise, there are tens of thousands of others who place a greater weight on public health than personal choice, for whom the scales would tip differently. Many of these are physicians like Dr. Barrows.

Who is the ultimate court of appeals in this weighing process? Are we at the mercy of what the most authoritative figure — the man with the highest medical, scientific, or political office in the room — decides carries the greater weight?

I am reminded of an authority figure named Caiaphas who also looked through an ethical lens, rather than a moral one, when he said, “It is better for you that one man should die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

This type of utilitarian ethic is widely practiced among atheistic regimes, and has been responsible for countless horrors in the 20th century alone. Mao’s China provides many stunning examples of the disasters that await when blind ideas about “scientific process” are combined with the best intentions of the sitting totalitarian regime.

The only instance I am aware of from scripture of the national mandate to “take your medicine” comes from Exodus chapter 32. In this case, the medicine — the dust ground from the golden calf — was a judgement. I wonder if, in the fullness of time, we will come to see these vaccines the same way?

For my part, if there is to be judgement, let it come in the form of COVID, because the reports I am seeing suggest that fleeing to the vaccine may invite a worse fate. In this I feel kinship with Jeremiah, who pleaded with his countrymen not to be afraid of the king of Babylon, but to trust that God would deliver them from his hand, rather than flee to Egypt. And who, in the end, was nonetheless compelled to accept the worse fate and die in Egypt because of his faithless kin.

Will these vaccines also be compelled — will this mandate stand — because of the faithlessness of American Christians?

In Christ,
Askeladd

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https://www.bitchute.com/video/fk4hePZJyl3O/

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To Rev. Wilken’s credit, he did have Dr. Peter McCullough on to represent the other side of the vaccine debate one-and-a-half years after his guests began promoting the products.

Rev. Mark Brown on Twitter muses that we are.

This chart intrigues me when I think of it in comparison to LCMS seminary grads. Back when I was in sem and we were ordaining a little over 200 a year, which at that time everyone important thought was too little, and I said it was still too many (1/xhttps://t.co/8EJjnPRmjX pic.twitter.com/aX0PazmZj9

— Mark Brown (@brownmp) February 12, 2022

I had this debate with a few pastors several years back myself. I had posted an article from one of the sems kvetching about low enrollment rates and how it meant we wouldn’t have enough pastors to meet demands and expressed disagreement. The ensuing discussion was lively.

Rev. Brown’s approach to the numbers in the above Tweet thread reveals something real. My approach went more at the demographics of the question of pastoral financial support, which he alluded to. My frustration was with the sems encouraging incredible financial debt with a visible collapse in the “industry” so to speak. At the time this was exacerbated by my then-recent experience of having toured one sem with my family, after having been accepted (I ultimately declined). During the campus visit, my wife subject to multiple sales pitches for the deaconess program. My son was 3. How they thought it was a good idea to graduate a family with two loads of school debt and a young child into the pastorate I have no idea.

At any rate, I saved my closing argument from the above-mentioned debate, which I post below. I hope Rev. Brown’s musings gain some traction — we need to look seriously at what position we are graduating pastors into and course-correct accordingly, or we’re dooming a non-zero percentage to fail.

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Keep in mind this is circa 2019. The situation has materially worsened since then given inflation and other COVID inspired trends.

I think Pastor X’s back-of-the-napkin math makes sense on paper as a snapshot [of how abundant financial support for our pastors can be achieved even in small congregations of ~70 people], but it got me thinking. In the long run I don’t think it works to perpetuate a need for a roster of pastors at the current size.

Let’s extend the argument this way by looking more closely at the ostensible demographics of those numbers. I’ll run a scenario using the numbers provided with the variables in a very optimistic set up.

70 people. 28 households.

20% elderly married

14 people across 7 households of 2 adults

20% never married or widowed/divorced (old and young alike)

14 people across 14 households of 1 adult

60% married with children 

42 people across 7 households of 2 parents and avg 4 children

That’s 4 x 7 = 28 children in the next generation. 

Let’s assume they all stay in this congregation, AND get all get married via missionary dating. 

That’s 28 married (ostensibly with children) households in the next generation. A 4x increase – a strong growth trend. They’ll need more pastors if they each have 4 children as well.

More conservatively, what if they each stay in the congregation but marry amongst one another? That’s still 14 married (ostensibly with children) households in the next generation. A 2x increase. Very, very healthy demographics.

But what if we start tweaking the above variables to match what we actually observe?

Firstly, the % elderly households will have to increase (decreasing married with children households proportionally). America’s demographics are heavily slanted toward the aged baby boomers, and in the church this seems to be even more exaggerated – at least according to my anecdotal experience. In rural congregations (as this scenario likely represents) that’s even more true.

And, as the proportion of seniors goes up, the proportion of households on a fixed income goes up. I’m not familiar with the giving habits of seniors, but even if they are tithing 10% monthly they are almost certainly below the median income. This weights the average tithe lower. Maybe they make up for it when they die by leaving something to the church. Maybe not.

Meanwhile, the marriage rate in the US is way down, especially in peak-fertility years. Divorces are up. This increases the non-married household %, and again decreases married with children households proportionally.

Among married households, the fertility rate is down.

The total fertility rate was 1.73 births per lifetime of a given woman in 2018. Unless you have a few Preus’s in this congregation, 4 kids per married household avg is untenable. Maybe 2 avg at best. Enough to replace the parents as they age, but not a growth trajectory like above.

But it gets worse, because out of those kids there will regrettably be some who leave the faith completely. There will be some who stay in the faith, but (seeing as this is, again, likely a rural congregation scenario) move to greener pastures for education and employment opportunities. They will boost attendance at some city church, but not this one.

Some of them will not get married. Out of the ones that get married, their fertility rate will likely remain close to the national average, give or take.

And so on.

Taken altogether, this congregation can dig deep to keep a full time pastor employed right now – but it can’t last based on the demographics. Not unless there are enough unchurched people in the community to be missionaries to and bring more in that way.

One last note: the 10% tithe is becoming harder and harder. As of 2017 69% of Americans have less than $5000 in savings. The majority of that have less than $1000. Several reasons exist for this, but we should remember that the people who earn above the median tend to be more educated/credentialed, which means that they also have student debts eating into their budgets. Counting on them to pull the average donation up (from the retirees ostensibly weighting it down) seems dubious.

Also, increasing healthcare premiums are increasing budgetary strain across the board. I remember a Lutheran Witness article a few Novembers back whinging about the decrease in giving. The graph that accompanied the article had a downward trendline that matched the implementation of Obamacare and subsequent annual premium increases. The article did not even mention this fact, and (if I recall correctly) just concluded that we don’t know why giving is down, but people need to realize how important the mission of the Church is and up their tithes accordingly.

The overall point is that we live in a post-Christian, fragmented (even collapsing) society. The answer is not “spend our way out of it” – be it spending on seminary education or what have you. I believe that there is a cost/benefit calculation being run in the heads of all would-be seminarians (of which there are not just a few), concluding that the market cannot bear the number of graduates that the sem(s) think we should have. They see (for instance – and this is not exhaustive) that it is currently a congregation’s market, not a pastor’s market (with the exception of pastors with large media platforms), which allows the congregations more power to set the terms. This means that pastors who want to use their credential (and might not have other trades to fall back on) are too easy to take advantage of. Other reasons could also be expounded on.

Thus, I see the decrease in sem entrance as a welcome market correction. The sem does not like this because it cuts into their business model, which involves pushing as many (qualified?) people through as the infrastructure can withstand. That’s not to say that we don’t need more pastors coming into service as others retire and die, but it is to say that the market dynamics cannot be isolated to sem admissions and calling congregations. Not at all.

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The pastor in question’s conclusion after seeing the above?

“Well, we might have to get comfortable with bringing back circuit riding.”

I agree.

Update: As of 2023, he is now pastoring 4 congregations which cannot individually afford a full time pastor.

He said to the crowd: “When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, ‘It’s going to rain,’ and it does. And when the south wind blows, you say, ‘It’s going to be hot,’ and it is. Hypocrites! You know how to interpret the appearance of the earth and the sky. How is it that you don’t know how to interpret this present time?”

Luke 12:54-56

LCMS President Rev. Matthew Harrison released the denominational leadership’s official statement on the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on October 1st, 2021. With that, it is time to pronounce the failure of the Synodical Leaders and Tastemakers (SLT) to interpret our present time as complete.

We currently exist in a state of cold war between the oligarchic Elites, hell-bent on reshaping the world according to their well laid plans, and the people of the nations over which these elites hold sway. We are propagandized daily with messaging designed to move us into the next phase of existence.

At the center of this propaganda is one core idea:

You do not belong to God. You do not belong to yourself. You belong to this world, and to its Masters.

As subjects to this conditioning, we are increasingly seeing justifications for CCP-like social credit systems in the West, with the inevitable goal of rationing resources for those who are compliant with Elite rule. The cancel culture that was formerly laughed at as a simply online phenomenon has spread, as “conspiracy theorists” predicted, to banks and payment processors. There is a perceptible squeeze taking place around those who object to the new mode of being which we are seeing ushered in. The Powers That Be are whittling down the avenues for dissent and, thus, escape from the new system being brought online before our eyes.

Now, enabled by the constant and heavy seeding of fear of COVID-19, the propaganda campaign has advanced to the next node of its journey. At this juncture, we are supposed to be convinced that violating the bodily rights of our neighbors is a moral necessity. Such a necessity, in fact, that those who will not submit to injection by a dubious and novel agent — one which is purported only to lessen individual risk of adverse outcomes, not prevent spread of contagion — must be compelled to submit by stripping them of their livelihoods until they bend the knee and roll up the sleeve.

After all, your body belongs not to God. Nor to you. It belongs to the community, which is to say, the world. 

Which is to say, the Elite.

But, given the chance to stand against this tide, to shout to the rulers of this world…

No. Our bodies are temples of the Holy God. 

Any administration of a compound with:

1. Zero history of either safe or effective use
2. Which many of our members find morally repugnant on the basis of a commitment against self-harm informed by the 5th Commandment
3. As well as a commitment against abortion also informed by same

against the will of the person and under heavy coercion is condemned by our church body as damnable and Satanic. We hereby announce the members of the LCMS as religiously exempt from COVID-19 “vaccine” (so-called) mandates, as required by obedience to God.

…our SLT have instead taken a collective step back from those of us who say, here I stand, I can do no other than refuse this injection.

I can accept that some have made the personal choice to overrule conscience and common sense to accept this injection. I understand that fear is compelling, and marketing powerful.

But for the SLT to fail to speak against these mandates — which are even against the secular Nuremberg Code (printed below), to say nothing of the above Christian justification — as an unjust imposition upon the consciences of LCMS members defies easy, much less comfortable, explanation.

So too does the failure to denounce these mandates for their murderous intent — attempting to cut conscientious objectors off, as they do, from gainful employment and, thus, the right given by God to work that we may eat — make one question just how spiritually asleep the SLT must in fact be.

This question derives, of course, from the best construction.

Even without an answer, and even acknowledging Harrison’s playing at concern for the Constitutionality of these mandates where churches are concerned (his only objection, meekly proffered), one conclusion is unavoidable: the SLT has utterly failed to exercise their role to feed Christ’s sheep. Instead they stay silent as the sheep are denied pasture for the crime of remaining “unvaxxed”, in accord with their consciences before God and their duties before their kin to act wisely in the preservation of their bodies and health.

They have failed to interpret this present time.

They have failed Christ.

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The Nuremberg Code (1947)

(Emphasis per Ann Barnhardt)

Permissible Medical Experiments

The great weight of the evidence before us to effect that certain types of medical experiments on human beings, when kept within reasonably well-defined bounds, conform to the ethics of the medical profession generally. The protagonists of the practice of human experimentation justify their views on the basis that such experiments yield results for the good of society that are unprocurable by other methods or means of study. All agree, however, that certain basic principles must be observed in order to satisfy moral, ethical and legal concepts:

1. The voluntary consent of the human subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of choice, without the intervention of any element of force, fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding and enlightened decision. This latter element requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative decision by the experimental subject there should be made known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the experiment; the method and means by which it is to be conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be expected; and the effects upon his health or person which may possibly come from his participation in the experiment.

The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates, directs, or engages in the experiment. It is a personal duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to another with impunity. (“I was just following orders” is NO DEFENSE. Every person who participates in this in any way is guilty of capital crimes against humanity.)

2. The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful results for the good of society, unprocurable by other methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary in nature.
3. The experiment should be so designed and based on the results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the natural history of the disease or other problem under study that the anticipated results justify the performance of the experiment.
4. The experiment should be so conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental suffering and injury.
5. No experiment should be conducted where there is an a priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
6. The degree of risk to be taken should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian importance of the problem to be solved by the experiment.
7. Proper preparations should be made and adequate facilities provided to protect the experimental subject against even remote possibilities of injury, disability or death.
8. The experiment should be conducted only by scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of skill and care should be required through all stages of the experiment of those who conduct or engage in the experiment.
9. During the course of the experiment the human subject should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if he has reached the physical or mental state where continuation of the experiment seems to him to be impossible.
10. During the course of the experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith, superior skill and careful judgment required of him, that a continuation of the experiment is likely to result in injury, disability, or death to the experimental subject.