Ryan Turnipseed on Receiving the LCMS Major Ban

Conversations That Matter

Subscribe

Download

Share

00

00:09

Welcome once again to the Conversations That Matter podcast, I'm your host, John Harris. We have a reoccurring guest now.

00:15

I guess I can say that because Ryan Turnipseed, this is your, what, second or third time on the podcast? This will be my second time.

00:22

Thank you for having me. Welcome. Yes, welcome. I guess I've talked about you before, so this is the third time

00:27

I think I've talked about you on the podcast. You weren't here the first time, but this is important,

00:33

I think, for those who are in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church to understand what's going on in their denomination.

00:39

One of the things that's going on is you've essentially been excommunicated from the denomination.

00:46

Last time you were on, you were under the minor ban of discipline, which meant that the church you were at was,

00:52

I guess they had excommunicated you and were recommending that for the larger denomination, and now that's happened.

01:00

They actually gave some formal charges as to why, and so we're going to talk about that today because I think this is one of the examples of how, it's not just wokeness, right?

01:12

That word gets thrown around a lot, or social justice even, that's the problem in situations like this.

01:18

There is a, in any institution, and Christian institutions included, there seems to be a group of managerial elites who, they uphold a certain kind of orthodoxy.

01:28

It's not necessarily the orthodoxy of the confession in this case, and that surprises people that what we have, we have a statement.

01:35

You can't fall in violation of these things that we have said we believe, but you can be outside of that, but that's not the case in many of these institutions we found, especially since 2020.

01:47

LCMS, I suppose, is one of those, so I'm just going to let you tell your side of the story, why you've been excommunicated from the

01:54

Missouri Synod, and I know we went over a lot of this last time, because a lot of this, you know, what happened under the minor ban is now what's being used under the major ban, but I'll let you take it away.

02:06

So, how are you doing? How's life on the other side of an excommunication? Well, I have to say,

02:12

I have received a great amount of support from many, many different people, pastors, laymen, inside the

02:19

LCMS and outside the LCMS, people from across the country have reached out to me to express their support.

02:24

So, that has been vital, because, you know, if I had been taking some sort of stand against the large catechism and all this other stuff, which was the main impetus behind all of these happenings, and no one had responded to the call, then this would have all been in vain, so the people are actually paying attention, and that I can measure that by people even reaching out to me and saying that this is a fight worth having, but that's been hopeful to me personally, as well as sort of practically, so, you know, not only am

02:55

I receiving support for me, but also people seem to be energizing against their denomination getting subverted.

03:04

I'm not going to honey words here, but that's basically what this is, is a subversion of a denomination, and that's also why

03:11

I think this is important for other people, especially Protestants that are not in the LCMS, is that this is a very, very conservative denomination, or at least that was the reputation a couple of years ago, and this is, everything that's being done to me, and everything that's going on in this denomination is being done by the nominally conservative wing, so that's, hopefully this is of import to more people than just those in the

03:36

LCMS. Yeah, and you do have somewhat of a public voice, you have a large Twitter following, ex -following, and you're a young guy,

03:45

I mean, you're not even, you haven't made it through grad school yet, so you're, you've, I think you told me you just graduated, right, with your bachelor's degree.

03:53

Yep, just graduated and just turned 21. Yeah, so you're a young guy for this to be happening to, but you still have a support network, and I attribute that to, this is an interesting thing that maybe for a future episode

04:08

I could talk about more, I've noticed this for myself, though, dealing with the Southern Baptists, and the way that they operate, is, if you are a conservative in that denomination,

04:18

I mean, Orthodox, theologically conservative, and you see problems, especially regarding some of the more leftist leanings of the denomination that they've taken in certain respects, you find a lot more allies on the political right than you do in your denomination on the theological right, which is fascinating to me,

04:38

I found that to be the case, and I thought that, not to give, this isn't about me, but I think the same dynamic is at work here, that people in the denomination who are very conservative, very concerned about what's going on, are very reluctant to platform or offer support for people who are in the crosshairs of the denomination, there is some kind of groupthink going on where they, there's an element of control over them, and they don't want to suffer the consequences of defying their leaders.

05:06

But yet, on the political right, often you'll have people who, perhaps it's because they're outside the denomination, or they know what's at stake more often than not, they understand politics, and they know what's going on, and how this is a political move, and not just good brothers disagreeing over theology, they will give you a platform more often than not, so you could speak at their conferences, or hang out with them, or they'll encourage you, and you just, so it sounds like that same dynamic is what you found.

05:34

Right, and that's for a couple of reasons, like the silence can be benign sometimes, so it's not like they're trying to harm you or stifle you, especially, the

05:44

SBC is a little bit more confederal in structure, so maybe this doesn't apply over there, but in the LCMS, you know, if the

05:50

Senate targets a pastor, it would be a long, drawn -out battle, but they could just be screwed, basically, you know, they could be cut off from the

05:58

Senate, they could have their finances hurt, and all this other stuff, you know, there is actual harm that the

06:04

Senate could do to a pastor that steps out of line, if the Senate wanted to go after them, but also, there's a phenomenon in these conservative denominations, where they've sort of atrophied, you know, there were a bunch of battles against theological liberals in the last century, the 70s and the 80s come to mind, the conservatives won in a lot of these now conservative denominations, and what happened now is that, well, they're a conservative denomination, the people that lead them and that are in them are conservatives, and their actions, therefore, have to be conservative, is the thinking, they're definitionally conservative, so, you know, they're not bending to the left when they punch right and coddle the left, when they only bring discipline charges against those on the right for criticizing them, but allow left -wing organizations to run their youth gatherings and write their catechisms, that's not caving to the left in their mind, it's being conservative, because they are the conservatives, you know, what is conservatism, if not what these conservative people do, that's sort of the mindset that's taken hold, at least as I understand it, as I theorize, and that's been exceedingly detrimental to any sort of maintenance of theological orthodoxy, because it turns out the people on the right that keep getting purged in all these denominations actually care about the biblical and the traditional beliefs of their denominations, whereas the people on the left view them as tools to get what they, to get their egalitarian or liberal theology into action.

07:34

Like, that's clearly what happens, so it's this idea that these people are conservatives, and that everything they do is conservative,

07:44

I think that's taken hold, which is also why it's even more stunning for them whenever I accuse them of not being that way, whenever I accuse them of being leftists or handmaidens to leftists or something else, they view that as me baselessly insulting them and not offering some sort of analysis.

07:58

Yeah, it's part of the mythos that they kind of, the legend of their origin, right, that we are by nature conservative, and we saw this actually on the political right yesterday, there was a bunch of battles on X, I don't know if you saw them, about the

08:13

Constitution and whether or not the Constitution is still relevant or, you know, is preventing harm from coming to Americans and so forth, and it was just fascinating for me to see all these guys, some would call them boomer cons,

08:29

I suppose, the old guard in conservative circles, basically thinking we still are under the

08:34

Constitution somehow, that this is, and the people who just make the statement that we're not, not even recommending that we not be, just saying like,

08:43

I think the left isn't honoring this, they're the enemies now, they're the ones that are targeted, and because it's part of the mythos of who they are, like, we are constitutional, and if you deny that, even if it's not true anymore, you deny that you're kind of like denying part of their identity, and it sounds like you're doing that with the

08:59

Lutherans, where like, we're conservative, we fought these battles in the 70s, same with the Southern Baptists in the 80s, like, we fought these battles, there's no one who's not conservative around here, and it's like, meanwhile, you know, there are people who certainly are, so you're doing a service,

09:13

I would say, to Lutherans in pointing some of these things out, because those who care about their denomination ought to know where there's rot, ought to know where there's weakness, and someone like you is not going to be welcomed because you're bringing some of this bad news, but maybe we should start at the beginning, you brought bad news, this is where this all started in my mind, and tell me if you think

09:34

I'm wrong, you criticized the catechism, and not the catechism itself, not the words of the catechism, but the commentary that the

09:41

Missouri Synod released that accompanied the catechism. Yes, and you've had an interview with me, and I believe it would be

09:49

Pastor David Ramirez on this, and for the people that haven't caught that, the summary is that there was a very left -wing book that was released, that was labeled as Luther's large catechism, with contemporary applications and something else,

10:09

I forget what it was, basically just about context plus people's essays on the matters, and what happened with this was that the whole slate of the

10:20

LCMS's left wing was basically asked to write for this, with a few token right -wing members, and what we ended up with was a bunch of essays saying that gentrification was sin, but also white flight was sin, you had people saying that raising your neighbor's property values was violating the last two commandments, you had people saying that pedophilia was no worse than homosexuality or transgenderism and all this other stuff, but that your own sins are even worse than that, so sort of a minimizing of pedophilia and all these other things that have been starting to be normalized in our society, you had capitalizing black and not white, all this other, all the other things you'd expect from a,

10:59

I don't usually like to use this word, but an archetypal woke volume or something that is out to destroy tradition and family.

11:08

All of the, all of the first signs of this happening are in that book. Everyone, everyone that gave it a fair reading could see this, and in fact it was sort of the consensus before it was re -released that the criticisms were largely correct and that it should be rewritten.

11:23

The president of the LCMS himself even admitted that things could be worded better, but since it was re -released you have as we were talking about earlier, these conservatives saying, well now that the president has re -released it, it's fine.

11:36

So that, I criticized these things heavily as they were going on, and I even had my local, my local circuit visitor pastor at my college campus who was in very large support of all of these measures, who offered support and protection if the

11:53

Senate decided to go after me. The Oklahoma district president hated the catechism, and all that, that was the state of the game until about February, February 21st,

12:04

I want to say, I think it was actually Wednesday or around there of last year, where the president of the

12:11

LCMS released a statement where he was, where he condemned the origins of the catechism controversy, meaning me and a few other people that posted our criticisms.

12:24

He condemned us as alt -right racists, he accused us of wanting to do all of these horrible things by his mind, some of these things that were ordered directly by God in the

12:35

Bible, not that this passed any sort of doctrinal review when he released this letter, it was just meant to sound good, we're going to get the evil far right, and they have recently caused problems in the

12:45

Senate, so everyone better sign on to this, that's what happened. So then suddenly my local support fell away, and then in about March, I had discipline charges very ham -fistedly and improperly brought against me, which you and I covered the last time

13:01

I was here, and that ended with me being put under what's called the minor ban, which is basically, it's a very local action, a pastor discovers some sort of deep sin among one of his congregants, and he basically just says, we are not going to commune you until you fix this, but it's purely a local action, obviously it's impolite if another pastor then communes that person or takes them in while under the minor ban, it's sort of seen as a contest of the decision, which can be good in some cases and it can be bad in others, but that was the charge of discipline that I was brought under, so it was sort of like a local excommunication, if you will,

13:41

I was not communing at my local congregation, and that was by decree. So that's where we left off this last time.

13:49

Right, and now some of the charges leveled against you include criticizing or slandering,

13:55

I guess, people who were involved in that catechism and producing, not the catechism itself, but this commentary on it.

14:02

Right, so during the whole botched proceedings that I mentioned earlier, I was told multiple times, this is on recording, it's public now, that nothing that was being done against me had anything to do with the large catechism or my criticisms thereof, it had to do with my support of people that they deemed too far to the right, and the roster of people that they deemed too far to the right came from an

14:24

Antifa source, I proved that in the public thread that I had, which hopefully could be included in like the description of this video or something, just because that's where a lot of the background information is.

14:36

That was what the official charges and concerns were brought against me, and then whenever I got my final list of charges for being put under the minor ban, two out of five of them had to do with my criticisms of the large catechism that was recently put out last year.

14:51

Yeah, so I'll let you go any direction you want to go with this, but if you want to talk about the charges specifically, and then what they are, and why you disagree with them, we could do it that way, or whatever you think.

15:03

Here, I think it might be best to go chronologically, because these charges will come back here towards the story, or towards the present day.

15:12

Just let me know when you want me to display an email, because I know you have some emails and other documents and things that you wanted me to,

15:20

I guess, display for the purposes of people seeing what you're talking about, so it's sourced.

15:26

Yeah, so basically, I did very little, like,

15:32

I don't want to call it politicking, because that sounds secular and sort of evil, but you know,

15:37

I did very little mechanical work on the sex communication, all this other stuff. I sort of just let it lie from May until about early this year, just because I didn't really know exactly what to do, because I wasn't going to give in to the charges.

15:52

I wasn't going to cave. I still view them as wrong. I don't think they've articulated any sort of sin.

15:57

We'll get there whenever we bring them up on the screen. So I wasn't going to give in, but I don't really have a legal proceeding or a synodical proceeding to dispute them that's codified.

16:10

I can't go to the LCMS Court of Appeals or something, if you want to use a secular analogy and say that this is wrong.

16:18

That channel isn't open. So I sort of let it lie for a while, and then at about early

16:26

February, I think it would be, maybe late January, I had a bunch of pastors reach out to me that eventually culminated in me reaching out to Pastor Hiley, who is the local pastor here that put me under the minor ban originally, and has now pronounced me excommunicated as of May 12th.

16:46

These pastors that reach out to me encouraged me to reach out to Hiley and get a meeting going to see if some sort of reconciliation could be achieved.

16:53

You know, I'm not out to just burn everything to the ground, so I decided, sure, I'll see if we can set up a meeting, and maybe they've learned, maybe things will go better this time, you know,

17:02

I'll be a little bit calmer, try to give them a second chance. And I had a little lead up where I was basically asking

17:10

Hiley to get a meeting set down where I could bring a witness, where we could go over the charges, and then at the next meeting,

17:18

I could bring in the same witness, discuss the charges and all these other things, and try to reach some sort of conclusion.

17:23

Maybe they could be convinced was the hope of these other pastors and of me. I didn't think it was likely, but I was hoping that could happen.

17:31

And this culminated in, basically, it took a couple of months to get a date down, and whenever we did get the date down, we had a few emails that were sent to me nominally from Pastor Hiley, but the font and tone were completely different from anything

17:48

I'd ever received from him. The sign -off was completely different, the font size was different, so it was a little bit sketchy.

17:57

I and a bunch of other people were doubting that it was even from him. We thought it was, like, copy and pasted from some sort of a correspondence, perhaps a message that he was fed and told to send to me, that basically just said, you know, we're going to have a meeting, it's just going to be you,

18:14

Ryan, and anyone else at First Lutheran. We'll have no recordings of the meeting, you will not get a witness, we will take minutes, and that's going to be what the meeting is, and you're going to have the charges, and you're going to repent.

18:27

So already with this, before this meeting even started, he had reframed it to, this is a meeting for me to come to repentance, to accept the charges.

18:35

He wasn't interested in discussing them, and he had to deny me a witness, a recording of my own, and all these other things, well, quite frankly, it's un -Christian.

18:44

No sort of Christian justice is dealt by keeping things as secret as possible, by denying someone their own witness or their own recording, having only one party present to prosecute and determine the verdict.

18:57

It was a complete, it was an abortion of Christian justice, or anything like that.

19:03

So that was the lay of the game. And then,

19:09

I did send you this, I sent an email to Pastor Hiley that was a little bit more heated at this point, just because that was, it was obscene that that would be offered to anyone, any

19:19

Christian, and be expected to be a reasonable arrangement of affairs. In this email,

19:27

I basically just say that this is obscene, in slightly more flowery language,

19:33

I obviously wasn't crass or anything like that, but I basically told him

19:38

I have no trust in this, I have no reason to trust this, but if we are going to do this, then

19:45

I may need a detailed agenda of the meeting, a list of everyone who's going to be in attendance, the specific charges of my sin with clear and unambiguous evidence, that was important, because up until now,

19:55

I've received zero evidence of this sin. They have not tied it back to any tangible thing that I've done.

20:01

They just say, you have done this, and you must repent. That's been the, the charges really are assertions in that sense.

20:08

And then at the end, I say, well, since I don't get a friendly witness, I will be recording this, or else it's not happening.

20:14

Like, that's a, this is a, that's for, to make sure that I'm protected as well.

20:21

To which he then responds in the next email that we had earlier, where he then basically just says, well, no.

20:32

This is a, this is a lot of email to just say, no, you don't get a witness, you don't get a recording. We're going to provide you the charges, and I don't even remember if he assented to telling me who was going to be there ahead of time.

20:45

So, and he, he then also had the, I would call it the temerity to say that I was,

20:51

I was denigrating the church by recording and releasing everything, as if that had just happened ex nihilo, as if it wasn't prompted by any sort of mishandling of the process up until this point.

21:02

So that was being, that was laid solely on me, and it made its way to the updated list of charges.

21:09

So obviously this meeting never happened. And on April 8th, in the morning,

21:15

I hand -delivered a letter to First Lutheran Church in Ponca City, handed it to their church secretary, and the letter was my sort of recension of any sort of membership or spiritual ties to the congregation there.

21:27

So that was like me officially saying, I am quitting this congregation. Not Christianity or anything like that, just the, the entity, the congregation of First Lutheran Church in Ponca City.

21:37

And that was basically to free up anything else. If I wanted to go anywhere else, I could be received into membership if I moved.

21:44

It was also a good statement to say that this is, I'm not, I'm not party to this anymore.

21:51

This is not Christian. So I rescinded my membership there.

21:56

I handed them a letter saying, and then later in the month of April, I had received an email, a very strange email.

22:06

So this is weeks after I had rescinded my membership with that, with that letter.

22:13

And I was told that I was being, they were holding a hearing or a voters meeting to excommunicate me.

22:21

I was informed of this and I think April 24th in the morning, that was when the physical letter was mailed out, but I also received an email.

22:32

Basically they weren't going, yeah, right. So that's, that's the physical letter that eventually reached me.

22:38

And it basically just said that on, yeah, on May 5th, they were going to hold a voters meeting to basically excommunicate me.

22:48

And this was, this was quite a shock to me because this is weeks after not hearing anything from them,

22:56

April 8th, I rescinded my membership of the letter, and here they are claiming that they can excommunicate me.

23:02

The way things work in the LCMS is that if someone self -excludes, so quits the congregation, they're basically just, they're self -excluded.

23:11

The congregation doesn't have any more oversight over them because the person has forsaken that oversight. So that was a, it was strange that now that at least everyone else took this to mean

23:23

I'm not in the congregation, and their response is to, well, then we're going to excommunicate you, even though we don't have, we're not, you're not in our congregation anymore.

23:31

So that, that was the, that was my response was, what on earth is this? How, how could they even try to do this?

23:36

The time they had a year, basically a year to do this, and they didn't. So that was a, it was sort of a shock to receive this letter, and even more so was the fact that I wasn't even asked if I could attend.

23:50

Like, are you available May the 5th to represent yourself or to at least be party to this? Because the answer was no,

23:56

I couldn't attend. I had prior obligations that I had to be in Tulsa for,

24:01

Tulsa, Oklahoma, which is an hour away. I had the whole day blocked off, so I couldn't be there even if I wanted to be.

24:09

So this was a, so this was a step above the other excommunications of other right -wing members in the

24:17

LCMS, because they at least, they, they made token gestures to trying to get me to be there, but obviously that wasn't their intention.

24:25

They just said, we're holding it this day, hopefully you can make it, which is not, that's not actually making sure

24:31

I can be there to witness it, to defend myself, or whatever else. Right, right.

24:36

And so the charges themselves seem to break down into, I think you had three categories, that there's a disrespectful attitude that you have in their minds, and then that you've associated too closely with nefarious actors in their minds, and on your social media accounts you've shared things that, that it's a really guilt by association, and then they've also shared other things that aren't good, and therefore you must endorse those other things that they've said.

25:09

And then the third one is that you are, you're slandering leadership, and that you're not loving,

25:16

I suppose, right? So I'll let you just walk through that, however you want to walk through it, to explain,

25:22

I mean this is the only defense, not the, you have your Twitter account and stuff, but like as far as, you know, people who are in the

25:30

Lutheran denomination, and in the LCMS, and you know, they don't know your side of the story, this is a defense that they're going to hear.

25:38

Right, yeah, so if you can pull that up on the screen, like you said, there are five charges, and I do have three categories, and we'll start the first one.

25:47

The first charge against me is this charge number one here on the screen. If people can't see it, it's, this is identical except for one part to the charges that I publicized last

25:59

May, whenever I was put under the minor ban. Only one thing has been changed, but I, it's still good to go through this, and I'll read this out pretty quickly, and I'll just,

26:08

I'll give like the truncated reputation if I can. So charge number one says, you have scorned

26:15

God's established authority in the form of the Board of Elders, and you're called an ordained pastor. You have also despised the authority of the

26:22

LCMS as a whole by attacking its institutions and staff. You have not joyfully submitted to these authorities as required by the

26:30

Fourth Commandment and the Lutheran numbering that's honor thy father and thy mother. You are free to disagree with the actions of the

26:36

LCMS, the Board of Elders, or Pastor Hiley, but you have treated these authorities with disdain.

26:41

Not only this, but you have given public support to individuals who also act with disdain for the LCMS. You have released secretly recorded and edited conversations with pastor, the elders, and our circuit visitor, adding derogatory commentary to the recordings.

26:55

We call you to repent. So that's the first charge, and I'll just go very quickly. That was on this podcast then, I guess.

27:00

Well, I know you released them on X, but then the commentary, I don't know, maybe they're talking about your personal X account then.

27:07

Yeah, it could be any of that, and really it doesn't matter because none of it was especially derogatory because the tone

27:14

I was trying to keep throughout that whole thing was, here's what's happened. It was a very neutral, this happened, look at this.

27:20

I was going to say, because we released some of these on the podcast, you talked about them. I didn't sense anything that was derogatory.

27:25

I don't even know what they're talking about. So that's a good impression from you then because you're an outside opinion.

27:32

I would, quite frankly, trust more than anyone involved in this, but just quickly. So God's established authority in the form of the board of elders.

27:41

A board of elders in the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod is man -established. It's for good order in the congregation. We're not commanded in Scripture to establish a board of elders.

27:49

So that's sort of like a weak polity argument. The authority of my called and ordained pastor, well, that's only if you assume that anything that's done to me has been just, which obviously

28:01

I don't think any fair or clear -thinking person can see any of this as a just and righteous stand against me.

28:10

This has been botched from the very beginning, at the very least, and at most this has been a political hit. You've also despised the authority of the

28:18

LCMS as a whole by attacking its institutions and staff. The way that the LCMS works is that the only members of the

28:24

LCMS are ordained clergy and congregations, not individuals, but the congregation itself.

28:30

So like First Lutheran in Ponca City, that church is a member of the LCMS. So as a layman, you're not in the

28:38

LCMS. You're in an LCMS congregation. The Senate itself has no authority over you. So this is sort of like a, it's a very centralizing assertion here.

28:49

This idea that the LCMS, the Senate itself, has authority over anyone. It's weakening the more congregationalist side of the blended polity that we have.

28:59

You're not joyfully submitted to these authorities as required by the Fourth Commandment. Well, once again, what authority is this supposed to be, what authority is this over me?

29:08

So the only thing that I'm being accused of scorning in regards to the pastor, the only potential thing that applies here is that I haven't joyfully submitted to these charges.

29:18

Like that's the charge of why I'm not submitting to him. And I've treated these authorities with disdain.

29:26

I can go about this two ways. Once again, what I just said, I can reiterate it, that I'm not necessarily supposed to submit to the

29:32

LCMS as a synod. But number two, there are times where a Christian can treat authorities with disdain, especially if they're evil.

29:40

You get this role set before us in various different points in Scripture throughout the

29:45

Old and New Testament. So this is not wrong inherently as they're making it sound. Not only this, but you've given public support to individuals who also act with disdain for the

29:54

LCMS, the vast majority of which are pastors. So I don't know if they really want to go down that rabbit hole.

29:59

I've never met any group of people that dislike the synod more than the ordained clergy within it.

30:05

So I'll let them sort out the clergy before they get to me, because I also don't think that the clergy are wrong when they criticize the synod as harshly as they do.

30:14

And then the last charge, you have released secretly recording and edited conversations with the pastor, the elder, and the circuit visitor, adding derogatory commentary.

30:24

As you just said, it's not really apparent that this was derogatory. Certainly that wasn't my intention.

30:29

So we don't really get the impression that it was, or the intent for it. But also, secretly recorded and edited conversations.

30:37

This sort of presupposes that I had no reason to do it, and it also supposes that this was done in good order, so therefore

30:45

I also had extra no reason to do it. When in reality, I was denied witnesses.

30:51

They sprung people on me in meetings without telling me who was going to be there. They had—and this is the most important thing about this—if anyone has any sort of issue with me recording these meetings, there was another congregation in Oklahoma a few weeks before anything happened to me, who brought an elder in to question him, because—with basically the same charges here, criticizing the catechism, going against the synod, and the whole board of elders and the pastor was present, and I think he was only informed of that right before he got there.

31:22

And they had recorded the meeting with him, the pastor and the board of elders, and they specifically denied him a recording of that meeting, a copy of the recording.

31:32

It was kept against him. This was in my district, a few towns away from me, and when

31:39

I brought it to the circuit visitor that's mentioned in my letter, the overseer that was responsible for making sure that all this went properly, procedurally, when

31:49

I brought it up to him, his first response was, well, why didn't he make his own recording? So that was what

31:55

I was told in regards to recording meetings with clergy and with the board of elders and the

32:00

LCMS, was why didn't you make your own recording if you didn't want to have a one -sided copy of the recording used against you?

32:07

So that is the most important point to me recording anything. If anyone has any problem with that, they should deal with people in the

32:13

LCMS, members of synod, doing it against their own layman first, because I made it very clear throughout this whole thing from the beginning that I did not trust any of this, and that I had precedent for not trusting it.

32:25

They didn't care, so that was what the recording was for. But there's a secondary issue here.

32:31

They saw me hand -taking notes in front of them, so it's not like this was secret that I was keeping down a record of what was going on.

32:38

They just want to make this sound as bad as possible. I suppose they can say that the audio was secret, but I wasn't going to fall for what was done to the layman before me, and also in Oklahoma.

32:50

So that's this first charge. There's really nothing of substance here. The only point that they might have presupposes that these charges are just, which this first one already isn't, so we should probably move on to the second category, which are charges two and three.

33:06

And I'm not being exaggerative when I say that these charges, number two and three, are purely guilt by association.

33:13

So I'll read them out quickly. Charge two, some of your posts on social media, public statements in support of certain individuals such as Corey Mahler and the online personality,

33:23

Woe, sow hatred by dividing individuals on the basis of race. Other statements sow hatred and revile

33:30

LCMS pastors, laypeople, and Senate officials. You publicly support individuals, such as Mahler and Woe, who advocate the use of force to intimidate and silence adversaries.

33:41

You frequently share their social media posts in support of their work, even recommending others to follow these false teachers.

33:49

Scripture is clear that we must mark and avoid those who revile, not even to associate with them. Yet you continue to support and share their work.

33:57

Romans, and then they cite Romans 16, 17 through 18, 1 Corinthians 5, 11, sowing hatred, division, and threatening violence violates the fifth commandment.

34:06

We call you to repent. So I'll just deal with this very quickly. Um, so as you've seen here, none of us says that I believe this, or I, I actually said this or anything like that.

34:18

I, it says it gives some vague illusion that I have supported, uh, Corey Mahler and Woe in particular, and that therefore

34:24

I share their views. Um, and there's a, just to go through this really quickly.

34:30

Um, it says that this is bad because they sow hatred by dividing individuals on the basis of race, as if Corey Mahler and Woe are responsible for different races existing on the earth.

34:40

Uh, this is a, you know, it, it presupposes their own philosophy in this charge as if a race doesn't exist unless you acknowledge it.

34:47

A very sort of a very modern view of things, which I'm not saying that people have to take the opposite view. I'm just saying, this is what's, uh, this is sort of what's weaseled in here is that, uh, you are dividing people.

34:57

Not that, not that God has made the nations distinct or anything, but it's actually evil, alt -right racists that have done it.

35:03

Um, other statements, so hatred and revile LCMS pastors, lay people and send officials. Um, I mean, that, that can be true, but I don't know where I've done that.

35:14

And moreover, I don't know that this wasn't warranted would be a good question because as we mentioned, false teachers aren't exactly given a, um, a nice treatment in scripture.

35:23

So if any of these people were doing something terrible, um, then it would be perfectly just to, uh, to disassociate with them and to, to dislike them strongly, uh, uh, to hate them even if you want to quote a

35:37

Psalm. So, um, I, I don't, I don't think that this is the strongest charge that they could have brought against, uh, against me, especially because Cory Mahler and Woeh aren't even the most radical people, if you're asking my, uh, categorization that I associate with.

35:50

So this is a, this seems very much like a political hit because Mahler and Woeh were some of the first people on the floor with me arguing against this large catechism.

35:59

Um, so far they're, they're three for four of, uh, of people that appeared in my stream on the large catechism.

36:05

So, yeah. What do you mean by associate though? I think people would probably want to know that because you said, you said there were more extreme people that you associate with.

36:16

What do you, what do you association to you? Does that mean you share? Cause I was under the impression you shared like a social media post saying on another topic and then they wanted to attribute everything that, uh, these guys have said that they disagree with and other, you know, the things that you didn't share to you.

36:33

Right. So, uh, in regards to what they're accusing me, associating with Mahler and Woeh, uh, supporting them and, uh, all this other stuff.

36:41

Um, it means that I have once shared one of their podcasts on one specific issue, because if I remember correctly, uh, someone asked for like a right -wing

36:50

Lutheran view of some topic, that's usually just, uh, the left -wing views usually just accepted, which, um, if you go back and look at, uh,

36:58

LCMS publications from the 1920s and 30s, uh, they, the LCMS would excommunicate itself because those publications are probably farther to the right than Mahler and Woeh are, um, in some of their views.

37:09

So, uh, they, basically this, uh, this person, if I remember correctly, asked what's a, what's a good

37:15

Lutheran view on this. I sent them that, that specific part of the podcast and, uh, LC, the

37:20

LCMS, or First Lutheran City here, is, uh, taking that to mean that I support everything coming from Mahler and Woeh, uh, which is also wrong because I, like,

37:29

I disagree with them publicly and in private, and they know where we disagree. I'm still very much an Austro -libertarian, which is, uh, um, definitely not what they are.

37:38

Um, but - Need to repent for that at some point. Well, uh, yeah,

37:43

I'm sure we can talk about that, uh, after this, but, um, but as for people more farther to the right,

37:49

I guess, would be the scary charge they'd label against me for associating with, like, I, you know, I will, uh, travel up and, uh, stay with people, uh, across the country that are, that are a bit more radical than Mahler and Woeh are.

38:01

Um, like, this is, uh, like, I know people like that. I'm not, it's not been an issue. No one's pushed it against me. No one has said you have associated with, uh, far -right person

38:09

X, Y, or Z. It's, uh, it's the people that were on the large catechism stream. So -

38:18

Right, right. And so, and they've had a year, once again, to refine these things. So that's, uh, that's just what this is, uh, what this is, uh, that's the state of this.

38:28

Um, and it says I frequently share their social media posts and, uh, in support of their work. I would defy anyone to check my account and see the, uh, frequency of support that I've given to them versus other organizations.

38:39

It's not going to be much. Um, and that's, that's not even because I'm, I myself am not a right -winger or something like that.

38:45

That's just because I don't really listen to podcasts all that much anymore. So, like, I, I'm sure that I, I've retweeted some of their tweets,

38:52

God forbid. Um, and I'm, I know other pastors who have as well. So this is a, this is a very strange targeting here.

39:00

And then, uh, scripture says we must mark and avoid those who revile, not even to associate with them, uh, which is a very interesting, uh, charge because so far the only people that seem to actually have a biblical case of reviling someone, uh, would be the

39:15

Senate throwing out every, pulling out every stop and, uh, throwing the kitchen sink at anyone that's criticized it.

39:22

Um, like I, to this day, I have pastors that, uh, that misinterpret everything that I've said very clearly, um, basically just so that people won't associate with me.

39:31

Nothing's ever going to come of them. And they're an altar and pulpit fellowship with this pastor who wrote this, uh, that no one cares about that,

39:38

I think is a bigger case of reviling and associating with people whom you shouldn't associate with instead of, uh, um, this contrived idea that I support 100 % of everything that I share online.

39:50

Um, you know, I've, uh, this is a, this is a leap of logic. Um, and then sowing hatred, division, and threatening violence.

39:58

I, I don't recall a threat of violence issued to anyone. This is a, um, I, I recall very recently, um, uh, to Chris Roseborough, someone quoted the passage of Christ talking about millstones to people leading children astray, and he interpreted that as a death threat.

40:14

I don't know what that says about him and what he's hiding, but, uh, maybe that's what they mean by threatening violence is, uh, people will quote scripture and they feel personally attacked.

40:22

I don't know. You know, this is also something I think with older generations, uh, that, that are hard, like Jen, Jen, uh,

40:30

X and boomers, uh, especially, I think they have a hard time a little bit with this, the, the online, um, world, like whether you're on, it doesn't really matter what social media platform, but I guess

40:43

X would be the most prevalent. Like people will see a take and they'll retweet it from someone that may, they might disagree with 99 % of what that person says, but, um, people who are frequently online, which, uh, and, and you would be part of the

40:57

Zoomer generation, I suppose. Uh, you know, it's, there's like, I don't want to say there's different rules in the sense that there's like different, it's, it's not like there's different moralities.

41:06

It's just that the customs, uh, that they're used to operating by are different than the customs that Zoomers are used to operating by where Zoomers, um, we'll just share everything and anything.

41:17

If it's like a take, they like not necessarily endorsing the whole person. I've seen this many times before with older people wanting to do this guilt by association thing, uh, with,

41:31

I mean, I've even had it leveled against me that I've shared something someone else did. And I'm like, I don't even know what that person believes on the things that you're concerned about.

41:39

Uh, and it's like, they, they get hung up. They can't understand it. And maybe that's something to dive into more at some point.

41:45

I don't want to over -psychologize it, but there is something there that it's a disconnect generationally as well.

41:52

Um, so of course, if you, if you share something, let's say you shared something that is reprehensible from someone, like you're endorsing that message.

42:00

I would agree. Like you're sharing that message and you're doing it in a positive light, let's say, but sharing something on another topic that in the younger millennials and the

42:09

Zoomers, they don't see it that way. So I'm just showing it out there for educational purposes for those listening, especially if you are older and you tend to think that way.

42:18

Um, obviously, yeah. So, so there's more that could be said about this. I mean, I've done podcasts where I've shown like,

42:23

Hey, this person's this person. And there's relevant times to look at that. If they're associating very tightly and you know, they're at opportune times endorsing them or something when they're on,

42:35

I've, I've seen this many times, you know, the right -wingers are, are going after someone and you'll see like all, all like, uh,

42:44

I'll notice that institutions, institutional figures are all of a sudden bolstering that person as if they're a great person.

42:51

Like I'll show that kind of thing. And it's cause it's obvious what they're doing. There's political strategy there, but I just think it's worth noting that Zoomers, especially in younger millennials, they don't necessarily buy this like,

43:03

Oh, you're endorsing everything about that person because you shared this one post. So this might be of note is that, uh, the guy that nominally wrote these charges is himself a millennial.

43:13

He's not old. So, uh, this is a, I don't know that he can necessarily hide behind the defense that he's just too old to understand the online world.

43:23

Okay. So, but is he writing it for older people? I don't know. I, well, no, because the charges of sin are supposed to be for me and for the rest of the, and for the rest of the church.

43:32

But primarily the only reason in the LCMS that you excommunicate someone is to communicate to them a sin that they don't see or refusing to acknowledge, so that they can come to repentance.

43:43

Basically it's just showing them the gravity of the situation. It's not supposed to be a punitive action, uh, which, which highly and, uh, and the, uh, first Lutheran church and the

43:53

LCMS has, uh, um, has said multiple times that this is punitive. So that, that's, this is sort of a, if he is writing this for other people to show how he got me, um, that would be an absolutely egregious and obscene inversion of the whole purpose of an excommunication.

44:08

But he's writing on behalf of the Senate, right? Uh, no, he shouldn't be. Uh, if he's writing on behalf of the

44:13

Senate, that would be a major bombshell. So let me, let, let, let's just back up for a minute. So this is from, this is just Joseph Hiley himself then that we're talking about here.

44:22

As a pastor in the LCMS, yes. If it comes out that he is writing this on the behest of the Senate, uh, then that shows that the

44:30

Senate itself has involved itself in congregational matters, which would be a, uh, pretty big issue.

44:35

Just to clear this up, this is on the basis of this though, is for why you're being given the major ban though, right?

44:40

Yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, and this seems contradictory because it's a local action, but it affects the entirety of the rest of the

44:46

Senate. So everyone else is adopting this, essentially. If, if, if everyone accepts this as valid and that's on every other pastor, uh, then

44:54

I will be excommunicated from every other LCMS church. If there are pastors that dispute this, then the excommunication will be contested, uh, just because they dispute it.

45:02

I see. So, so this is still in limbo slightly. So you've, you, because I said at the beginning that you've been given the major ban.

45:08

So it sounds - Here, um, yeah, so he, he hands down this charge.

45:14

They've voted it through. We'll get to that in a second because that was botched as well. And now it's only an excommunication that this is, this is actually very, uh,

45:22

I don't want to say Schmittian because that has connotations. That's very practical. If pastors don't, if pastors still commune me after I've been told, after they've been told that I'm capital

45:31

E excommunicated, then I'm not really excommunicated. I'm still at the table. It's, this is entirely tied to practicality.

45:38

Okay. So they have to recognize it for it to actually be - Right, right. And if they don't recognize it, that's a major issue because, uh, there's no, there's no partially excommunicated.

45:48

It's kind of like there's no half pregnant or anything. So, um, if, if they commune me, if any other pastor communes me, if they contest this validity, if they say that we aren't going to, um, to recognize this, um, then that that's a pretty big move because that's saying that the people that wrote this are wrong and are in sin because they would have falsely excommunicated me, falsely leveled charges.

46:09

Uh, so that, that's how this works. Who gave you the major ban then? Who gave that to you? It was mailed to me by First Lutheran Church and Joseph Piley read out the right on May the 12th.

46:19

So, okay. So this is from a central, so the LCMS isn't going, they're not saying we give you the major ban.

46:25

It's this church that says now you're, you're getting the major ban and it's kind of incumbent on everyone else in the denomination to recognize this.

46:32

And if they don't, then you've got a crisis. Yeah. Yeah. So, and that's, so this is a, this is an artifact of our polity because we're not fully congregationalist, but we're not fully, we don't have an episcopate either.

46:44

So, um, it's, it's a blended system where the congregation, the local congregation decides disciplinary matters.

46:51

And if they go to this nuclear option, this capital E excommunication, then, you know, the

46:56

Senate was not involved. The hierarchy was not involved, but every other congregation sort of horizontally now has to respect that if it's a just excommunication.

47:04

Okay. All right. I got it now. I'm sorry. Yeah, that's, it's weird. It works like no other church that I've ever seen.

47:10

Um, but if, if the Senate has handed down these charges too highly, uh, who, who can't really use this excuse that he's just too old to understand online things that you can share things and not endorse the entire person, uh, then if the

47:24

Senate did hand down these charges, that's a really major issue. Uh, that that's probably even bigger than me being excommunicated this idea that, uh, that the

47:32

Senate has turned itself into an episcopate. So, all right, well, where do we leave off?

47:38

Yeah, we were three real quick or yeah, really quickly. Uh, so, uh, and this is shorter. Um, it's also, it's easier to deal with a mauler and woe whom you continue to support denigrate women in their podcasts and online posts, their statements that women are ontologically inferior to men fly in the face of God's word.

47:56

While human beings, male and female, have different qualities and characteristics, we are all God's creatures and reflect his image.

48:03

You have shared some of these posts from these individuals and continue to use your platform in support of their work.

48:08

We call you to repent. So, um, they threw out some very fancy language that I believe Mauler himself used.

48:15

Uh, women are ontologically inferior. What does that mean? So, inferior, uh, in, in modern times has come in to take a, take the meaning that, uh, it's worse than, like a, it's a qualitative worse, uh, than something else.

48:28

So if you say that something is superior, it means it's better. Inferior means it's worse, but inferior can also mean, uh, after or perhaps less than in any numerical sense.

48:39

So, uh, depending on how you count, uh, two can be inferior to one because it comes after one or one can be inferior to two because it has one less than two.

48:50

That's not a qualitative difference. We're not saying that two or one are morally relevant to each other. It's a, it's a very numerical idea.

48:58

Uh, that's, this is sort of the old, the old meaning of the word inferior. And that's, uh, that's in most theological works.

49:04

This isn't like, we're not bringing back some Anglo -Saxon holdover word, uh, for some sort of theological topic.

49:11

Like I've seen this in my studies and, and, uh, academic work, uh, using inferior to mean after.

49:19

So ontologically, to do with creation, a woman was created after man. Woman was created inferior to man.

49:26

So that means woman was created after man. Uh, so this is a, this is a very strange thing for them to pick on.

49:33

It kind of, it feels like they took some sort of rage bait from either Mahler or Woe and pinned that on to me because I have at times, uh, shared

49:40

Mahler or Woe's posts, or I've, uh, sent, uh, I've shared one of their podcasts or something like that.

49:47

So. You're saying that they, you, cause you really don't have to explain what, unless you were endorsing specifically what they were saying on this topic, you don't really have to explain them, but it's gracious of you.

49:59

I supposed to do that. But you're saying that they're, they're just saying what first Peter three, seven says your husband's in the same way, live with your wives and understanding way as someone weaker.

50:07

And that's, and that's what they're talking about. They're talking about, I mean, that's not even that the ontological inferior interpreted them in the most dried way possible just means created after.

50:21

Okay. So, so, so perhaps, and maybe this was explained.

50:26

I mean, I, I don't know that it's necessary to get into the weeds on what they said. Cause really the issue is what do you believe?

50:32

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So yeah. Yeah. That's the whole point of these charges are to do with my belief because supposedly

50:37

I'm in, in terrible doctrine. Yeah. Yeah. So what, what do I believe?

50:43

Well, the account of Genesis says that a woman was made for man after man was created from, from, from dust.

50:50

So in this sense as well, you can very easily come to the conclusion that a woman was made in the image of man, man in the image of God, woman, therefore inheriting whatever image of God man has in perfection.

51:03

Both of that being the image of God then being corrupted upon the fall. And then what else is it that they say here?

51:10

We're all God's creatures and reflect his image as if that is in somehow contest, as if that somehow contested by saying that women are ontologically inferior, let alone that women are made after man.

51:20

So this is a, this is a strange thing as well. Male and female have different qualities and characteristics as if they're the same base substance that just have like slightly different characteristics or attributes.

51:34

This is a very sort of egalitarian view of man and woman. This, this idea that they're, they're just the same thing with different qualities and characteristics.

51:42

I think a good Christian view would be that male and female are fundamentally different. I mean, certainly

51:48

God treats them that way. They receive different curses in the garden upon the fall. They receive different bodily functions.

51:54

A woman, woman carries child, man, man has the physical strength to defend woman.

52:00

Right. So you're just, you're describing basic orthodox beliefs. So it sounds like we're, we're tripping up on words here.

52:07

You don't, you would believe that women and men are equally made in the image of God, right?

52:12

They're both, they both have this, the image of God in and not in like a greater amount than the other.

52:19

Yeah. Yeah. No, they're not going to be, they're not going to be judged to different holiness because they have like a different image of God or something.

52:26

Yeah. The same image of God. They're equal in that sense. They're of equal worth, I suppose, before God in that sense.

52:32

But, but they have different functions, strengths, weaknesses that kind of thing, which that is, if that's what you're saying, and it sounds like you haven't shared any of these guys, their, their views on this, then there's really.

52:48

Well, no, I haven't actually been shown where they fly in the face of orthodoxy. Like that's, that's the thing.

52:54

Have you shared their stuff on this topic? Is that what they're complaining about? To be quite frank, I don't remember sharing any of this, but that doesn't mean

53:01

I haven't. So like, I genuinely just do not recall because when we're digging into retweets and all this other stuff,

53:07

I don't remember what I retweeted three weeks ago. I just assume that it matches my judgment, which can't be right or wrong.

53:13

Sure. So, but in regards to this as well, like, I want to clarify, like, men and women are not judged to the same criteria, though.

53:20

They're worth the same. They're equally condemned by sin and they're equally saved by Christ if, provided that they do have grace and faith.

53:29

But, you know, they serve different functions. They're judged according to different things. So they're not, I'm going to say something that sounds really scary, but I want you to take it sort of like in the driest way possible.

53:40

They are not spiritually equal in the sense that they are not spiritually the exact same. So like, men have different judgments that are leveled upon them.

53:47

And in fact, men are the only ones that then can become ordained clergy. So they're held when they're an ordained clergy to a stricter standard that women can't have because they can't be ordained clergy.

53:57

So there's, they are treated differently by God, but sin equally condemns all of them and all receive the same saving grace.

54:04

That's not a scary thing to say. I think what people's minds go to is like, somehow like women are less human or something.

54:11

You might Which is, no one's saying that, right? That's I think the bottom line of all this. No one's saying that.

54:17

And there's really no reason for them to be condemning you for a view like that.

54:23

They're not even attributing the view to you. They're saying that someone that you support because you've repeated them before has this view.

54:29

They're not even saying you have the view. Which I was never asked about, but that's neither here nor there.

54:34

They're just bringing it on you. Right. Yeah. So, but that's my view on the matter. And I have a feeling, Mahler and Woe, if they don't agree 100 % with what

54:42

I just said, it would probably be 99%. Like, I don't, I, they're not like, they're not whackos, like they're sometimes made out to be on these more fundamental topics.

54:52

This is a, this is a very, very strange charge. Like, out of everything they could have picked, they picked basically a glorified misogyny charge for number three by association.

55:02

Like, this is a, it's just really weird. But moving on very quickly, we have charges four and five, which enter our last category.

55:12

And these charges four and five specifically deal with the large catechisms and my criticism, large catechism and my criticisms thereof.

55:19

So charge four reads, many of your social media posts, particularly responses to individuals who disagree with you are not made in love.

55:26

You regularly insult the intelligence and question the faith of individuals merely for disagreeing with you. Further, some of the, some of your statements regarding authors of the essays and annotations published with the large catechism were slanderous at worst, or at best, published with a callous disregard for the truth about them.

55:44

There is no exception to the eighth commandment with dealing, when dealing with people whom you disagree with, or from whom you perceive a personal attack.

55:51

We call you to repent. So, very quickly, on the face of that, this charge could be true.

55:57

Like, I'm sure there are some social media posts in which I have sinned. I generally try not to, but I'm, I have human infirmities, so this isn't, this isn't as outlandish as perhaps the preceding three charges are.

56:08

The issue is, is that they haven't actually shown what posts weren't made in love. They haven't tied this to anything tangible.

56:14

They just say, your posts aren't made in love, so they, we talked about this last time, so delete your social media presence because it's not made in love.

56:22

This is a, this is a, it's a silencing tactic. They're, by just saying some of your posts aren't made in love, they're, they want me to take down all of them.

56:30

Well, it's like a chart, if you said to someone like, hey, you've, we believe that you've said selfish things to your wife.

56:38

Like, if they leveled that charge about me, I'd be like, yeah, I have said selfish things to my wife, right?

56:44

But with no example, like, that's, that's such a wide net. You, you voice that on anyone, then it's like, you know, they're going to be guilty because it's so broad.

56:53

Sure, yeah, okay, yeah, and that's, that's a good point. This isn't necessarily excommunication worthy, especially because I haven't even been shown what it is

57:00

I'm supposed to recant in this chart. They've all probably, whether on social media or not, said things that were, you know, they've diminished people that they disagree with or said things in frustration or anger that were sinful that they probably needed to repent for.

57:14

But unless you show them the specific thing, it's hard to know if, like, this would be the easiest thing for you too,

57:20

Ryan, because you could just say, all right, I categorically repent of all the things that I've done that are sinful online, you know, and then that charge just gets dropped,

57:28

I guess, like. Well, I don't, because the way, what they're going to then do is they're going to say, well, prove that you are repenting and, like, delete it.

57:37

Like, that's, that's where, that's why I haven't really assented this, because they haven't, it's an assertion until they show me what

57:42

I'm supposed to repent of. It's not, it's not a Christian charge of sin, but even, okay, so with that aside, that's my main point.

57:50

That's why I'm not assenting to it. Beyond that, in the Lutheran view of what you're supposed to do with church discipline,

57:57

CFW Walther's form of a Christian congregation, it cites Saint Augustine, where he's talking about when excommunications are to be used, because the church in North Africa at the time was very much lamenting the spiritual state of people that call themselves

58:14

Christians. And Augustine says, basically, if we were to excommunicate people for drunkenness, which is a very widespread sin here in North Africa, we wouldn't have anyone coming to the table on Sunday.

58:27

And the LCMS, and Walther in particular, heeds that call and basically just says that if the sin is so widespread that it would prohibit everyone from coming to the table, there's a better way to work it out the next communication.

58:39

So in regards to this, you say mean things online. Well, I've had far, far more mean things said to me online by pastors who are actually in the

58:47

Synod, legally. Nothing's ever going to be done against them, nor am I calling for their excommunication.

58:53

I would hope they would apologize. There's a whole litany of names I could list off about that, but I'm not calling for excommunication because if that's the bar that we're jumping to for excommunication, then we're not going to have many people left in the

59:07

Synod. So... Let's move to the fifth one, unless you've got one quick thing to say about that.

59:14

We're running out of time. Yeah, very quickly. We can move on to five. This one's pretty general, too. Yeah, so and then

59:20

I should also mention in the original charges that I was given for my minor ban, this was the only charge that actually referenced

59:27

Scripture. Romans 16 and 1 Corinthians 5 on the second charge up above, if I remember correctly,

59:33

I think that has been added in. But you'll notice that this whole thing so far has only referenced Scripture.

59:38

It doesn't quote it. It doesn't say how it applies. It doesn't give any sort of specific thing that I've done wrong. This is a very weird list of charges to excommunicate someone over, if not just unchristian.

59:50

So yeah, for those who don't know, you might be Baptist or whatever, and you know, this excommunication is a very serious thing.

59:56

This doesn't... We don't use that terminology in every denomination, but when the Lutherans talk about excommunication, they're saying, you know, basically, you are headed for hell.

01:00:06

Yeah, yeah, they're not going to say by our authority, you're going to hell.

01:00:11

They're just saying you're not a Christian, and if you don't repent of this, you're going to hell by your own actions. So it's not like a papal action, but it's pretty dang close to it.

01:00:20

Yeah, yeah. So, all right, number five. Yeah, number five. Your statements regarding the essays and annotations connected to the large catechism in this ongoing process have been divisive, given your attitude throughout the process.

01:00:31

We cannot draw any other conclusion. Sorry, that's a redundancy. So we cannot draw any other conclusion other than that you are intentionally dividing the church.

01:00:41

We want to be crystal clear that you are free to disagree with the authors of the essays and annotations connected to the large catechism, and we can have respectful discussions about our opinions.

01:00:52

Those essays are not a binding authority by which you must abide. We understand, based on our previous conversation, you fear these essays will become doctrine at some point, but we wish you would have raised these fears in an orderly fashion to your pastor or through proper channels instead of taking to the internet and causing division within the church.

01:01:08

You have not clothed yourself with humility throughout this process, as commanded by 1 Peter 5 .5. We call you to repent.

01:01:15

So, very quickly, lightning round here. So, given your attitude, what attitude?

01:01:21

We still haven't connected this to anything tangible, anything that I've acted upon, anything that I've said. No proof has been shown here, and we'll get to this in a second, because it's even more, it's probably even worse than what you're thinking of when they actually voted to excommunicate me.

01:01:35

So, we cannot draw any other conclusion than you are intentionally dividing the church, as if the person that points out a problem is the one causing division and not the people that caused the problem.

01:01:43

This has been something that a bunch of people have been harping on to begin with, is that these charges presume that I caused the problem by making it public, or by even raising an alarm bell whenever it was a published book by the publishing house of the

01:01:57

LCMS. This is a, we don't hold this standard for anyone else, and rightfully so, that the people that say there's a problem do not cause it.

01:02:05

It's a logical leap, and it's not Christian. Free to disagree with the authors of the essays, we can have respectful discussions, but they're not a binding authority, and I've criticized them too harshly, is basically what the rest of this sums up to.

01:02:21

They're not a binding authority right now, but they're being taught in seminaries, so that's a slight of hand. So, you know, they're not going to have a statement put before each congregation saying you must abide by these essays of the large catechism.

01:02:33

It's just that they're going to teach all of your new seminarians everything that these essays have, and then your churches are going to be led by these people when they become pastors, and their sentence is going to slide further to the left, because these essays are leftist nonsense.

01:02:46

And then, we fear that, you fear that these essays will become doctrine at some point. Well, the publishing house that we have is only supposed to publish our doctrine, so I don't know what they're saying that this large catechism is if it's not doctrine.

01:03:00

I don't know why these essays are attached to confessional doctrine if they aren't meant to be taken as the correct interpretation of doctrine.

01:03:07

You know, why would we put catechism on something that you're not supposed to follow? And then, we wish you would raise these fears in an orderly fashion to your pastor or through proper channels instead of taking to the internet.

01:03:18

Well, I'm not a member of the senate. I don't have proper channels to go through. There's no mechanism in the

01:03:24

LCMS where a layman can say this is an issue, we need to take this to task. Congregations and pastors can raise these things by basically a parliamentary process.

01:03:34

So, I can't do any of that. So, the proper channel I'm supposed to take, what they're saying here is basically

01:03:40

I should have just been quiet and let other people handle it and let it drag out for about a decade or so at the least.

01:03:46

At the most, never. So, that's what they're saying I should have done. And then, this all boils down to the real sin

01:03:53

I've committed here is I have not clothed myself with humility. Sure, maybe I haven't. You know, I can repent of not being as humble as God commands me to.

01:04:01

I have no issue with assenting to that, but I'm not going to say that any of my actions here as stated in this point in this charge was wrong.

01:04:10

Okay. Yeah, this is smaxes. You're not letting us control you.

01:04:16

Well, yeah, I'm not going to accuse them of that. I know you're not. That's what effectively is happening too.

01:04:24

Well, I've just noticed the same language weaponized against me. It's not what you said.

01:04:30

It's the way you said it, Ryan. It's style points. You didn't do it the way that you're supposed to do it, and it made us look bad.

01:04:38

Right. All right. I don't know. Is there anything on here that we need to go over?

01:04:44

Well, this is sort of the present day end of the story. So, Sunday, May the 5th, when they actually took a vote to the congregation,

01:04:52

I wasn't present because I couldn't be. I had someone from the congregation reach out and ask if I was going to be attending, and I said

01:04:57

I couldn't. I had a meeting I was supposed to be at in Tulsa that was rather important for the work that I'm about to be doing in the next few years, secularly.

01:05:08

It has nothing to do with the church, and I had committed to this months ago, and I was just supposed to give this up because a week beforehand,

01:05:16

I was told that First Lutheran Church has scheduled my excommunication vote for Sunday, May the 5th, in the afternoon.

01:05:22

So, basically, they said, we're holding this. Hopefully, you can be there. That's not how this is supposed to go. You can't, and this is explicitly stated in our doctrine, you can't excommunicate people in absentia.

01:05:34

You can't pass judgment on someone when they aren't present, and I explicitly told the congregant, if they had asked me if I was able to be present,

01:05:44

I would have worked with them, but they didn't even ask me that. So, I was basically just told, your excommunication vote is

01:05:49

May 5th in the afternoon. Be there or don't, I guess. That's how it worked. So, the way that this worked is that whenever people entered, they were made to sign a statement that said,

01:06:01

I will not record this on my own. They all assented that the official minutes that were taken in this excommunication were the only official history of what happened in this vote, in this voters' meeting.

01:06:14

The only thing of mine that came from me that was shown to anyone as to why I should be excommunicated for any of those charges was

01:06:21

I had shared a podcast episode from Corey Mahler in Woe. That was the only thing from me that had been shared.

01:06:28

The rest of it was just airing out anything that Mahler or Woe had said. That was the proof that was provided for each of those five charges we went through.

01:06:37

So, that's the only proof that was shown, and also, this is the other thing, is that in violation, once again, of the doctrine that we have in here, this church holds that you can excommunicate someone with a capital

01:06:50

E, with a two -thirds vote. In Lutheran doctrine, it's supposed to be unanimous, and beyond that, they also reworked their own rules, and they made this explicit in the meeting.

01:07:01

They said as much. They reworked their own rules so that anyone that abstained would not count against unanimity.

01:07:09

Not that they even had to have it by their own constitution or bylaws, but just so that they could have that charge that I was unanimously excommunicated.

01:07:18

So, people abstained, but that didn't count for anything. They were, it didn't count.

01:07:24

They were just counted as if they weren't present for the vote. So, they reordered those rules, and some, one of the congregants brought up, hasn't

01:07:33

Ryan rescinded his membership? Isn't Ryan no longer a part of his congregation?

01:07:39

Why do we still have jurisdiction over him? And the elders and the pastor responded to that congregant that, yeah, he has handed in his letter rescinding any of his ties to us, but we haven't acknowledged that, and we're not going to so that we can excommunicate them, excommunicate him, which is, at this point, it's just hilarious that that's the reasoning that they took publicly, verbally in the meeting.

01:08:06

They said that with a straight face, and then they went on to say that if a child is doing something wrong and then suddenly decides to stop after most of it has been done, the parent doesn't just not punish the child.

01:08:19

That was the stated reasoning that they gave the congregant for excommunicating me, even though I had rescinded my ties to this church.

01:08:27

So, they declared this to be a punitive measure in the excommunication vote itself. Gotcha. Something's going wrong with my camera, but I don't know.

01:08:39

I'm lurking on it right now to see if I can get it fixed. I don't know why all of a sudden it's not showing, but people can still see you, and I know that you wanted me to share this stuff.

01:08:50

Yeah, yeah. This wasn't part of the formal charges, but Jordan Cooper saying that Turnipseed is someone who puts anything in the category of non -European as non -American, and then he also says that Turnipseed has said before that African Americans are not

01:09:09

Americans. So, and I guess I don't really know much about Jordan Cooper. I guess he's a big deal in the

01:09:14

LCMS or something, but... He's not even in the LCMS. He's in a small fellowship body that we hold all -term pulpit fellowship with, but it was basically a break away from the churches that formed the

01:09:25

ELCA, if that tells you anything about their foundation. Okay, so you can explain why you wanted me to share this, but then he shares a screenshot of you saying that this

01:09:36

Lizzo, who... I should find the picture of this. Please don't.

01:09:41

Please don't. It's so obscene. Lizzo playing flute. Yeah, it is.

01:09:47

So here, this is... I think this flute belongs to James Madison, right? If I remember correctly,

01:09:53

I think it's Madison. Yeah. James Madison. And so, yeah, there you go.

01:09:58

So you apparently said that that was not American, or... Yeah, so I've been talking this whole time about there are a lot of problems with the clergy online, and that's just not going to be talked about.

01:10:11

And part of this has come back to me, because now that they are trying to defend my excommunication and all this other stuff, they're tying into these official charges that I received.

01:10:19

Well, Ryan doesn't believe that Blacks or African Americans can be American. They have this very...

01:10:26

frankly, this obscene mischaracterization of anything that I said. So when

01:10:31

Lizzo was quite frankly desecrating anything that had to do with the heritage of this country, taking

01:10:38

James Madison's flute out and playing it, as we just saw in that photo, scamply clad, very sort of non -put -together, this sort of desecration,

01:10:51

I think is a good word for it. I said that this person is not

01:10:56

American. And I gave two reasons why whenever I was pressed on it, because the reason I was given for why she was

01:11:02

American was the more technical or legal definition. She was born in the United States, which is sort of like the...

01:11:08

it's the most extreme version of a civic nationalist argument.

01:11:14

You're born inside the borders of this country, therefore you are that country. And the response

01:11:20

I gave to that was twofold. I said, well, she's not European, so the founders of the country wouldn't have considered her to be an

01:11:26

American, just because that was the law that was in place up until the end of the Civil War.

01:11:32

The founders, the people that made the country, decided the criteria for being a part of the country, and part of it was that Blacks or Africans could not be that way.

01:11:42

I gave no value judgment on this, because I also said holds no American culture. That's the civic argument for being part of a country, is you have to hold the culture, the ideals of the people, without offering a value judgment on that either.

01:11:55

So I gave two criterion by which basically, like my great -grandparents or my grandparents wouldn't consider

01:12:02

Lizzo to be an American. When my great -grandmother looked at the TV, she was disgusted, not because she was some hardcore racist or whatever, but because she doesn't like what we just saw.

01:12:14

Very overweight, ill -dressed people taking artifacts of the country and basically just playing around with them on live

01:12:22

TV. It causes revulsion. It's very similar to if, say, someone took the

01:12:30

English, the Royal Scepter in England, and just started playing around with it on live television while being very sort of grotesque about it.

01:12:38

You do say not European and holds no American culture. This isn't being brought up to you in the charges.

01:12:45

This is just something. This is what pastors use right now to sort of defame me.

01:12:55

So maybe you need to spend a little bit more time explaining that. Someone who doesn't have

01:13:02

European ancestry who's lived here for generations, though, they would be considered an

01:13:07

American, I would think. Well, you would think, but that's not how the law was originally written. But this isn't even the point

01:13:13

I'm focusing on. The whole reason I bring this up is that second part of the sentence, holds no American culture.

01:13:19

That's the second possible way you could view someone as an American is that no matter how old or recent or what the law says, so long as they hold

01:13:26

American culture, they are American. By this standard, Lizzo would not be considered an American, at least not by anyone that's lived in this country or was born in this country for the last however many years.

01:13:36

What we're seeing right now on the screen is not what Americans do with their heritage. Yeah, yeah.

01:13:42

So taking James Madison's flute and then playing it in a very provocative way, sort of an obscene provocative way,

01:13:51

I'd say. Yeah. This would have fit the legal definition of obscenity not 80 years ago.

01:13:56

Yeah. If you see the actual video, which I'll spare you that. It's quite sensual, but not

01:14:03

I don't even know. Sensual is not even the word. I don't even know how to say this nicely. There's nothing. Yeah, there's there's really nothing provocative or sensual about it in my mind, but it's an attempt to look that way,

01:14:14

I suppose. You're right. And and so this is not respect. This is an American culture.

01:14:19

This isn't respecting American culture. American culture is fundamentally European. I would say it's Anglo -Protestant.

01:14:25

Well, regardless of what the culture is. Yeah. Yeah. Right. So it's not.

01:14:31

Yeah. Those are two separate things that I put there. And I can grant that it would be, it could be phrased clearer, but I didn't.

01:14:40

That tweet was from like two years ago almost. And it was to one specific person whom

01:14:46

I know. He got the meaning. My audience got the meaning. This pastor that was looking for something to charge me with and the other pastors that are friends of his are deliberately misinterpreting the meaning or at least didn't care.

01:14:57

Yeah. So there I guess. So Jordan Cooper has read this in the worst possible way.

01:15:03

And you just want to point out that, like, I didn't say non -Europeans are not

01:15:08

American. I didn't say African -Americans are not American. I'm saying that American culture is

01:15:16

European. And this is this offends those sensibilities. Well, I mean, even going back to it,

01:15:21

I'm not saying what the culture is. I'm literally, I'm giving the two criteria for which one can be considered

01:15:27

American by most schools of philosophy. Either you have the heritage, which the founders,

01:15:34

I say the founders not as an appeal to authority, but literally because they made the laws of the country. Like, I'm not going to dispute with them what the country is and who can be in it when they're the ones that made it.

01:15:44

They wouldn't have considered her that based off of that first criterion. And then the second criterion is the one that most

01:15:50

Americans hold by now, the cultural thing. Do you act American? And clearly the answer is no.

01:15:55

Like, that's the one that like my grandparents and great grandparents always held to was like, do they act American? No, they're not an

01:16:01

American. Doesn't matter how long they've been here or what group they're in. You're correct, Jordan Cooper, in a very short, you know, a couple of sound bites then.

01:16:09

Is Lizzo an American? What do you what do you say to Jordan Cooper, people who take this and say you're saying that somehow she's not an

01:16:17

American and they assume it's because you're saying that she's has black skin or something like that? Yeah. And I would say if you want my own value reading now, which is not what that last message was, that was a very it was value neutral, if you will.

01:16:28

I was just saying by these schools, you want my own value reading. No, Lizzo is not American. The only thing that I need to say in regards to that is that like my my grandparents and great grandparents don't consider her to be an

01:16:37

American because she defaces and desecrates things that are in the country's heritage.

01:16:43

You know, if she was acting American, she would hold those in reverence, but she doesn't. So that's that's that's the only thing that I would need to say towards that.

01:16:51

And that's that's the only thing that I need to view it as. I don't need to take it to some sort of overly controversial way to to say that I need to take this some overly controversial subject.

01:17:02

It's a very simple thing that you hear boomer boomer generation constantly saying, like the

01:17:07

Democrats are un -American. It's basically they're letting in all these people who don't share our way of life and they're, you know, profaning our institutions and they're corrupt.

01:17:18

And, you know, this is not the way Americans act. So they're un -American. That's basically what you're OK. Right. And that's that's all that.

01:17:24

That's that's my that's my personal view on the matter in regards to this, because, like I said, I don't need to think out a bunch of controversial complexities.

01:17:32

It's as simple as that. You know, there's you have civic nationalism and ethno nationalism. And sometimes they're viewed as mutually exclusive.

01:17:39

But most ethno nationalists are also civic nationalists. They have a creed that you're supposed to hold by even if you're in the heritage of the country.

01:17:46

Like I even even for them, they should accept this. But in regards to Lizzo, this is important. It was the reason it was important then was because conservative pastors were heralding

01:17:55

Lizzo as some exemplar of American virtue or something. And then I was trying to counter that.

01:18:02

And I explicitly said then that what Cooper never shows probably very conveniently for him. But if you're holding up Lizzo to be some exemplar of the of black

01:18:10

Americans, that's a very dismal future you painted for them. The best they can be is the obese and obscene desecrator of American history.

01:18:19

That's not it's not a heritage that anyone should strive for. Right. And that's that's what that's what Cooper, Hans Feeney and a bunch of other conservative pastors have been doing whenever they whether they know it or not.

01:18:29

For anyone, any of my audience that looks back at this, this is what they're interpreting them doing. They're saying that that's that's that's what blacks and African -Americans are is

01:18:38

Lizzo, because they're they're saying I was giving the I was giving them an out, basically, where they could say this is not this is not exemplary.

01:18:46

What would you say to someone who is white and the exact same thing, look the same way?

01:18:52

What would you say? I would have harsher words because that's not as not socially unacceptable for me to criticize.

01:18:58

OK, all right. There you go. I mean, I think that settles it. Then, you know, that wouldn't be American to you either. It'd be even like I said, there's not the social pressure.

01:19:06

I have to dance around my words. I could be as as harsh as I want to be with that. Well, we do need to land the plane because we've been going about an hour and 20.

01:19:14

But I just want to say, you know, Ryan's a young guy. Ryan is brave to take this on.

01:19:20

And, you know, Ryan, I think that there are men, there are much older men who probably should be basically taking your place.

01:19:28

They should be doing what you're doing and they should be in the crosshairs to the point that you are. And I've noticed there's a lot of weakness and it is often younger people who are now bolder on these things.

01:19:42

And maybe it's because you do have your life ahead of you. You do see the costs associated with this is like you have you want to have a family.

01:19:50

I'm assuming you want to have children at some point and they're going to have to live in this world. You're not nearing retirement where you can just kind of skate by the rest of your life and not to denigrate older people who are in that position because many of them are brave.

01:20:02

But but but I think it just proves that there's something lacking in the men in our

01:20:09

Christian institutions when it's someone like you who's the one in the crosshairs. And ultimately, the reason

01:20:14

I was even interested in this from the beginning is because it comes down to that commentary on the catechism.

01:20:20

Right. You were the one who most publicly criticized that, got traction from criticizing it. And this is look what's happened.

01:20:26

They've you know, what's happened since then is you've had your local church essentially want to go through the underwear drawer and, you know, pull out everything they can, even making stretches to try to do guilt by association things to destroy you, which, you know,

01:20:44

I think none of this probably would have been happening if it weren't for the fact that you criticized the the big boys in the denomination.

01:20:51

You said that they made a bad decision here. This was a terrible commentary. It's it's filled with it's rife with left wing coded language.

01:21:00

And and so and they don't like that. And so they're going to do the personal thing, too. They're going to go after you personally.

01:21:05

And you don't see them expressing concern over the catechism in this way, which is that's the shocking thing to me in all of this.

01:21:11

You have men at the top in leadership positions putting out blatantly unscriptural things in this catechism commentary, and they don't seem concerned about that.

01:21:23

Don't seem to be raising a stink about that. It's up to you, a young at the time. You must have been like 19 or 20,

01:21:29

I suppose. Nineteen. Yeah. A 19 year old to to make this more public to the general layman in the denomination.

01:21:38

And who do they target? You wrap this for you. It's not for the people at the top making this decision.

01:21:45

And they're willing to. I just think it's it's reprehensible what's going on. And people need to take that into account, that the age difference here and also the just the the way that the wind is blowing.

01:21:57

It's only in one direction. It's only punch. Let's punch. Right. Punch. Right. Punch. Right. And whether they have legitimate points or not, maybe some of you think that maybe, hey, maybe

01:22:05

Ryan did some unwise things. Maybe Ryan said some things you don't like, whatever. Like, look at what they're doing to grasp at things at straws in some cases for what

01:22:15

Ryan's done compared to what they had. They said anything against the authors of that commentary. I doubt it.

01:22:21

Right. And that and it should be worth noting as well. That catechism came after the summer beforehand. They basically let an organization called

01:22:28

Lutherans for Racial Justice take over half of their youth gathering, their national youth gathering. So this is it's not like this just came out of nowhere either.

01:22:35

Like I publicized about that. It didn't get nearly as many views or traction. But that was a like this.

01:22:41

This has been an ongoing trend and nothing's being done about that stuff up top. And it and the only way it will be.

01:22:48

And if I could just end my little screed with with with these sort of exhortations, the only way this will end is that people in the

01:22:56

Senate start putting up a fight. And I do personally have hope that this will happen. I think that there will be a fight over this.

01:23:03

I think there will be coming developments. And I have complete confidence that this this battle is just starting.

01:23:09

We've exited the beginning stages. They've tried to do their purges. And now we're going to see if the if the

01:23:16

Senate will tolerate this. And I have a pretty good hope that a good a good chunk of the

01:23:21

Senate won't tolerate it. But even then, if you're a layman or a pastor in the LCMS, I would,

01:23:27

I would advise you to make known that you will not tolerate these things. Because if you don't make that known, that that voice isn't going to get out there.

01:23:35

And this, the Senate is going to keep sliding leftward, like every other institution does whenever people on the right are too scared to publicly say something.

01:23:42

It's an uncontested vocal space where things just keep sliding leftward. And the the official opinion just keeps going further and further to the left and the moderate position slides along with it slides along with it.

01:23:54

So I would say that to those in the LCMS and to those outside of the LCMS. You should not be the one under the microscope.

01:24:00

It should be the denomination and what they're doing. And that's what I would encourage people. All right, well, we got to land the plane.

01:24:06

You can plug anything you want, Ryan, website, Twitter, whatever. Yeah, real quick, just to those outside the

01:24:11

LCMS. This was the conservative congregation or denomination Lutheranism. It's happening here first.

01:24:17

And it most certainly will get to yours if none of this is opposed. So people can find me on Twitter at Turnip Merchant, all one word, play on my last name.

01:24:27

I have a YouTube channel called Ryan Turnip Seed, where I haven't been active on it recently.

01:24:32

But earlier this year, I was doing a few history streams and a few other things like that. So I had a small series going on neoconservatism, actually looking at what they wrote and why they were so bad.

01:24:43

So if you are of a paleoconservative bent or a paleolibertarian bent or just a generally right wing or traditionalist worldview, you might find some of those videos interesting.

01:24:53

And yeah, I would go to those two places first if you want to find me anywhere else.