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July 12, 2007

Dear Delegates,

May God bless you in your travels and as you serve our Lord at our LCMS 2007 Convention.

I pray that you will chose leaders who want to lead you in prayer for our ELCA brothers and sisters whose Biblical faith and witness will be under attack again by homosexual agenda advocates at the August 2007 ELCA Churchwide assembly.

In 2001 President Kieschnick traveled to New York to pray with ELCA leaders, because of 9/11. He engaged in a joint worship with well known ELCA gay agenda leaders, at an ELCA church, which publicly advocates the gay agenda on its website.

After 9/11, President Kieschnick approved of prayer, with non-Christian clergy, at Yankee Stadium because the issue was important to him.

Now, when, intercessory prayer, lead by him, at our own convention is requested; for our ELCA Lutheran brethren under great spiritual attack, where is his interest?

When, the 1^st vice-president fails to keep the homosexual agenda out of Wheatridge Ministries, where is President Kieschnick interest?

Let us have leaders who are ablaze to fulfill Christ’s prayer to “our Father who art in heaven” that “thy will be done “which completely excludes the gay agenda, and that He would “deliver us from evil”. The “us” includes all the believers under attack in the ELCA.

Dan Ford
Lay Member
St. John’s Lutheran Church
Wheaton IL

July 9, 2007

Dear Delegate,
Committee 3 has rejected Overture 3-101, which has one simple resolve, that the President of Synod lead the 2007 LCMS convention in prayer for the ELCA.

Resolved, That the President of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod lead the 2007 LCMS Convention in prayer for the ELCA, imploring our Father in heaven to bestow the Holy Spirit so that all false teaching regarding human sexuality, marriage, and homosexuality in the ELCA be uprooted by the Word of God for the good of the members and congregations of the ELCA and for the sake of those within and without the ELCA who are trapped in ungodly sexuality.

Committee 3 assigned the overture to Resolution B, and referenced Resolution 3-07 of the 2004 Synod Convention (available from the Synod’s website).

2004 Resolution 3-07 says nothing about prayer for the ELCA; it talks about the President, or Presidium, making a report to Synod at some future time. It would have been very helpful, at this time, if there were a report from the President of Synod, about the crisis in the ELCA, which the delegates could have considered. Since it doesn’t exist, I will try to bring the delegates up to date.

The ELCA, meeting in August, 2007, and again, in 2009, faces the greatest crisis of its existence. This 2007 Convention is the last opportunity for the LCMS to act concerning the ELCA.

In August 2006, the Bishop of Southeastern Synod ELCA, Rev. Ronald Warren, filed charges against Rev. Bradley Schmeling of Atlanta, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta, because he had publicly “entered a life-long, committed relationship” with another man.

In February 2007, a ELCA disciplinary hearing committee voted to remove Pastor Schmeling, but also said the ELCA should change it bylaws which currently require the removal of active homosexual clergy, and set a very late date, Aug. 15, 2007 for his removal ,to allow the issue to come to the ELCA August Churchwide Assembly.

Since January 2007, more than 20 ELCA synods have passed memorials asking the ELCA to change their bylaws, and to permit clergy to enter homosexual partnerships. The first Bishop of ELCA, Rev. Herbert Chilstrom, who testified for Bradley Schmeling at his trial, has published a recent article supporting Rev. Schmeling’s actions. On June 2, 2007 Rev. Schmeling addressed the Southeast Synod assembly as a candidate for Bishop. On June 24 2007, Rev. Schmeling was the male Grand Marshal of the Atlanta Gay Pride parade.

On July 2, 2007 the ELCA Committee on Appeals ruled the February disciplinary hearing committee had exceeded its authority in staying its decision, and that Rev. Schmeling was to be removed from the ELCA roster effective that day.
Rev. Schmeling comments included that “The church can only resist the Holy Spirit for so long.”

If ever the ELCA needed the prayers of the LCMS, now is that time.

If you go to www.Ablazeforchrist.com you will find links for all the facts presented, including television interviews of Rev. Schmeling.

Dan Ford

Note: Please forward this email to your circuit’s lay delegate. THANK YOU

Dear President Kieschnick and The Council of Presidents:
My letter concerns an attack on the reputation of the innocent victims murdered on 9-11-01. The victims were defamed by Crossroads Ministry, an organization funded, in part, by the Northern Illinois District and Wheatridge Ministries.

But, let me first begin by thanking President Kieschnick for his reply of July 28, 2004, which is enclosed. My May 28, 2004 communication to the Praesidium made a prima facie case that the Northern Illinois District and Wheatridge Ministry had each spent over $100,000 funding Crossroads Ministry and/or teams they were training. Crossroad’s leaders, had chosen to roster themselves as ELCA gay agenda advocates both in 1993 and 2004. President Kieschnick’s response said he was waiting for replies from NID President William Ameiss and Wheatridge President Richard Bimler.

May I ask, that you also get a response from 1st Vice President William Diekelman, who is the chairmen of the Board of Directors of Wheatridge Ministry.

I also ask that the public rosters I mailed the Praesidium listing approximately 900 clergy in the ELCA and hundreds of congregations and institutions that have self designated themselves as gay-agenda advocates be distributed to the Council of Presidents. This could prevent the reoccurrence of a situation like that of ELCA minister, Thomas Strieter, who publicly rostered himself, and his congregation, as gay-agenda advocates in the early 1990s and then presented himself for colloquy into the LCMS in 1997. He was successful, until I meet with President Ameiss in1998, and made clear I would publicize Strieter’s public record. (The Large Catechism, the Eighth Commandment, section 284)

At the 2004 Synodical Convention, we passed 8-03, which said in part, “The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod faced significant challenges regarding our ministry response to those needs resulting from the tragic events of 9/11”. A significant challenge remains. I am asking the Council of President to speak up publicly against an ELCA teacher who was teaching within the LCMS, and who defamed the 3000 innocent victims murdered on 9-11-2001. Such defamations are a serious violation of the Eighth Commandment and should not be tolerated , funded, or supported, by any members of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

I am enclosing five items:

• A letter to the 2001 Synodical delegates. It quotes Crossroad’s founder, Joe Barndt’s book Dismantling Racism which mocks God deliverance of Israel from Egypt. He goes on to assert that all Whites are racists, and only Whites are racist, because they have power; and, that People of Color (POC) can not be racists, because they lack power.
• Two pages from the training manual Joe Barndt used to spread Crossroads theological sewage in the North Illinois District.
• A Report on Crossroads and Wheatridge Ministries.
• The reflections of Crossroad’s founder Joe Barndt on the attack on 9-11-01. He shifts the guilt of the murderers onto the victims.

Please read carefully Brandt’s “new wake-up call for the people of the United States”.

• The attacks of 9-11-01 were a result of centuries-long racial oppression.
• This tragedy is the latest of many tragedies.
• Barndt then lists the “oppression” victims. They are only People of Color (POC)

The deaths of the majority of 3000 innocents murdered that day–though tragic–do not count in Barndt’s list of victims. They were guilty of being of the wrong race –White– and of being in the wrong situation– having power–and thus guilty of causing “oppression” of the true victims–People of Color. Crossroad’s analysis, as one Professor said, is the false religion of Marxism applied to Race.

This man has spent his entire career developing his theories, writing three books, and, in 1986, with his wife, founding Crossroad Ministry where he was executive director until 2002 and has continued as a Crossroad’s trainer. His theories have blinded him to what everyone else can see.

The attacks of 9-11-01 were solely the result of religious fanatics. Religious fascists carried out the most successful military attack in American history, with the lose of only 19 perpetrators. This same fanaticism resulted in the murder of over hundred and fifty school children in Russia last month.

According to a report sent to the Northern Illinois District Board of Directors in April, 2004, Crossroads has trained three teams of over 34 individuals, two district teams and one team for Concordia University, River Forest. A request was made for more Crossroad’s training, and that more teams be organized. “The promotion of the Anti-Racism project” with “congregations, District, and Synodical officials” is one of the five year goals established.

My hope and prayer is that I will be able to report that the Leadership of the LCMS refused to be silent and spoke up for the innocent victims of 9-11-01 and rebuke this public sin that has occurred within the LCMS.

Yours in Christ,
Dan Ford

Dear Rev. Kieschnick,
On February 28, 2004, my brother, Professor Charles Ford sent you and other members of the LCMS Presidium a letter concerning how ELCA gay agenda advocates were using Wheatridge Ministries, a LCMS RSO, to fund the gay agenda.

In late May, I sent you over hundred pages documenting Charles’ letter and detailing the very open organizational structures of the ELCA gay agenda advocates. Wheatridge has spent well over hundred thousand dollars funding the work of two organizations lead by gay agenda advocates who include the gay agenda in their programs, Crossroads Ministries and Lutheran Human Relations Association (LHRA).Wheatridge currently has budgeted twenty five thousand dollars for Crossroads Ministry.

July 15, 2001 you were elected President of the LCMS.

July 20, 2001 our LCMS Convention passed 3-21A “affirming the late President Alvin L. Barry’s judgment that “we cannot consider them (the ELCA) to be an orthodox Lutheran church body.”

But we of the LCMS recognize that many of our brothers and sisters of the ELCA remain faithful to the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ and We Resolve to Reach Out to Them in Love and Support. (Capitalization added)

On July 22, 2001, five ELCA gay agenda advocate groups joined together to form the Lutheran Alliance For Full Participation and sent an official three page letter to the Presiding bishop of the ELCA calling the Scriptural teachings of the Lutheran Church “false teaching” and “spiritual violence”. They spoke of their suffering: they “experienced daily the spiritually deadening effects of having the legitimacy of their relationships demeaned and their calls to the ordained Word and Sacrament ministry challenged”. Having designated themselves victims, they demanded “full participation”; that is the ELCA had to recognize gay marriage and gay ordination. I sent you a copy of this letter last month. The five groups included almost nine hundred ELCA ministers who publicly have roster themselves as gay agenda advocates and far smaller number of ELCA congregations and Synods that had voted to approve the gay agenda and have designated themselves (RIC).

In August 2001 The ELCA Church wide assembly voted to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to conduct a study of human sexuality and officially open the question whether gay marriage and ordination are legitimate. A “final report with an action plan for implementation” was to be submitted to the 2005 Churchwide Assembly.

September 8, 2001 you were installed as President of the LCMS.

September 11, 2001 our Nation was attacked.

Because of the attacks, President Benke, before becoming involved in the Yankee Stadium event, helped arrange for you two joint ELCA-LCMS worship events, as a part of your September 19, 2001 visit to New York.

I enclose the six page folder prepared for the two worship events. Let me delineate the congregation and the five leaders listed in the folder.

The congregation where someone (who?) decided you should worship that day is very unusual. Holy Trinity ELCA had officially acted to adopt the gay agenda (RIC) and announce that fact to the public by noting this on the home page of its website, as well as put up a RIC plaque on its wall. In spite of the fact the New York Metro Synod had voted to become a gay agenda synod(RIC) in 1998, by 2000 only 6 congregations out of the 234 congregations in the New York Metro Synod had taken such individual action. I enclose a copy of the website page.

The first name in the worship folder is Rev. Robert Scholz, the minister of Holy Trinity. He died in February 2004. He was one of the leading gay agenda advocates in the ELCA, certainly in the Metro New York Synod. In the 2000 MNYS assembly, 28 conservatives pastors had organized a effort to reverse the 1998 Synod action declaring the MNYS to be a RIC synod and had submitted a thoughtful and devastating criticism of this designation.

In the minutes of the 2000 MNYS assembly, the officially chosen leader of the gay agenda advocates was Rev. Robert Scholz. He won this battle to maintain the Synod’s RIC designation 306 to 129 votes. Then they went on to win a vote to request the ELCA to establish a Commission for Gays and Lesbians, and won a third vote to establish a MNYS Commission for Gays and Lesbians. Rev. Robert Scholz was selected to be chairmen of the MNYS commission for Gays and Lesbians.

At the June 2001 MNYS assembly Rev. Scholz co-sponsored a resolution to challenge the Boys Scouts in the Metro New York areas to approve of “full participation” for gays. The resolution was approved. This is the man who lead the two worship services you participated in that day.

The second man is Bishop Steve Bouman, who is the elected head of MNYS, which had twice-in 1998 and in 2000-voted to support the gay agenda and publicly list itself as an RIC Synod. He is a 1973 Concordia Seminary graduate and was a Seminex supporter.

The third man is ELCA Presiding Bishop George Anderson who had just finished preceding over a Churchwide assembly which decided to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to consider whether the ELCA should apostatize and desert Christ’s teachings in 2005.

The fourth man is Rev. David Benke, he is the man who lead you into this situation. His contribution, which the ELCA news sources reported, was to say during the “worship service” that “the differences that separate the ELCA and the LCMS “seem so trivial.”

The fifth man is you.

The differences that separate the ELCA and LCMS are monumental.

These joint prayer and worship services clearly violated Synod’s Resolution 3-21A passed just two months earlier.

I know you understand the gay agenda is an offense against our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The god of the gay agenda advocates is not the God of Holy Scripture. This is the reason you should repent for praying with them.

The first job an ecclesiastical Supervisor should do, is to supervise himself.

Yours in Christ
Dan Ford

May 28, 2004

Dear Pastors,
I am responding to your letter which my brother, Charles Ford, forwarded to me. His health does not allow him to respond at this time. My brothers, Charles and Bill, and I have worked together on this issue for years, and I am happy to respond to your letter. I believe you will find useful the information I am sending.

The question was raised as for the source of Charles’ information. That is a good question. The material is public. The vast majority of it comes directly from the institutions named in Charles’ letter to you.

A better question might be: Why are the appropriate authorities and the members of our Church not aware of this information?

I am sending you two booklets.

The first booklets includes the complete rosters of the two leading organization of Gay Advocates in the ELCA along with their public letter to the Presiding Bishop of ELCA clearly explaining their goal of gay marriage and the ordination of active homosexual men and women as pastors. They go on to label traditional Christian teaching against their goals as “false teachings”.

Let me stop here. The real point of Charles letter and my letter to you is a fundamental question:

If the LCMS really believes our traditional teaching is of the Lord and is His truth: Should we not refuse to pray with, work with, or fund the people on this roster of false teachers?

The RIC congregations and student groups that have chosen to publicly make a false confession are also to be “marked and avoided.” Romans 16.

The second booklet is information about the relationship between Wheatridge Ministries, a LCMS RSO, and Crossroads Ministries.

Since 1995 Wheatridge Ministries has spent $80,000 funding two grants to Crossroads and is seeking funding of $25,000 for a third grant.

The North Illinois District has spent over $100,000 between 2001 and 2004 for Crossroads training and the ongoing work of the “anti-racism teams”. These teams are currently requesting the NID Board of Directors to get funding for more Crossroads training.

Both Joseph Barndt, the co-founder of Crossroads, and its major author and Chuck Ruehle, the co-director, are on the 1992 roster of the Network.

Several “Continuum” sheets from Crossroads training sessions are included. This is the Crossroads vision of the future. Please notice that the gay agenda is a standard part of their vision. They also routinely accuse the groups they are training of harboring hypocrites who say they have “no problem”.

When they came to the Northern Illinois District, Crossroads dropped it standard reference to gays and lesbians being oppressed. Did Crossroads conclude the Northern Illinois District has no problem?

Of course not. After the NID “antiracism team” are “trained” the goal will become to get them to “network” with the other “antiracism teams,” who have taken the standard training, in the Crossroads LDI (Leadership Development Institute). Please visit the Crossroads website and read about the LDI.

Please notice that there are two “Final Reports” on the 2001-2004 NID grant. The 2003 report has been permanently removed. Can you see why?

In the 1995-1998 grant, Chuck Ruehle makes the point that Crossroads works only with those who share its views on “systemic racism”. Read Barndt book, my quotes from his earlier books, and the critic by the professors of the University of Alabama of Barndt’s book.

Finally, please read Joe Barndt’s denigration of the victims of 9-11-01.

Do any of you think this collection of false teachers should be funded by monies from LCMS congregations?

I believe it is sinful that our members study under, and pray with, these false teachers.

Do any of you disagree with me?

Yours in Christ,
Dan Ford