It's easy for us American Christians to become insulated and unaware of the struggles of our fellow Christians around the world. We take our religious freedom for granted. Our freedom and prosperity have made us lukewarm in our faith, taking the church for granted, becoming increasingly focused on ourselves and jaded to the struggles of our brothers and sisters around the world.
The above video is a triumph of biblical Christianity and confessional Lutheranism over the forces of evil. For many years, Scandinavian Lutherans have been denied the right to pastors who believe in holy scripture. With increasingly tyrannical control, Scandinavian churches - sometimes with the aiding and abetting of the state - have pushed a gender agenda at odds with biblical Christianity. For nearly a generation, any candidate for the ministry in Sweden was compelled to accept women pastors as a profession of faith before being permitted ordination and placement. This draconian control was implemented slowly and gradually. Over the course of many years, the velvet glove was peeled off. The increasingly harsh rules eventually became an airtight choke hold that locked out any man who was faithful to scripture.
The faithful laypeople suffered for want to pastors who actually believed in scripture.
Finally, after years of frustration and oppression by fraudulent "bishops," biblical and traditional Lutherans were liberated on February 5, 2005 by a courageous bishop and pastor from Kenya, the Most Rev. Walter Obare. Bishop Obare, in the face of threats and financial bullying from the devil's tools in the Lutheran World Federation, stood up for the faith by consecrating the Rev. Arne Olsson as an indigenous bishop for the Church of Sweden, overseeing a non-geographical diocese within the Church of Sweden known as the Mission Province. And now, in Bishop Olsson and the bishops who have been consecrated since, Scandinavians have a means to have faithful candidates for ministry to be ordained and placed into service.
Finally, after years of frustration and oppression by fraudulent "bishops," biblical and traditional Lutherans were liberated on February 5, 2005 by a courageous bishop and pastor from Kenya, the Most Rev. Walter Obare. Bishop Obare, in the face of threats and financial bullying from the devil's tools in the Lutheran World Federation, stood up for the faith by consecrating the Rev. Arne Olsson as an indigenous bishop for the Church of Sweden, overseeing a non-geographical diocese within the Church of Sweden known as the Mission Province. And now, in Bishop Olsson and the bishops who have been consecrated since, Scandinavians have a means to have faithful candidates for ministry to be ordained and placed into service.
Needless to say, the official apparatchiks of the Church of Sweden and the Lutheran World Federation are most unhappy to find their stranglehold broken. Their lust for domination has been circumvented, and they are retaliating against anyone who bucks them.
The faithful Lutherans in Finland also needed a true bishop of their own, and so Bishop Olsson in turn consecrated the Rev. Matti Väisänen as a Mission Province bishop - for which he was "defrocked" by the malicious and malignant lowerarchy of the Church of Finland. This means that Bishop Väisänen may not officiate at weddings in Finland, and has been stigmatized by the Church of Finland (which is actually a badge of honor) as somehow being unfit for ministry. In fact, all consecrated Mission Province bishops have been systematically "defrocked" by the apostate "churches" of Scandinavia. Thank God for our faithful brothers in Christ and fellow servants in the holy ministry!
These blatant acts of religious discrimination by the Churches of Finland and Sweden (in societies society that claim to prize equality and tolerance) highlight the struggle between the faithful biblical and confessional Lutheranism of the Mission Province over and against the establishment that has replaced the divine theology of the scriptures with the secular philosophy of feminism, and the God-given sacraments with the anthropocentric religion of homosexualism.
The solemnity of the above consecration service shows that these faithful Lutheran Christians understand the historical and spiritual significance of their good confession. The blessing of Bishop Väisänen with the laying on of hands and the Lord's Prayer being said in multiple languages (not to mention the multilingual nature of the entire service) calls to mind the miracle of Pentecost - in which the Holy Spirit broke through Satan's tyranny to being the Gospel of Jesus Christ to a world held hostage by darkness. The singing of A Mighty Fortress Is Our God at the close of the service is also poignant. We are seeing a new reformation against a modern cabal of church bureaucrats who care nothing for the Gospel.
This is multiculturalism at its very best - not politically correct repression, but rather a Pentecost-like catholic confession and liberation of the biblical faith once delivered to the saints, and still being delivered today by God's grace and mercy. For even as the Scandinavians in previous centuries brought the holy faith to an Africa dominated by Paganism and superstition, now we are seeing the enlightening come back, as a faithful and courageous African bishop was (and still is) instrumental in restoring Christianity back to a Europe now plunged in darkness and superstition.
Let us pray not only for Bishop Obare, but all of the courageous bishops, priests, deacons, and laymen of the Mission Province and of emerging confessional Lutheran groups around the world who are putting everything on the line for the sake of confessing the truth of Christ over and against a culture (and in some cases, a state) that has placed Christ and the Church in the cross-hairs. Their grandchildren may some day evangelize our grandchildren. Let us repent of our complacency and let us stand shoulder to shoulder with these faithful brothers and sisters in Christ.
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