Brain Washing and Mind Control Conspiracy Orchestrated in LCMS District Offices
LCMS congregations are ill equipped to resist changes in their religion

By Rev. Jack M. Cascione

The great deception being perpetrated by the majority of the LCMS district offices on LCMS congregations is that changing worship style does not change doctrine, substance, or their faith in God. The facts are that the opposite is true and the district offices know exactly what they are doing. Job 17:12 They change the night into day: the light [is] short because of darkness.

The overwhelming empirical data gathered by eminent researchers from Harvard and Stanford, renowned educators, psychologists, artists, art critics, Luther, and the clear application of logic and the Scripture agree that changing "style" must change "substance" or at least the definition and understanding of the substance. This deception is promoted in the LCMS in books written by Dr. David Luecke titled "Evangelical Style Lutheran Substance" and "The Other Story of Lutherans at Worship," with the intent to destroy historic Christianity. The latter of these two books is endorsed on the back by John Heins, former Chairman of the Council of the LCMS District Presidents.

Changes in the externals such as vocabulary and behavior at worship do change thought and belief. We are not speaking about changing thee’s and thou’s, or Holy Ghost to Holy Spirit, or translating from German to English. We are speaking about deletions of traditional parts of worship such as the invocation, confession and absolution, Scripture lessons, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the benediction, and introduction of emotional, meaningless songs, new creeds, syncopation, informality, charismatic rituals and gyrations.

 

Changing language in worship changes the way we think about God:

More than 35 years ago, in 1964, Dr. John B. Carroll wrote a small but landmark primer on the psychological and behavioral results of using new definitions and terms for familiar concepts titled "Language and Thought."¹ Carroll was a professor at the University of Minnesota, a noted lecturer at Harvard, and a consultant to governmental and educational organizations.²

In his introduction Carroll writes about the need for the fusion of psychology with the social and biological sciences.³ He writes "One of the major themes of this book is that thought and cognition are presupposed by language--that speech is a consequence of some kind of thought or cognition, even though language structure may channel or influence thought."⁴

The point of application here is that if I change the way you speak about Jesus, I change the way you think about Jesus. If I change words you use to worship Jesus in the liturgy, I change the way you think about Jesus. If I substitute Assembly of God/Pentecostal songs and phrasing for Lutheran terminology, I will get you to think like a charismatic before you know what has happened to you.

On this point Carroll writes, "The idea that the structure of one’s language affects one’s thought processes may be called the linguistic-relativity hypothesis, because it asserts that thought is relative to the language in which it is conducted."⁵

Again Carroll writes: "Language symbols-or, rather, the internal processes that underlie given language symbols for the individual-may figure prominently in thinking and often determine its direction."⁶ For example, there is an entirely different approach to religion when saying to the congregation, "The Lord be with you," and the congregation responding, "And also with you," versus the pastor shouting, "Praise the Lord," and the congregation shouting back, "Alleluia!"

Once again Carroll concludes, "Do specific language codes have an influence on the thinking process? In principle, they can, if the above line of argumentation is accepted, and in certain instances they do."⁷

In contemporary LCMS services throughout the Synod, worshipers are supposed to adopt newly invented liturgies, songs, and gyrations without question as part of their own faith every week. Eph 4:14 That we [henceforth] be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, [and] cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

The district offices’ goal for this intentional manipulation of language, terms, and actions in LCMS worship services is increased control, market share, and financial gain for the district office, pastor, and congregation. Claims that changes in worship style don’t affect the substance of what we believe are patently false. Yes, equivalent language is possible and should be the goal when changing languages. However, the Church Growth Movement is not about equivalents, but paganizing the worship service under the pretext of evangelism.

 

Changing the way people behave in worship changes the way people believe in God:

Dr. Leon Festinger, Professor at Stanford University, wrote his landmark book titled, "A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance," in 1957 at the request of the Ford Foundation, Behavioral Sciences Division.⁸

The research of Festinger and his colleagues shows that if I change the way people behave in the worship service, I will change the way they believe about God. If I have people follow Assembly of God and Pentecostal style singing, worship, motions, and emotions, they will eventually believe what these churches believe. Festinger’s research is in direct contradiction to the party line coming from the districts which say that worship style does not affect substance. Districts promoting the Church Growth cult are part of a conspiracy to replace historic Christianity in LCMS congregations. The cult leaders/pastors introduce the changes through the methodology they call "Leadership Training". The cult called the "Michigan 102" and the district office have virtually destroyed traditional Christian worship in two thirds of the district.

The average reader will not understand Festinger’s description of his book in the following sentence, but please look at the explanation following the sentence. "Cognitive dissonance can be seen as an antecedent condition which leads to activity oriented toward dissonance reduction just as hunger leads to activity oriented toward hunger reduction".⁹ A "cognitive" is something you know. "Dissonance reduction" is the behavior you change in order to resolve contradictory or disagreeable information and, thus, arrive at consonance.

Festinger and his colleagues delved into new research that some have labeled, "studies in mind control." He was one of the first to gather empirical data¹⁰ on how people’s beliefs could be changed by changing their behavior.

He writes, "Given that a cognition is responsive to ‘reality’ (as we have seen), if the behavior of the organism changes, the cognitive element or elements corresponding to this behavior will likewise change. This method of reducing or eliminating dissonance is a very frequent occurrence."¹¹ He also discovered that one could be even more effective in changing belief and behavior if it was also possible to control the environment.¹²

The contemporary Church Growth service has the pastor/cult leader control the text of the service, projection screens, mood altering syncopation, lights, mantras, psycho-drama, and doctrinally void psychological and motivational speeches in the ideal controlled environment where the participants’ openness to worship makes them exceptionally vulnerable to changing their faith. Rom 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

Pastors will find some resistance to changing the worship. Festinger deals with the resistance to changing cognitive elements¹³ and behavior under a number of subheads. He even gives statistical data on the effectiveness of using force to create change versus reward to induce changes in belief and behavior.¹⁴ He shows how significant percentages of people will actually change their political ideology from conservative to liberal if they are coerced into publicly repeating liberal views.¹⁵ In others words, if the pastor/cult leader manipulates the congregation to keep repeating mindless drivel in pop songs and ridiculous liturgies often enough, the congregation will finally believe what they are saying and the pastor becomes their god. "Public compliance," according to Festinger, will produce a "subsequent change in private opinion."¹⁶

Under the subheading, "Mass Proselytizing," Festinger shows that the social pressure to change a person’s mind can be so great when surrounded by people who don’t agree with the person that the person will have difficulty resisting the group and will change his or her belief just in order to have peace.¹⁷ Festinger gives data on this subject in Chapter Nine titled, "The Role of Social Support: Data on Influence Process"¹⁸ and Chapter Ten titled, "The Role of Social Support: Data on Mass Phenomena".¹⁹

A skilled practitioner of Festinger’s methodology can be effective in changing people’s faith in God. People will eventually change their beliefs if they are led to keep changing their behavior.²⁰ For instance, if we get people off their knees while confessing their sins and have them raise their hands over their heads they will eventually change what they believe about confessing their sins. Charismatic fanatic behavior will eventually produce charismatic fanatic belief. Rom 16:17 Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offenses contrary to the doctrine which ye have learned; and avoid them.

 

Worship Style/Form
Follows Content/Belief:

Most of the renowned artists in Europe became faculty members of The Bauhaus²¹ built in 1926 in Dessau Germany.²² They fled Germany in 1933 when Hitler came to power. The founder, Walter Gropius, and his colleagues joined the faculty at Harvard and other important American art faculties.²³ The Bauhaus taught "Form follows Function." A "bau" is a structure. Thus, the form or structure of the painting, sculpture, music, architecture, literature, craft, etc., reflects its true purpose or message. Simply stated, we don’t put car seats on horses or saddles in cars or church pews on the beach.

Yet the practitioners of so-called contemporary worship tell those ignorant enough to believe them that the style or form of worship is adiaphora and has nothing to do with the content or doctrinal belief of the congregation. Renowned painter and spokesman for the Bauhaus, Kandinsky, wrote that the more one could coordinate the art, music, and literature into one unified style, the more effectively their combination would influence the soul.²⁴

Following Kandinsky’s principle, the practitioners of Church Growth, according to Dr. David Luecke in "The Other Story of Lutheran’s at Worship," are careful to coordinate contemporary dress, rhythms, atmosphere, music, repetitious hypnotic words, text, and informality to create a total contemporary environment.²⁵ Luecke, many district presidents, and the district executives parade around the LCMS claiming they never change the content of the service when they promote changes in the "style" to get statistical success. They say style has nothing to do with the substance. At this point, one needs oxygen and a stretcher if they believe such fabrications.

Nearly a century of study in aesthetics and the acknowledged achievements of the Bauhaus philosophy by the major museums and art faculties of western civilization are swept aside by Church Growth cult leaders in LCMS district offices because someone waves big numbers in front of small clergy minds. What is more astounding is that one third of the LCMS clergy, including LCEF and Seminary President John Johnson who endorses PLI, all say, "Amen". 2Timothy 4:4 And they shall turn away [their] ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables.

 

Luther Fought against the Changes in the Catholic Church:

Those who resist the changes and innovations of contemporary worship promoted by district Church Growth cult leaders are portrayed as ignorant, legalistic, and backward. Ironically, those who promote the changes in worship will claim Luther, the Reformer, as their mentor, when Luther’s entire career was actually aimed at stopping the changes and innovations promoted by the Catholic Church.

In a remarkable letter of nearly 60 pages, Luther reminded the pastors what they were fighting for at Augsburg in 1530. The entire letter is aimed at stopping the changes and reforming the church back to its original form and content. Luther reminds the clergy, "Who alone wants to recount the new kinds of saint veneration? Are not these innovations? Where were bishops and shouters who should not permit such innovations?"²⁶

"Here again, there was no one who could decry or even point out innovation. But Luther, who exposes and chastises such innovations, is [called] an innovator!"²⁷

"Even at that, the doctors in the universities helped along. They had nothing else to do than to devise new ‘opinions,’ one after another. One could not be a doctor with special honors unless one has brought forth something new."²⁸

"But who stood up against innovations?"... For such shameless violation is not to be tolerated that whatever you choose must be known as an innovation and what you do not so choose must not be called an innovation."²⁹

"It does not help you to pretend that one should do nothing new or change anything, for you have heard that this article is a novelty and that it is you who have unceasingly introduced false innovations and changes in Christendom. What is change according to God’s Word is no innovation. All customs must yield to it, no matter how good they may be, your own law says."³⁰

Where was the vote in the Synodical Convention that gave district offices the right to encourage pastors to remove hymn books and the use of hymn books from their congregations? Here one must also note the total lack of examination and cavalier attitude by those who introduce changes into LCMS worship services and say, "There is nothing in the Bible that says we can’t make this change." There is also nothing in the Bible about marijuana. Why can’t we smoke it in church? All questions about how the "changes" will affect worship, faith, doctrine, or Scripture are brushed aside in the hope of immediate statistical gratification.

"You allege that nothing should be changed or modernized without the consent of the church. Who, then, is the church? Are you?...Or are you the church because you introduce nothing but novelties and thereby change, blaspheme, persecute, and murder God’s Word and, in addition, occupy the foundations and monasteries like church robbers? Yes, you are the devil’s church."³¹

Something foreign has taken over the Michigan, Texas, Pacific Southwest, Florida/Georgia, Minnesota South, Southern, and many other districts, promoting their "contemporary" innovations. Majorities of LCMS clergy in these and other districts keep voting for their wallets and personal security instead of doctrinal purity at District Conventions and keep the Church Growth cult leaders in office. They hide behind others who do their bidding. Change in the church is a sign of the anti-Christ. Dan 7:25 And he shall speak [great] words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.

Simple logic says things that change are not the same:

"A" equals "A." Therefore, "A" cannot equal "B" or anything else but "A". "A" cannot mutate, change, or evolve, otherwise it is no longer "A." "A" cannot be anything but itself and cannot deny itself. This is the law of identity. In the physical world God cannot make a rock bigger than He can lift nor a stick with one end. God cannot deny Himself, that is, God cannot not be God. Mal 3:6 For I [am] the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed.

The District Church Growth cult leaders have adopted the religion of nihilism and self destruction. If the definition of "A" is that "A" is free to change, then "A" actually never existed and has no real definition. Hence, so-called "traditional worship" never existed because it never had any real purpose or reason to exist.

So-called "contemporary worship" does not exist because it has no definition. The freedom to change worship and still call it worship means that "traditional" worship only existed as a matter of free choice or accident, and there is nothing to prevent it from changing. Hence, all Christian worship is a matter of random selection or accident. Worship exists in the fantasy of the worshipper without any basis in reality.

The moment one objects and says, "This is what worship must do or be," the district office hollers "Adiaphora!" and the one who resists change is labled a legalist. One definition does hold in the Church Growth cult, "Worship exists for the benefit of the cult leader." Pro 24:21 My son, fear thou the Lord and the king: [and] meddle not with them that are given to change: 24:22 For their calamity shall rise suddenly; and who knoweth the ruin of them both?

A note about Endnotes

The endnotes used in this work are linked from the note number in the text to the endnote at the bottom of the page, and vice versa.  In addition, where a note uses "ibid." or "op. cit.", it is linked to the appropriate parent endnote information.
If you use this "ibid." or "op. cit." link, you will need to use the BACK button on your browser to return to the endnote you started with.  From there, you can click on the endnote number to go back to where you were in the text.

1    Dr. John B. Carroll, "Language and Thought." Foundations of Modern Psychology Series edited by Richard S. Lazarus, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. 1964

2   ibid., back cover flap
"John B. Carroll (Ph.D., University of Minnesota) is the author of The Study of Language and numerous articles on the psychology of language and language learning. He has served as consultant to a number of governmental and educational organizations on the problems of teaching and testing in native and foreign languages. At present, Dr. Carroll is Roy E. Larsen Professor of Educational Psychology at the Graduate School of Education, Harvard University."

3   ibid., p. v.
"The tremendous growth and vitality of psychology and its increasing fusion with the social and biological sciences demand a new approach to teaching at the introductory level."

4   ibid., p. vii

5   ibid., p. 106

6   ibid., p. 111

7   ibid., p 111

8    Dr. Leon Festinger "A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance." Stanford Univ. Press, Stanford, Calif., 1957, 1962, p. v.
"In the late fall of 1951 the writer, Leon Festinger, was asked by Bernard Berelson, the Director of the Behavioral Sciences Division of the Ford Foundation, whether he would be interested in undertaking a ‘prepositional inventory’ of the substantive area of ‘communication and social influence."

9   ibid., p. 3

10   ibid., p.15
"If the theory of dissonance is to have relevance or empirical data, one must be able to identify dissonances and consonances unequivocally."

11   ibid., p. 19

12   ibid., pp. 19-20
"Just as it is possible to change a behavioral cognitive element by changing the behavior which this element mirrors, it is sometimes possible to change an environmental cognitive element by changing the situation to which that element corresponds." Page 19-20

13   ibid., pp. 24-25 Resistance to Change of Behavior Cognitive Elements.
"The first and foremost source of resistance to change for any cognitive element is the responsiveness of such elements to reality....Certainly much behavior has little or no resistance to change."

14   ibid., page 85
"Public compliance without an accompanying change in private opinion or belief will occur when the following conditions exist:
1. The compliance is brought about mainly through the exertion of a threat of punishment for noncompliance, the individual against whom the threat is directed being sufficiently restrained from leaving the situation....
2. The compliance is brought about mainly through the offer of a special reward for complying."

15   ibid., pp. 94-97
Manifestations of Pressure to Reduce ‘Forced Compliance’ Dissonance. p 94
..."Thus, for example, if a person whose political ideology is rather conservative is induced to make liberal statements publicly in order to obtain some political favor, the dissonance could be completely eliminated if he actually does believe in the liberal statements which he has publicly uttered." p.95
..."...a change of private opinion would follow public compliance more frequently when the punishment or reward is relatively weak than when it is too strong. Thus, if one wanted to obtain private change in addition to mere public compliance, the best way to do this would be to offer just enough reward or punishment to elicit the over compliance." p.95
...Festinger believed that the "Subsequent change of private opinion" takes place when it is necessary "to make" this change "consonant with the overt behavior." p. 97.

16   ibid., p.122
"1. Following public compliance there is frequently a subsequent change of private opinion over and above what the variables in the situation, not including dissonance, would account for."

17   ibid., p.201
Mass Proselytizing: "In the unhappy event that a person with such a dissonance is surrounded by persons who will not support their attempts at reducing dissonance, the dissonance may very likely be increased by these non-believers to the point where the person discards the belief system."

18   ibid., p. 203

19   ibid., p. 233

20   ibid., p 276
"For example, any time a dissonance exists between one set of cognitions which correspond to, say, information or opinions, and another set of cognitions which correspond to behavior in which the person is engaging, it is clear that this dissonance can be reduced by changing the behavior."

21    Helen Gardner’s , "Art Through the Ages" 4th ed. Harcourt, Brace, & World, Inc., New York, 1959, p. 709,780.
Faculty members of the Bauhaus School built in Dessau, Germany designed by Walter Gropius and Adolph Meyer included Paul Klee, Lyonel Feininger, Kandinsky, Mondrian, Van Doesburg, Josef Albers, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, L.Moholy-Nagy

22    Marjorie Elliott Bevlin "Design Through Discovery", Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, 1977 p.31
"During much of the 20th Century the idea of integrity in form has been summed up in the phrase ‘form follows function’....the concept has come to be associated with the Bauhaus, a school of design founded in Beimer, Germany, in 1919."

23    James A. Schinneller, "Art: Search and Self Discovery", International, Scranton Pennsylvania, 1961, p.39

24    Peter Selz, "The Aesthetic Theories of Kandinsky....", "Readings in Art History Vol. II", Ed. Harold Spencer, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1969, p. 320
"The re-enforcement of one art form with another by means of synaesthesai will greatly increase the final aesthetic effect upon the receptor. The greatest effect can be obtained by the synthesis of all the arts in one ‘monumental art,’ which is the ultimate end of Kandinsky’s aesthetics....Each art form causes a certain ‘complex of soul vibrations.’ The aim of the synthesis of art forms is the refinement of the soul through the sum-total of these complexes."

25    Luecke, Dr. David, "The Other Story of Lutherans at Worship," Community Joy, Fellowship Ministries, Tempe, Arizona, 1995, page 6.

26    "Luther’s Works" American Edition, Muhlenberg Press, Philadelphia, 1960, Vol. 34, Page 24

27   ibid., p. 25

28   ibid., p. 27

29   ibid., p. 29

30   ibid., p. 39

31   ibid., p. 39

November 21, 1998