The Illustrated Poppe — I Have Questions
Over the past year, Rev. Clint K Poppe, two-time First Vice President of the Nebraska District of the LCMS, pastor of KNNA 95.7 FM The Cross, and pastor of has been a steadfast personal supporter of the teachings of excommunicated Nazi-idolizing false teacher and slavery advocate Corey J. Mahler. Poppe does not just theoretically or abstractly support Mahler. On his Twitter account, as of the time of this writing, roughly one-third to quarter of Poppe’s posts are retweets of Mahler’s gateway drug devotional titled Confident.Faith. At least one of Poppe’s former vicars, Dan Golden from the Ohio District of the LCMS, has garnered Operation Valkyrie’s notice for supporting/retweeting members of Mahler’s Stone Choir movement.
Pastor Clint K Poppe of KNNA 95.7 FM, The Cross
Despite the fact that laymen such as Ryan Turnipseed received church discipline for similar activities — Turnipseed himself admitted he was under the minor ban for his activities with the Stone Choir, a podcast Turnipseed helped design and enable according to his YouTube channel — Poppe appears to continue to enjoy the favor and good graces of the LCMS. Stone Choir members like anonymous Twitter pastor Old Lutheran, openly praise Poppe for his support of Christian Nationalism, and thank him for all his hard work. In particular, Old Lutheran recently republished the text and article of Poppe’s sermon given in the same season as Mahler’s excommunication.
The term Christian nationalism is as slippery as the concept of Eastern Orthodox Doctrine. Try and pin someone down, and you will hear an endless repetition of the no true Scotsman fallacy: to wit, sure, that is reprehensible… but that isn’t what I mean when I talk about Christian nationalism! It’s just a coincidence that I use the same term as someone else.
Fortunately, since Clint K. Poppe has retweeted Corey Mahler’s Bible studies one hundred and seventy-three times (that I have recorded) since Mahler’s public excommunication became widely known, we can look at his precise words and take out the ambiguity. This article aims to supply the vague definitions of his terms in preaching from the pulpit from the words of the man Poppe advocates more than any other activity on Twitter in the past year. Guilt by endorsification is not my term, but it applies. Rev. Poppe, as you enjoy the public respect of the church, and particularly enjoyed them paying your salary until your retirement, I read your word and I have questions about just how much the people who supported you with their tithes and offerings REALLY knew about the position you have championed for the past year in direct defiance of both your ordination vows and your public persona.
It’s time for the Berean treatment, my friends, to compare the words Clint Poppe spoke to the parishioners who trusted him and gave him his means of living with the fruit of the excommunicated heretic Poppe promotes like his life depends upon it. We know Corey Mahler, here at Operation Valkyrie, and we have his words on record. When someone knows what you actually support, your sermon takes on an entirely different meaning.
So here is the text of your sermon in bold. The fruit of your allegiances will reveal just how much value we should place in your words, in keeping with our Lord Jesus Christ’s instructions.
““15 “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits.” — Jesus Christ, Matthew 7:15-20 ESV”
Poppe’s sermon text will be in bold. My questions will be in standard text. The illustrations… well, those will be difficult to mistake. Every illustration comes from the mouth of the man Poppe endorses in public scores of times more frequently than his fellow pastors, or even his former vicars. The text is provided by crypto-pastor and neo-fascist supporter, @OldLuth, as taken from his personal website on 4/22/2024.
screen capture from oldluth.com taken 4/22/2024
Grace and peace, love and mercy from God our Father through Jesus Christ our risen Savior and Lord. Amen.
The text for our meditation on this sixth Sunday of Easter, also Mother’s Day, the epistle reading that we heard a few moments ago, 1 Timothy 2:1-6, especially these words:
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.
So far our text.
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, it is quite common for Christians to talk about “two kingdoms.” Christians live in two kingdoms. Maybe you’ve heard that before; maybe you haven’t. All throughout this season of Easter our gospel readings have been teaching us that Christians are in the world, but we are not to be of the world. We live in the right-hand kingdom, and we also live in the left-hand kingdom.
What do we mean when we talk about this “left-hand” “right-hand” kingdom stuff? Well, generally speaking, the right-hand kingdom refers to the Church. This is how God rules, works, and serves in the Church. The power and the authority is in the Word of God. The Law, which shows us our sin, and primarily the Gospel which sets us free; the Gospel that delivers the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. This is how things work in the Church. This is how they’re supposed to work in the Church. God’s Word reigns supreme. That’s the right-hand kingdom.
We come to my first question quickly. Mr. Poppe, when you spoke to your congregation and your podcast audience about the two kingdoms, did you feel any guilt endorsing a preacher who denounces the idea of the two kingdoms and advocates for a violent political overthrow of the government?
Screen capture from Mahler’s article, “The Unbroken Chain,” on his personal website.
My second question, Mr. Poppe, is similar: Should your listeners believe your words in public, or the violent theocratic revolutionary rhetoric of your chosen lay leader, Corey Mahler, when he argues for forced conversion by a militant theocratic king?
The left-hand kingdom is pretty much everything else. The left-hand kingdom, the world that we live in, society in general, rulers, governments, laws. This is the left-hand kingdom, and we know we live in this left-hand kingdom. What we fail to realize far too often, that when God uses this kind of talk—left-hand, right-hand kingdom—we are talking not about some hard-core separation of church and state. We are talking about the left-hand and right-hand kingdom of God. We are talking about the left hand and right hand of Jesus Himself. Jesus rules the Church. Jesus rules the world, society, governments. He establishes these rules and governments for us and for our good, so that we can live godly and peaceable lives, so that the Word of God would flourish among us.
I’m confused, Mr. Poppe. If the goal is to live peaceable lives, why do you promote someone whose rhetoric revels in the death and destruction of sinners, as well as anyone who disagrees with him? Is violent revolution and population purges the peaceful life you desire? Is it only the peaceful life your chosen Christian Nationalist desires? Which face ought your listeners believe?
Somewhere along the line, Christians, especially Lutheran Christians, were fed the lie that since we are in the right-hand kingdom—we’re Christians, we belong to the Church—that we would have nothing to do or say with things in the left-hand kingdom. Throughout the pages of history, some pastors have taught that it would be a sin to work for the government or to serve in the military. My friends, this is nonsense.
I have never heard this spoken of by any Lutheran pastor in my entire life. Why do you need to use a straw man to make your points? Lutherans do not confess or hold these positions.
Today, it takes on a little bit different flavor. Christians are to keep quiet. Christians are to stay in their own little domain. They have nothing to say with regard to what goes on in our society, what goes on in our government, what goes on in our world. They are to keep quiet, keep their religion to themselves. After all, “separation of church and state.”
My friends, is this what God’s Word teaches us? I would submit to you today that the epistle reading before us is a beautiful place for us to start with regard to this two kingdom understanding of how we live and who we are as Christians. It lays it out quite beautifully. The right-hand kingdom, the second half of our text; very, very familiar to us. One of the most often quoted passages, not only from 1 Timothy, but in all Scripture. God wants all people to be saved. This is His will. This is His desire. Right here, right here in God’s Word, Who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Is that before or after the Christian Nationalist you endorse gets his wish and kills every homosexual. Then do we have the list of all people God wants to be saved? Will there be some sort of baptisms for the dead of the immolated corpses from Mahler’s Sodom and Gomorrah revival?
Does your chosen Christian Nationalist teach that the homosexuals were mass murdered before or after they repented and became part of the church in Corinth? How many of your parishioners know/care about someone trapped in the sins of homosexual activity? How many of their children have been seduced by the LGBT lobby in school or college? Did they know, when you preached this sermon, that your chosen heretic lay leader wanted them all to die? Would they still have paid your bills if they did? Is that why you hid your position?
“9 Or do you not know that the unrighteous[b] will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality,[c] 10 nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”
What is this truth? There is one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We have offended this one God. We sin daily. We sin much. We know God’s holy Law and we break it, sometimes willingly, sometimes unknowingly, but we break it nonetheless. Our sinfulness, that we inherited from our parents, our sin that we commit each and every day, puts us at enmity with God. And we can’t save ourselves. We are lost in the trespasses of our sins. And so God, in His love and His mercy, sends us a Savior, a mediator, a go-between. He sends us His Son, the god man, Jesus. True God, begotten of the Father from all eternity. True man, born of the Virgin Mary. This is our Savior. He was under the same holy law that convicts and condemns each one of us. He fulfilled it. He fulfilled it completely. He never sinned, not once. Jesus, who fulfilled all law, takes our sin, our violation of God’s law onto Himself and into Himself all the way to Calvary’s cross. He bleeds and dies for your sin and mine, for the sin of the whole world. This is God’s truth. This is the good news of the gospel.
During this Easter season we have a special focus and a special emphasis on the fact that Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, alleluia amen! Death could not hold the sinless Son of God. Jesus conquers our greatest enemy, our greatest fear: death itself. Jesus, risen from the dead, lives and reigns to all eternity. He reigns. We’re not talking about R-A-I-N rain, but R-E-I-G-N reign. You know, like a king, like they’re celebrating over in England right now.
King of what? Wednesday evening, we’ll celebrate the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, where He ascends to the right hand of the Father and He rules over all things. His right-hand kingdom, the Church. His left-hand kingdom, the world, the governments, the nations of the world. Christ reigns. This is the truth and God wants all people to come to a knowledge, a saving knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ and to know God for who He is.
When you preached this, did you want your listeners to come to know the gospel of Jesus Christ in the same way as your teacher’s last Christian prince?
Mr. Poppe, which work of Hitler’s do you most hope that someone will complete? What else would possess you to promote someone who idolizes one of the top ten mass-murderers of all time? If you agree with the excommunicated man who venerates Adolph here, why do you hide it? If you don’t agree, why have you taken early retirement rather than obey the command of the Savior you claim to serve to have nothing to do with such an evil man? I am not asking whether or not this sermon is a lie to your listeners, Mr. Poppe. I want to know which lie you are peddling, for my own sake of mind. Why spend the remainder of your life attainted by this evil? Why pass this evil man off as a devotional leader from your public account on X?
The right-hand kingdom, we Lutherans get pretty well. The left-hand kingdom, not so much. It was a few years ago when I first heard the term Christian Nationalism. You’ve probably heard it. If you watch the news or read the newspaper, you’ve heard the term. I have to admit I had never heard the term before. I didn’t know what it meant. I’m not a racist.
I’m not a Nazi.
I’m not a White supremacist.
I’m not a homophobe.
And for bonus points, Mr. Poppe, if you’re not a homophobe, why did you use your Twitter handle to promote an article by Old Lutheran that advocates the death penalty for homosexuals? That’s TWO men who want homosexuals to die that you actively promote, sir. In what way are you NOT a raging homophobe.. not in the liberal sense that you repeat the Bible’s teachings and call them to repentance, but because you advocate for people who want. Them. All. Dead?
So I must not be a Christian Nationalist, right?
Because that’s what the world says a Christian Nationalist is.
Question, Mr. Poppe. Did the world say that is what a Christian Nationalist is? The man you promote like it is your life’s goal proudly boasts of his love of Hitler, his hatred of blacks and Jews, his desire for the deaths of all homosexuals, places his trust in White Christians as the only hope for the world, and openly calls himself a Fascist while placing the Swastika on Christ’s back to take the Lord’s name in vain. Have I done anything other than identify exactly why Corey Mahler says he is?
“36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” ”
Then it was about six months ago, I came across an article, an article by the name of George Gonzalez. And maybe it’s Jorge Gonzalez, I’m not sure. [He is a] famous author. You can Google him and you can Google the article if you like. But the title of the article is “The Christian Nationalist Label is Being Used to Silence People of Faith.” Hear that title again: “The Christian Nationalist Label is Being Used to Silence People of Faith.” People who love God and their country are vilified. They are demonized. They are held up as terrorists. You’ve heard it. You know it. A radical separation of church and state, something that is not found in our founding documents by the way, is used as a hammer to club Christians into submission so that they will not confess their faith, so they will not confess the truth of God’s Word.
Why pretend that it is the title Christian Nationalist that the world rejects? If you feel the label terrorist is a bad word, why are you working so hard to promote someone whose MO is convert or die?
My friends, God’s Word is clear, and the text before us today makes it crystal clear: faith and patriotism go together. Now we want to make sure we have the order right. We don’t worship our nation or our leaders and then God down here. It’s the other way around. We worship the one true God; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we give thanks for and pray for the leaders that He has given us. Christians are to know what goes on in the world. They are to speak up concerning what goes on in the world. And when the evils of this world seem to be trumping the truth of God’s Word, Christians have a duty and a responsibility to speak up.
When the man you love to promote thinks America was better with slavery, is he standing up for the truth of God’s Word, or is he advocating a position that God says deserves the death sentence for possessing stolen people? If you believe Mahler is correct, why have you gone for so many years without the courage to speak your positon that slavery should be reinstated from the pulpit? If Mahler is cheerful about one of our nations’ greatest abominations, why have you endorsed him more than 173 times since his excommunication? Which position do you hold? I already know which position you needed your listeners to believe you held, so that you could still get paid while championing a literal Nazi as a theologian.
We don’t have a king here in America. But we have leaders. We have a president. We have Congress. We have a governor. We have state legislators. We have a mayor. We have city councilmen. These are our leaders. This is our government. God has given us this government. We are to pray for them. We are to offer up supplications, petitions for them. Every Sunday and nearly every Wednesday in the divine service, we do just that. I can’t tell you how many times I have heard over the last twenty-six years complaints from the members of this congregation, “I don’t like our president! I don’t like our governor! I don’t like our mayor! Why in the world are we praying for them?” Because God’s Word directs us to.
When you faithfully reported your position about loving your government through prayer, why were you simultaneously promoting someone who wants the violent overthrow of first the church, and then the country?
Mahler plans for his critics to suffer as he takes over the church.
Are magical unicorn bunnies going to change the US government to a theocratic monarchy, or is Mahler going to need to replace the US government to achieve his goals?
I would submit, dear friends, brothers and sisters in Christ, that far too often our prayers and supplications for our political leaders are too generic. We pray that God would bless them, we pray that God would uphold them, we pray that they would do God’s will, and then we stop. My friends, when our leaders, the left hand of Jesus Christ, when our leaders are standing in open opposition to the Word of God, when they are not only turning a blind eye to evil but promoting it, we need to speak up. We need to pray that their evil ways would be thwarted. We need to pray that they would be removed by the ballot box. We need to pray as we are taught in the Lord’s Prayer that God would break and hinder every evil that is contrary to the Word of God.
I agree that we should pray that God brings our rulers to repentance or replacement. What I do not understand is why someone would tell his listeners to pray for their leaders while promoting a man who advocates their utter destruction? After all, you told your listeners in the same sermon that God did not desire that anyone should perish. Why would you promote someone who desires and justifies that they do exactly that, and promote him in a Christian format?
Do you remember how Jesus said to love our enemies? Do your listeners know that you support a man whose methods and goals are precisely the opposite of Christ’s teachings?
In Christ, the Gospel is based on love. For Poppe’s pet Christian Nationalist, his climb to social power is fueled by hate.
You don’t have to look very hard to see the evils that are going on in our world. A mother’s womb, which should be the safest place in the world, has now become a place of death. And when a minor setback happens here in our own state with regard to protecting the sanctity of human life, people dance and cheer in our state legislature. This is evil! When our leaders not only turn a blind eye, but actively promote a marriage that is contrary to God’s gift of one man and one woman for life, blurring the lines not only between husband and wife, but between what a man is and what a woman is. This is evil! This is contrary to God’s Word. Christians need to speak out. When our schools, our public schools, our government schools, will hand out birth control or gender-confusing materials without parental knowledge or consent. And then if a brave parent goes to a school board meeting, they’re labeled a domestic terrorist. This is evil! It must stop! And we must speak out.
I’m confused, Mr. Poppe. You are posing as a champion of women, children, and the family. Do you want your listeners to agree that women are incapable of consenting to sex, like the Bible teacher you promote, or did you want your listeners to support your ministry and fund your needs while you hide who you champion from their awareness?
My friends, there is nothing that is under attack more in our country right now than motherhood. Mother’s Day: send a card, make a phone call, send some flowers. If your mother is in Heaven like mine, rejoice with saints and archangels and all the company of Heaven at the communion rail. These are good and God-pleasing things, but make no doubt about it: motherhood is being attacked, and it has been for quite some time. It’s being attacked under the guise and lie of feminism.
Famous Christian author G. K. Chesterton once said, “Feminism is a muddled idea that women are free when they serve their employers, but slaves when they serve their husbands.” Much truth, much wisdom in that quote. The most despised thing for a woman right now is to be a mother. You’re even more despised if you’re a mother that stays at home. You’re even more despised if you’re a mother who speaks up for the sanctity of human life.
Mr. Poppe, when you say that we must speak out on behalf of mothers, is it so that we can promote racist categorizations of race by skin color? If you don’t believe that, why are you promoting this abomination against God’s word while you enjoy the title of pastor? If we follow Corey Mahler’s standards, Rahab would never have continued the scarlet thread that led to the birth of Christ through God’s mercy. Mahler’s false preaching dishonors mother after mother in the lineage of the Savior.
Mr. Poppe, why are you supporting this man? Why are you presenting yourself at the same time as a representative of the faith that redeemed prostitutes, cleansed sinners, the grace revealed to the unfaithful wife in Hosea, and God’s loving and dying for the nation of Israel, characterized as an unfaithful wife? Why pose as a champion of the one while secretly patronizing an enemy of the very grace of God? Which face is the real face? Is it the one you were paid for, or the one you have perpetuated quietly in the background in this sermon and ever since without repentance?
Earlier this week, a gentleman by the name of Eric Conn put out a series of tweets for Mother’s Day. I just want to share two of them with you. The first one, “The Left is perfectly happy to say that women should be able to do whatever they want to do so long as it isn’t devoting herself to to her husband, her household, and her children.” We know it’s true. And the a second one from Eric Conn, “It is moral insanity to think that a woman is free when she is exposing her body to millions of strange men, but oppressed when she is lovingly serving her husband, her household, and her children.”
And your favorite Bible study teacher sets the example that the solution is that a woman is not free. Her husband will decide what she gets to where, and where. Why didn’t you share THIS part of Mahler’s teaching with your congregation as you repeatedly led people to him for Bible study? Are we teaching the ownership of women incrementally, then?
My friends, mothers and motherhood is under attack and we have kept quiet far too long. We in the Church have sat idly by and what started out in the sixties as a “sexual revolution” has separated intimacy from marriage. And the results of that demanded that birth control and abortion happen, because marriage and motherhood [were] ripped apart.
How would your parishioners feel knowing that the man you promote holds to either marital rape or divorce if total sexual slavery is not embraced in the marriage bed? Why do you feel no shame promoting him while pretending to stand up for marriage?
I can’t remember if Mahler was never married, or if he was the Büd Reich leader whose marriage lasted only three months. It doesn’t matter. Apparently he STILL knows better than Jesus, who said that divorce was only for sexual immorality.
We need to stand up and speak not only to society, but we need to speak to our families. We need to speak to our children. When men look lustfully at another woman like a child looks at candy in the candy store, that man is despising his mother and sinning against God.
But Corey Mahler says that men aren’t guilty of sin when they use pornography, because they (he?) are biologically unable to stop themselves! Which position do you believe, Mr. Poppe, the one you just told your congregation, or the position of the man you advocate every other day on average for the past year?
Jesus said whoever looks at a woman lustfully is an adulterer. Mahler knows better, and declares them innocent while playing God.
When a woman gives herself to another man without demanding and expecting lifelong faithfulness, she is not only despising her mother, she is despising herself.
If you’re so concerned about people despising women, why are you promoting a man who blames women for their own rapes? If you don’t care about women being despised like Mahler despises them, why pretend to the congregation that pays your bills… oh… hmm… Maybe you AGREE with Mahler that rape victims are to blame for choosing the wrong friends? Is that why you don’t care that he attacks the most vulnerable members of your flock, pastor?
My friends, God’s Word is clear. He has given us gift upon gift and upon gift. He’s given us life. For many of us, He’s given us a spouse or family, precious gifts from God. He’s given us a nation, a country that people have fought and died for. It is time for us to stop sitting quietly and idly by while Satan has a field day in our country, in our government, in our schools, in our homes. It’s time for us to be Christian. I can tell you I love my country. I love God even more. I am, by God’s definition, a Christian Nationalist and I would submit to you that all Bible-believing Christians are, as well.
Then why directly, personally, repeatedly, over a hundred and seventy times, have you endorsed an advocate of slavery, an advocate of racism, an advocate of men owning women, an advocate of murdering homosexuals instead of calling them to repentance, an open racist, a publicly enthusiastic Nazi who has stated that Hitler was close to establishing a Christian nation… again, and again, and again while you preach from the pulpit how CHRISTIAN you want America to be? Have you been able to answer any of these questions, Mr. Poppe? What reason would anyone who actually knows what sort of theological thing you promote would believe that the nation you and your Hitler-idolizing friends built would have anything to do with Jesus Christ?
In what way could I, as a Bible-believing Christian, be a Christian Nationalist when the Christian Nationalist you have championed is as hideous a sock-puppet/victim of Satan’s every position, as I have ever seen?
My friends, there have been many times when we have kept quiet when we could have spoken out. There are many times when we have put our heads in the sand and pretended that things would take care of themselves. There have been many times when we have failed to pray for our elected officials because we didn’t like them or didn’t vote for them. And there have been times when we though we had a god and a savior in the elected official that we voted for or supported.
Did you mean like this?
My friends, God’s Word today calls us to repent. To repent before our God and Savior, our mediator, the god man Jesus Christ, who has lived and died and risen again for you. Who covers over all our sins, even our sins of quietism, and apathy, and indifference. And pray that God would fill us with a knowledge and a courage. Convictions, not only to believe the truth of God’s Word, but to confess it with our lips and our lives. May God grant it to us, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
So why didn’t you confess what you actually endorse to the people you depended upon for your room and your board, Mr. Poppe? When you had to choose between ditching Corey Mahler and keeping your pulpit, why did you choose this vicious tool of Satan over the flock you’ve been deceiving in this sermon?
Would you have lost your job and maybe your retirement money if your listeners knew exactly who you patronize in your spare time? Would you no longer have people calling you reverend, greeting you in the streets, and putting your picture up to boast of your accomplishments? Were you trusting in the complacency of the church which fails to protect the office it calls sacred, or did you feel empowered because you thought you were getting away with it? If they knew what you really endorse and what you actually allow, would they have had you as a witness to an ordination, or would you be under the ban yourself?
When you said these things to your listeners, Clint, did you have enough of a conscience left to feel guilt or shame as you lied to the people you depended on for your food and your home, or were you eager to lull them into a sense of complacency so that you could hand more of them over to this excommunicated false teacher?
If you repented, not even of supporting Satan’s weapon against Christ’s bride, but just repented of one of your two faces, Mr. Poppe, would you have had the chance to broadcast the Lutheran reformers of the ACELC with your right hand and promote Corey Mahler the very same day? What would those church reformers have to say to you? I have plenty of screenshots of Corey Mahler slandering them.
Now may the peace of God, which far surpasses all understanding, keep our hearts, our minds, our nation in Christ Jesus, our Lord. Amen.