Ring Knockers in WELS, LCMS, ELS

Rob on Point

Are there "ring-knockers" in WELS?
This discussion thread ties to poll at right by same name.

Are there "ring-knockers" in WELS?

Posted by Rob at 10:55 AM



1 comments:
Rob said...
In my first career about a third of management graduated from the same college. Graduates of this college wore over-sized class rings, and to stand out they wore their class rings on the hand opposite from most college graduates, on the same finger as wedding rings. In a meeting if they wanted to assert their authority over graduates of other colleges, they tapped their class rings lightly on the table in front of them. Thus, their nickname, "ring-knockers."

Although their college was established in 1845 their college did not gain universal acceptance as an accredited institution until the 1970s. Graduates of this college were no better or worse professionally than the rest of us. Occasionally a ring-knocker in upper management would manipulate the hiring process to yield middle managers in his division who were 100% "ring-knockers". Once again, his division was no better or worse than other divisions filled with graduates of MIT, Georgia Tech, Texas A&M, and Berkeley, although worker-bees dreaded the thought of working in a division that was 100% ring-knocker because of the way ring-knockers treated subordinates.

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GJ - This is definitely true of all the synods. There is always one little group of people who are entitled, or feel entitled. Also, larger sects have the situation where one seminary is opposed to the other: Gettysburg vs. Philadelphia, Ft. Wayne versus St. Louis, Bethany versus Mequon.

The Lavender Mafia pushed aside the former leaders of ELCA. No jokes or puns, please. The elderly ring knockers were defenestrated. At one point the biggest insult in the new ELCA was to call someone a "former synod official." They even had an acronym for that term. Of course, the old liberals who welcomed quotas and apostasy were outraged and quickly became LCMS heroes for complaining about the fruit of their labors. Bishop McDaniel comes to mind.

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GJ (PS) - There is also the reverse of ring-knockers in WELS. Anyone who went through the Bethany program is called a Bethany Bomber. WELS got rid of the Bethany program for late-starters when they realized that too many member were coming into the WELS program as Lutherans.

One WELS pastor pointed out that the entire leadership of WELS is from one prep - Northwestern.