Saturday, February 16, 2008

Like Father, Like Son



JFK's Putative Love Child, left, JFK, right


A Canadian man has come forward to claim the late JFK as his father. Doubtless the Kennedy family will rush to provide DNA samples to prove or disprove the case.

The man does bear a striking resemblance to President Kennedy. Blood will tell.

That is also why so many WELS and LCMS congregations look and sound like the Community Churches that fathered them.

One WELS layman in Wisconsin told me about his congregation's staff being sent to Willow Creek Community Church to be trained. Now the church looks and sounds like Willow Creek.

WELS District VP Kuske midwifed Pilgrim Community Church. No liturgy. No Lutheran creeds or hymns. WELS Church Growth expert Roger Zehms warned WELS members not to join the congregation or even visit. Zehns and Stolzenburg were the two Church Growth gurus who guided the congregation toward its rapid and unlamented demise.

Phoenix has plenty of Community Churches. They actually have a denomination of sorts. They band together on the basis of no confessions. They are huge in Phoenix, unlike the copycat CrossWalk (Stealth WELS) in Phoenix or a similar lovechild in Chicago.

The Kelm/Parlow version in Green Bay, Wisconsin has carried copying to a new level, copying the very sermons of Evangelicals and publishing them on their own website. I am not sure whether the paternity has been disputed. Some WELS people noticed the shocking coincidence of WELS sermons being exactly like Baptist sermons published years before. But Kelm and Parlow have learned their lesson and now cite their plagiarism without shame.

The Michigan District was also mother to Crossroads in South Lyons. They began with Lutheran sheep being led to the slaughter by WELS pastors: Rick Miller, Kelly Voigt, Mark Freier. Then they turned honest and became generic Protestant. That was again during the immodest reign of Robert Mueller and Paul Kuske.

Missouri boasts of many love-children, fathered by Fuller Seminary, Willow Creek--or, shudder--by both. One is in the Midland, Michigan area. Another is in the Detroit metropolis. Doubtless more are scattered across the continent, a testament of Lutherans losing their nerve and their faith.