A reader was concerned that nasty, anonymous people were shutting me down. No, they encourage me, even more than the many pleasant people who phone and email me.
One person sent a long list of what was wrong with me and signed his name - Anonymous. He is probably a minister of the Wisconsin sect. They start with the Gospel and move to the Law, as Paul Kelm has taught them. "Everyone is forgiven (UOJ) and this is what is wrong with you." Since they move to the Law, they never move off the Law.
Apparently the Law does not condemn anonymous, spiteful, ridiculous messages. The civil law does cover such behavior over the phone.
I often wonder, "Did these guys have a mother? Were they abused and neglected children?" Apparently they really were abused and neglected. The old standard of WELS schooling was:
1. Drop the kid off in the fall.
2. See the child at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
3. Minimize contact, lest the poor thing be spoiled.
4. Surround the child with hazing, emotional and physical abuse.
One WELS layman said he followed the WELS norms and never realized how much his only son was suffering.
Seeing parents at odd times was considered an emergency. "Why are you here?" is asked in an alarmed and questioning tone of voice.
That is why East Coast is eager to see the parochial schools shut down. They encourage a weird, robotic attitude that justifies itself at all stages, no matter what is done. All I need to hear is, "In our circles..." to know pompous fertilizer will follow, by the truckload.
Any time I comment on well known Wisconsin sect tendencies, I can count on a new anonymous message. I am sure Bailing Water was shut down (three times) by that approach, plus contacting friends and relatives of the blogmeister each time. WELS is good at shutting down discussion of WELS.
Issues in WELS began to build up opposition to SP Gurgel. Then he showed up at a meeting, visibly annoyed, and attendance was frightned away. It doesn't take much to scare away the girly-men of WELS. Issues in WELS, never very daring, is almost comatose today.
But Church and Change is not shut down. They criticize and make fun of WELS all the time, but they do it as apostates. They have a huge website and following. They are eagerly planning their next doctrinal fiasco.
There you have the most obvious sign of apostasy in the WELS leadership - modest discussion sites are shut down while crypto-Baptist sites are linked from the main WELS website (until Ichabod reported it).
Ichabod posts may fluctuate in the next semester. I started teaching at a third online university and I study journalism (master's degree) on the side. Sometimes the written work is going to pile up. The petty vindictiveness of WELS is not going to change. I know that. But I am not gong to stop writing about apostasy. The only way to silence me is for WELS to start studying the Confessions.
