The Game of Monopoly
The game of monopoly was invented to teach lessons about capitalism and greed. The game proves one of the rules of invention: "They throw bricks at the first one who thinks of it, gold at the second one." Ask Bill Gates, who never had an original technology development in his life. But I digress.
The second inventor failed to sell his game at Parker Brothers, marketed it himself, and found himself back at Parker Brothers. They saw it was a success, got behind it, and bought up the rights to the original didactic game and another version based on it. Monopoly saved Parker Brothers during the Great Depression and made the streets of Atlantic City famous.
Our favorite family vacation took place on the ocean at Atlantic City, before legalized gambling was established. We were given a house by the sea for a week of relaxation, bagels, and fun along the shore.
The Monopoly Synods
Norm Teigen found the hilarious cards posted above. They describe exactly how all the synods behave. Each one is an oligarchy, and that includes the mini-micro sects. The so-called leaders see the synod as a place to enjoy security, power, and status. They look down on ordinary pastors and loathe laity who dare to question their decisions.
The pastors and laity allowed to serve in positions of leadership must be slavish followers or they are dismissed. When a Lutheran district pope is installed, people claim the spine is removed. No, no - that is a slander. The spine has already been removed. Otherwise he would not even be considered for such an office.
The rest of the pastors and laity could move mountains, if they had faith in the Word. That does not mean they would change the synods. At this point they can only harden and blind the synods with the Word. Apostates hate the Word even more than the Confessions they supposedly cherish.
The Synod Monopoly Game teaches us all about greed. Where have all the millions from the Schwan Foundation gone? I know the administrator, an LCMS pastor, earns a salary of $400,000 - plus benefits and another $40,000 for additional work. He is the son of a Missouri pastor who tried to change the synod with a conservative paper, a forerunner of Christian News.
The LCMS, WELS, and ELS have received many millions of dollars from the Schwan Foundation. The reports are all available from Guidestar. The synods also receive huge Thrivent grants to work with ELCA on a number of projects. When Mrs. Ichabod found some of the reports at the Luther Seminary Library, she said, "Now I've got you, Bob, you fat little liar." (You will have to guess which Bob it was.)
Rest assured - how much money has come from Schwan, Thrivent, and other sources is none of your business. It is their money, not yours. They are forced to spend the money a certain way, they claim. (They advise themselves on how to spend the money, of course, forcing themselves to spend the money they are forced to spend, etc. etc.) As WELS deceptively claimed, "Others will get the money if we do not spend it their way." That comes from the synod still bragging about how they did not get the loot from Europe when they decided to move away from unionism. However, we know the 19th century truth has little impact on the 21st century lies. Unionism pays. Kissy-face with ELCA is far more lucrative than listening to faithful pastors and laity.
Elitism reigns in the synods. That is because the men claw their way to positions where they no longer need to be pastors. They do not want to visit the sick, teach the confirmation students, and give sermons every Sunday. Paul McCain MDiv gives away his elitism by posting a You Tube video mocking the preaching office of the Church. He must think it is hilarious. The very expensive video, with high production values, shows a buffoon with a fake wigged comb-over acting ridiculous. The congregation makes hateful remarks in response to his stupid ones. The camera pans over a the legs of a man who has hanged himself during the sermon. That is so funny, Paul. Suicide is hilarious. I wonder if you ever had to deal with suicide in your three years of parish ministry. You ranted about a satirical video done at a Lutheran church or chapel, Valpo or Concordia, Mequon. The one you posted was obviously produced by atheists to show how they despise the Christian Church.
Luther made an important point about preaching. Satan is furious that a mere, weak man with all his failings is allowed to wield the all-powerful Sword of the Word. One little Word will fell Satan, so he aims all his weapons at faithful ministers. The unbelieving world (including the synod) despises his office. Ministers' families have more illness than any other profession, I am sure. Not only that, Satan taunts the faithful with the persistence of his attacks.
Today, because we are in the Age of Apostasy, toward the end of all time, the faithful churches of every stripe are tiny. The apostate gatherings are huge, gloating and slavering as they rip, tear, and devour more souls. They plagiarize each other's sermons and even post their thefts as their own work.
Preaching is the most powerful office of the world. Where else can someone teach the pure Word of God without interruption? Even Herman Melville, a free-thinker, paid tribute to the sermon in Moby Dick.
Nor was the pulpit itself without a trace of the same sea-taste that had achieved the ladder and the picture. Its panelled front was in the likeness of a ship's bluff bows, and the Holy Bible rested on the projecting piece of scroll work, fashioned after a ship's fiddle-headed beak.
What could be more full of meaning? - for the pulpit is ever this earth's foremost part; all the rest comes in its rear; the pulpit leads the world. From thence it is the storm of God's quick wrath is first descried, and the bow must bear the earliest brunt. From thence it is the God of breezes fair or foul is first invoked for favorable winds. Yes, the world's a ship on its passage out, and not a voyage complete; and the pulpit is its prow.
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Then God spake unto the fish; and from the shuddering cold and blackness of the sea, the whale came breeching up towards the warm and pleasant sun, and all the delights of air and earth; and "vomited out Jonah upon the dry land;" when the Word of the Lord came a second time; and Jonah, bruised and beaten - his ears, like two sea-shells, still multitudinously murmuring of the ocean - Jonah did the Almighty's bidding. And what was that, shipmates? To preach the Truth to the face of Falsehood! That was it!
"This, shipmates, this is that other lesson; and woe to that pilot of the living God who slights it. Woe to him whom this world charms from Gospel duty! Woe to him who seeks to pour oil upon the waters when God has brewed them into a gale! Woe to him who seeks to please rather than to appal! Woe to him whose good name is more to him than goodness! Woe to him who, in this world, courts not dishonor! Woe to him who would not be true, even though to be false were salvation! Yea, woe to him who, as the great Pilot Paul has it, while preaching to others is himself a castaway!"
