Congregations Are Too Small To Call
Bruce Church has left a new comment on your post "Fake Pastoral Shortage in the LCMS":
Your statement about how over-recruitment to the seminary
increased the CoPs powers exponentially, allowing them to
dismiss pastors with or without cause, reminded me of something.
Do you recall about how in about 1998 the seminaries were outed by CN for not following the Dept of Education's FERPA (FAMILY EDUCATIONAL RIGHTS AND PRIVACY ACT) for decades?:
http://www.ctsfw.edu/academics/registrar/ferpa.php
FERPA is meant to protect students taking out student loans so their academic careers don't go down the drain unnecessarily while enriching the schools and leaving the student in big-time debt.
Evidently, for decades the seminaries kept all the student records under lock and key, and anything and everything went into them, and the students never got to rebut any source or document. They were never informed much about derogatory information in their file, they were never informed of their right to see their file, and rebut, if necessary, any of the information. Then they were told to withdraw from seminary, or they didn't get certified, or get a call, and they couldn't do anything about it, and they could only guess what the seminary had on them, and who delivered the goods on them (or who lowered the boom on them).
Anyway, if students saw their records, and if they were told the pastor shortage was fake, there wouldn't have been so many recruits, nor student loans filling the seminary coffers paying for an outrageously excessive number of credit hours (137) the LCMS seminaries both require for a M.Div (compare it to most other seminaries). Also, the CoPs would have had a little less freedom to abuse pastors since there wouldn't be an overabundance of seminary recruits. So you are deflating the powers of the CoP via your blog by disseminating all this information.
Since the seminaries got busted by CN, they now provide the FERPA info as required, not trying to hide it anymore:
Ferbpa at The Fort
excerpt: The right to inspect and review the student's education records within 45 days of the day the seminary receives a request for access. Students should submit to the Registrar written requests that identify the record(s) they wish to inspect. The seminary Registrar will make arrangements for access and notify the students of the time and place where the records may be inspected.
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GJ - Student loans effectively keep the LCMS seminaries afloat. If plenty enroll, the salaries can be paid. There is no better way to recruit than to pass word of a 500 pastor shortage, a mythical figure I have heard many times over. Each synod is best portrayed as a house of cards, like the banking industry. They are still trying to run things on the 1960 General Motors model adopted by the LCA. Look at what that did for GM. Their answer--from the Lavender ELCA to the nano-sects--is to copy Deformed Theology because that seems to work. And it is not working, except to prepare a lot of people to join the Baptists, the Pentecostals, or to flee to Rome/Constantinople.
Congregations could break the back of Church Shrinkage by calling pastors on their own. I have it on good authority that some LCMS congregations in Texas have called a pastor before the District Pope knew there was a vacancy.
DPs do not assume power. Congregations and pastors hand power over to them. Instead of trembling at the Word, they tremble when the DP clears his consecrated and consecrating throat.
When congregations surrender the right to call anyone who is qualified, they make it possible for the DP to reward or protect his adulterous clergy-pals and punish the confessional pastors.
When the Robert Mueller's buddy was caught in adultery, the District VP was given a job administering the WELS nursing home. Doubtless many a granny doubled up on Geritol after that. The pastor who dealt with the adultery situation Scripturally was hounded by another District VP. The faithful pastor, whose blood was as blue as WELS blood could be, said to me, "I'm glad my father is dead, so he can't see what WELS has turned into."
WELS will not have a pastoral shortage, even with seminary enrollment cratering. Too many parishes are closing or merging. If they disciplined adulterous pastors and known false teachers, the vacancies would rise rapidly. The Love Shack could lease a kiosk at a Milwaukee Mall and sell their building.
