The Shrinkers have closed two preps out of four, but that is not enough. James Radloff, classmate of David Valleskey, has memorialized the synod to close the surviving preps.
You could have knocked me over with a pixel - that's how surprised I was.
Radloff edited the official mission counselors' newsletter for WELS, which always featured the worst false teachers and the most obnoxious false doctrine. I connected him with Valleskey because David did the same thing, a little more secretly - like a freight train going through a convent. But no one noticed.
Radloff is connected to the Patterson network. No surprise, again.
When I was first looking at WELS, John Lawrenz was president of MLS. He told me that the LCMS deliberately de-funded their preps until they were gone, in the name of missions.
Only a few years later, when WELS was trying hard to close MLS, Lawrenz said on the floor of the Michigan District convention, "We are willing to accept any role the synod gives us." People were shocked that the head of a school would be so willing to pull the rug, but DP Mueller did the same about closing NWC.
The Shrinkers have a demonic hatred for schools and an inordinate love for missions that promote Fuller doctrine.
Radloff's memorial makes sense, for those who know the players.
Lawrenz surfaced in a recent Church and Chicanery discussion. After he delivered his delphic comments, Patterson chimed in: "Pure gold, John. Thanks."
6 comments:
"After he delivered his delphic comments, Patterson chimed in: "Pure gold, John. Thanks.""
Pure, unintelligible WELS-speak. Thanks Don.
Where do the hearts and treasures lie of WELS leaders?
"pure gold, John. Thanks."
Don = money changers in the temple.
During relatively recent years, WELS has closed and/or amalgamated three prep schools (there are no longer prep schools in Mobridge, New Ulm, or Prairie du Chien). It has also closed and/or amalgamated two colleges (there are no longer colleges in Milwaukee, which was a WELS junior college for training teachers, or in Watertown, which was the only WELS college devoted exclusively to training pastors. With each closure or amalgamation, the leadership assured the membership of the synod that the proposed closure or amalgamation would place WELS on a solid financial footing for its long term future. With each closure or amalgamation, the financial position of WELS eventually deteriorated enough so that another school needed to be closed "to save the synod." We have four more schools to go. If the pattern continues, in short time we will have no schools and a worse financial position than now. At that time, there will be only one thing left to do. That would be to sell the Synod Administration Building and return to a part time president who is also a parish pastor and have the bulk of the rest of the work of the synod carried out by elected or appointed volunteers. Then we will be back where we started before the current administrative expansion craze. The only difference is that we will have lost our worker training system. If the pattern of closing schools to save the synod continues, one can only sit back and ask of our leaders, "Do you really think it is worth it?"
Or, stop putting pastors in charge of the business aspect of doing ministry.
I stumbled onto this blog looking for an old friend by the same name of James Radloff.
For someonw not from a Lutheran background this is very confusing. Do the Lutheran colleges in Nebraska continue to follow Luther's precepts, or have they gone down a different road?
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