Norman Teigen has left a new comment on your post "Outside the Framework of WELS Fellowship":
I think that you have consistently misrepresented the ELS in the Weakland matter. Your reporter (your son) is misinformed. My reporter (my cousin) is my source.
Norman Teigen
ELS layman
[Disclaimer: i am not an official spokesman for the ELS.]
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GJ - I was not writing about Archbishop Weakland at Bethany, but Dr. James Shannon. Erling Teigen arranged for Shannon, an ex-bishop of the Church of Rome, to march with the faculty and speak at the dedication service of the Ylvisaker Center.
Rolf Preus' response some time ago was to say, "Erling Teigen does not have an ecumenical bone in his body, and Greg Jackson knows it." So Rolf is not only a mind-reader, but a long-distance one at that.
My first source is the Mankato Free Press, where Bethany proudly announced this ecumenical event. I also had this in my file for some time, because a CLC pastor spoke to Erling about this, after seeing the clear intent in the newspaper article. Erling's response was, "I thought we were friends." So Matthew 18 is a hostile act when talking to an ecumenist.
My second source is the Bethany annual, which was deceptively silent about Shannon's religious affiliation and other pertinent details. The college yearbook for 1994-5 showed "Dr. James Shannon speaking with student body representatives."
My third source is my son, who witnessed the religious procession, with Roman Catholic Shannon marching with the Bethany faculty and speaking at the service.
Erling or others would have us believe that a married ex-bishop is no longer a Roman Catholic, likewise that an obviously religious service became a secular meeting when the ex-bishop rose to speak.
Erling is not a reliable source for anything where he is involved. He published a letter in Christian News calling me a liar because I accurately reported the Little Sect parting with WELS about their joint hymnal project. It never happened, according to Erling! A Bethany Seminary student (not my cousin or son) contacted me to laugh about the denial. It was widely known that the ELS quit the project when WELS would only let them have two (2) hymns in the new feminist hymnal. CW still carries the information about the Joint Hymnal Project. Joint as in...ELS and WELS, of course.
I am not surprised that the ELS still denies the obvious. They like to pose as the confessional side of the WELS-ELS duet, but they do the same things. They have also had women leading worship at their chapel. They have their own Church and Change congregation. The Little Sect has their own doctrinal board so they can worry about the doctrinal errors in WELS. As Bugs Bunny says, "It is to laugh."
