Why are things quiet? The more happening, the less said. When there is such an apparent calm, both sides are active.
The message from Church and Change, just before the convention, announcing their next glorious festival of apostasy, was their effort to cheer the troops.
I am happy to mention what I have told many people -
I have been publishing about these topics for over 20 years. Before, the only people who contacted me were elderly. Now the vast majority are younger men. And I hear from pastors all the time. Various people have told me about church leaders reading Ichabod. A few clergy have said, "Everyone reads it, but they do not say it outright."
The Shrinkers can only thank themselves for proving me right.
The apostates will try to make me the issue, because I insert plenty of hilarious commentary about their buffoonery. But I also provide all the evidence so people can see for themselves.
My verbatim quotations make Beavis and Butthead howl with rage, because those nasty little boys are the finger-puppets of Kelm, Huebner(s), Parlow, Patterson, and Becker - the SP Gurgle crew. Listen to their cries of rage - and do the opposite. That is sound doctrine.
The clergy and laity that I know love to read the orthodox Lutheran quotations provided. The quotations were all carefully typed into my ancient database, Megatron, labeled, edited for accuracy, and studied repeatedly.
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Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Determination":
WELS leadership played it safe in not saying that it is promoting the closure of Michigan Lutheran Seminary (MLS). Instead, it is giving alternatives. One alternative would not close MLS, but shows the significant, negative financial consequences on the rest of the program of not closing it. The other alternative would anticipate that funding for MLS would not be available in the second year of the two year budget adopted by the convention, but did not rule it out completely. This was a clever move by the WELS leadership because they can honestly say they did not recommend the closure of MLS. Since they did not recommend it, it is not overly controversial going into the convention. It will be the convention, not the WELS leadership, making the recommendation. However, the obvious innuendo behind both options is that MLS will need to be closed at the end of the next fiscal year, barring a financial upswing before the end of 2009. Without improvements in finances by then, the decision for closure will have to be made before enrollment would start for the fall of 2010.
To quote Luther, "It was a false, misleading dream" to think that this convention will [do] anything about the cancer of the Church Growth Movement in the WELS, at least in my opinion. I see nothing that hits it head on in the Book of Reports and Memorials or in the unpublished memorials I have seen to date. I believe a lot of the lay delegates are not aware of the issue. The male teachers would by and large be in favor of it because it has permeated the WELS school system through team ministry, using our schools as "mission arms," and the welcoming into our schools of the Reformed and sometimes the clearly heathen, not to mention the "international student" programs in many of the Area Lutheran High Schools (which I personally know in some cases is driven by financial need and not by a desire for mission work, even though that is the public justification for the program). The pastors would be divided on the Church Growth Movement, but I do not see a lot of recognized leaders among the conservatives on the roster of delegates. If the Church Growth Movement is brought up at all, it would easily be buried in a committee, tabled to a future convention, or, at best, referred to a committee assigned by the Synodical President. However, I think very little will happen at this convention with the Church Growth Movement, other than it being a topic in the halls or around a keg of beer.
