He served on the WELS world mission board, constantly promoting the Church Growth Movement.
He is now an atheist, publishing with the foundation called
Freedom From Religion.
Above is one of their efforts.
WELS SP Mark Schroeder started out by talking about slogans. I imagine this was a hint about the misleading slogans of Church Growth.
He gave a general view of Gospel work.
He described the world of the Roman Empire during First Century, which is just like today. (ELCA will have everything but a toga party to celebrate that.)
Schroeder emphasized the Word and Sacraments, quoting Isaiah 55 about the efficacy of the Word alone.
He also described the Means of Grace, a phrase ignored in the last 30 years.
Success is to be measured by faithfulness, not by the theology of glory but the theology of the cross. He clearly described the marketing approach of Church Growth, soft-pedaling the Gospel, making it appealing to the self. Not packaged.
"Effective, powerful Word."
"Making the Gospel reasonable or attractive" to those who are perishing means changing it, and "then we will have failed."
"WELS has described itself as a confessional synod." He distinguished between the quatenus and quia subscriptions of the Book of Concord, doctrine and practice.
WELS began by people being sent by unionistic, Pietistic mission societies from Europe. These groups emphasized the marks of Pietism, which he named - prayer versus the Means of Grace, feelings versus the objective truth of the Gospel, etc.
Bading began changing the commitment of the synod in 1861.
Faithfulness to doctrine is not opposition to mission work. (The Shrinkers claim otherwise.)
The synod grew in the 1960s and 1970s during the crisis with the LCMS. (Note that TELL began to unravel this in 1977.)
People cannot hide behind adiaphora.
"Doctrine shapes practice."
Also - "practice influences our doctrine."
Warnings about Evangelical and Reformed theology. Methods emphasizing feelings named.
"Generic feel-good Christianity" criticized.
The last part is an extensive discussion of budget woes, past and present.
