Someone opined--and I agree--that Missouri and WELS had their watershed moments and suffered from premature celebration ever since.
Missouri defeated the Seminex gang temporarily, inviting them back in later. They gloated that the Biblical inerrancy circle won, that the revived seminaries would repristinate the ministerium, one class at a time.
WELS and the Little Sect on the Prairie broke with Missouri in the 1960s, after decades of admonition. When I joined WELS in 1987, the leaders were saying, "We suffered from that break, so we do not want any more controversy."
From the looks of the WELS DPs, no one seemed to be starving. Everyone took up the theology of glory and kicked aside the theology of the cross. The LCA/ALC apostasy made WELS/LCMS/ELS look good in comparison, even though they were all in bed together, in the name of insurance grants and Church Growth.
In the 1980s, people older than I were in contact with me about Church Growth. They wanted to know where the men were, where the younger people were. The Boomers were leading CG or hiding in their rabbit warrens, afraid someone would say "Boo!"
Now the younger men are fighting for the Book of Concord and the efficacy of the Word. They will have to learn the Scriptures and the Confessions better to defeat the sectarians of the Left. That is God's purpose in doctrinal conflict, to prove what is good and acceptable.
The CG Boomers are retiring, one after another. They were great cult leaders but poor teachers. Their diciples (Stetzer spelling) are unable to defend the cult, so they will also move along, and sink beneath the waves with watery groan, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
