MLC Student has left a new comment on your post "Take the Poll on the Martin Luther College Gay Vid...":
Chalk me up as an MLC student who doesn't support the video.
But really, is it all that surprising that Jackson is able to find a few WELS young people who are acting immaturely (eg. MLC video, its defenders, M. Leyrer)? I think that for him to condemn all the youth of the WELS because of these people is unfair.
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GJ - I do not condemn all the youth of the ELS or WELS. Quite the contrary, I think the vast majority in the ELS and WELS would rather have traditional Lutheran doctrine and practice, with all that entails.
The unofficial poll shows that most condemn the MLC party video. The comments mirror what I have experienced. The smart-aleck antinomian rebels have been protected and promoted within WELS until recently. Their time is growing short and they rage. Better they take it out on me. I have heard the script before.
Let's face it. MLC and WLC are union shops, and so is Mequon. All three are run by the Shrinkers and benefit the Shrinkers. The attributes of all three schools are those of ELCA. I am not sure of Bethany. The ELS had to live with the Shrinker slop-over from WELS, under Mischke and Gurgle - not that they fought against it. They murmured in the coffee hours and quieted down when it mattered.
Financially, three little colleges are not going to continue long into the 21st century. If they are going to be ELCA-bound, why subsidize them at all?
Mrs. Ichabod and I graduated from Augustana in Rock Island. The college was named for the Augsburg Confession because the Swedes tired of the Church Growthers of the 19th century and returned to the Confessions. They were greatly influenced by Passavant, who had gone through a similar experience, moving from revivalism to the Confessions. The revivals were unionistic and Reformed.
Today Augustana is purely secular. They had so many Roman Catholic students at one point that they appointed a priest as one of their campus chaplains. The old Christianity department became the Religion department years ago. The required Old Testament and New Testament courses were semester-long studies of the fading Historical-Critical Method. I remember a Missouri Synod student saying, "Whatever I believe, I say the opposite on the exam, and I get an A."
I took my name off the Augustana mailing list a long time ago. My mother graduated from there. So did my sister-in-law. My wife and I discussed today that we never considered sending LI to Augie. He went to the late NWC, which was closed by the Shrinkers.
There is no reason to keep a school going if it cannot live up to its charter. No one voted to turn the WELS schools over to the Shrinkers. They grabbed the cushy positions for themselves. If they could not elbow others away, they walked on them or shredded their reputations. Then they screamed "Eighth Commandment!" whenever their false doctrine was brought up, whether privately or publicly. And it hardly ever happened in public.
Slick Brenner said to me, "How come you get it and our guys don't?" I liked him. He was gruff but genuine. That is far better than those who are smooth on the outside and evil on the inside, where it counts.
The Shrinkers have taken advantage of the abusive side of WELS and Missouri. Both groups have all the characteristics of sadistic, abusive sects - but the bad side is not 100% of the synod. The kindly and gentle side of WELS got pre-empted by the Fullerites, starting in the 1970s. They abused the trust placed in them and enjoyed the honor given to those in teaching or synodical positions. The same could be said for Missouri, although others know that story much better than I do.
There are plenty of good, sincere pastors who are fruitful in their ministry, not gathering acclaim, but simply performing the difficult labor of being a shepherd, feeding the flock and guarding against the wolves. God knows who they are, even if the synodical magazine does not.
I understand college students are turning away from--and are bored by--the pop music and rock and roll fads of their aging hippy spiritual leaders.
