Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "Slinging Mud Anonymously":
Looking around where do you find the paragons of virtue in religion. No wonder people are falling away as prophesized in the bible. What the bible left out is that so many lying, vile, dishonest, phony, insincere, vindictive, nasty pastors would disillusion members and give them untold reasons to leave.
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GJ - I used to joke that certain people turned pastors into atheists. I thought about the WELS pastors I knew who were now avowed atheists, plus one who probably is. All three were Shrinkers.
What did they have in common?
Everyone protected them, helped them, and gave them special advantages no one else had - especially when they messed up.
They were coddled, and that was bad for them. Nothing hardens the heart more than pronouncing absolution on someone who has no contrition and continues in his sin. Not only did other pastors lie and cover up for them, they did so knowingly.
God punished them for their false doctrine and notorious sin by letting them be coddled into atheism. Now they have the torture of knowing about God but rejecting Him. Two are advocates of atheism, pitiful examples of male leadership.
I know there are plenty of evil pastors. I have known more than my share of them. There were plenty of belly-servers during the Reformation, too.
KJV Psalm 118:9 It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.
We are warned many times in the Scriptures not to believe because of man, but to trust in the infallible and unchanging Word. No man's evil is enough to separate us from the love of God in Christ. No one is good enough or kind enough to convert us - only the Word can do that. I do think a special curse will be on those pastors who abused their office and exploited their members. They may be CG gurus now, but they will pay the price for their concupiscence.
KJV 1 Peter 4:17 For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God? 18 And if the righteous scarcely be saved, where shall the ungodly and the sinner appear?
Slick Brenner used to say that WELS was headed for the day of judgment. Now the very things no one imagined have taken place. The same is true of Missouri and ELCA.
