I was washing the dishes for Mrs. Ichabod, thinking about what bothered the Shrinkers the most. Allow me to rehash a few things.
My formal education has riled WELSians from the beginning. The reason is simple. Their claim for absolute authority rests on Mequon degrees from people who have a Mequon education, meaning 12 years of hazing. The hazing process ensures that no one finishes with more than a repeat-after-me education. A few escape that by keeping thoughts to themselves. They keep each other in line by recalling such episodes as the mattress room and incidents of projectile vomiting. I am not making this up.
A common theme is mocking me for having so few members, even though these members are across the United States. But I heard the Shrinkers are discombobulated from finding Ichabod at the top of every search when they look for WELS topics. That complaint has been heard around the US, much to the amusement of some of us. Perhaps the Shrinkers are annoyed that I have 60,000 unique readers and more than 350,000 page-reads a year. Or that the facts are linked in carefully researched articles, pages quoted verbatim because they have a way of disappearing overnight.
I have been accused of using mockery, satire, and funny pictures. PETA does not mind my feline pictures, but the apostates keep hissing about them. The apostates are not going to say, "Your verbatim quotations of Luther and the Book of Concord turn us into mad hatters."
Did you see the prose and pictures of Anonymouse, his 12-hour blog effort? Could anyone be cruder and grosser? He is the fruit of the WELS educational system. I imagine he was already circulating his photos via email, so he decided to post them too. The trouble is, most people do not go for toilet humor. They did not go through GA.
The Neo-Pietists are an interesting case study. They are easily offended when the truth is told, and yet their cries of Eighth Commandment! are always accompanied by personal attacks, unsupported accusations, and outright deceit. They will slander anyone to protect their own.
For example, when I quoted Paul Kelm at a conference, Frosty Bivens made me prove it with the original document. That was to protect "Paul Kelm's good name." In other words, I was a liar and a slanderer. I produced the original where Kelm was quoted endorsing yet another unionistic conference. Bivens was not deterred by the facts. He theorized that Kent Hunter had manufactured or twisted something from Kelm. Even though Hunter was a fellow Shrinker, Bivens had no qualms about turning on him to save Kelm's thinning scalp. As a parish pastor, Bivens bragged about going to Fuller and learning from the Church Growth experts (in front of the entire Midland circuit). As a Sausage Factory professor, he said, "I don't know where Greg Jackson gets the idea that I went to Fuller."
When these false teachers, liars, and slanderers are called on their misdeeds, they lay down a smokescreen of spurious charges. They also spend a lot of time getting revenge on anyone who questions them. If you want to know why so few workers oppose the Shrinkers, look at the body count of those who have.
From time to time, someone writes to me or about me, pretending to be "wounded." Or complaining about unnamed wounded friends. Nastiness follows. They use their excuses to be themselves, which is not pleasant to behold. They do not hesitate to use their gossip channels to blacken the name of anyone they dislike.
Although the Appleton blogger seems to be a soloist, with help or encouragement from his Church and Change friends, the approach is pure WELS. As someone said, "Once you visit a sausage factory, you will lose your appetite for them." I question whether WELS can overcome its legacy of hazing, bullying, and haughtiness. They spend so much energy shunning each other that they must find relief in embracing the Babtists. No other Lutheran group loves the Babtist more unflinchingly.
In WELS the grudges are legendary, in spite of their claims or aspirations of love. This lovelessness comes from the rarity of the Gospel. They imagine UOJ is the Gospel but it is no more the Gospel than a marshmallow is a rib-eye steak. The pastors and teachers themselves are starved of the Gospel, so they also starve the members and students.
Anything is possible through the Word of God. I was growing tired of confronting the apostates on their favorite issues. The latest eruption of anger and revenge has encouraged me greatly. Also, UOJ is on the ropes, with the Stormtroopers grieving over the loss of key players from Satan's shield-bearers.
