Herman Otten recently decried Lutheran groups splitting, but he comes from the era of synods modeled after General Motors - a fact well known about the LCA corporate structure. The LCA, now ELCA, has gone the way of GM.
Someone asked about Intrepid Lutherans and the discussions on the liturgy.
In WELS especially, every battle is a proxy war. The real topic is not the subject mentioned. It stands for something else.
Those emphasizing liturgy are criticizing Church and Change. They imply this without saying it.
For Church and Change, promoting the liturgy is a legalistic stance, their way of dismissing the confessional Lutherans as false teachers. They imply this without saying it.
The Church and Money Changers are nasty, unscrupulous, dishonest, and greedy. Their love of false doctrine is exceeded only by their lust for loot.
The question is whether the apostates can be converted or expelled by the politeness of the Intrepid Lutherans.
I see three positive signs, in spite of my general gloom (based on the evidence) about Lutherans in general:
- WELS laity and pastors are working together in the open and expressing themselves on a group blog.
- The Anything Goes district is giving the Book of Concord as a confirmation gift. That is like finding out that the Billy Graham Crusade is reprinting What Luther Says.
- WELS is promoting the Confessions from the top down, a complete reversal from the apostate leadership of the last 33 years, when Ron Roth's Church Growth was allowed to sow its toxic seed.
WELS is tiny, so changing direction is more a case of digging one oar in a little harder.
WELS and Missouri have abandoned the Confessions so long that people are hungering for something doctrinal rather than listening to practical advice from the Babtists and New Agers.
That will put pressure on the Little Sect to have doctrinal leadership. Orvick and Pope John were both products of the WELS CG faction.
