Norman Teigen has left a new comment on your post "Dealing with Synod Bullies":
Timely post. I think that the bullies look at the world differently than the rest of us do. When the Christians in the Middle Ages were sent off to do battle in the Holy Land there was an intellectual and spiritual crisis to deal with.
If the spirit of Christianity is to live a life of peace and to deal with others in a spirit of love, how then can one be motivated to go into battle and start hacking up people?
The answer (and I think it was Bernard of Clermont who came up with this) is that when one kills a Muslim he is not actually engaged in homicide. He is, instead, practicing malecide. He is killing false teaching, he is not killing people.
The same thing applies to the conservatives, and I can only speak of what I have observed in the ELS. Those twenty or so men who were forced out were given the boot by those who would justify their actions as malecide. This depriving people of their ability to make a living is a very serious ethical breach among the ELSians, and I suspect, for other Lutherans as well.
Recently one of the ELS maleciders, getting up in years and wishing to pass away into the next world with a clear conscience, wrote to one of his victims. It wasn't personal, he said. It was just doctrine. [It wasn't homicide, it was malecide.]
Are you kidding me?
The man who had suffered the indignities and the loss of income and livelihood wrote back in response. He said that he was ready to let bygones be bygones, but would there be a willingness to admit that the action taken was perhaps a bit harsh and maybe a little unjust?
There has been no response.
There is some unconfessed sin to be dealt with in this situation.
Norman Teigen
Lutheran Layman
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GJ - I am guessing the worldly contrite person was Kincaid Smith, hatchet man for the Little Sect on the Prairie. Perhaps I am wrong.
Schmeling joined in forcing this debacle on the ELS. The ELS leaders fail to recognize that most people do not care about their ambiguous statements. "Error loves ambiguity." The final dose of STD (Synod's Terrible Decision) was delivered to placate the Shrinker faction in WELS and to exercise power. Because every synod is socialistic, the absence of men through applying the Left Foot of Fellowship means more job slots for the survivors.
In the meantime, the ELS Board of Doctrine continues to appall and astonish. I want to buy the next ELS Rah-Rah book - Eighty Years of Grace, whatever the number might be.
