One of my contacts told me about manning a WELS booth at the Wisconsin State Fair, to help promote the sect.
The experience was daunting. Half the people jeered at the booth and said, variously, "Never again."
I question whether the Wisconsin style of preaching the Law in all its sweetness (5,000 ways to violate the Ten Commandments and excuse it) and the Gospel in all its severity (shunning and extending the Left Foot of Fellowship) can be overcome. The WELS of today was built upon a foundation of abuse: emotional, physical, and sexual. The clergy grew up under it and operate under the same rules, which are: Conform, keep secrets, and punish anyone who tells the truth.
One ex-WELS person was shocked at what I told him, and he knew many of the worst things already. Someone can live and work around the leaders and not learn anything.
I heard all the solutions myself, from people who would not lift a finger to do anything themselves.
1. Write letters! - they were not answered or even acknowledged.
2. Meet with the DP! - so he could get even.
3. Talk to various people! - who later claimed total amnesia.
I recently sent three certified letters, with signatures required. I got three green cards back. No one answered. No one acknowledged receipt of the letter. No one phoned. No one emailed. That is WELS. The clergy are above the law. They are the law. That is especially true of the synod officials.
Look at The SORE. Clergy and laity worked together on their own to address the issues. Deputy Doug failed to show up for the meeting. Individuals have gone directly to Ski and Glende. However, Glende blocks his email. (Matthew 18 does not include that step.) Instead, Appleton publishes anonymous blogs which are anti-anti-CG. Nothing is funnier than Glende's crowd denouncing unionism after their record-setting pace of attending the worship conferences of false teachers (Groeschel, Stanley, etc) and using their materials dishonestly.
The ELS is no different. One pastor thinks he can justify propping up a known sex offender and false teacher. But that was not the betrayal of just one little ELS pastor. The ELS and WELS worked together on that debacle and even got a Schwan matching grant for the false teacher. And he was never in either synod and vowed he would not join. Are there any WELS or ELS pastors who wanted a Schwan Foundation grant and were denied because they were not kosher according to their false leaders? They need to study their fellowship principles more carefully. The principal (money) matters, the principles do not.
How many little betrayals are necessary for one continuing debacle? The Michigan District had plenty of pastors who knew, especially the district officials who lied about it. The District Mission Board knew too. No wonder the chairman lied about his own vicar's felony. The ELS leaders of today knew. The current president of the Little Seminary on the Prairie saw my list of particulars and said, "If this is half-true, we are in trouble." I said, "It's all true." That was before 1992, or 18 years ago. Saying nothing and doing nothing helped move him from humble parish pastor to sem prez.
Does anyone wonder why people have abandoned a synod where murders and abuse are covered up and denied? One of the CG stars featured in the magazine wrote me, "My brother never went to Mequon because of GA abuse." (GA is their secret hazing ritual, which is still in operation.)
The two WELS colleges and seminary are in bed with Church and Change, caught en flagrante delicto* time after time. The Doctrinal Pussycats need to see lit torches and waving pitchforks before they put a single Stetzer conference on ice. Leonard Sweet - no problem.
In spite of 30+ years of promoting and tolerating the Reformed gimmicks of Church Growth/Emerging Church, WELS has shrunken from the Shrinkers.
Reforms have been limited to getting the over-paid Shrinkers new jobs: Paul Calvin Kelm, Bruce Becker, Elton Stroh, et al. Even Jim Aderman! Jim A. got his old job back, after losing half his congregation in two decades. He was a founder of Church and Change. Steve Witte (another founder) was disciplined with a promotion to the Asian board, a non-parish and lavishly paid position.
FICK turned into FICKLE, with the same Church and Money Changers writing for it: Bivens, Patterson, Panitzke.
Someone recently made the claim that the MLC gay video was ordered removed from YouTube and Facebook. Weeks later, both are still there, as of today.
But - one DP removed a pastor from the synod for tagging a public sidewalk. Kevin Hastings got angry with another WELS congregation for its lax stand on adultery. That horrible act of defacement amounted to a stripe and some words on the concrete sidewalk. WELS went after him like gangbusters.
They do not remove a seminary professor for drunken driving.
Or a WELS missionary from driving up a lightpole in an alcoholic daze.
Or a TV star from being New Age, WELS, and Missouri at the same time.
The same DP who protects Mark Jeske is the one who got rid of the midnight tagger. The issue is not discipline but why they discipline.
* - Mequon graduates: that means caught in the act.
