Apostate leaders have one advantage over all their opponents. People assume the apostate leader can be persuaded based upon their common tradition. They take a box of chocolates to a knife fight and wonder why they end up bleeding to death.
An apostate is someone who has fallen away from the faith, a former believer. That perspective is essential in understanding how these people work.
They turn against their past to advance themselves and do not like to be reminded about what they no longer believe. People think they are reminding the DP of what he knows and believes, but the meeting comes across as a guilty conscience speaking to the DP about his betrayals.
His hardened heart does not want to be reminded. He will strike back, and his victims wonder what happened.
One LCA clergy couple said they were going to meet with their bishop and tell him what was wrong with the LCA. I said, "I know this guy. He cannot stand any kind of confrontation. He will have a colitis attack and say very little, but he will get even every way he can." I suggested they work out a new plan for leaving.
I told one person to expect raging when he met with an LCA pastor. Instead, the man was sugary sweet. But he knew so little that he claimed Christians believed in the Immaculate Conception of Jesus! Next he refused to look up the term in a nearby religious dictionary. I can understand why laity might mix up the Virgin Birth of Christ with the alleged Immaculate Conception of Mary, but a Lutheran pastor should a) know the difference, and b) want to look up the topic.
WELS began as a Pietistic unionistic sect and started to turn Lutheran under the influence of Bading and Hoenecke. Missouri sent some head-slaps their way, too. The 19th century saw a gradual movement away from revivalism and Pietism in the Muhlenberg (LCA) tradition, toward the Book of Concord - thanks to the Henkels and the General Council split.
WELS has returned to its Pietistic and unionistic past, thanks to the unceasing efforts of the Doctrinal Pussycats, college and seminary professors, and lick-spittles. They have added another (lower) level by adopting entertainment seeker services--with food--and New Age paganism. Remember when they denounced Missouri for going liberal and denying it? WELS does that without remorse. Remember how they said, "Synods are like fish, rotting from the head"? Look at The Love Shack and Sausage Factory.
WELS dined out on Missouri unionism for decades. They read Christian News and exclaimed, and I quote, "I thank God every day that I am not in the Missouri Synod." (or like this publican)
WELS' entire program is based on unionism. They go to false teachers to learn, and invite false teachers like Space Cadet Sweet to lecture them. And they love it! Fox Valley devours Groeschel and Swindoll because both men are unionistic Pietists. They are all singing from the same page of the hymnal, and it is "Shine, Jesus, Shine." And the non-Lutherans are making them pay for it, big time.
The WELS (and Missouri) DPs have been promoting unionism, synergism, and entertainment for decades. To go to Englebrecht and complain about unionism, synergism, and entertainment is tantamount to criticizing his mother - Holy Mother WELS, the inerrant and infallible alma mater. Is he going to smile and crack open his Book of Concord?
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clittle (http://clittle.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Why Are Apostate Leaders So Bitterly Opposed To Th...":
The spineless and odious posturing of religious leaders needs to end now. They only provide a disservice to listeners.
The spineless and odious posturing of religious leaders needs to end now. They only provide a disservice to listeners.
