This misspelled, obnoxious ad is one example of Ski's copied work.
Ski, Glende, Parlow, Kelm, Lillo, and Deputy Doug Englebrecht
prove the failure of parochial education.
The closing of Martin Luther College, WELS, provides an excellent opportunity to start taking down a failed parochial system.
Ironically, Parlow is eager to build a big merged parochial school near his church, combining all the others and inviting all religions thereto. Can anyone name a bigger parochial school failure than Parlow? Ok, Don Patterson is close but Kudu Don did not list his church as part of the Willow Creek Association. Parlow and Kelm did. That qualified Kelm to be a perish consultant and to mislead poor, innocent college kids.
The original idea behind parochial schools was to provide a high quality education within the doctrinal norms of the denomination. Roman Catholics wanted their children praying to Mary and fretting about Purgatory, so they spent lavishly on parochial schools.
Lutherans wanted doctrinal loyalty and a foundation for church vocations within their synods. Many sacrificed to provide this, whether students or teachers or pastors.
WELS, Missouri, and the Little Sect cannot produce Lutherans from their own systems. I know there are genuine confessional Lutherans in those synods, because I hear from them. However, they are exceptions - not honored or respected, by harried and lacerated by their own synods.
Whatever I say about WELS is true of the other synods, with some variations. The WELS COP is just as much run by Church and Change as the Sausage Factory, two colleges, and preps are. The Changers I feature on Ichabod are paraded as heroes at Luther prep.
I tried to tell DP Bucholz how bad Mequon was for promoting Changers, but he went into instant denial. That reminded me of the elderly pastor who did not want to know how liberal the Canadian seminary was. Now that man's congregation is performing gay marriages. It only takes one generation of change.
Bucholz wanted to say the problem was with Boomers, laughing since I am one. I had to agree with that, but the deniers are the worst of all.
The very system which was set up to promote the Confessions, even if imperfect in execution, was also ideal in protecting the synod bloodlines - like Jeske and his fifth generation WELS claim.
Augustana Experience
I know how this can happen from another example. Augustana College in Rock Island grew out of the Swede's rejection of General Synod revivalism and unionism in the 19th century. The Swedish Pietists went along with it at first, and never gave it up entirely. When they chose to leave it behind, they chose the name Augustana to represent their loyalty to the Confessio Augustana, the Augsburg Confession.
There are many great experiences I can relate from those days, since being a member created an instant fellowship across the newly formed LCA. But it also meant that heretics were protected by their DNA.
Even in a large sect of 400,000, everyone seemed to be related. The man I studied for my dissertation was the brother of the seminary president, who was also related to Conrad Bergendoff, who lived past 100 and saw Mrs. Ichabod before he died. At Yale, we met a Youngdahl who was related to the other Youngdahls, including the former governor of Minnesota and the star of "A Time for Burning," who stopped by for a visit with his cuz.
WELS, LCMS, ELS
The Syn Conference sects have fallen into a state of paralysis because they no longer teach what they claim to believe. Their unity today comes from Fuller and Willow Creek, not the Book of Concord. They are more unified by their rejection of Lutheran doctrine than by their affinity for the Symbols.
What Might Have Been
The Lutherans could have provided a true classical education, where the students learned the foundational academic skills - writing, math, geography, science, Lutheran doctrine - along with Latin and Greek.
Some are trying to recreate this today, here and there. Meanwhile, the synods bleed off millions of dollars to prop up Fuller franchises on decaying campuses. If people took a realistic look at their seminaries, money would dry up altogether.
A genuinely Lutheran synod would make seminary education free of all tuition cost or provide a way of refunding costs for church work done. The Boomers take the money for "missions" and keep it for themselves...in the shoes of the fisherman.
