I remember when John Lawrenz was president of Michigan Lutheran prep. He described how Missouri took down their prep system by underfunding it, and tried to ballast their parochial schools with students from all over.
Lawrenz is now at WELS' portable Asian seminary. What he described was already happening in WELS' worker training schools. He was happy to join the trend to de-fund the schools in the name of Church and Change.
WELS describes their foreign students as "walking bags of money." I heard that they extract $30,000 a year from the college students. Remember - if you hear a WELS official deny these things, I would not accept anything they said, even if their tongues were notarized.
Foreign students are being used to prop up the system, and the parochial schools are being used as employment agencies for friends of the congregation. For instance, one WELS church has 10% of its own members in its "school," which is pre-school and kindergarten. Tuition = salaries.
One of my college students is in China, and she wrote about how much pressure is put on children to earn a degree in America. What our lazy students do not realize is how valuable an American degree is - all over the world. One teacher said, "Any American bachelor's is welcomed all over the world, if you want to travel and teach." I said, "What about a master's degree?" She said, "Oh my. Many times more so."
So it is relatively easy to get rich foreign students to help prop up the failing WELS school system. Look below and you will see a blogger's post on how ELCA underfunded their seminaries for many years. Missouri is even more stingy with their seminaries. I just read about one dropping out to pay down some of his debt. He was warned that he might not get back in.
The Boomer church leaders are as arrogant as SS guards, with the same warm personalities. They prop up their corrupt clergy friends while acting as if they are guarding the sanctity of their synod.
Lately I have some laughs on the phone with people. We enjoy those claims that others cannot comment about their denomination unless they are members. ELCA talks about all denominations. Missouri does. WELS does. The ELS does, but nobody notices. Each franchise has its own talking points about its glorious dispersion of grace and the evils of all the others. The ELS and WELS pastors do not respect each other at all. They are like two step-children forced to live together and not happy about it.
I would be happy to write about the Plymouth Brethren, if I knew any. The only one of note is Garrison Keillor, who pretends to be Lutheran. Hearing him is as painful as listening to Paul Calvin Kelm, who also pretends to be Lutheran.
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bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Foreign Students Are Walking Bags of Money - WELS":
Dr. Jackson wrote: "Missouri is even more stingy with their seminaries. I just read about one dropping out to pay down some of his debt. He was warned that he might not get back in."
I'm betting that the LCMS seminary thinks if the guy does drop out, he'll end up transferring to one of the much less expensive Canadian Concordia seminaries. I know that sets of brothers have gone to both seminaries, so some are at Ft Wayne and others live in NY near the Canadian border, and make a 15-minute commute to seminary in Canada.
