Conformity Is First, But Fidelity to the Word - Who Cares?

ALPB Forum
And like the majority minority you represent, you would also be in the minority in your sentiments. The ELCA cannot have it both ways: they cannot want us to stay, but also tell us to shut up, which is PRECISELY what they are doing. Or, more commonly, as was heard on more than one occasion at our synod assembly (affirmed numerous times by others in this forum), when one was critical of the direction the synod was going, there were mutterings from the floor, "well why don't you just leave then?"

Like it or not, that is the prevailing sentiment in the ELCA, no matter how you or Charles attempt to sidestep, ignore, deflect, or otherwise challenge the issue.

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GJ - Before ELCA formed, it engaged in a fully democratic process.  (Wink. Wink.) The plans were all degenerating into the worst of all possible mergers. I heard someone on the bus at the Toronto LCA convention keep saying, "Yes, but I believe in the process." Diaprax works.

The beloved process yielded up a monstrosity that could only deliver homosexual ordination and marriage. Nothing else was possible with a system of quotas.

A new biography of Arnold Schwarzenegger discussed the absolute conformity demanded in Austria when he was growing up. Physical abuse of children was normal and expected, because conformity was demanded.

Arnie:
"My hair was pulled. I was hit with belts. So was the kid next door. It was just the way it was. Many of the children I've seen were broken by their parents, which was the German-Austrian mentality. They didn't want to create an individual. It was all about conforming. I was one who did not conform, and whose will could not be broken. Therefore, I became a rebel. Every time I got hit, and every time someone said, 'you can't do this,' I said, 'this is not going to be for much longer, because I'm going to move out of here. I want to be rich. I want to be somebody.'"

That is why WELS can enjoy the same mindless conformity as ELCA, without a legalistic system of quotas. Often I have marveled at how WELS manages to be a parallel version of ELCA - with similar results.

Everyone is supposed to speak directly to the person in WELS. When I did that, DP Robert Mueller asked, "Why don't you just leave?" That was his response about his setting up an adulterous false teacher and sponsoring him to be a WELS pastor. How dare anyone object? No one else did.

The Intrepid Lutherans (sic) were quick to show that they would not veer from the path of conformity, especially when a Brenner-by-marriage confronted them about departed from "the clear teaching of our synod". I could almost hear the flick of the bullwhip.