Clergy Bullies

rlschultz has left a new comment on your post "Keeping a Corrupt System Corrupt":

All of this sort of explains why the laity may be so timid. My eyes were first opened when, as a newly elected elder at my first meeting, I witnessed the pastor bullying one of the elders. I wondered then what it was all about. This elder stopped any involvement in congregational activities, and became virtually delinquent before he passed away. He had developed quite an attitude.

Other board members who see this type of treatment most likely figure that they had better not make too many waves or they will fall out of favor. I have heard a lot of complaints from the women who suggest that it may be better if they could be in those positions of leadership because more could be accomplished. This is not the Biblical solution. When the women see the cowardice of many of the men, they often get desperate.

There is an overdue emphasis in the WELS to get the high school grads to attend MLC. There is all this blathering about serving, etc. Going to MLC is touted like joining a fraternity. You allegedly receive all kinds of benefits from it. I am not exaggerating one bit. There is this subtle implication that anything else is substandard.

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GJ - The prep school grads in WELS called the area Lutheran schools "public schools" with a sneer. The Northwestern Prep graduates sneered at MLS grads, etc. Bullying is pandemic in the synodical scholls, so it is important to get that training and get one's ticket punched.

Bullies are cowardly thugs, and they stick together to enhance their feeble sense of worth.

The LCMS has its clergy bullies too, although some of them only think they are clergy.

The ELS re-elected their worst bully as Synodical President. Being whipped with a coat-hanger at NWC did wonders for instilling the right attitude in Pope John's subordinate.

Where To Obtain Pastoral Training

Daniel has left a new comment on your post "Follow the Fold":

What would you suggest for an individual who feels called to the Ministry but finds no recourse as far as synodical education is concerned?


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GJ - I think people will revert to the colonial days, when students trained by living in a parsonage. It was called The School of the Prophets. The pastor trained the future minister, who often spirited away a parsonage daughter as his bride.

I would not send anyone to the current "conservative" seminaries, because they train people in Enthusiasm, Roman, Eastern Orthodoxy, Fuller-Willow Creekism, or worse.

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Daniel has left a new comment on your post "Where To Obtain Pastoral Training":

That method sounds much more favorable (and more hands-on) than the current "waste 8 years of your life" approach. I suppose that's the intent behind the Vicar year, but still.

Nonetheless, longing for the ways of days gone by does not help a student currently compelled by the Spirit.

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GJ - Anything is possible today. I have told more than one, "You do not need your apostate synod to decide your future. There are many solutions."

From Mt. Sinai - We Have a New Revelation

Plagiarizing is not bad.
Plagiarizing false doctrine is not evil.
Objecting to either one is a sin against Holy Mother Anything Goes District.

The Stuff That Owns Us

Pathetic, pusillanimous, plagiarists.

bruce-church (https://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Suspending the Doctrinal Pussycat in WELS":

I wonder if the problem is they set up the WELS disciplinary system back before the pension and health insurance packages came from the synod. Before pensions and health plans were a big deal, or were in existence at all, people were more willing to stick up for what they saw was the truth since they didn't have much to lose. Now the stakes are so high that it's impossible for someone to get the required 3 or 4 other people to stick their neck out publicly for the truth. They just look at you as though your crazy, and are trouble (short for troublemaker).

The same thing happened in universities. Before pensions and big perks came along, there was diversity of thought, but now the universities are just a system of secular humanist gulags. Conservatives like to say that the Marxist professors were intolerant of the "other," and drove conservatives out, but in reality the very capitalist system that conservatives tout raised the stakes and had a big part in the creation of the university gulag system.

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GJ - I agree except that people put themselves under that yoke by trusting benefits more than they trust God.

Social Security was invented to keep people from revolution. I think Bismarck gets the credit for that idea.

I teach at two universities - no pension, no benefits. I would rather be free than loaded up with golden chains.

All the synods depend on Thrivent, and Thrivent uses them as cheap lead sources - while throwing millions at Habitat for Humanity. But it is all worth it - getting the free flower charts, napkins, cups, and planners.

Hello Kitteh

The Man Behind Church and Change Plagiarism

"From a reader:

 Pastor Jackson,

I received a campaign-marketing email from Concordia Publishing House advertising  Mark Jeske's book.  Just before I confirmed my order today for 13 books (including extras for the church library, pastor, CP, DP, shut-ins, widows, and my busy friends who need their "daily devotions made simple with Time of Grace,")  I checked Amazon.  Sure enough, it's $6 cheaper, and eligible for free shipping.  Today's my lucky day! 

The ISBN (0758619138) is catalogued as published by CPH.   I guess NPH down the road from Jeske is too busy and didn't need the business.  Curiously, it's not available for free download on Lulu either.  Why hide such a shining light under a bushel?

http://www.cph.org/pdf/124353.pdf   I appreciate how at the very end of his book sample Jeske invites his readers to visit WELS.net and use the locator to find the nearest WELS church.  (Just kidding!) Lol.  That might hurt books sales to LCMS. 

Post Your Parish Plagiarism Examples

The Israelites plundered the Egyptian gold and jewels, not their garbage.

If your parish is plagiarizing anyone, feel free to send the examples as a comment. I will post them after checking them out.

I know the lazy liars are busy erasing this weekend - a kind of fall clean-up. However, it is fairly easy to find out what was posted previously.

The best approach is to show the link to the parish material and one to the original source.

If you have doubts, Google the last few words of one sentence and the first few of the next. It is almost impossible for two people to write the same words in a row, once the string is longer than two or three words.

If the same sermon titles and contents appear in various denominations, they are most likely copied from one of the sermon factories, like Groeschel's.

Groeschel gives permission to use his materials, but he cautions that ministers should acknowledge the extent of their debt. Some have been fired for their dishonesty. Not in WELS! WELS has standards. First, everyone has to sit down, hold the plagiarist's hand, and tell him his sin. This must be secretive, so that no one knows it. Next, the divisive trouble-maker who did this must wait about 30 years for the disciplinary process to kick in.

Follow the Fold

Follow the fold and stray no more
Stray no more, stray no more.
Put down the bottle and we'll say no more
Follow, follow, the fold.
Before you take another swallow!
Follow the fold and stray no more
Stray no more, stray no more.
Tear up your poker deck and play no more.
Follow, follow, the fold.

To the meadows, where the sun shines
Out of the darkness
And the cold.
And the pain and shame in which you wallow.
Follow the fold and stray no more
Stray no more, stray no more.
If you're a sinner and you pray no more
Follow, follow, the fold.
Guys and Dolls

Daniel has left a new comment on your post "Keeping a Corrupt System Corrupt":

I took a trip to the Seminary during my sophomore year at Wisconsin Lutheran High School. This was during an all-expenses paid day of traveling and lunch, in an attempt to encourage the youth of Wisco to enter the Ministry.

Even at that young age (before I had been introduced to the Book of Concord), the class I had to sit through was almost unbearable. It was a Hebrew instruction class, and the information that the professor asked was unbelievably easy; I thought any simpleton could answer - and no student save one was answering. Most of the other students were busy on their laptops looking at MySpace and their email accounts (this was before the rise of FaceBook).

Suffice it to say, I could not envision myself enduring 8 more years of the WELS “training” I had been forced to take in for the past 14. In the end, I seriously considered transferring schools and entering the seminary tract at MLC at the beginning of last year. I am glad I did not make that decision now (this was also before I discovered the Book of Concord for myself).

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GJ - In 1987, no one had laptops yet, but the stifling atmosphere of the classroom was the same. No one was supposed to show any interest in class - that was not cool.

I ended up in the Formula of Concord class, which everyone treated as the equivalent of root canal surgery. Although the instructor was very good, no effort was made to apply anything to the current situation. That would have blown up WELS, just as it would today.

When I read the comment above, I immediately thought of the Salvation Army in Guys and Dolls. Every so often they appeared, thumping the bass drum, chanting "Follow the Fold."

There were dozens of claims about WELS education being vastly superior to anything on earth, but the evidence was lacking. For instance, the library was hardly used at all. The required books were mostly Reformed. One of my classmates (although I was not allowed to consider myself in the elect) wondered why my library was so Lutheran and his was so Reformed. Many expressed shock that I could read German. I responded, "You can't? And you are graduating from a Lutheran seminary?" The librarian muttered, "I ask the same thing."

When the class was asked about Luther and Zwingli on Holy Communion, one senior began ranting about Luther being stubborn and wrong! I saw a Middler paper, probably from Valleskey's course, repeating the Lord, Liar, Lunatic argumentation of Josh McDowell. I said, "Where did you get this garbage?" The student would not say.

Seminaries often have the same agenda, teaching conformity and fostering apostasy. Mequon had some good instructors and some good students. The overall atmosphere was one of robotic following a host of unwritten rules.

So-called graduation was followed by a required week of Church Growth indoctrination, which was soon followed by the Paul Calvin Kelm program of Church Growth in the name of evangelism. The second week of torture was aimed at established pastors and was heavily salted with CG Stormtroopers of proven incompetence.

I agree with the WELS pastor who argues that the synod schools are now hopeless.