bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "What Does BC Know? Or Is He Just Bluffing?":
As long as we are talking about what BC knows or doesn't know, how about let's talk about what BC is speculating:
Over the last three decades God has noticed the non-support of the seminaries and seminarians in the LCMS, WELS and ELS, and that the quick fix the synodical tightwads who live in big houses in nice neighborhoods came up is to continually increase their compensation and not to fund the seminaries better, while creating alternative tracks in which Hebrew is not taught, nor classical languages or German. So God said, fine, since they are showing their contempt for my Word, what they are doing is creating the very situation where I'll divide each synod in half so half the DPs won't have their jobs anymore, and the other half of the DPs and president can't afford to live in fine houses in nice neighborhoods anymore. For when the synod divides, there won't be a need for thirty-some districts and DPs, and pay will be cut.
When God sends the aforesaid synods a theological disagreement over election or UOJ or a re-repristination of Lutheran theology, which feat God knows how to do well, the DPs and others who milk the system for all it's worth will naturally toe the Walther-Hoenecke party line. All the DELTO and SMP and WELS second career persons know their certificates are only worth something in the LCMS or WELS, so they will toe the Walther/Hoenecke party line no matter what. Around the DPs and alternative track will gather many Div pastors, enough to form a true schism instead of just a few dozen churches pealing off and forming another micro-synod. So the synods have already sown the seeds of their own demise. Of course, this is all speculation.
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GJ - I agree in general. The revolt began many years ago, with people just melting away. Another sign of this in the LCMS is the refusal to turn in statistical reports. That was happening in previous years, so the numbers are meaningless, especially when people exaggerate on the positive side.
I was going to change pealing off (sounding their bells, above) to peeling off (separating), but I like the idea of congregations sounding off before leaving.
The synod officials have used the schools to keep their own cash flow going, but they are all dead and dying anyway.
My hesitation about BC's optimism comes from my experience with the ELCA merger. All the facts were known, available, and published in 1987. Hardly anyone did much. The pastors in the historical Delaware, Ohio congregation objected a bit, then surrendered to the merger concept. The retired ELCA bishops starting their synod were at the peak of their careers at that point. ELCA had to rub their noses in apostasy for 23 years before some of them started to wake up.
SPs Harrison, Schroeder, and Moldstad fit the description of investment company CEOs. "They do not manage the business, but the public perception of the business."
The turmoil in ELCA comes from people studying doctrine and seeing Holy Mother Synod in action, without their sentimental blinders on.
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bruce-church (http://bruce-church.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Bruce Church on the Synods Dividing and Conquering...":
The doctrinal dispute would probably need to involve a repristination of Lutheran doctrine for Lutherans to get excited about it--enough to leave and form a new synod. During Walther and Pieper's time, repristination was the rage, and all Walther did was put Reformed doctrine into Luther's mouth--yeah, some repristination. Althaus' book on Luther's theology could be a springboard into a true repristination.
It occurred to me I had typed pealing instead of peeling a half hour after I made the comment. Oh well.
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