Flanking the Ecclesiastical Bullies

The Mad Hatter at the tea party offers his favorite brew.

Disappearin' Doug Englebrecht is finally going to meet with pastors and laity, but he has turned it into a district gang-bang, a typical approach in WELS/ELS and the micro-mini sects.

When a WELS youth pastor was arrested for homosexuality, and it appeared on TV, in that district, the story vanished overnight. When WELS wants to cover up another crime, the DPs put down their beers and act immediately.

However, when someone wants to deal with an issue, letters or emails take forever - if they are even answered. Ask around and see if Glende or Ski respond to emails.

Here are some methods employed by WELS to bully people into submission. I know a lot has been tried already, but here are the more subtle approaches:

1. First of all, the meeting is delayed as long as possible, to get a script going with the minions.
   
2. In the meantime, friends of the dissenters will be warned and threatened, so that the friends contact the dissenters to lay off, give up, or face the consequences. The bad guys seldom do their own beat-downs.
   
3. In Missouri and the Little Sect too, any hint of disloyalty to Holy Mother Synod will begin a season of shunning. Clergy and lay politicians know it is best to shun the dissenters and make them feel their leprosy, because they are afraid the disease is contagious.
   
4. Ecclesiastical bullies practice their look of abhorrence, so that people fear the disapproval of these thugs.
   
5. One or more participants at the meeting will be in charge of ripping into the attorney or the Intrepids, making up a bunch of accusations. The DP will sit there, looking innocent.
   
6. If the "wrong people" speak up, one of the minions will interrupt and shut him down.
   
7. In contrast, the minions will make sure their buddies have the floor, keep the floor, and say whatever they want.
   
8. One of the dissenters may have a sudden conversion experience and turn on his friends.
   
9. No matter what happens, the minions will yak all over the synod about how horrible the bad guys were and how the good guys won again. Unity restored - evil thwarted. But the dissenters are sworn to secrecy.
   
10. Pope Pius IX punished every single person who disagreed with his doctrine of infallibility, including those who repented and submitted to him.
    

***

GJ - So how does someone deal with ecclesiastical bullies?

One way is to have as many supporters come to the meeting as possible, highly visible ones. They may not get to listen in, because Disappearin' Doug wants the odds to be about 6 to 1 in his favor.

Dozens of people can gather at the site and mill around. They can greet everyone as they arrive. This intimidates bullies, who want everything on their side. I learned this from a priest, who had 200 priests show up at a meeting where the bishop was going to get rid of him. The priests said nothing. They just stood around and said hello as everyone went inside.

Learning this from me, ELDONA Archbishop James Heiser staged the same demonstration when the LCMS was trying to run him out. All during the meeting, additional people popped in and said hello. The investigators were stunned, stymied, and scared. Nothing happened. Jerry Kieschnick was the Texas DP at the time. Jerry could be stopped by a few people taking the time to show some solidarity.

WELS knows how to ignore letters, even certified letters. The leaders can lie about how many people really feel that way about any issue. But they count noses when pastors and laity take the time to show up in person.

In other words, keep it out in the open. Keep it public. Keep no secrets for the bullies, because they are working overtime to badmouth you while invoking the Eighth Commandment. The indefectibility of Holy Mother Synod is an argument against the inerrancy of the Scriptures.

That is something we can all agree on, without a meeting.