The overly-anticipated WELS convention will not accomplish anything worthwhile. The leaders carefully avoid the real issues. Someone who addresses the doctrinal issues is a trouble-maker and soon to be ejected.
Nothing positive is going to happen without genuine contrition. How can that happen when people are born already justified?
The nastiness is on display with the parallel excommunications of Rich Techlin and Joe Krohn. When two other families were excommunicated in Kokomo, many years ago, the sect could control the information. WELS kicked out those families for questioning UOJ, then accused them of inventing the Kokomo Statements, a "parody of justification," WELS said.
That part was true. The Kokomo families copied three statements from J. P. Meyer's Ministers of Christ plus one from an earlier debate on the topic. The four statement were indeed a parody of justification, but they were the WELSian parody, not the families'.
Panning recently updated the J. P. Meyer book. He supported the excommunication of the two Kokomo families. There are so many co-inky-dinks in WELS.
But, with blogs, people can read the material and the emails for themselves. Large documents can be shared instantly with Dropbox, another innovation.
The Holy of Holies, the WELS Essay Files, can be examined and compared with the Book of Concord.
In one historical film, the Scotsman was asked what it would take to have peace with England. He said, "Stop at every cottage. Apologize to every man you have robbed and beaten, every woman you have raped." That suggestion was ignored.
That would be a good start for WELS leaders, who obstructed justice in the murder of Pastor Tabor's life and supported Al Just for murdering his wife. Both men were adulterers, but that is not a sin among WELS church workers.
The abuse of members is so widespread that half the people passing by the WELS display at the state fair in Wisconsin said, "Never again!"
I hear from all over. The shunning begins as soon as someone asks questions about WELS doctrine and practice.
