What Is the Difference? Bueller, Bueller, Anyone?

AC V has left a new comment on your post "Time of Grace Supporters Just Happen To Be Church ...":

Bethesda Lutheran Communities - Partner Congregations:

St. John Lutheran Church, Wauwatosa WI - Pastor: Rev. Joel Leyrer, also 2nd vice-president of WELS SE Wisconsin District.

http://bethesdalutherancommunities.org/page.aspx?pid=665

"Bethesda is a Lutheran human care ministry that maintains close and friendly ties with all the Lutheran churches."

"Bethesda is a Recognized Service Organization (RSO) of The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod."

"...all joint expressions and demonstrations of a common Christian faith—call them church fellowship or by any other term ("partner congregations"? "close and friendly ties"?)—are essentially one, that they involve a unit concept, and that they are therefore all [also prayer] governed by one set of principles"(Proceedings, 1959, p. 165). - WELS "Unit Concept" of fellowship.

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GJ - Missouri and WELS have been working with ELCA and its parent bodies for decades. That will not change.

More importantly, the leaders of both sects have shown an inordinate fondness for studying with and adopting the doctrines of the Enthusiasts. Their hand-scooped doctrine from the Great Kidnapper is pure Enthusiasm with Lutheran sprinkles. Look beneath the sprinkles - there it is.

Someone asked me, "Is there a reason not to join one of the LCMC or NALC congregations?"

1. Still in demi-semi-fellowship with nasty old ELCA? So are Missouri and WELS.
   
2. Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell Communion practice. Ditto WELS and Missouri.
   
3. Ordination of women? WELS and Missouri are eager to embrace it and already have women pastors.*

The LCMC (more like the ALC) and the NALC (the home for elderly ELCA bishops) are engaged in re-studying the Word of God, instead of taking everything for granted. I have no idea what the typical congregation is like, if that can even be determined. I would not be shocked to find both groups siphoning members from Missouri and WELS, simply because the doctrinal differences are slight. Few laity want to circle the wagons around the disputes of the 19th century Pietists.

Walther's approach was to offer his non-biblical theses as revealed truth, then dare anyone to dispute them. He was contentious, divisive, an unrepentant criminal with a lust for power. No wonder Syn Conference hagiographers want to begin with the Altenburg Theses, about Church and Ministry. Oh, Walther rescued the Saxon sheep from the ee-vul Bishop Stephan! Oh, he threaded the needle with his deft move between Romanism and Congregationalism. Oh, he took over the Synod Presidency and seminary presidency at once. Oh, Oh, Oh.

Starting with Altenburg means forgetting the two children kidnapped from their grandparents' home, the young man and woman who died in America. If I were those grandparents, I would not be so proud of that son (CFW) and his brother, both pastors. Starting with Altenburg allows one to forget that Walther willingly followed a known adulterer to America, pledged his lifelong support to the bishop, then organized a mob to rob, depose, and kidnap the bishop - for the crime of adultery.

* LCMS congregations hired ELCA women vicars to preach, consecrate Holy Communion, and baptize, already in the 1980s. I read their accounts in the Trinity (ELCA) Seminary library.
In WELS, the women "Staph Ministers" organized by Larry Oh! (DMin, Fuller Seminary) were consecrating Holy Communion and distributing it. The Revelation of John Brug (Glende's uncle, an Otten fave) was this - "It is not yet the right time." WELS did not condemn the practice but simply imposed a momentary delay. Brug has consistently supported women pastors, and he is the WELS dogmatician, smarter than JP Meyer, but no wiser.