In fact the WELS fits the “cult and control” model complete with its financial planning
way back in the late 70’s and 80’s My ex pastor told another pastor who was removed for not growing the church fast enough, that the congregational giving was no longer going to be the main resource of the synod, that the synodical approach was to secure the majority of their funding from corporations and foundations so they could “cut to the chase” and get accomplished what that oligarchical theocracy wanted to get accomplished without the bother of the bureaucracy and encumbrances of the laity.
In my opinion, Pietism was Christianity’s concession to rationalism. It opened the door to the lazy man’s priesthood. Talking feelings instead of the means of Grace is much easier to implement and use as a tool of control in doctrine and practice than living the means of Grace which demands constant shepherding of individual souls) in a specific congregation-hence no confession or self-examination before the Lords Supper, no periodic visitations to a members family ect ad infinutum.
It opened the door to the new Papacy that demands that doctrine and practice come from the Lutheran Pope down to the sheep.—Lutheran ex cathedera? (Walther’s shepherd/sheep sermon an oxymoron?) They decided that apologetics are too tough and it hurts to engage in them, so let’s go the “touchy feely” route;--much easier to the invite the cultures sin into the closed door of the divine service than to deal with the sins of the culture.
In a sense, the formula for the declining declension of Lutheran Orthodoxy goes like this.
1. Publish the myth to gain legitimacy and make it a montra. UOJ and Priesthood of all believers (roughly translated as doing all the dirty work the pastor doesn’t want to do).
2. Diminish the means of Grace to a mere “ordinance” while…..
3. Accelerating substitutions for the means of grace; rock music, entertainment, epicurean gluttony, charismatic inventions; all controlled through the priesthood (and they say the priest hood is not a sacrament
4. Means of Grace back—seated, manmade conventions increased.
5. Laity gets transformed into the “new feudalism.” of the manmade slavery of the soul.
6. Diminish all doctrinal precepts and run “loose like they are running loose.”
