A. Berean has left a new comment on your post "Priestly Class in WELS - "I Studied Greek!"":
That's funny, because in our circles, if you even mention the Greek then you're automatically "placing exegesis before doctrine." So as soon as you bring in the Greek, you're shot down.
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solafide (http://solafide.myopenid.com/) has left a new comment on your post "Priestly Class in WELS - "I Studied Greek!"":
It's true though. Even at the MLC portion of their education, pastor-track (SPaM) students consider themselves better than everyone else since they take language courses. Just go ask most congregations. They've been brainwashed into thinking that the Pastor is of a more special and higher order than called teachers or laypeople.
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GJ - Bishop Martin Stephan, STD, established a theocracy before his sex cult came to America. He was completely in charge, and every pastor had to submit to him. The other pastors in the Pietistic cult enforced this dominance; Walther enjoyed this role. He had qualms about being caught by the police, but no problems with kidnapping his niece and nephew from his father's home. Both children died in America. His niece was seen in the company of Stephan in St. Louis, where the bishop was known for his female groupies.
The parish pastors were just as dictatorial as Stephan, ordering people to leave their families and spouses--even divorce--if the other family members did not go along with the great immigration plans. They bragged about minor children who left their families to join the immigration. Zion on the Mississippi records these strange events, so the spiritual bondage established is not some new secret.
Anyone can buy Zion for a few dollars and read the evidence. The clergy ran the entire operation, decided not to see Stephan's adultery, and only revolted when syphilis was spread by His Holiness, their leader.
This spiritual tyranny, well established by Stephan and taken over by Walther, has been the template of the Synodical Conference. The central problem is their concept of the Word.
SynConference ministers are no different from Roman Catholic priests in their view of the Word of God. They cannot be wrong when they teach in harmony with Holy Mother Synod - infallible and indefectible.
Moreover, just as in the Church of Rome, they are the sons of the Church, so pastors are protected from their crimes and moved along when husbands and cops grow too curious.
In spite of their claims, the SynConference pastors do not believe in the perspicuity (clarity) and efficacy of the Word. The Holy Spirit speaks through them, so the laity dare not question them. One pastor even said about the Circuit Pastor (appointed by the elected DP) - "The Holy Spirit put him in that office. To question him would be questioning the Holy Spirit."
That is the fatal step that encourages and increases spiritual abuse, along with the other kinds of abuse so prevalent in the SynConference today. The dictatorial clergy destroy their own marriages and many other families in the process, so the synod rewards them with promotions and higher salaries, plus more freedom to do even more damage.
A pastor who refuses to discuss doctrine with his members is a Roman priest, not a Lutheran minister, no matter what his diploma may say. A district pope who has the same attitude is no better than a Roman bishop, who says, "Obey, kiss my ring, and raise money for Holy Mother Church."
What are the members? no different from submissive Roman Catholics. The nominal Lutherans accept this tyranny and join in shunning the individuals who dare to ask questions about doctrine and practice, about pastoral failure to teach the truth and visit their own members?
Those who go along with the apostasy cannot blame their dictators in the organization. Jesus did not warn the clergy in Matthew 7:15ff. He warned everyone - likewise Paul in addressing the elders in Ephesus.
