Various Lutherans have mentioned to me that they notice a change in Lutherdom. The over-paid officials are not any wiser. The seminary professors still choose between Fuller Seminary and the Pope. Money is tight, and the doctrine is still loose and watery.
The change is coming from the Internet.
The Net has made plagiarism faster and easier. People used to manually copy the work they were stealing, but tracking it down was just as laborious. Now readers can do a Google search on Cyberbrethren and detect Paul McCain's plagiarism in a few seconds.
The Net is the new printing press, a major innovation in communication - more significant than radio, television, or the infomercial. Therefore, the Net has spawned many tools to making this communication even more efficient. Many of us own a large collection of digital books on our hard drives, made possible by PDFs from Adobe and other digital formats.
Now information and opinions can be shared world-wide for free, instantaneously. I met a Lutheran missionary from Brazil. I know he was keeping up by reading Ichabod. I smile when I see the red light glowing on the Feedjit map - bottom, left column. Israel has been lit up.
Blogs cross-pollinate. I often think to myself, "What would ChurchMouse say about this? If I say Calvinists contradict one another, what would he say about Lutherans?"
I am guessing that the opinion forums have opened up the musty basement storage closet of Lutherdom. Steadfast Lutherans is somewhat managed by SP Matt Harrison; Intrepid Lutherans is shadowed by SP Mark Schroeder. Ichabod is also an opinion forum, where many participate anonymously and others use their names.
At least three Martin Luther College students have heard faculty discussing how to keep their work off the Ichabod radar screen. That was confirmed by the faculty's immediate, forceful denials. The faculty have their names listed in Google Alerts, in case they come up on this blog. They promote this blog by telling entire classrooms not to read Ichabod.
The fact remains, any corrupt official or apostate professor is going to think twice today about the being featured on one or more blogs. The officials can censor the news, as Matt Harrison did with the Darwin Schauer child molestation scandal, but the word is out and the WayBack Machine works. (WayBack picks up old posts, even the erased ones.) I still feature Schauer and Hochmuth, plus anyone else who gets arrested doing the Lord's work.
There are secret blogs and email lists. I find those terribly sad and cowardly. The apostates and the faithful should duke it out in public. Anaerobic infections are the worst kind. The carbuncle of Lutherdom needs to be lanced, not Photoshopped.
Many contributed to my Church Growth collection of quotations. This has not kept the worst false teachers from being promoted and protected in WELS. At least the follies are known today.
