Monday, November 5, 2012

Southern Baptist Loyalties and WELS Follies

St. John in Milwaukee was kicked out, because of a DP's spite.

A Southern Baptist missionary was defending his denomination when I broached the subject of apostasy. I knew about their battle for the Bible, years ago, but I was not in position to talk about their
leadership.

Most of us know they had a convention resolution to reject the New NIV, which included NOT displaying it in their bookstores. Often new paraphrase is sold as a curiosity before everyone finds it tiresome and silly. That was the first time I heard of an effort getting the leprosy label from the start.

It's over.

No wonder WELS loves it. Three out of three hand-picked study groups gave their slobbering approval. SP Mark Schroeder is helpless to do anything about it. Spinmeisters grieve over his heavy burden of office.

That may be the crucial difference - and the reason why the hierarchies will fail completely in the next generation.

The Boomers were channeled into ultra-organized structures. In Moline we had clubs with four officers, church groups with four officers, state and national groups with four officers. The yearbook shows our 1966 class activities at a very large high school - 3,000 Boomers. A glance showed who the most active were, who got scholarships for that, and who would turn hippy soon after.

No one could question the purchase or the money spent there.
Now it is a prison. I don't write satire - I just record it.
Hierarchy literally means "the rule of the priests." Any organization with a top-heavy structure will generate leaders who must constantly prove their power and infallibility. WELS, Missouri, ELCA, and the Little Sect on the Prairie are all the same. Long ago, I got an email from the CLC (sic) that said I was "showing contempt for synodical resolutions." Showing contempt? - I was doing my best to hide it.

Herman Otten had to apologize on the front page of his independent tabloid, because WELS was offended about my honest discussion of their homosexual problems. Soon after, Joel Hochmuth was arrested and The Love Shack was investigated by the FBI for those problems. Grotesque evil has a way of revealing itself, even when the hierarchy is hell-bent on covering it up.

I have been watching a very large business for three years, attending all but one of their monthly meetings. One thing they emphasize is managers listening to workers and to shoppers. The bigshots visit stores all over the world. They also feel compelled to listen to customers and to their subordinates.

That listening has been key to their turn-around. They are definitely a hierarchy too, but a hierarchy that is held accountable for return on investment. Church hierarchies do not listen to anyone - they command. They demand apologies and retractions. They only want agreement or hat-in-hand trembling subordination of the brain cells.

A church hierarchy looks for subordinates who gladly obey whatever the boss commands. WELS tries out people by putting them on various boards and executive committees. If the initiates agree to having their spines removed, they continue to serve and eventually become senior bosses. Any display of independent thinking is met with, "You are not a team player" and "Who told you?" It is far more pleasant to whack moles than to be mole whacked.



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rlschultz said...

After working most of my adult life for General Motors, the similarities between it and the Olde Synodical Conference are scary. I often wondered how long GM could carry so much dead weight from the middle to the top of its management. I lived long enough to get an answer. I was also puzzled as to why anyone would want to move from the shop floor into supervision. At the bottom of management, independent thinking was always squelched. The Olde Syndocial Conference was once the largest Lutheran body in this country. GM was once the largest auto maker. Both have collapsed from their own weight.

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Pastor emeritus Nathan Bickel has left a new comment on your post "Southern Baptist Loyalties and WELS Follies":

Ichabod -

You perfectly described synodical church hierarchy. You stated:

>>>>>> ...... Church hierarchies do not listen to anyone - they command. They demand apologies and retractions. They only want agreement or hat-in-hand trembling subordination of the brain cells.

A church hierarchy looks for subordinates who gladly obey whatever the boss commands. WELS tries out people by putting them on various boards and executive committees. If the initiates agree to having their spines removed, they continue to serve and eventually become senior bosses. Any display of independent thinking is met with, "You are not a team player" and "Who told you?" It is far more pleasant to whack moles than to be mole whacked....... <<<<<<<<<< [Your words]

Such is the sorry case of those who think they are at "the top." They have since abandoned the principle of Christ that whoever would be first, must be servant of all. Dictatorial cruelty toward parish pastors and their perspective congregations is nothing more than wanton carnal behavior. As sanctimonious as it is always made to be; it is nothing more than busybody bully behavior; thus, under the Lord's curses.

Various denominational and synodical head cheese church people are a stench in the Lord's nostrils. They think they are doing God a service; when, in reality they hinder the Holy Spirit's purposes. They will be judge with severity; so much so, that if some of them should attain to glory; they will squeak in by the skin of their teeth. Shame on these of whom the Scripture speaks:

Psalm 14:4 - "Have all the workers of iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and call not upon the LORD."

Jeremiah 23:1 - "Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD."

Jeremiah 23:2 - Therefore thus saith the LORD God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the LORD."

Nathan M. Bickel

www.thechristianmessage.org

www.moralmatters.org