The local paper featured an article about an atheist who just published a book. I glanced through it to see what he did for a living. He teaches world religion at the local community college.
When we lived in Glendale, Arizona, that was a requirement for teaching in the religion department. If they found out someone was a believer, he could not even be a part-time teacher there. Thus one requirement filtered out all Christians from the department, so every believing student had to live with the consequences of that requirement. To be an atheist was not written up, just understood. When I mentioned that at another school, a GCC student agreed, "We all knew that we had to fake atheism to get a decent grade in world religion."
One of my friends told me, "You are perhaps the only Christian teaching world religion - the only one in America." That is what one assumption can do to an academic topic - no believers need apply. The same type of assumption works in synodical machinery, where mediocrities protect their job security by constant vigilance and diligent wet work.
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| Be sure to study Walther's Pastoral Theology, to learn more. |
I hear from a lot of people. Necessarily, I do not reproduce their communications but use them as background. I use my own experiences to show people that abusive behavior is common in the Synodical Conference. The worst experiences of others are not shared, because they point to the source or bring up painful memories.
Even so, I have seen people react as if the invisible foot of the synod were on their necks. And of course, it is.
The Synodical Conference throws away faithful church workers as if they were the weekly trash. Here is one link:
http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2008/09/rev-bruce-becker-church-and-change-wels.html
Another link - this has the list I promised before (proofread!):
http://ichabodthegloryhasdeparted.blogspot.com/2009/03/mouse-in-doubt.html
I will provide another one later today:
I remember when Bruce Becker was doing wet work for WELS, a euphonious job description. The name Bruce Becker meant little, but I know he tried to force the late Howard Festerling into denying the efficacy of the Word. Later, when Becker was losing his job at the Love Shack, Mark and Avoid Jeske hired him. Later Becker seemed had a job offer at Wisconsin Lutheran College, a Church Growth union shop.
Becker was on the board of Church and Change when he was head of Perish Services for WELS. Even DP Jon-Boy Buchholz, a synodical lapdog, had to admit that Perish Services did a lot of damage everywhere.
Anyone in the Ohio Conference who questioned David Valleskey's ideology was pushed out of WELS, including three pastors in Toledo.
A significant part of this work is managing information, even with the advent of the wide open Internet and an "independent" tabloid newspaper. As Papa Joe Kennedy told his errant son Jack, "It doesn't matter what you are, only what they think you are." Thus the promiscuous father of a promiscuous son advised the future president that media management was everything.
Several people involved with Steadfast Lutherans were aware of the LCMS support of Darwin Schauer in getting a lay-pastor job, even though he was a convicted child sex offender (not unlike Joel Hochmuth, who had also been caught before). The LCMS ordered the blog to remove all discussion of the case, so they erased it. That is why I preserved the essentials early on Ichabod. People can use the Wayback tool, to find erased posts, but very few people do.
Myth-Making
Massaging the facts until they become lies is the heart of every bureaucracy.
CFW Walther is an excellent example of this treatment, since Ferdy created the bureaucracy that still protects his image. Here are some basic facts about Walther, which have been covered up, denied, or massaged:
- Walther's voluntary associations were exclusively with Pietists, first in college, then as a pastor. His circle was a tightly-knit group of Pietists, who moved from the first dictatorial guru to another one, Martin Stephan (known for his cell group Pietism).
- One man married the fiance of the first guru, after that leader died. Ludwig Fuerbringer's father married the widow of CFW's brother. Ludwig became the Concordia St. Louis president. They were closely knit from cell groups - and inter-married as well. Walther wanted no early history of the LCMS written.
- Walther served as the enforcer for Martin Stephan, making sure that everyone obeyed Stephan or face excommunication.
- Stephan organized the exodus to America, which was headline news in Europe. His desire to leave grew with his adultery and financial scandals.
- Stephan's adultery was no secret to the clergy or the lay leaders, who all knew about the evening walks, the young groupies, and police investigations, the courtroom drama, and the syphilis.
- Stephan shared his syphilis with his long-suffering wife and his many children. His trips to the spa with his mistress were for treatment of syphilis. His bizarre behavior later in America was caused by late stage syphilis, which attacks the brain.
- Walther pledged obedience to bishop-for-life Stephan but organized the mob to expel Stephan a few months later.
- The so-called discovery of Stephan's adultery through a woman's confession was a lie, since it was always known by the clergy. The young woman was Stephan's lover before the trip, during the voyage, after the voyage, and after the expulsion. They lived together in the Illinois cabin - like Karl Barth and Charlotte Kirschbaum - the very first Love Shack.
- Walther followed none of the Biblical rules for disciplining adultery, when it was "discovered." The sudden crisis was an outbreak of syphilis among the young women of the group, which provided an opportunity for the clergy to overthrow the bishop before they all wore rope neckties.
- The Walther mob threatened the life of their bishop, robbed him of all his gold, books, land, personal possessions, and forced him at gunpoint to cross the Mississippi River. They dumped him at a shack with a couple of tools and a few dollars.
- Walther thought Stephan was a bit of a Pietist. That is like saying Walther was a bit of a liar.
- Walther blamed Stephan's adultery on Mrs. Stephan, who bore and tended his tainted children, many of them dying in an institution. She died young too, abandoned in Dresden by Stephan, Walther, and those loving founders of the LCMS.
- About 99% of this is known from Zion on the Mississippi, additional accounts from that time, and court records.
- A few more details have come from the recent book and website created by the Stephan family. Naturally, the myth-makers have gone to town on that source!
