"What peanut?" |
Socialism encourages people to covet the most comfort and security for the least amount of work. That leaves everyone growling that they cannot get even more benefit for even less risk and labor.
Synods are just as socialistic as government. People give up the power to call so they can rely on Holy Mother Synod to tell them who is a good pastor. The few clergy and laity with real power love this system, because they can keep everyone out or on the bottom, so they enjoy the benefits without the difficulties. Bearing the cross is for suckers, they think.
The so-called conservative synods routinely carry out crimes that would have had their leaders swinging from the yard arm, years ago - stealing property, promoting unrepentant drunks as born-again saints, abusing minors and covering it up.
Socialism makes people passively accept poverty in exchange for a sense of security, even though the State giveth and the State taketh away.
Synods generate passivity by taking away tax dollars (your mission offerings) and returning a tiny portion of them, managing the pension and health benefits of the worker bees, and funding the equivalent of overblown federal projects - mostly devoted to their own glory.
Synod socialism is an opiate because people stop thinking, "We could go on our own and trust the Word."
When the confessional crisis hit the General Synod, half of the congregations and pastors left to form their own group (General Council) and their own seminary (Philadelphia). They were so influential that the ones they left behind had to become more Lutheran to effect a re-union in 1917.