The linked article on WELS abusive hazing and GA was copied with added commentary on Intrepid Lutherans.
Polluted WELS Blog:
Der Schwarz Schaf said...
Amazing! Astounding! Incredible! Almost unbelievable! If it were not for the fact that I have heard these exactly same kinds of incidents from WELS Pastors for many years, I would say this was an unban myth. I find it interesting that I do NOT hear such things from Missouri Pastors, of any age, not even from those of the generation who went through their prep and college system back when it was fully intact. This must be a very odd trait only of WELS: to act on purpose as heathen and pagan as one can; to purposely lie, threaten, intimidate, and even harm others both physically and emotionally, all the while insisting that this is the way to train future shepherds. Strange, to say the least. Frankly, it sounds to me like "unity" is really not the goal, but rather "control." Also, to perpetuate the power of an elite set of families. There is no other word for this that nefarious. Look it up; it fits!
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GJ - Underneath the holier than thou veneer of WELSian piety lies a pagan hedonism that the clergy smirk about in private.
One of the basics of GA initiation is how much fun it is to deceive and manipulate people, and this starts from the time of the fake debate on whether to host another GA initiation. I understand GA has gone underground now, but in times past the debate itself was the topic of great myrth.
New students phoned home and said, "Dad, they may not have GA this year." Dad would laugh with his friends about his son being fooled by the GA debate - just like the good old days.
This carries over into the obsession with lying that fuels WELS politics. Frosty Bivens brags about doing to Fuller Seminary, then heatedly denies it.
David Valleskey simply gushes Church Growth and teaches it all the time, then pretends to be forced into studying for the first time in his life. And yet this fake first study ends up with a slobbering endorsement of stealing the solid gold ingots of Fuller Seminary. Odd how a future seminary president could become so dazzled, so intoxicated without ever being there.
But then Valleskey admitted to David Koenig (CLC dimwit) that Valleskey did study at Fuller. When I published that, Valleskey was furious with Koenig, and Koenig was furious with me for telling the truth.
And while Larry Olson was studying at Fuller to earn his precious drive-by Fuller D.Min., he had a friend deny in Christian News that he, the great Larry Oh!, studied there. He was perhaps at the Rose Bowl game when he rented a bike to see, touch, and hear Donald McGavran while the false prophet watered his lawn. The story read like the Wise Men visiting the Messiah in his crib, only this messiah was very old and the visitor was not very wise.
But the key is the deception. Everyone knows WELS is addicted to Church Growth dogma, but the lies are a message to the clergy, "This is our agenda, so love it or leave it."
Wayne Mueller published his denial in the Northwestern Lutheran (RIP) - there was no Church Growth at all in WELS. If anyone would know - he would.
And the next First VP was another Fuller alumnus, Jim Huebner. I learned this from him - If a pastor questions a sex offender being welcomed into WELS, the sex offender is being persecuted.
When cops come and church workers get arrested for murder, child molestation, embezzlement on a grand scale, and other crimes, the lying goes exponential.
With the deception comes the abuse. Anyone who steps off the reservation is verbally abused, often with a whispering campaign, so all the participants could say, "I heard..."
Like prison, living in a cult provides a certain sense of security along with the violence and sexual assaults. WELS clergy, teachers, and members are reluctant to leave the cult because they know nothing else. They realize friends and relatives will shun them for life, and they will be pilloried for the terrible crime of being non-WELS.
But for actual criminals, WELS is a busman's holiday on speed. No one protects the criminal with more diligence than the WELS leaders.
a bankrupt bar so he could play church.