I belonged to the radical Michigan Synod, LCA, but joined by getting a call - after some Left-wing stunts were used successfully.
One was organizing an educational series that had each parish - ideally - admitting they were all racists. That was over 40 years ago, and Detroit was still strong, not entirely war torn and desolate.
Another stunt was bringing a woman around who admitted she had an abortion - when that was quite rare, perhaps even before Roe vs. Wade. The activists who brought her along were sure to tell the congregational groups that "she did the right thing."
These efforts bore fruit, even though people complained about them. When the ELCA was being formed in 1987, the LCA component demanded racial and gay quotas, and they got them. I offered to nominate a Lutheran pastor from Gay, Michigan for the gay quota. He said with rare anger, "You better not."
 |
| "Brett, we are not done in ELCA yet. It will get a whole lot worse." |
I refused to participate in the ELCA merger and left for WELS, which billed itself as horrified with the laxness of the LCMS and the degenerate gaity of ELCA. Irony and church history run parallel paths.
The ELCA gay and racial quotas, not to mention feminist quotas, bore fruit in the 2009 vote to ordain and to marry homosexuals and lesbians. How could that be surprising, given the quotas used for 22 years and the febrile attention to the issue even before the merger? The bad leaven takes time to work through the dough and the leaders work hard to calm down, placate, deceive, bribe, or get rid of those who object.
The 2009 vote lit the fuse and ELCA blew up. I hear reports from friends and classmates about congregations torn up and still polarized over the issues. One high school classmate, a member of a Disciples congregation in Moline, became an ELCA pastor later and resigned from an enormous, apparently wealthy ELCA congregation. She said in her letter, "I cannot do this any more." The congregational newsletter implied that the budget was polarized over support for ELCA.
 |
| When the Illinois ELCA bishop accused Faith of violating the Eight Commandment, I created this graphic, which a member accidentally emailed to the synod staff. |
The wounds show up in different ways. Faith in Moline left ELCA, but the bishop fought them, insulted them, and did everything possible to topple the effort to be independent of the 2009 vote. Faith won while telling the bishop that he or his staff would be arrested by the Moline Police if they appeared on the church property for any reason. Faith's sister church (Trinity, Augustana Synod years ago) hosted a faction from Faith still loyal to ELCA.
The Synodical Conference is another example of polarizing people, step by step, until the radicals are in complete charge:
- Objective Justification
- Unionist activities with the Babtists, ELCA, etc.
- Church Growth
- Feminist language in hymns and creeds
- Women usurping authority and teaching men
- Women's ordination
- Open communion
- The NIV and then the New NIV
- Homosexual ministry - carried out by homosexuals. That was a key reason for leaving the LCA!
- Pro-abortion and funding abortion activists. Another reason why we left the LCA.
Marcus Brenner-Manthey confused this issue entirely, deeply offended that I identified known criminal teachers and pastors in WELS. He said I should post all my sins, with photos, showing that he does not know the first or second part of this crucial section of the Large Catechism. (Shroeder to Bivens - "There is a large one? Mine is small.")
If I had any arrests or had to post bond - as Ski did in Milwaukee - I would be eager to post all the information.
WELS has been abusive so long and in so many ways that the members thereof have Stockholm Syndrome, loving the abuser and jumping on anyone who points out the truth.
Polarizing has worked beeyootifully for WELS. The younger ones will see WELS formally join ELCA in the future, but all of us have already seen the de facto merger.
 |
| Eaton's win was a big win for the Lavender Mafia, just as Mark Hanson's was - before her. |
