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| Forget the right hand of fellowship - WELS loves extending the Left Foot of Fellowship - in love. Seven Signs WELS Is a Cult. |
I promised this to someone, so if the truth makes you grumpy, wait for the next set of funny animal graphics. And chuckle.
The WELS personality, clergy and lay, is not difficult to describe, especially when someone has grown up among normal people. As Herman Otten described, from decades of experience, one primary characteristic is being thin-skinned. They simply cannot accept any description where they are less than perfect.
When I read about the Swedish White Flour Messiah, Jannson, a hyper-Pietist, I thought of WELS (the Perryville cult, too). Jannson's mind was righteous and he never sinned in any way. His followers agreed with him but conceded his body was adulterous. His time away from his wife in missionary activities led to a number of "Jesus babies," who appeared among the young ladies.
A faculty dean, whose son sold drugs, thought no one who spent time in WELS should want to return to the fleshpots of Missouri.
Sig Becker, a convert from the LCMS, told Herman Otten about the alcoholism and adultery in the WELS clergy. A Mequon graduate and a long-time WELS laymen confirmed Martin Luther College as an adultery scene each summer.
According to WELS Pastor Steve Spencer, a layman who traveled all over found the WELS clergy to be the drunkest and most immoral of all the clergy he knew - potty-mouths too.
Who was always first to jump on Otten for publishing something less than ecstatic about WELS? The WELS leaders, of course. They try to deny but ask "Who told you?" at the same time. The question "Who told you?" implies the truth, but it is asked in order to punish the leaker.
The same WELS leaders will spread any slander to get even with someone, in spite of their constant Eighth Commandment refrain. They knowingly deceive and deliberately embroider each tale.
The brittle personality is matched with alcohol abuse from college onwards. At Northwestern College, the older students served minors at bars and made sure the minor students, all male, had plenty of liquor. Passing out on the lawn and befouling the dorm were highlights of every weekend at NWC.
Alcohol abuse is not a problem but a resume enhancer in WELS. DUIs are no problem, but they never happened, even if the bond notice appeared, if the future missionary was all scratched up, or the Mequon professor was cited in court for crossing the center line (really, really drunk driving). DP DUI? - give him a call to another district, a time machine where all memories are lost or absolved in the transition.
Mequon has some interesting traditions in training future WELS pastors. One is their abusive hazing ritual, called GA or HB, the second designation to enable lying - "We don't have GA anymore!" Smirk. Smirk.
Another is the nasty prank. WELS pastors brag about nasty pranks they pulled on class-mates they did not like. They are not intended to be funny but to say, "We don't like you." All their initiation rites are designed around this - at the prep, college, and seminary levels. They include cross-dressing the males, exalting the athletes, and trashing the good students.
Mequon will get rid of students for disliking GA/HB, for complaining about homosexual assault, but not for being caught in sodomy in the mattress room. Notice how quickly SP Mark Schroeder absolved Joel Hochmuth for distributing child porn and just as quickly kicked out Paul Rydecki for teaching Justification by Faith. How many of the gay-acting Party in the MLC video received a divine call? - Answer - all of them. And their video was featured and praised on one of the key gay websites, giving gay pride new meaning in WELS.
Grading in WELS schools is based upon the family tree, not academic achievement. Not that grades matter, because calls are handed out according to one's last name or relatives.
The emphasis in WELS is upon conformity to Holy Mother Synod, which is how they turned the Chief Article into Objective Justification and the Means of Grace into Church Growth Principles. WELS had the basics long ago (Gausewitz and some very good teachers) but the radicals used conformity to take control, award themselves the loot, and scatter dissenters.
The effect upon the innocent is dire. No thinking is allowed. The contradictions are never resolved, because the truth is whatever WELS declares at the time.
Shunning is the WELS sacrament and dogma. They initiate secret probation when someone seems to be leaving the plantation. Often the target does not realize what is happening until everyone jumps on the bandwagon and the group Left Foot of Fellowship is extended - in love. Families do the same, so there is a certain kind of toxic glue that keeps the WELS cult together as it rapidly dies.
Everything the leaders suggest in addressing a problem is designed to cover up the sin - or even the felony - and get rid of the one who dares to tell the truth. That is why I suggest that abuse victims go straight to a qualified lawyer and refuse to communicate with the perpetrators (DPs, CPs, SP, pastor) in any way whatsoever.
If you think speaking to Mark Schroeder accomplishes anything, just attend the Jeske Change or Die conference and see what WELS endorses with the help, advice, and prayers of John Parlow and Bruce Becker (both with CG DMins - or Demons, as one wit said).
Some shepherds have strayed, but they have been welcomed back, like Prodigal Sons, like Lost Sheep, as long as they offer medical proof they have no spines and no brains, only love for Holy Mother WELS.
"I won't use my money to criticize WELS."
GJ - "You only need the Word to do that."
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| Who wanted Spencer to organize the Intrepid Lutherans? Which group was shut down? Church and Change? No - IL, and Spencer was the first to jump ship, or turtle. |
