The biggest - or foulest charade - has been the supposed distance between the Walther synods (LCMS-WELS-ELS-CLC) and the ELCA. Thrivent unifies the worst of them all.
Abortion is an attack on the weakest of the weak, the poorest of the poor - the unborn. There is no excuse for this among Christian churches. Thrivent is just as much for this genocide as ELCA.
How can God bless church bodies that work together against the unborn? Our indifference to this horrible crime is the ultimate display of apostasy - falling away from the Scriptures and God's Creation by the Word.
The synodical managers (they are not leaders) think that money makes the world go around. They dedicate their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor to -- wait, that is a contradiction. They dedicate their lives to their comforts, their luxuries, and their positions of honor. They want no interference with that singular goal. That is why they lick the boots of Thrivent, pleading that the financial demands are not too burdensome.
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Long ago, I noted from a Kurt Marquart article that the synods were being handed a huge sum of money from AAL (one of the two insurance companies merging). We lived downhill from Martin Luther College, WELS, so I looked for the materials on this AAL Church Membership Initiative.
"To the reader: This binder contains a summary of activities and findings of the Church Membership Initiative funded by AAL. A meeting in February, 1993 at Orlando involving congregational participants and church executives was phase three. This summary focuses on the findings of phases one and two. As is the nature of such studies, emphasis is on research and statistical analysis. Such studies do provide helpful indicators. Such an approach, however, cannot directly reflect spiritual reality, which must remain with the judgment of those dispensing the means of grace. Phase four--utilization of information coming out of the first three phases--is open ended for whatever church body [ELCA, WELS, LCMS] will determine such use to be."
Rev. Wayne Borgwardt, WELS, Church Membership Initiative, Narrative Summary of Findings, 1993, Aid Association for Lutherans, 4321 N Ballard Road, Appleton, WI, 54919-0001, June 30, 1993. Five copies at Martin Luther College (WELS). BV 4523 .C48 1993 c.5
"In 1970 there were 500,000 more baptized members of Lutheran congregations than was the case in 1990. The Church Membership Initiative project was undertaken to understand and address this decline... [GJ - This is still the saddest or funniest example of Thrivent helping out and making everything worse.]Contact:
- Rev. Mary Ann Moller-Gunderson, Executive Director, Division for Congregational Ministries, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 8765 W Higgins Road, Chicago, IL, 60631, 312-380-2570;
- Rev. Lyle Muller, Executive Director, Board for Evangelism Services, The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, 1333 S Kirkwood Road, St. Louis, MO, 63122-7295, 314-965-9000;
- Rev. Wayne Borgwardt, Administrator for Worker Training, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, 2929 N Mayfair Road, Milwaukee, WI, 53222, 414-256-3236;
- Mr. Douglas Olson, Aid Association for Lutherans, 4321 N Ballard Road, Appleton, WI, 54919, 414-734-5721."
Church Membership Initiative, Narrative Summary of Findings, 1993, Aid Association for Lutherans, 4321 N Ballard Road, Appleton, WI, 54919-0001, June 30, 1993.
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There is a direct connection between AAL and LB erasing "Lutheran" during their merger, so they could say Thrivent! and forget about the past. The Big Five have revealed their incompetence to be Christian organizations who have no compassion for the unborn, no ability to proclaim the Means of Grace, only results from their Father Below.
