Mormons Facing WELS and Disciples of Christ Name Change Options

 These young men would like to spend a few minutes
with you witnessing about the NIV: finally - "no more sacraments and all are justified!"

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900028401/the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints-issues-new-name-guidelines-dropping-term-mormon-in-most-uses.html

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints issues new name guidelines, dropping terms Mormon, LDS in most uses

SALT LAKE CITY — President Russell M. Nelson of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints announced Thursday that church leaders have launched a major effort to use the full name of the church instead of nicknames or abbreviations.

"The Lord has impressed upon my mind the importance of the name He has revealed for His Church, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," President Nelson said in a statement. "We have work before us to bring ourselves in harmony with His will. In recent weeks, various Church leaders and departments have initiated the necessary steps to do so."

A style guide released by the church alongside the statement said, "Please avoid using the abbreviation 'LDS' or the nickname 'Mormon' as substitutes for the name of the Church, as in 'Mormon Church,' 'LDS Church,' or 'Church of the Latter-day Saints.'"

Laura Seitz, Deseret News

Pedestrians walk past the Church History Building in Salt Lake City on Thursday, August 16, 2018. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has issued new name guidelines, dropping the term "Mormon" in most uses.

The announcement and style guide raised questions about the future of the names of famous church institutions like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, LDS Business College and the Mormon Channel. It also appeared to represent a seismic cultural and linguistic shift with more heft than previous efforts to encourage members to avoid "Mormon," a complicated term in church history.

Ironically, the announcement came via one of the church's official websites, mormonnewsroom.org. That site and others, including possibly the church's main website, lds.org, could receive updated names and shows the enormity of the challenge ahead for the church.

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GJ - In 1987 or so, WELS was mulling a change to World Evangelical Lutheran Synod. UMELS would have been more honest - Upper Midwest Eccentric Legalistic Sect.

The CLC (sic) was working on a good descriptor, wondering about whether orthodox or conservative or confessional fit best. I suggested "hidebound," which did not please the easily angered Daniel Fleischer.

The liberal branch of the Campbellites called itself the Disciples of Christ, so they are plagued with church signs that say "First Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)" - a real magnet but only in that swath from Illinois to Texas where they are especially dense. Most have never heard of the Disciples. The one in my hometown, Moline, once had three services a Sunday and is now closed.

The Campbellites wanted to unite all Christians and yet split four ways from Sunday. I reviewed a book based on their relationship with Stan Hauerwas. They admitted how legalistic and argumentative they were. For example, a baptismal pond had to be set below the altar because the River Jordan was lower than the land, etc. One conservative branch had a congregation split up up because the early Christians did not have congregations, only house churches. So they broke down into house churches, no pastor.

These groups build a fortress around their traditions (sound familiar?) and off they go. Like WELS - one minute shorts are a sin (Owasso, Michigan WELS - long ago). The next minute - the only sin is Justification by Faith.

Synodical Lutherans Are - So Mormon

 Here endeth the lesson from Second Kolob.

We attended a Mormon funeral, and many details were strikingly similar to the characteristics of synodical Lutherans today.

1. The funeral bulletin began with Mormon Scripture that borrowed heavily from 1 Corinthians 15. Plagiarism is common among the "confessional" Lutherans, from CPH editor Paul McCain to the Glende-Ski clown act in the alcoholism center of America - Fox Valley. Mequon encourages plagiarism and their Brug translation is a good example of it.
2. Mormon hymnals publish their pagan hymns along with verbatim copies of Christian hymns. They strive to give the impression of being Christian, but try to figure out this hymn - If You Could Hie to Kolob. Here is more on Kolob. I immediately thought of the WELS hymn on planning, because the leaders of WELS-ELS-LCMS worship Management by Objectives, which is utterly secular. Lutheran evangelism has nothing to do with the Word of God because they do not believe in the efficacy of the Word. But statistics - that lights up the apple of their eyes.
3. Let cousin Brunhilda sing. If the worship service becomes amateur hour, then the entire extended family will show up and musical pratfalls will be overlooked, even praised. 
4. It's all about the Benjies. The Mormon International Church is a vast business model that sucks up money and produce from the faithful. The rulers of Mormonism benefit endlessly. The Synodical Lutherans do the same, squeezing little congregations dry to make sure the bureaucrats are wined and dined in style. Synodical salaries and benefits are shamelessly inflated, which gives each incompetent slavish loyalty to the source of his paychecks. When they dissolve a congregation, they keep the equity.
5. Secrecy is appealing. Long ago, Charles Dickens observed that secrecy increases interest that would otherwise be almost zero. Mormon rituals can easily be studied, and Lutheran synod secrets are well known. Pretending to have secrets will make more people want to be part of the rabble that controls the Benjies. Would you give up a free (and tax-free) trip to exotic locations by telling the truth? If you say, "NO!" you have a future in WELS-ELS-LCMS.
6. Mormons claim to be Biblical but their little helper books, like Doctrine and Covenants tell the real story. Likewise, the LCMS is so Biblical that verses fall out of their albs, copes, and mitres. But, lo, the real story in Missouri is their new version of the Titanic, a dogmatics books so large in size and cost that they can keep members, seminarians, and clergy away from the Scriptures for several decades. The LCMS-WELS-ELS leaders are just as neo-Barthian as their idols at Fuller Seminary. 

 Honor the Reformation's 500th by buying your dog
a Luther t-shirt, your wife a shot glass, and your pastor
this neo-Barthian monstrosity.

---

 This is why Concordia Publishing House should
be considered a warning label.

 CPH Dog collar

Shot glass coaster.

Frisbees really come from Yale originally.
Kintz and McCain should study church history.

 Mormons have plenty of drunks too,
in spite of their rules.

"WELS Delay on the NNIV Is a Ruse" - Buying Time To Let Opposition Subside

Signals intelligence intercepted this message from a WELS bigwig:

"The NNIV will more than likely be ratified and that this postponement was merely a pressure valve to let the layman, and pastors who object, let off steam."

Someone asked me, "Is there any real opposition to the NNIV?"

There is at the moment. At the district conventions the NNIV was as popular as a driving lesson from Lindsay Lohan.

However, the California-Arizona-Las Vegas district of WELS was against Jeff Gunn's quasi-Babtist emergent congregation for years, but just had a luv-fest welcoming  them into membership in WELS. Those who opposed the Rick Warren copycat were told to repent.

This is typical Diaprax. Let everyone have a say. Let them debate. Let them blow off steam. Form a committee. Form two committees. Then fix the vote that matters and call it a victory for the democratic process and God's will.

That is how WELS got rid of Northwestern College, and they never had the votes. That did not matter. The sheep were told they had lost - a lie. The sheep bleated a few years and watched the Gurgle crew blow $30 million on the cash-saving merger of the two colleges. The $30 million is rumored, but the $8 million claim was fictional. Pick a figure. You don't know the SP's salary and benefits. Do you think the actual figures are your business? Hmm?

I noticed WELS' radical Left substance from the beginning, because I already experienced the radical takeover of the Lutheran Church in America. Some of the best theologians of America came from that tradition - and from The ALC, in the distant past. No one would guess that now.

Constant deception is the main feature of WELS. That is why they want nothing published outside their little mimeograph room at The Love Shack. All independent publications are dangerous because the truth would come out - about the false doctrine, unionism, murders, child molestations, embezzlements, etc. That is why they manage and control Herman Otten energetically.

Here are some obvious examples - the claim versus the truth:

• WELS is in fellowship only with the ELS.
• WELS works with ELCA on many different projects, with all religions via Thrivent, and sends their leaders to Fuller, Willow Creek, and Trinity Divinity - skimming offering dollars to accomplish their re-education program.
• WELS subscribes to the Book of Concord - quia, no less.
• WELS constantly teaches against the Confessions and turns out pastors who loath the Book of Concord as much as the professors in the system - not that anyone actually knows the content. 
• WELS believes in the inerrancy of the Scriptures and despises the liberals who do not.
• WELS is promoting the worst translation, really a lame paraphrase, of the Bible, one spawned by the worst apostates. They gladly work with all denominations, even Roman Catholics, but deny it. SP Schroeder just signed a statement with all denominations and the Muslims. Did Brenner need the Muslims behind him? The Catholics?
• WELS is ultra-conservative and strict, very tough on discipline.
• Hahahahaha. They are far to the left of Missouri. Like all mainline National of Council Churches, they punish those who adhere to the original statement of faith or the olden days practices (closed communion). They reward the apostates who follow their example in training at Fuller Seminary. Their abuse of members is legendary. Question Holy Mother WELS - Left Foot of Fellowship. No due process - just the boot. Plagiarism is rewarded with cash grants, loans, and speaking engagements in WELS.
• WELS practices closed communion.
• WELS put the pressure on mission pastors to practice open communion, or at least don't ask don't tell communion - 20 years ago.
• WELS opposes women's ordination.
• WELS promotes women's ordination. They handed Brug the priceless J. P. Meyer dog notes and made him dogmatics professor because he studied Hebrew. Brug approved women's ordination about 15 years ago - in The Popes Speak - the official journal of WELS, aka WLQ. Church and Change has set up young female ministers all over the place and promoted them via FICL.
• WELS ministers are heterosexuals.
• The majority probably are, but there are too many incidents of homosexual pastors and staff getting into trouble which, like a DUI, is a sign of much more of the same. That indicates a network. A DP's tolerance of a known homosexual pastor, and the SP's do-nothing attitude, both suggest another don't ask don't tell policy. You can decode the data - mattress room, the Fox Valley arrest, the pastor who died of AIDS, etc. And that is what has come to me from many different and varied sources.
• WELS is a Lutheran church body. 
• WELS is really an anti-Lutheran sect, exemplified by rancid Pietism, a reversal of Law and Gospel, and an unearned smugness for being superior. All the money - and power - has been on the side of copying Fuller, Willow Creek, and the rest of mainline Evangelical morons, ever since 1977. Preparation for the radicalism began earlier, according to my source, known only as California. WELS hates Luther's doctrine and despises justification by faith. Try to find a leader in WELS who can articulate the efficacy of the Word in the Means of Grace, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, or why they need to repent. There are some, but they will never be heard, never be tolerated for a second. 
• WELS got rid of Church and Change, so it is becoming more confessional.
• WELS got rid of the Church and Change website, but the WELS-funded group had already spawned many clones to continue their demon-anointed work of destroying the Lutheran Church. They get constant support from SP Mark Schroeder. Paul Kelm has been the most visible spokesman, first at Church and Change, now at Wisconsin Lutheran College, which begat C and C (with Fox Valley pastors). Except for very brief pastoral careers, Kelm has been on the synod dole for most of his career.

If you believe the blue text, you are happy in an abusive, mainline sect.

If the red text is starting to make sense, count yourself lucky if you have a faithful pastor who does not have a secret I Heart Groeschel tattoo.

WELS is not as bad as Scientology, but the parallels are startling, including physical abuse during the GA initiation rite at Mequon (which continues still). WELS and Scientology have an obsession with maintaining a holier-than-thou image, calling anyone with the facts "a liar" and worse.

Perhaps the Mormon religion is a closer parallel. People need to accept a different reality to imagine that Mormonism is true and reasonable. As our friend with the double doctorate from Yale said, "You take the classes and one day, either walk away from the absurdities, or snap and accept everything."