Synod Minders in the Congregation

The synods only have power through the call system, simply because congregations let the synod officials bully them. A congregation can call anyone, but usually the parish surrenders all power to a synod hack who decides otherwise. The Missouri Synod is an exception. I have heard that some LCMS congregations have called a new pastor before the District Pope knew there was a vacancy.

Synod minders report to the synod, and pastors know it. One WELS pastor said his principal had reports of the voters' meeting at synod headquarters soon after it was over.

I was talking to a pastor who was friends with Herman Otten. We stopped at his church on a whim, just because it was unusual and very large. The pastor told me how much he liked my Church Growth articles. I was making additional comments against Church Growth when he made it very clear not to continue. Someone was nearby in the hall. So I changed the subject. The bigger the church, the more fragile the call can be, in these evil times.

My mother's LCA pastor mentioned being pro-life (about 20 years ago) at a meeting. Correction, his wife casually said something against abortion. This church had thousands of members, one of the largest in North America. The pastor was a real smoothy and popular. Nevertheless, he retired suddenly within one month. Was it the abortion remark? There was no hint of scandal and he was a good pastor, as LCA pastors go. (Today he would be hounded out of WELS for having a liturgical service.)

Synodical influence seems to work in only one direction. Most people think that a pastor having a father on a national board would help. Just the opposite is true. Daddy is on the board because he is known as a get-along-go-along guy. If his son starts to stray into mild dissent, the synodical officials pound the father. "Your son's career is in danger." The father pounds the son. "Your career is over if you associate with those trouble-makers." The son capitulates and proves his loyalty by betraying his conservative friends.

Synod officials are enormously destructive. If they spent as much time studying doctrine as they do with gossip and meddling, there would be a Lutheran Church today. When a WELS district Vice Pope was caught in adultery, the pastor who exposed the crime was bullied by another district Vice Pope. That is why they are called Vice Pope (or Vice President in deference to their high office). They are in charge of vice.

One seminarian of the Little Sect on the Prairie (ELS) wrote that Orvick and Peterson went around the synod, stomping out orthodoxy wherever they found it. Later, he denied saying this on LutherQuest (sic). So I reprinted his email. I was suprised he was studying at Bethany and writing for the SkunkPatch, as my WELS friend calls LQ, and I warned him about the consequences. Soon he was no longer at the seminary.

Little Sect on the Prairie officials are so worried that a thinking man might enter their seminary that they expressly forbid good students from being there. The shortage of pastors in America is not a problem. Soon there will be a complete lack of orthodox pastors.

Lutheran clergy are rapidly falling into two categories - Fuller/Willow Creek clones or Smells-and-Bells priests aching to join Rome.

If a minister is their buddy and enjoying a mistress, the synod officials deny knowledge of this and defend the bounder. If a DP is molesting children in his congregation, they let this go one for decades and never report his arrest to the synod. But they look for every opportunity to oust a minister who makes them unhappy for any reason. Everyone should get the same treatment and enjoy due process instead of Stalinistic show trials for dissenters. Clergy adulterers and molesters should enjoy a fair process before being tortured and hanged, whether they are conservative or liberal.

Surviving clergy are political. They say to themselves, "I will get no protection and no new call if I associate with the conservatives." Congregations say to each other, "Boo hoo. What will become of us if Pope John the Malefactor boots us out?" The result is an acceleration of corruption.