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| Guenther brought down this bear cub when he was in Alaska. Now he is in paradise, New Ulm, Minnesota. |
WELS is an abusive sect, proven by the fact that they enjoy handing out the abuse and saying, "Nothing happened!" That is so dominant as a response that one ex-WELS pastor said the same thing to me about a non-WELS situation - "Nothing happened!" I had an eye-witness there when "nothing happened."
The leaders of WELS are bullies, sadistic bullies. They love being bullies and they enjoy stories of others being physically attacked. The idea is simple - a minority controls everything and gets what it wants. Their people can do nothing wrong and the rest can do nothing right.
Two recent efforts to end the tyranny ended in the groups being disbanded - Issues in WELS and Intrepid Lutheran. The Intrepid Lutheran founder, Steve Spencer, was the first to leave the group. Some might call him a Judas Goat rather than an Intrepid Lutheran. He did not like GA hazing at all (Mequon).
The bullies who haze endanger lives, but they also break down people. The staffmembers who approve of hazing get their kicks from it. They think they are tough because they support each other.
This is how it works. A young man was physically assaulted by a student when visiting a campus the first time. He complained to the right person - and he was marked for ejection - not right away, but when something could be rigged. WELS bullies love to do that and call Holy Hell down on their victim, laughing about it. They are furious when the tactic does not work, but they never stop. They can conjure up another event to rage about, and no one will question their honesty (even if they do).
There is precious little Gospel in WELS. The sect is all Law, very special Law. The Law is enforced by the bullies against the rest. But they are so sanctimonious. WELS is so pure, so good, so beyond anyone's comprehension. There is nowhere else to go, except the ELS, which is Purgatory.
The bullies are 100% Antinomian. They whine about anything they imagine to be a slight and they treat everyone like dirt. WELS is a great place to learn how to be a total hypocrite.
The stink-eye is their opening shot. Someone who tells a WELS secret, like one of the murders or something even worse, will get the stink-eye from the entire clan. That is why I protect names, because there is no escaping the penalty of telling the truth. Stink-eye is Round 1, and Extending the Left Foot of Fellow is Round 2.
There have been good WELS pastors, but they keep to themselves and are kept in the boondocks.
As the Columbus WELS circuit proved, there is no problem in the sect with:
- Pastoral adultery
- Pastoral alcoholism
- Pastoral false doctrine
Telling the truth is an unforgiveable sin.
