There is nothing quite so alarming or charming as a morning visit to the ALPB Online Diss 'n Cussing Board.
Today's threads included the number of members in each synod, plus their number of congregations. Every since 1970, all of them have decreased by gigantic amounts.
ELCA gets all its failures in one lump, because the LCA, ALC, and Seminex groups merged in 1987. They went from 5.3 baptized members to 1/3 fewer members.
Missouri since 1970 has lost a similar number.
The ELS has already published its epitaph. They will be only a footnote in history books in one generation. I wonder why Justification without Faith, their cause for leaving the Big Norwegians, never caught on. Now they can join their fragments with ELCA, which is also a fan of Universalism.
WELS' two sacraments, the stink-eye and the shun, have worked well in purifying the ranks so the leaders all come from a few DNA matches. Marrying a Name (as they call it in WELS) is like wedding the boss' daughter, a sure prediction of future promotions and alcoholism. This is discussed in excited tones: "He married a Hagedorn! Do you know who they are? A Hagedorn helped start the synod!"
I am amused, drinking pour-over coffee, that so many clergy at ALPB can write so much without addressing the basics of Biblical, Lutheran doctrine. They are all sociologists who enjoy going over the potential reason why their synods - and ALPB - have been sinking in numbers, closing schools, and still flogging the cause and effect from their Fuller Seminary educations.
The Church of Rome also talks about grace, and like their Lutheran counterparts, silences the concept of faith in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
If we have access to God's grace only through faith in Jesus the Savior, as Paul teaches in Romans 5:2, there is no grace at all in the leadership of the synods, whether they are Roman or nominal Lutheran.
KJV Romans 5 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
