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| This year's three vicars can be found on the Bethany seminary website. |
Forget about the ELS and CLC (sic). They are so tiny and inbred that nothing can stop them faster than they can stop themselves. The Church of the Lutheran Confession (ha!) is the nastiest of them all, toxic and proud of it.
ELCA began destroying itself - before its official start - with quotas. They wanted gay quotas, so I was ready to nominate a friendly LCA pastor from Gay, Michigan. He said, "Oh no you don't!" without a trace of humor. The Michigan Synod, LCA was decidedly Left-wing and humorless.
ELCA has pursued that course, from the start in late 1987 to the big vote in 2009. Flouting the quota for 12 years meant they were ready to ordain the openly gay pastors, men and women alike, but not too keen on telling the truth - on the streets of Gath and all that. In 2013, Elizabeth Eaton moved from being a local Ohio district bishop to winning as the ELCA Presiding Bishop, ousting the male (boo hiss) Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson.
What were the Missouri Synod and WELS doing during this slow-motion burlesque dance?
Object to ELCA? No! because Thrivent knew the highest average income and total membership belonged to ELCA not the boondocks. ELCA members had more education too, another plus for insurance companies - better health than the other sects, meaning lower liabilities, better cash flow.
As long as congregations get flower charts or cheap plastic pastoral yearbooks or money from the Junk for Jesus sales, the parishes are happy. I could add some other benefits but that would ruin my General Audience rating.
WELS and Missouri did not gain anything from the self-immolation of ELCA. The reasons are clear if someone has been around a bit. Both sects consider themselves elite and superior, downright snotty if they are related to other clergy. They major in creature comforts and doing as little work as possible. Many years ago DP Buchholz said no one visited members anymore, not even the "better" pastors. I wonder if he meant the sober ones. WELS has a reputation for insobriety and unearned pride.
Missouri is not much different from WELS, although they got out of prep school business sooner than WELS. One wonders when Michigan Seminary (actually prep) will collapse or why it continues. Luther prep in Watertown is the only way to get a better position in the future - one of those unwritten rules that everyone honors in WELS.
How is your math? WELS combined an all male college with a mostly girl college and ended with even fewer students altogether, plus another WELS college nearby and Bethany's tiny ELS college not far away. I know - I am being heartless.
The CLC (sic) is so tiny that they have prep, college, and seminary in one tiny place.
The latest WELS joke is the sect starting 100 new congregations in 10 years, when reality suggests that many more will be closed in the same amount of time. I remember when 300 new starts in a dozen years would be a "fresh and exciting goal."
Most importantly, these are cowardly sects that cannot admit they are Universalists (who are fairly nice overall). The combination of apostasy - crude, rude, and never subdued - is their anchor, not one of stability but one of that sinking feeling when everything's wrong and nothin' is right.
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| Party in the MLC fly-by: a visit from the cast of their oh-so gay college video. |
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| WELS went all out to sell a for-profit Bible because it is Calvinistic and raging Objective Faithless Justification in the current edition. Where did the money go? |
