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| The ELCiC bishop for CLC-WELS-ELCA Pastor Horst W. Gutsche is Susan Johnson. |
I posted this article about the upcoming mergers of previously merged mainline seminaries, such as
- Andover-Newton going to Yale Divinity.
- Philadelphia ELCA and Gettysburg ELCA joining to cut expenses, 64 years after promising to do so.
- Episcopal Seminary at Harvard closing.
- Episcopal fragment at Trinity ELCA Seminary packing up: four faculty, 16 students (but bigger by far than Bethany ELS Seminary).
Meanwhile, knowing this was developing, the LCMS-WELS-ELS segment of mainline Protestantism built and remodeled their temples of learning for a drastically shrinking student population. Each sect poured millions upon millions into buildings that are liabilities, not assets, when emptying out.
Seminary student loan debt is more frightening than Hillary's plans for America.
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| Thrivent is the enabler - isn't that Mark and Avoid Jeske in the back? |
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| Mark Jeske, Thrivent, ELCA and women pastors - always together, working harder than Japanese beetles. |
How Did This Happen?
Bluntly speaking, the "conservative" Lutheran wing is only slightly to the right of ELCA, a dying sect that makes a mild interest in God look like rock-ribbed orthodoxy.
In their lust to be relevant, the ELS-LCMS-WELS leaders have chased the mainline bandwagon at full gallop. Not once have they admitted that they are destroying and robbing their denominations by doing this.
There is a reverse correlation between societal relevance and spiritual health. The early Christians did not celebrate abortion, pan-sexuality, and women's ordination. The LCMS-ELS-WELS leaders do - either through their own programs or their joint-work with ELCA and Thrivent.
All of them have spent millions - with ELCA - in studying how to ruin their sects - at Fuller Seminary, Trinity Seminary, and Willowcreek. WELS gave pastors free scholarships for pastors to study at Willowcreek - though no one offered to send me there for free.
One only needs to look at worship trends in LCMS-ELS-WELS, which are no different from ELCA or similar near-dead groups:
- Entertainment means passive services where the members or seekers sit and listen.
- Pipe organs are ripped out in favor of chintzy, no-talent rock bands.
- Real sermons, the liturgy, Creeds, hymns, and the Sacraments are banned on Sunday.
- The male, female and undecided clergy steal their pep talks from each other and from motivational gurus.
- The message is - "We know you are self-centered hedonists, just like us, so we will cynically cater to the Old Adam and enrich ourselves."
- Suddenly everyone has to have bar ministry or a Bible study at a bar, something CLC Pastor Dave Koenig did 20 years ago.
- This approach is marketed as "mission" and "reaching people by any means possible" but it is crass commercialism sanctified by appeals to emotion and the flesh.
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| The only out ELCA bishop is Guy Ervin, who was rushed into ordination and his election. He is married, pictured, but without issue. |
The gayer and more feminist - even Lesbian - the mainline seminaries are, the faster they go downhill. The Episcopal school near Harvard has an all-female faculty, except for one man with a lot of tenure. The first female on the list shares her Biblical insights on an "out" site for the ultra-Left church leaders.
The ELCA-ELCiC leadership has only one "out" leader, but one suspects that the new crop that came in with Liz Eaton will reveal themselves when the time is right and the tenure secure.
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| Bishop Gene Robinson helped accelerate the rapid destruction of his Episcopal denomination, by leaving his wife, marrying his partner, divorcing his partner, and playing the victim all the while. |
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| Conservative Lutheran pastors think ELCA's Nadia Bolz-Webber is cool. |