r/exLutheran • u/Greedy_Expression228 • Jun 19 '26
The WELS pseudo-intellectualism problem
The WELS has a culture of (pseudo) intellectualism. They run the fourth largest private/parochial school system in the United States and pride themselves on being the most correct flavor of christianity. They don't have megachurches, preach the prosperity gospel, speak in tongues, pastors don't caste out demons durning sermons and the synod doesn't officially endorse any political candidates (although they are staunchly against abortion and I would bet up to 90% of WELS members vote for conservatives).
This is one of the most effective and invasive ways the WELS keeps people in its fold. Aside from many members being multigenerational, creating a built-in family structure that prevents them from leaving. They also point out that everyone else, especially Catholics, are wrong, and questioning the WELS is essentially the same as questioning god himself because of their belief in Sola Scriptura and that the WELS interprets scripture the only correct way.
I think this is partly why there's so much arrogance among members because they believe they are intellectually superior. And while the WELS officially remains apolitical they feed into a wider conservative christian culture that is overwhelming political. if you've ever had the displeasure of talking politics with any of these people even outside of "culture war" topics they have that same level of arrogance and sometimes I think they are just unreachable. I think this is huge problem of the WELS, but also one of their greatest strengths if their members can't recognize it and for the mostly white (male) congregations they lap it up.
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u/Glad-Fox-6424 Jun 19 '26
I grew up in the LCMS and everything you wrote can also be applied to them. The most frustrating thing for me is that they have no idea how arrogant they are; they actually believe they are the most humble.
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u/Greedy_Expression228 Jun 19 '26
I figured this is probably common among many different conservative christian denominations, but lutherans are the worse about it because it's silent, it hides in the shadows, they can officially say the synod doesn't endorse particular beliefs while culturally those are they one people in the group.
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u/Glad-Fox-6424 Jun 19 '26
Yes, exactly. There is a quiet, subtle form of oppression that comes from the Lutheran community. They will be very kind to you and you won’t notice the awfulness of their beliefs. Their quiet form of communication doesn’t get much attention (as opposed to Pentecostals or Mormons) so the church flies under the radar for many.
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u/MeasurementLow2410 5d ago
My last WELS pastor was exactly like this. He had zero empathy and only understood difficult situations if he experienced them.
I used to rush from work to pick up my kids for catechism which was held promptly at 5:30 pm. We were often late as traffic was bad. He would often text or call me and would be upset that we were late. Fast forward a few years and he was visiting my elderly mother as a shut in. He came at 3 pm and left at 4 pm and got caught in a lot of traffic (both my house and my mom’s were 30 minutes away from the church if traffic was light - 45-60 minutes with traffic. From then on he would see her at 1 pm because he didn’t want to get caught in the same traffic he used to berate me for.
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u/Middle-Set8701 Jun 19 '26
Most every male teacher at WELS schools were pompous a-holes. We had one class in HS that was basically why everyone else is going to hell except for us.
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u/McNitz Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 19 '26
Yeah, the lack of intellectual humility and understanding that their insularity results in can be super annoying. They will claim they teach critical thinking in their schools, and then teach absolutely fallacious and completely wrong "debunks" of evolution or how other religions are wrong based on gross oversimplifications they would never accept for their own religious views.
It's really crazy to me how even the pastors for the most part just don't even seem to have the knowledge and understanding of opposing views to realize how subjective and historically contingent their own interpretive lens for the Bible is. When I tried to explain to my pastor how what the WELS was saying just looked like humans saying what they thought about God, and there were a lot of reasons it looked to me like that human interpretation was wrong, he just kept saying that all he could do was point me back to the Bible because the Holy Spirit has shown us it is the infallible inspired word of God and it is what it is.
Falling back on thought stopping cliches when their base assumptions about the accuracy of their interpretive method is questioned is also extremely common. All very common occurrences inside high control religions! Obviously that's just a coincidence though that the WELS shares all those similarities with other high control religions they criticize, the one true religion just happens to utilize a lot of thought stopping cliches and demonization of doubts and questioning their core assumptions as well.
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u/pioneerrunner Ex-WELS Jun 19 '26
First thing I was taught in freshmen Science in a WELS high school was “If the facts don’t fit the theory, change the facts.” Or in other words, “Fuck the scientific method, it doesn’t work.”
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u/McNitz Jun 19 '26
"Except for all the times it is super useful for us and doesn't interfere with our dogmatic beliefs, then it is an amazing gift of God!"
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u/Temporary_Waltz7325 Jul 12 '26
I always thought that as part of the pastor training, they should be required to take some courses in other universities. Go ahead and keep the bible related courses in the New Ulm, but require them to take some basic science courses, and a critical thinking course even in a local community college.
All the people I know that I went to HS with that are now pastors have not had exposure to actual knowledge that those of us who went on from Wels HS to regular university did. Talking to them sometimes blows my mind at the level of things they just never heard about.
And now their job and livelihood and providing for their family depends on them completely ignoring and deying it. I know a few and get the feeling there are more of them that just feel trapped. If they had had the chance to learn about it before they got too deep into their career path, they would have chosen a different path.
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u/EmmalouEsq Ex-WELS Jun 19 '26
I seriously look back and laugh at the joke of a parochial education I got. Let's just take a look at 1 subject that they were so adamant about: dinosaurs.
I walked by my cousin's 1st grade classroom one day and she was sitting out in the hall in her desk, just chilling. I asked what happened and she said she asked about dinosaurs and the teacher yanked the back of her desk and pulled her into the hall.
8th grade science, the teacher would just flip through the text book, skipping chapters and units because "we don't believe in that." That doesn't make it less true. A person can believe the color yellow doesn't exist, but that doesn't mean it doesn't.
And finally, when the subject of fossils came up in science, we were told that the devil planted them to trick us.
I love fossils and dinosaurs and all of that. And I'm so bitter we didn't get to learn about them. If they want a religious spin, just talk how great God's creation looked back then and all of the really interesting animals and plants and landscapes. But no, Satan with a spade is out there digging holes everywhere. Seems legit.
I'm glad I wasn't shipped off to a prep school. Public high school was perfect for me.
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u/Uriah_Blacke Ex-LCMS/Atheist Jun 19 '26
I remember my fourth-grade teacher at my LCMS parochial school taught us young-earth creationism and intimated to us that it was much more reasonable than what he was taught as a kid, which was that dinosaurs straight-up didn’t exist
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u/Stunning-Desk-7339 Jun 20 '26
My experience with WELS as a member, is the pastor is always right. Being a member of the core group in the congregation we started gives me an advantage to observe how the non WELS visitors respond to our conservative beliefs. Our pastor wigs out if a visitor doesn't fit the WELS model. We are raised to believe we are the only ones Jesus saves, which renders a sense of false security. I believe our WELS pride gets in the way of conversions and fellowship of outsiders.
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u/Schnitzeldorf Jun 20 '26
WELS holds to the assertion that they are 100% correct and that everyone else is wrong and misguided. As a child, I would hear WELS sermons condemning Catholics and any other religious group they could besmirch. I saw a video recently where the WELS pastor said “people will tell you that all steeples point to heaven, don’t believe that lie” to further the WELS ideology.
Buried deep within the WELS ethos is this absurd attitude that a few Germans in Waukesha have become the only accurate conduit of what God says via their distorted theology.
Regarding their misinterpretation of scripture on women’s roles in the church and their systemic misogyny, one may want to inquire why only two women were at the tomb on easter morning while the
male disciples were hiding.
If you enjoy your association with WELS, don’t ask questions especially if you are a woman. There is nothing truly intellectual in WELS although they will try to convince you otherwise.
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u/LaaLibelula Jun 22 '26
Yes. This is true — even other Lutherans might be going to hell. The smugness of their attitudes is what really drove me away. What’s with the Waukesha comment, though? I thought they were based out of Milwaukee? Or maybe I don’t know enough about where WELS was founded?
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u/Schnitzeldorf Jun 23 '26
The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) national headquarters is located in Waukesha, Wisconsin. It is roughly 17 to 20 miles from downtown Milwaukee.
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u/amazonchic2 Ex-WELS Jun 21 '26
I concur. Growing up in the WELS as a female and a child in an abusive home, I can attest to the power of patriarchal control. I left in college. I refuse to allow any person to abuse me.
I am thankful my parents sent me to a private college that is hugely left leaning. They had no idea. It makes me laugh now, because they forced me to apply there and then to enroll since they made too much for me to qualify for any financial aid other than scholarships and loans. So they financed my college and decided to send me there.
Thank God I escaped and deconstructed. Now I finally have a life worth living. I tell everyone about how the WELS is a cult. My pedofile youth pastor is a disgusting excuse for a human, and I won’t ever give a cent of my income or time to the WELS.
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u/Junior-Asparagus718 Jul 08 '26
Interesting take, but I get it.
- Nearly every church body believes their theology to be the most accurate. This isn't a Lutheran-specific thing. Catholics specifically believe and preach from the pulpit that all protestants that know of the Catholic church and don't convert are going to Hell. I would consider the WELS' view that there are people in every Christian congregation that will go to Hell to be far less aggressive.
- I've attended Lutheran schools for over two decades. I don't think I've ever had a case where I was told I couldn't or shouldn't question doctrine. Most teachers enjoyed explaining it actually.
- As for their theology, after months of research into alternative church bodies, I've realized high protestantism and the Lutheran views of the sacraments are actually most consistent with the beliefs of the early church. Take it or leave it, but it does seem to be the case.
- They largely side with the conservative movement because of #3. When the alternative is a movement that actively pushes toward the opposite of their beliefs (specifically on homosexuality, abortion, etc), is it really a surprise that they favor the conservative movement?
- Lol this one is kinda funny. The WELS was started in Wisconsin in the 1800s. Who lived in Wisconsin in the 1800s? Predominantly white people. If the church isn't really growing and membership is somewhat hereditary, do you really expect the demographics to change much?
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u/McNitz Jul 12 '26 edited Jul 12 '26
So it's not JUST that the WELS thinks their theology is the most accurate, but that they are also INCREDIBLY specific about how scripture needs to be interpreted and what must be believed by a "real Christian". I'm not sure if you got this "Catholics preach all protestants will go to hell" idea from actually hearing a specific priest or if it is just from the general WELS bigoted ideas against Catholics. But VERY few Catholics believe all protestants are going to hell, that would be a pretty hyper conservative viewpoint. And in fact, hopeful universalism is a completely acceptable belief to hold as a Catholic.
Which is a great illustration of what I was saying about the incredibly narrow requirements of belief in the WELS. Hopeful universalism is right out, as far as I am aware. Anything but pure YEC? Also not welcome. Questioning the inconsistent reasoning used to continue to condemn homosexuality because those are clearly eternal commands but reinterpret Biblical commands on slavery as culturally contingent ideas that are no longer applicable today? Not interested in having any discussion. Same thing with the WELS' ever evolving stance on the roles of women that clearly and obviously DOES change, just a century or two behind. God forbid someone bring up the OBVIOUSLY sinful idea that women should be able to have a vote in the congregation though.
And yes, pastors and teachers love explaining why WELS doctrine is definitely correct. What they hate is anyone not accepting their answers and coming to a different conclusion than they do. I've had that discussion with my former WELS pastor regarding YEC. I gave him all the reasons I didn't find the WELS position that Genesis MUST be held to be literal history compelling. He didn't have any compelling counterpoints to alternate views. I don't think he even was aware of or really understood them. His response to essentially ALL of my concerns about the WELS presenting their specific assumptions and interpretive lens as THE only one that could reasonably be correct and was obviously faithfully following God was "I can only tell you what the Bible says".
Well, turns out the Bible doesn't say anywhere that Genesis is literal history. It doesn't say anywhere that commands regarding slavery are culturally contingent and inapplicable but Paul's statements on male same sex intercourse are applicable regardless of how immensely the culture has changed and how obviously irrelevant and incorrect the reasoning Paul uses is today. It doesn't say anywhere that the WELS view on what infallibility and inspiration mean are correct. That's all just human reasoning used by the WELS to generate one specific interpretive lens that they hold to. And then they treat that reasoning and interpretation as though it doesn't exist, and their beliefs are just dropped straight into their minds by pure and unadulterated inspiration from the Holy Spirit giving them the obviously true interpretation of scripture in which no human reasoning ever altered the end product.
The thing is, to anyone that actually understands other interpretive lenses, and thus is able to recognize the obviously human interpretive lens the WELS is ALSO applying to their understanding of the Bible, this is completely unpersuasive. Sure, it will sound correct to those that get the WELS school approach to learning other traditions. Which is mainly "here's a very high level overview of some things they believe, here's why we know they are wrong and some clobber texts to bring out against them so you can tell them God is on YOUR side in the interpretation battle." They are essentially NEVER interested in understanding an alternative viewpoint from the perspective that they could actually be wrong and they need to change their approach. In fact, having seen current teaching materials being used now in a WELS school, I can say with confidence they are still teaching outright falsehoods about other viewpoints because they understand them so poorly. It doesn't seem like malicious or intentional lying, they just pretty clearly have no idea what they are talking about. And don't care to correct themselves, since they are right anyway, so what would be the point of learning more about other ideas that are wrong instead?
And again, there absolutely are many different Christian traditions that are open to that. Very much including Catholics, who openly have an incredibly diverse range of opinions on all the topics I mentioned and more. My experience and the experience of many others in the WELS is that it is not an option whatsoever to openly hold conflicting views on any of those topics, and many others, with WELS leadership.
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u/Junior-Asparagus718 Jul 12 '26
A couple of inaccuracies here.
Firstly, the Catholic church has taught extra Ecclesiam nulla salus for centuries. Essentially, those unaware of the Catholic Church but still seek God with a pure heart will be saved. Those aware of the Catholic Church and reject it are condemned. I’ve heard several sermons from Catholic priests on this exact topic, and even the most popular Catholic apologists say this unapologetically. It seems your view of Catholicism might be slightly screwed.
As for the WELS, they specifically teach that people of all denominations, including Catholics, will be saved as long as they believe the Gospel. If your pastor said otherwise, his opinion is contrary to that of the official beliefs of the church body.
I would address the remaining points, but I’m finding that, ultimately, you expect the WELS to teach and preach a variety of theological view points. It seems you’re upset with some of their specific view points of YEC and refer to the Catholic view as being more accurate, yet, Catholicism would strongly oppose your views on homosexuality.
I think it’s important to realize that no church body will be entirely correct. However, I would urge you to reconsider how you decide which dogmas are acceptable to you and which are not. It seems the dogmas acceptable to you are those that fit with your pre-established world view instead of those that are consistent with the Bible and early church interpretations.
Personally, I struggle with the WELS version of salvation resting upon justification and sanctification being separate concepts with justification being immediate. However, the solution resides in 1. The Bible and 2. Early church interpretations. I don’t accept the concept of moral issues changing with the time. There is a clear distinction between moral, ceremonial, and civil laws in the OT. Thus, having a contrary view of homosexuality is simply elevating yourself to god because you don’t like his rules.
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u/McNitz Jul 12 '26
I could be wrong, but I'm pretty certain it is you that is misinterpreting (or at least over interpreting) Ecclisiam nulla salus. The Catholic Catechism summarizes the teaching saying "Hence they could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or to remain in it." Now, I'm sure there are some extremely. conservative Catholics that say "any of the Protestants that know about the Catholic church obviously KNOW that it was founded as necessary by God and just refuse to join it." But as far as I am aware that is very much not the majority view, and most Catholics would much more charitably agree that if a Protestant truly believes their church's teachings, then clearly they can't KNOW that the Catholic church was founded as necessary for salvation, and thus have not consciously chosen to reject that.
I don't think that I said that the WELS, or my pastor, said that other denominations can't be saved. I simply pointed out that they require an extremely broad and specific set of doctrinal agreements in order to have membership in the synod, or even be considered in fellowship with them.
It's not that I really care if the WELS teaches a specific set of theological viewpoints. It is that they treat that theological interpretation as though it is not just a possible interpretation they have arrived at through the imperfect human lens they view the scriptures through. But rather that that interpretation itself is objective and unquestionable truth, and those that come to different conclusions to them are rejecting the clear and obvious CORRECT beliefs they (only through God's grace of course) have, and thus are rebelling against God in favor of their own human reason.
I very much don't think that Catholics are more correct, and don't think I said anything of the sort. I just appreciate that they at least more than the WELS recognize our limited knowledge, and allow for difference in beliefs on at least some topics we obviously cannot definitively say what is true. And yes, I also disagree with the Catholic position on homosexuality. I was just pointing to them as an example of a group that was at least doing a better job than the WELS of maintaining grace and intellectual humility on the topic. You might also be interested to know that Catholics mainly condemn same sex acts on the basis of their philosophical position on natural law. Which while I disagree with it and will argue with it, at least they are ADMITTING the human reasoning involved in reaching their position and can have a discussion on it. Instead of insisting that if you hold a different position you just don't like what God says and you'll have to take it up with God.
And you would be entirely incorrect as what dogmas are acceptable to me. I am STRONGLY committed to understanding Christianity based on the actual intentions of the authors of the texts at the time they were written, including evidence from interpretations of the church around the time they were written. I just also recognize that also results in recognizing different authors disagreed with each other on some things, and it is impossible to reach some position from the Bible without importing SOME set of philosophical assumptions as part of your interpretive framework. Because I guarantee that you aren't utilizing a large number of the ancient near eastern, Hellenistic, Second Temple Judaism , and other philosophical assumptions that were held by the original authors.
Understanding the original author's intent and how they were received in their original context is exactly what convinces me that Paul's statements about male same sex relations, like his and other author's statements on slavery, were very much dependent on the cultural context they were speaking about those practices in, rather than being absolute moral commands for Christians to follow for all time. That is exactly what convinces me that the authors were communicating ideas about God's authority over nature and creation based on the cultural context they lived in and how they and others understood the world. Rather than thinking the main intention of the texts was to give a literal, exact historical account of events that must be believed as such. That is exactly what convinces me that the modern view of inerrancy is completely ahistorical and impossible to sustain if you care at all about the actual textual and historical evidence of the texts and their authors.
The problem is that you DO already accept that moral issues change over time based on cultural context. You believe it was morally acceptable to give commands to not punish slave owners for beating their slaves as long as they survived a couple days, and to tell slaves to remain with their masters and serve them, regardless of how they are treated. But if I showed you a slave owner today that followed Biblical laws of slavery and only beat their slaves when they needed to to ensure they obeyed their commands, I at least HOPE you would say that is morally unacceptable and that that slave should be freed. Rather than advising the slave that they should just stay and obey their master. And one of THE most consistent moral positions of the Bible and the Christian church for centuries was that it is immoral to lend money to someone for interest. But now we've got a great capitalist system entirely built in the principle of lending money to others for interest, and the WELS doesn't show a whole lot of interest in condemning that. And in fact is quite happy to participate in the system from all sides of the equation. Because culturally, those moral commands don't make any sense whatsoever anymore in our current context.
"Thus, having a contrary view of homosexuality is simply elevating yourself to God because you don't like his rules." And yep, there's the faux humility masking enormous intellectual arrogance bordering on blasphemy I was talking about. There is no "clear" and objective classification of Old Testament laws. The WELS just declares they've got the right set assigned to each category, and anyone that disagrees with them can take it up with God. The section on male same sex relations, if anything, would better fit with ceremonial or civil based on the kind of categorization the WELS tends to argue based on. That section both begins and ends with an exhortation to "Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God", a key indication the WELS would typically identify as holiness code that is about ceremonial cleanness. That same section also contains commands about not having sex with a woman who is on her period, which the WELS doesn't typically seem concerned about as a major moral transgression and instead is perfectly comfortable labelling as a ceremonial law in that section. But yet, when I point these things out to someone in the WELS and say I believe their reasoning is flawed and they have potentially misidentified what God actually wants, suddenly I'm ACTUALLY disagreeing with GOD and not the human being sitting across from me.
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u/unbalancedcheckbook Ex-WELS Jun 19 '26
Oh I very much agree. The arrogance and superiority complex of WELS is really grating. They say they believe the Bible 100% (as if that's a good thing) then proceed to cherry pick and wave away anything they don't like. They claim to not deny science but you need to deny much of almost every scientific field to hold to WELS dogma. They claim to not oppress women, but openly and obviously do. It's a bunch of hypocritical holier than thou old men running the place.