The WELS-1517. connection

Rev. Burnell Eckardt had a fantastic article entitled "The Leaven of 1517" in the Reformation 2023 print edition of Gottesdienst: The Journal of Lutheran Liturgy (Vol. 31, No 3). They found it fit not to keep it behind the print paywall and the link above is the article as it stands in the print edition. I highly recommend reading the article to understand the issues found in the 1517 organization.

I wanted to note that the WELS has its own connections to 1517. 

First, the WELS Lutheran Leadership Conference has 1517 as a Bronze sponsor for its most recent conference.:

Second, the podcast "Let The Bird Fly" is hosted by 1517 Podcasts, and the 1517 logo is incorporated into their webpage logo:

Their podcast description includes (I imagine, not under their control) advertising for 1517, suggesting you check out the other 1517 podcasts

Which would include (ELCA and noted antinomian) Steven Paulson's "Outlaw God" ....

And this doesn't include the many pastors who would like and share content from former (let the reader understand) pastor Chad Bird.

While I'm not ready to make the claim that this is explicitly wrong, it certainly could lead people who don't know better in the wrong direction. It isn't difficult to start an independent podcast, and surely if the WELS Lutheran Leadership Conference were hard up for money (Bronze sponsorship is $1500) they could have hit up Time of Grace Ministries (our own little tries-to-be-ecumenical parasynodical organization that seems to do its best to hide that fact).