The ELCA’s official website tells us the denomination's position on the topics of creation/evolution/origin of life (it also reveals the ELCA's stance on Scripture.) Their website says,
"What is the ELCA official position concerning the origin of life and evolution? The ELCA has not officially taken a position about evolution. The ELCA teaches that the scriptures witness that all of life is a gift of God. However, the scriptures do not say, for example, how God's creating word, "Let there be...," brings creatures into being. Lutheran tradition has respected the work of the natural sciences in investigating phenomena in the natural world and explaining how they work and how they originated." (read here)
Why doesn't the ELCA take an official position on the origin of life? Scripture clearly says that God created everything in a 6 day, 24 hour period.
And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day,' and the darkness he called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day. Genesis 1:3-5
Are these verses true or not? It says, "There was evening, and there was morning - the first day." Is God lying to us about that? The ELCA must think so if the denomination cannot agree with this clear statement. Or maybe the ELCA doesn't believe the Bible is from God, but just man’s writings. Either option is unacceptable.
If we look in the New Testament, Jesus statements back up the Genesis/Creation account.
If the ELCA believed in the actual, factual truth of the Scripture . . . if the ELCA believed that God did inspire and have His hand on the writing of all the books of the Bible, they would take an official position and say the Genesis account is in fact true. That is what the Bible clearly says, but as we've seen elsewhere, the ELCA likes to deny whatever parts of Scripture that do not fit their world view.
One author describes the ELCA's view this way, "The ELCA allows for the view that God used evolution to create things. This means that the account in Genesis 1 and 2 do not have to be true for the member of the ELCA. The ELCA teaches the historical critical method of interpretation of Scripture, which discounts the accounts as history and treats them more as poetry." (read here)
The ELCA likes to say they adhere to Scripture, but anyone who looks at the teachings, beliefs and policies of the ELCA can see they deny statements of fact in the Bible, place their own view over what Scripture says, and do not believe God had His hand in and inspired all of its writings.
This is just another example of a church made and run by man, following their own desires and paying lip service to the Creator of the Universe.
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Read more about creation and evolution at the links below:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2012
http://www.icr.org/article/5669
http://www.icr.org/article/creation-evolution
http://www.trueauthority.com/cvse/faq2.htm
"What is the ELCA official position concerning the origin of life and evolution? The ELCA has not officially taken a position about evolution. The ELCA teaches that the scriptures witness that all of life is a gift of God. However, the scriptures do not say, for example, how God's creating word, "Let there be...," brings creatures into being. Lutheran tradition has respected the work of the natural sciences in investigating phenomena in the natural world and explaining how they work and how they originated." (read here)
Why doesn't the ELCA take an official position on the origin of life? Scripture clearly says that God created everything in a 6 day, 24 hour period.
And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light. God saw that the light was good, and He separated the light from the darkness. God called the light 'day,' and the darkness he called 'night.' And there was evening, and there was morning - the first day. Genesis 1:3-5
Are these verses true or not? It says, "There was evening, and there was morning - the first day." Is God lying to us about that? The ELCA must think so if the denomination cannot agree with this clear statement. Or maybe the ELCA doesn't believe the Bible is from God, but just man’s writings. Either option is unacceptable.
If we look in the New Testament, Jesus statements back up the Genesis/Creation account.
- "Haven't you read," he replied, "that at the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female.'" - Matthew 19:4
- Jesus mentions Adam and Eve's son Abel in Luke 11:51.
- "In John 5:45–47, Jesus says, “Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you—Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?” In this passage, Jesus makes it clear that one must believe what Moses wrote. And one of the passages in the writings of Moses in Exodus 20:11 states: “For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.” This, of course, is the basis for our seven-day week—six days of work and one day of rest. Obviously, this passage was meant to be taken as speaking of a total of seven literal days based on the Creation Week of six literal days of work and one literal day of rest." (read here)
If the ELCA believed in the actual, factual truth of the Scripture . . . if the ELCA believed that God did inspire and have His hand on the writing of all the books of the Bible, they would take an official position and say the Genesis account is in fact true. That is what the Bible clearly says, but as we've seen elsewhere, the ELCA likes to deny whatever parts of Scripture that do not fit their world view.
One author describes the ELCA's view this way, "The ELCA allows for the view that God used evolution to create things. This means that the account in Genesis 1 and 2 do not have to be true for the member of the ELCA. The ELCA teaches the historical critical method of interpretation of Scripture, which discounts the accounts as history and treats them more as poetry." (read here)
The ELCA likes to say they adhere to Scripture, but anyone who looks at the teachings, beliefs and policies of the ELCA can see they deny statements of fact in the Bible, place their own view over what Scripture says, and do not believe God had His hand in and inspired all of its writings.
This is just another example of a church made and run by man, following their own desires and paying lip service to the Creator of the Universe.
------------------------------
Read more about creation and evolution at the links below:
http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/2012
http://www.icr.org/article/5669
http://www.icr.org/article/creation-evolution
http://www.trueauthority.com/cvse/faq2.htm
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