A “Lutheran” Statement of Faith: De-centering whiteness, respecting pronouns, and amplifying gender non-binary persons

12/16/2024

(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.)

Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, is a congregation of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Many years ago, it had a biblical pastor, but times have changed. Today Prince of Peace has a big sign on a busy highway declaring “God is proud of all Their children.” The word “proud” is in gay rainbow colors and God is no longer a “He” but a “They.”

The current senior pastor just retired, and the associate pastor just took a position at Edina Community Lutheran Church, another ELCA congregation which went viral when it recited the Sparkle Creed, saying “I believe in a non-binary God” and “Jesus had two dads” (the recently retired ELCA bishop didn’t understand why people got so upset with this).

Prince of Peace has a “What We Believe” statement, not about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit or the authority of the Bible, instead we get this:
“What We Believe

…By de-centering whiteness and acknowledging the harm caused by racial violence, we’re working to heal and restore…We are working to create safe, affirming spaces where people of all genders and sexual orientations can be themselves, loved, and accepted just as they are…We amplify the voices of women, non-binary, and gender non-conforming individuals…We use inclusive language, respecting pronouns and gender identity. We refuse to tolerate hate speech…We are dedicated to supporting efforts that honor and protect Indigenous practices of land stewardship,…”

It is tragic that many liberal mainline churches have abandoned preaching Christ for the salvation of the lost. They do this because they no longer believe people are lost and they no longer believe in Hell. So what replaces the Gospel? Making sure we overcome whiteness, use LGBT pronouns, and endorse sexual behaviors which God forbids.

Sincerely in Christ,

Pastor Tom Brock

5 Comments

Sasha Kwapinski

12/16/2024 01:11:31 pm

I will believe that the ELCA is sincere about "inclusivenes" when they include the unborn.

Didaskalos link

12/17/2024 08:26:09 am

There's nothing on Prince of Peace's "What We Believe" [ https://princeofpeacechurch.org/about/what-we-believe/ ] page about preserving the sacred lives of God's preborn creations, obviously. This church has invented its own "Prince of Peace," whose teachings are really from the family of the Prince of Persia (cf. Daniel 10).

Their beliefs are one world-pleasing bromide after another, e.g., "We honor consent in all interactions. . .Whether it’s physical space, emotional connections, or personal decisions, we prioritize mutual agreement and understanding."

ELCAspeak translation: "We're so committed to earning the praise of the world that we'll honor your decision to live in sin and spend eternity apart from God in hell. In fact, we'll push you along the path to perdition."

The cheap “grace” and "love” peddled by the ELCA are deadly counterfeits of God’s grace and love: “..a ‘cheap love’ allows us to let others slide deeper into sin, self-confident that we’ve loved them by never pushing-back for their good.”
-- https://breakpoint.org/what-is-love/

12/16/2024 04:35:37 pm

This Minnesota branch of the Ersatz Lutheran Church in America is nothing if not up to date with every woke shibboleth. For those who want apostate pablum laced with heretical strychnine, Brooklyn Park "Lutheran" is their suitable mess of lukewarm pottage.

How sallow and sophistic are the hirelings in today's cheapjack churches.

'Subtle Modern Heresies'
-- https://juicyecumenism.com/2022/06/16/subtle-modern-heresies/

[ . . .]
The modern heretic is not zealous but mild, and that is his danger. I have found that those who practice this domesticated Christianity rarely have the intellectual might or will to express their beliefs clearly. Given its undefined nature, I myself struggle to name the modern heresy, but we can at least say: it is the disbelief in firm belief; the belief that it does not matter what we believe. . . .

They who propagate a neutralized Christianity are often unclear and rarely learned. Their errors are neither immense nor developed and, therefore, are not doctrinally neat. Often the one explaining them could not do so in a syllogism; they are instead taught with simple tautologies. I suspect that most doctrinal errors of today are not the product of scholarly errors, but mindlessness. They are not presented in a summa or treatise; they instead bypass both the speaker and listener in vague platitudes and slogans. This ambiguity is their amnesty. Rather than fight on the battlefield in daylight, with clear lines, they sneak into congregations quietly. The Trojan Horse is filled with lies that are hidden until they enter and burn the city.

Church teaching is becoming less rigorous, less zealous, and less distinct. Messages now slide toward a more general mean, bound together by vague clichés that neither elevate nor disturb. We are led astray, not by persuasion, but by telling us what we already know and keeping us where we presently are. I do not fear the strength of these orations but their simplicity, not their power but their pusillanimity. It is vague moralisms, not strong, developed doctrines that the Church must guard against. Such heresies may be less clear, but they are not less dangerous.

Born again

12/16/2024 05:02:59 pm

This sounds like a good recipe for obsolescence.

12/17/2024 08:25:09 am

Absent Prince of Peace's leadership's repentance and a return to preaching the Gospel, may the real Lord of the Church keep moving this pretend-Lutheran church to closure.

On Prince of Peace's congregational report page [ https://www.elca.org/directory/congregation-profile?location_id=4ace3e5f-2f4a-4352-a502-6937894baf7f], they're quite evidently cooking the books to hide their decline.

Average Worship Attendance was over 600 in 2008 and 2009. They listed average worship attendance at exactly 450 for four straight years: 2016-2019. They haven't posted any worship attendance figures for 2020-23. They post "0" for Current Worship Attendance.

Jennifer Hartline would call Prince of Peace back to a real faith in, and Bible-honoring obedience to, a real Savior:

'Call Me to Holiness or Don’t Call Me at All'
-- https://stream.org/call-me-to-holiness-or-dont-call-me-at-all/

[ . . .] Don’t feed me a worthless religion of sophisticated platitudes and shifting ideology. There is no Christianity without the Cross.

Stop using the modern vs. historical “context” as an excuse to call evil good. Woe to all you shepherds who do this! “Certainly in Old Testament times, they didn’t understand the phenomena of homosexuality, and bisexuality I would say, as we do today,” says Fr. James Martin. Tell me, did *God* also not understand the phenomenon of homosexuality and bisexuality until now?

Stop minimizing the law of God and deriding those who won’t fudge it as “rigid” and “lacking compassion.” “The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul … the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring for ever” (Psalm 19).

Stop subtly saying it may be impossible for some people to achieve God’s “ideal.” Stop preaching the inviolate rule of conscience without also preaching the proper formation of conscience by the Holy Spirit in accord with revealed Truth.

Stop smudging the line between right and wrong and saying you’re doing it out of love. . . .

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A “Lutheran” Statement of Faith: De-centering whiteness, respecting pronouns, and amplifying gender non-binary persons

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Dan Skogen

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