Friends,

The former members of Grace Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, who were removed from membership and the building by actions of the ELCA's Northwest Synod Council and Circuit Judge Molly GaleWyrick, have decided to drop their appeal to the court decision that resulted in their ouster.

The group, which formed a new congregation called Saving Grace Lutheran Church and joined Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC) within days of the court decision, has decided that the tens of thousands of dollars required to appeal would be better used to spread God's word and minister to His people.  The congregation continues to grow weekly, and has secured a worship space at 2123 Eastridge Center at Hastings Way and Spooner Avenue in Eau Claire.  The congregation and its pastors Rolf Nestingen and David Irgens proceed in joy at the fresh new ministries that lie ahead.  Check out their new web site at www.saving-gracechurch.org.

The congregation will hold a joint outdoor worship service this Sunday with the other LCMC congregation in Eau Claire, Faith Lutheran Mission Church, at Eau Claire's Phoenix Park on Sunday, July 21 at 10:30 a.m., with a picnic lunch to follow.  All are welcome --bring a lawn chair if you come!

In a move toward advancing sustainable theological education the Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) approved on July 11 a merger between Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary, Berkeley, Calif., and California Lutheran University, Thousand Oaks, Calif.  The Church Council serves as the ELCA board of directors.
     The merger is the result of conversations among university and seminary representatives who agreed that the two schools can best serve the ELCA’s work of theological education by moving toward a merger with the seminary becoming part of the university. . .

When the ELCA voted to overrule the Bible’s clear proscription of homosexual behavior, ELCA leaders appealed to the subjective whim of everyone’s “bound conscience.”

Using the capricious ELCA rules ( is it 66.6 percent? 51 percent?) for annulling any Bible passage that reproaches sinners for their favorite sins, EVERY sin — not just homosexuality — mentioned in passages like 1 Corinthians 6 could easily be “justified” by the sinner’s “bound conscience,” and the sinner would thus be impervious to any rebuke or censure. Thus saith the ELCA.

Extending ELCA eisegetical principles to their “logical” conclusion, a few more ELCAspeak newly recategorized sins from that 1 Corinthians 6 passage:

“You say that it’s OK to be a fornicator and that God made you that way? Go for it. Who am I to disagree with your bound conscience?”

“You tell me you’re a serial, unrepentant adulterer? Carry on. I surely can’t disagree with whatever your bound conscience is telling you.”

“You’re justifying your swindling of dozens of people out of their life savings? Well, let the buyer beware, I guess. Who am I to disagree with your bound conscience that directs the way you conduct your business?”

I’ll stick with Martin Luther and the Bible. “You should not believe your conscience and your feelings more than the Word, which the Lord who receives sinners, preaches to you.”

Luther also wrote:

“. . . Here then we have these two, the faith and the Gospel, that these and nothing else are to be preached throughout Christendom. Let us now see who are to be the preachers and who the learners. The preachers are to be angels, that is, God’s messengers, who are to lead a heavenly life, are to be constantly engaged with God’s Word that they under no circumstances preach the doctrines of men. It is a most incongruous thing thing to be God’s messenger and not to further God’s message. Angelus means a messenger, and Luke calls him God’s messenger (Angelus Domini). The message also is of more importance than the messenger’s life. If he leads a wicked life, he only injures himself, but if he brings a false message in the place of God’s message, he leads astray and injures every one that hears him, and causes idolatry among the people in that they accept lies for the truth, honor men instead of God, and pray to the devil instead of God.

“There is no more terrible plague, misfortune or cause for distress upon earth than a preacher who does not preach God’s Word; of whom, alas, the world today is full, and yet they think they are pious and do good when indeed their whole work is nothing but murdering souls, blaspheming God and setting up idolatry, so that it would be much better for them if they were robbers, murderers, and the worst scoundrels, for then they would know that they are doing wickedly. But now they go along under spiritual names and show . . . and are at the same time ravening wolves in sheeps’ clothing, and it would be well if no one ever heard their preaching.”

Christmas Day Sermon [Sermons of Martin Luther, Volume 1: Sermons on Gospel Texts for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany] (read blog comment here)