Atheist Upheld as a Voice of Wisdom By the ELCA

5/5/2014

The following is from Lutheran CORE's April, 2014 newsletter. The article is titled "ELCA Witness: Synod assemblies" by Pastor Cori Johnson -

“At the NGLS synod assembly in 2013, a resolution came forward asking for study of the book Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting by in America by Barbara Ehrenreich. The synod council recommended the resolution for adoption. The book was twelve years old at the time, and the author is an avowed atheist! Ehrenreich was the keynote speaker at the 2005 WELCA Triennial Convention in San Antonio, Texas, where she talked about her atheism during her keynote address. Many women walked out.

Perhaps, like me, some of you were there and remember this. Yet she is still being upheld as a voice of wisdom by the ELCA, as recently as the resolution at the 2013 NGLS synod assembly. I personally spoke at length against this resolution last year. The resolution passed, but I did draw attention to the fact that the work of an atheist is being lifted up specifically and by name by a synod of the ELCA. Certainly there are other books that are more appropriate for a synod to study that are not so outdated and are written from a Christian perspective. I share this anecdote with you to remind you to be prepared for anything. We are to preach the Word in season and out of season, after all.

May God bless your efforts to be faithful at your synod assembly.”

(see article here, page 5)

2 Comments

Chemnitz

5/6/2014 12:03:28 am

And Jesus said (not): "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to bishops and synod assemblies. Therefore, go into all nations, letting them command you, and (if you absolutely have to) baptize them in some silly name you make up like Mother, Lover and Friend. And lo, I would be with you always, but you have cast me aside."

Didaskalos link

5/6/2014 02:49:40 am

Not to be missed in the article you cited, Dan: NALC and Lutheran CORE's “The Lord Is with You”: A Word of Counsel to the Church on The Sanctity of Nascent Life [ http://www.lutherancore.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Word-of-Counsel-Sanctity-of-Nascent-Life-FINAL-12-DEC-2012.pdf ] What a stark contrast exists between these two confessional Lutheran bodies' Biblical statement and the ELCA's ungodly, heartless subsidies of abortion.

Excerpts from the article:

"The beginning of human existence, i.e., nascent life, carries in it the fullness of the genetic code, the complete chromosomal material of an individual. The strengths and characteristics given to us by God have not yet blossomed for all the world to see, yet they are fully present in the beauty of His love. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you; I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” (Jeremiah 1:5) Luther's Small Catechism proclaims, “I believe that God has created me and all that exists,” so in faith we
continue to proclaim that our life, and every life, comes from God and belongs to God. In our earthly dependency upon the womb of our mothers for protection, nourishment, and love from the first moments of our lives, we see in the creation of each life the shape of faith. . . .

"In the self-emptying (kenotic) movement of God in the incarnation, He was never more vulnerable, more helpless than when He was in utero, swaddled in amniotic fluid. He was also never more intimately protected, swaddled in the myriad layers of a mother’s love. It is the vision of this love that is ever so needed in this day—a death defying love, an eternal love, a fierce love, a sacrificing love. It is this vision that we are called to bear for the sake of generations to come. For in the disordered loving of a fallen world that removes sexual intercourse from the fidelity, trust, and delight of the marriage bed, there will continue to be the littlest among us, made in the image and likeness of God, who without a holy love, will be unprotected from the lies that say they are neither human nor of any value. In a time in human history when the laws of many nations sanction the destruction of new lives simply because they are an inconvenience, the North American Lutheran Church and Lutheran CORE, and all who belong to the Body of Christ, are called to teach and preach the message that the Lord who created the heavens and the earth, the Lord, who in the power of the Holy Spirit grew in His mother’s womb, the Lord, who in obedience gave His life for all, The Lord is with you. . . .

"The rationales, however, for legalizing abortions in North America are far from these limited cases of “therapeutic” abortion. The arguments have changed throughout the 20th and 21st centuries from easing the burdens of the poor on the society, to the right of a woman to have
autonomy over her own body (Roe v. Wade), to sex-selection of children from cultures that value male progeny over female, to simply one of economic gain, (i.e., not wanting to support another child). In too many cases, legalized abortion has simply become a form of retroactive birth control. Abortion dehumanizes and diminishes all who are involved. It affects the father, who has lost what it means to be a guardian to his family and who has lost the learning that comes from a relationship in which spirituality and sexuality are not divorced. It affects the mother, whose denial may break down if she later conceives and bears a child, or is later unable to conceive a child, or whose guilt may spiral into the bondage of shame as she seeks to keep her abortion a secret. At last, it affects the child, the blessed child, a living human presence who is denied the fullness of body that was intended for him in this life and in the age to come.

"Legalization of abortion puts the state at odds with the historic witness of the church, and so we are called to listen again to the Word of God as proclaimed in the Holy Scriptures, the wisdom of the Church Fathers, and the insight of the Reformers as we seek to follow Christ faithfully in our day. . . .

". . .We urge the NALC and Lutheran CORE to commit not only to protecting the next generation of children during those first exquisite nine months of life, but to helping those for whom abortion mars their procreative histories. As parents come to healing through the counsel and ministries of the church, their witness will be invaluable. In the renewal of their faith, the lies that were told against the littlest among us will come to an end. As their voices then sound within the assembly of all who believe that He who is the Savior of the world is fully human and fully divine from the moment of His conception, so we come yet again to understand the giftedness of the creation of our own bodies. May each of us seek to live out the dignity with which we were created, so t

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Atheist Upheld as a Voice of Wisdom By the ELCA

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Dan Skogen

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