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Womanist Preacher at Luther Seminary: "You are in the womb of the Divine..." to have your wombs caressed..., "receive the gifts of the pushy womb"

5/7/2018

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

My alma mater, Luther Theological Seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, recently brought in womanist preacher Denise Dunbar-Perkins. At the end of her sermon Reverend Dunbar-Perkins had the congregation stand in a circle as she led them in a strange exercise. I thought I had seen the strangest Luther chapel a few months ago when the first ELCA transgender pastor preached that Joseph's "coat of many colors" can also be translated "princess dress" and then prayed "Our Mother in Heaven..." But this latest feminist service urging the congregation to "receive the gifts of the pushy womb" is perhaps even stranger.

I invite you to listen to two minutes of the below (start at minute 32). This is the kind of ridiculous heresy that results when we believe we are free to reject "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" language for God and invent our own images for God. This all started back in the 1990's with the "Reimagining God Conference" when Christian feminists from around the country gathered in Minneapolis. It was controversial back then and now it is being streamlined into Luther's chapel services.

Luther Seminary was liberal back in 1979 when I graduated, but it still had a fair number of professors and administrators who would not have stood for this kind of strange worship at chapel. I wonder if any faculty today are questioning what is happening at Luther.

Sincerely in Christ,

Pastor Tom

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Soon-To-Be ELCA Intern Pastor Founds the P#@$! Club and Thinks Jesus Had 'Wet Dreams'

7/20/2017

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(My apologies for the vulgar quotes, references, that I have to report this and that the ELCA allows this kind of thing from their leaders.)

The following article is so startling that I need to share it with you, to write about it here and not just post the article itself on the homepage.

The article is about a woman who is “getting ordained with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.” The article is in ELLE magazine and is titled, “How The ‘Pussy Pastor’ Is Bringing Sex and Christianity Together.” You can read the whole article here.

Some “noteworthy” parts of the article include:

- "'Jesus had a penis. And wet dreams.’ This was the philosophy that inspired Heidi Johnson to found the Pussy Club, a sex-positive group at Duke Divinity School where Christian female students would discuss, among other things, masturbation as a spiritual practice, in 2014. They also gathered to buy sex toys to explore this newfound sexuality. And so, Johnson earned herself the nickname the ‘Pussy Pastor.’"

- Heidi Johnson described “the Pussy Club gatherings…as ‘loud, drunken, emotional mess[es] with tons of laughs, stories shared, and tears shed for the ways the religious community abuses and suppresses women's sexuality by labeling it as evil and sinful and temptation.’"

- This September she will begin as an intern pastor in Oregon.

- She discusses her “masturbation routine” a couple of places in the article.

- She talks about “hooking up with classmates and enjoying her sexuality…”

- The article speaks of a fellow student of Heidi’s saying, “After leaving his church because he thought it was incompatible with his queerness, Heidi taught him "’a faith that uses the word of God to help with identity exploration, as opposed to identity suppression.’"

- Heidi Johnson “continues to host Pussy Club meetups and online discussions…”

If you are thinking “this is just one anomaly” in the church, you have not been paying attention to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

See the following blog about similar thinking persons, leaders and pastors in the ELCA here.

Also consider how the ELCA continues to push the boundaries, God set, in regard to sex by marrying those in same-sex relationships, ordaining pastors in same-sex relationships, pushing LGBT ideology, supporting LGBT causes/lifestyle in their publications and social media, paying for sex-change operations and hormone therapy in the ELCA health insurance, as well as ordaining transgender individuals. The ELCA is obsessed with sex, pushing sinful sexual practices and trying to influence the minds of its members to view it all as “good.”

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ELCA Postings: Liberal Causes

3/3/2017

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Below an ELCA synod posts pictures of kids sharing their reasons for opposing fracking. I did not see the synod post pictures of children voicing their support for fracking:

More #DontFrackMD signs at #RoadTrip17! @MDSenate @mdhousedems @conway_joanEHE pic.twitter.com/2ULUn3Awqo
— DE-MD Synod ELCA (@ELCAdemdsynod) January 21, 2017

- Then we have ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton taking a position on the Standing Rock pipeline issue and she points to racism as a reason for the crisis. She writes:

“I believe that we are called as a church to support the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe: to stand with the Tribe as they seek justice, to encourage our congregations to pray for them and to offer material support, and to examine the racism inherent in our system that contributes to the current crisis.” (see here)

- Standing on the liberal side again, WELCA posts a blog that opposes the celebration of Columbus Day:

Today's blogger is happy the organization where she works— @ELCA —does not observe Columbus Day as a holiday. https://t.co/dZVENtbOxq pic.twitter.com/M1kocagVCw
— Women of the ELCA (@WomenoftheELCA) October 10, 2016

- During the spring of 2015 the ELCA’s St. Ansgar Lutheran Church in Portland, Maine celebrated ecofeminism! (see here)

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What’s Going on In ELCA Churches?

2/17/2017

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It doesn't take much effort to find heretical and controversial things happening in ELCA churches. So let me show you just a few things I've found.

Would you like to be part of the “Feminine Sacred Circle” at St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, CA? Here's what that's about:

(see here)

Or you could be part of a Queer Virtue lecture taking place at ELCA pastor Clint Schnekloth's Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas.

(see here)

On the “Queer Virtue” book website it tells us “Authentic Christianity is and must be queer.” And one of the book reviews on the website is by Emily M.D. Scott, an ELCA pastor, who was a main speaker at the 2015 ELCA National Youth Gathering. She writes:

“A breath of fresh, queer, air…With vivacious smarts and a wicked sense of humor, Edman compels her readers to fully embrace our gloriously multifaceted God-given identities. If you’ve wondered if you can be fully queer and fully Christian, the answer is a resounding “yes,” and Edman will show you the way.'
—Emily M.D. Scott, Pastor, St. Lydia's -- A Dinner Church, Brooklyn, NY”
(see here)

Redeemer Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN devotes a page on their website to Black Lives Matter.

(see here)

And of course you have ELCA churches trumpeting their encouragement of sin.

Augustana Lutheran Church, Omaha, NE

St. Matthew's Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, CA, the church that has the “Feminine Sacred Circle,” also has a vast LGBTQ Ministry (see here)

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So "God is a Woman…Who Wants to Make Love to Us?"

9/13/2016

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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has an obsession with sex, and increasingly, as in this case, sexualizing God.

We Talk. We Listen is a website that is connected, at least informally, with the ELCA’s Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. An LSTC professor is the editor. An LSTC emblem adorns the homepage that also has multiple links to LSTC. And most contributors are connected to the school.

Last spring, the website posted a piece called “Re-Naming God and Smashing Idols” by
Francisco Herrera, a Ph. D student at Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. After reading his garbage, and you should read the whole blog, one has to wonder what kind of insanity is permeating this once Christian denomination.

The article begins with the author telling about a class discussion where Song of Songs 2:8-13 was read. The question was asked, “If this excerpt from the Song of Songs is God speaking to us, what does it say about God?”

The author, Francisco Herrera replied “God is a woman… who loves us, who desires us, who wants to make love to us, who longs for us in a perfumed garden, eagerly waiting to give herself to us with passion and abandon.”

Then he writes, “And as I spoke, seduced by my own imagination, there I was – languishing in some highland orchard, hiding myself among the apple and peach blossoms – oiling my skin, lining my eyes with kohl, waiting for my Lord to come so that that he could delight in me, and I could delight in him.”

He continues with these gems,

“And yes, I was being provocative, at least for this crowd, but I believed my insolence towards the class honest and just. Despite the shocking nature of what I said, in truth, my comment was actually a classic example of biblical literalism. If this excerpt is God speaking to us, well then, God is a woman who wants to have sex with us – apples and turtledoves and young stags and all. No imagination necessary. What’s more, these soon-to-be-pastors’ well worn theological tropes – though socially acceptable – completely drained this holy Scripture of its unquenchable fire and, well, butchered its song. But what really took my breath away was how quickly students moved to hush me – scandalized by the idea that God could possibly be a sexually active woman.”

“And at that point I could truly appreciate how shocking and vital it was to speak of God not only as ‘not male,’ but in brave and shocking ways, indecent ways – because doing so exposes the hidden idols in our theology that so often blind us to the pain and suffering and oppression that we initiate and/or perpetuate.”

“Using such powerfully transgressive language for God often does a fine job of exposing destructive limitations in our theology, limitations that we have been taught, even inherited – and hence makes it easier for us to query them and, as with any idol, to smash them.” (read here)

What warped thinking and theology! Come on ELCA, you are championing this evil?

Rev. Dr. Linda E. Thomas, Professor of Theology and Anthropology, Chair of the LSTC’s Diversity Committee and Editor of “We Talk. We Listen” made this comment about Francisco Herrera’s article, “if we don’t open ourselves to myriad ways of talking about God, then we can very well sacrifice others on the idols of our own theological complacency.”

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Praying To Mother God in Today's ELCA Worship Services

7/18/2016

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

Today's ELCA "Prayer of the Day" went like this:

"O God, the Father of our Lord Jesus, you are the city that shelters us, the mother who comforts us..."

I know of no verse that calls God our "city". There are a few feminine metaphors for God in the Bible (like Isaiah 66:13) but nowhere does the Bible encourage us to pray to God as our mother. Later in the service a prayer addressed God as "Gentle grower". Again, there is no verse that calls God our "Gentle grower."

What is going on? I think perhaps this is part of the "Reimagining God" mindset. Feminists from around the country years ago came to Minneapolis for the "Reimagining God" Conference. The conference encouraged the Church to rid itself of oppressive, patriarchal, and exclusively masculine images for God. Instead, we are free to invent and imagine new images for God. So instead of "Father, Son and Holy Spirit" we get "Mother, City, Gentle Grower."

And, as always, ELCA prayers were made today for the well-being of the environment. But I am still waiting for one prayer in the ELCA's "Prayers of the Church" to mention the salvation of the lost. When prayers for the environment are weekly and prayers for the salvation of the lost are non-existent, something has gone very, very wrong.

In Jesus our Savior,

Pastor Tom Brock
pastorsstudy.org

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Feminist worship at Luther Seminary this month

4/17/2015

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The following article was written April 4, 2015 by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook (here) and twitter (here.)

I looked at the upcoming chapel services for April at my alma mater Luther Seminary, a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Some ELCA churches now incorporate "goddess" or "God the Mother" worship (see herchurch.org for some of the worst heresy in the ELCA). But it looks like this kind of thinking is perhaps making its way into the largest (though shrinking) ELCA seminary. Here are two of the chapel services for April listed on Luther Seminary's website:

- Service lead by students in "Sex, Gender, and the Old Testament" Class

- Service lead by students in "Feminist, Womanist, Mujerista Theolasian, And African Women's Theology" Class

As I mentioned in an earlier posting, the ELCA's newest hymnal has de-sexed all of the Psalms to get rid of masculine references for God and includes the hymn "Mothering God, You Gave Me Birth".

May you experience the blessing of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit as you celebrate Christ's resurrection tomorrow!

Pastor Tom Brock
pastorsstudy.org

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Pronoun Police at a Lutheran Church and More "God the Mother" Heresy at a UCC Church

2/15/2015

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By Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. Follow Pastor Brock on Facebook (here) and twitter (here.)

This past Sunday I attended an historic congregation in Charleston, South Carolina of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (the most liberal branch of Lutheranism). Sadly, they are using the ELCA's red hymnal that has hymns like "Mothering God, you gave me birth". The hymnal has also de-sexed all the of the Psalms to get rid of masculine pronouns for God (feminist theology in the ELCA thinks it is sexist to continually refer to God as "He"). The new hymnal has also changed the Apostle's Creed to get rid of hell and leaves out the line that Jesus "descended into hell." There was a prayer during the confessional about how we have "wounded the earth by our excess". The service did include some references to God the Father, so it wasn't as bad as what I saw next.

As I was sightseeing in Charleston a few hours later, I walked by an old Congregational Church (United Church of Christ). In front of the church was a big "gay friendly" rainbow banner with the words "God is still speaking". That is the United Church of Christ's motto which, I believe, means God is telling us new things today--things our Christian forefathers didn't know about (like inclusive God language, gay inclusion, etc). The forefathers of the UCC were the Pilgrims, Christians who definitely believed in the Trinity, the deity of Christ, and that Jesus is the only way of salvation. Today in the UCC one can deny all those things and be a pastor. I slipped into the church as the service was ending and grabbed a bulletin. The opening hymn was just strange:

Why should we call these accidental furrows roads?
Everyone who moves on , walks like Jesus, on the sea,
You walking, your footprints are the road, and nothing else;
There is no road, walker, you make the road by walking...
Walker, there is no road, only wind-trails in the sea...

Who knows what that meant. The bulletin reads regarding the Lord's Prayer:

The leader will say "Our Mother, our Father..." Please feel free to address God in the way that is most true to your understanding.
That is the tragedy of the United Church of Christ. You get to make up your own version of God and whittle Him down to your own convenient image. Does it not strike people as arrogant that they are correcting Jesus Christ by rewriting His Lord's Prayer? The bulletin then advertised a new Sunday morning class "Is There Another Way? Teaching an Alternative Orthodoxy Within the Christian Tradition", a course from the Living School at the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque. But, I thought, if its an "alternate way", then it isn't orthodoxy. "Orthodox" means "correct belief" and my guess is that class will be anything but that.

So, be careful where you go to church! And if your church that you have loved for 50 years has abandoned the faith, time to move on. Hard to do, yes, but it is time for Christians to use their time, talents, and money to support churches which honor God.

In Christ,

Pastor Tom Brock

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ELCA 'Star,' Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber, Believes and Teaches Wiccan Goddess is Another 'Aspect' of Christian God

12/6/2013

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ELCA pastor and author Nadia Bolz-Weber is held in high esteem among the leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She is asked to speak at many large denominational gatherings and high-profile ELCA services indicating how she is revered in the denomination. The ELCA's Metropolitan New York Synod posted on Facebook that “Pastor Nadia is the closest thing the ELCA has to a rock star.”

Rev. Bolz-Weber was involved in Wicca before going to an ELCA seminary to become a pastor.

On a Bolz-Weber book publicity tour, Nadia read to the audience from her memoir about this time of her life saying, “I had never stopped believing in God, not really. But I did have to go hang out with His aunt for awhile. She is called the goddess. My first experience with Wicca . . .”

The ELCA 'rock star' goes on -

“The goddess we spoke of never felt to me like a substitute for God but simply another aspect of the divine, like God's aunt or something. When I tell other Christians of my time with the goddess I think they expect me to characterize it as a period in my life when I was misguided and that now thankfully I have come back to both Jesus and my senses. But it's not like that. I can't imagine that the God of the universe is limited to our ideas of God. I can't image that God doesn't reveal Godself in countless ways outside of the simple system of Christianity. And in a way I need a god who is bigger and more nimble and more mysterious than what I could understand or contrive.”

“In fact, I felt guided by god the whole time I sojourned outside of the church. The divine source of my life and my identity perhaps knew that I needed to bask in the female face of god for a good long while outside the church before I could ever return to it whole and able to see the divine feminine in my own traditional.” (see here)

Wicca is a religion of witches, witchcraft and pentagrams. The Christian Bible is not God's Word, according to this idolatrous religion, and they do not worship the Triune God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Wiccan deity is completely different from the God of the Bible. Yet the ELCA's “rock star” believes that the goddess worshipped by witches is just another dimension or persona of the God of the Bible. The female side of Him. Christians know Jesus as God's Son, but according to Bolz-Weber, the Wiccan goddess is his close relative. Another aspect of God. Like the fourth member of the Trinity?

This is heresy.

Bolz-Weber is a heretic. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America lifts up this pastor as a leading teacher in the denomination. How could they do this? It's easy really; this is an acceptable teaching in the ELCA. The current issue of the official magazine of the ELCA, The Lutheran, states this clearly:

“And sometimes we’d wonder just what God was up to in this religiously plural world. Perhaps — here’s a specifically Christian way of putting it — our learning from our neighbors of other faiths might just be giving us glimpses into dimensions of Christ’s lordship, and the saving activity of God the Trinity, that we hadn’t been expecting.” (read here)

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Read more about the life and teachings of ELCA pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber (click here and scroll down).

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ELCA Seminary Professor Portrays Jesus and Disciples as Women

11/14/2013

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The Roman solders mocked Jesus the day they crucified Him (Mark 15:16-20). Today we have an ELCA seminary professor, and the institution which employs her, doing the same.

The Rev. Wil Gafney is an Associate Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, an ELCA seminary. Incredulously, Rev. Gafney has a habit of mocking and insulting Jesus (see past blog here). It seems Rev. Gafney revels in it. This time the ELCA seminary professor placed an image on her website of the “Last Supper” where Jesus and His disciples are depicted as women. (see here)

We all know that calling a person of one gender, the opposite gender, is extremely insulting. Rev. Gafney, a professor and educator of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose job is to instruct future leaders and pastors in the denomination, continues to intentionally insult the King of Kings, Jesus Christ.

More on Rev. Gafney next week...

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Defending Heresy

8/7/2013

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Over the past day I've been getting a number of comments in support of Dr. Wil Gafney, an Associate Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, an ELCA Seminary. The people writing recently found a blog I wrote back in May regarding a blog written by Dr. Gafney where she posted a picture of Jesus as a female. (read my blog here) Those who commented thought the picture was great. They expressed that Dr. Gafney is a wonderful professor and attempted to justify what she did and wrote. Many of them justified the female Jesus picture by pointing to the verse where Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” - Matt. 23:37. Somehow, because Jesus referenced a female chicken, these people think Jesus was a woman.

Some of the comments I received:

From an ELCA pastor – Dr. Gafney's “. . . teaching and preaching build up the faith and instill a deep interest in knowing more about our Scriptures, something you sadly know nothing about. Go and educate yourself.”

From another ELCA pastor - “Do you honestly have so little imagination that you cannot see that God is greater than gender, color or race? Your God is too small, too white and too male as far as I can tell.”

“I am so glad that ELCA pastors in training are being taught by Dr. Gafney. Too few seminarians are learning robust feminist and womanist theologies . . .”

“I think Dr. Gafney is one of our most gifted and prophetic voices in our church.”

“It troubles me that my beloved church may actually have paid for your education which you are now abusing in order to propagate such flawed and hateful statements. Shame shame on you.”

“Clearly the author of this reflection is at best novice and at worst ignorant of how social realities impact theological reflection. Please spend time doing something more productive than objecting to the scholastic innovation that comes from Dr. Gafney.”

“I think the Christa image is beautiful and thought-provoking.”

“The Rev. Dr. Gafney opens up, by her meticulous scholarship, access to images of God that are not only scriptural but deeply needed in a world that is increasingly polarized by racist, sexist and homophobic agendas.”

Most of the people who support Dr. Gafney's female Jesus picture are liberals who warp Christianity and Scripture to their own liking so much so that many of them do not even worship the God of the Bible anymore. In their lost-ness, they would likely still sing Dr. Gafney's praises even in view of the professor's belief that Asherah, a Canaanite goddess, is the Holy Spirit. (see here) I'm not joking. As you can see, that is what she believes. Is this thinking and foundation for teaching “scholastic innovation” and “meticulous scholarship?” No. It's heresy! People in the ELCA need to know what is happening in their church and what their leaders are teaching.

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ELCA Leader Wants You to Think of Jesus as “Gender Queer”

5/20/2013

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“(P)ostmodern readers should strive to envision Christ as gender queer. . .” so says ordained Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pastor Megan Rohrer. Rev. Rohrer is “The first openly transgender Lutheran pastor ordained in the United States” (see here).

The pastor says this in an essay “she” authored titled “Male Brides of the Mother Christ.” Here are some of the “her” more egregious comments:

“When queer readers name Christ as a gender queer mother/father it is not done out of fear of linking Christ to a queer sexual orientation. If Christ is both male and female, then it is impossible for a Christ to have an opposite-sex relationship. And if it is true as Paul writes in Galatians 3:28 that in Christ we too are no longer male or female, then it is also impossible for any Christians to have an opposite-sex relationship.”

“Bernard of Clairvaux uses female/mother imagery for Jesus, Moses, Peter, Paul, prelates and abbots when he writes extensively about how their wombs nurture, conceive and shelter while their breasts pour out instructions like breast milk.”

“Postmodern readers who strive to free themselves from dualistic and binary assumptions of male and female may relate to the language of Christ as mother/father. However, instead of believing that the physical and metaphoric motherhood/femaleness of Christ enhances the fatherhood/maleness of Christ, postmodern readers should strive to envision Christ as gender queer. If we were able to see Christ as truly gender queer then the femaleness of Christ would not negate her maleness of Christ, just as the maleness of Christ does not negate his femaleness.” (read here)

For the past three years Rev. Rohrer has been a contributing blogger for the ELCA website Living Lutheran (see here). Also, Rev. Rohrer “has been the Executive Director of The Welcome since June of 2002 and has been called to this ministry by a joint call from herchurch (Ebenezer Lutheran), Christ Church Lutheran, St. Fracis Lutheran and Sts. Mary and Martha Lutheran. Megan is rostered and overseen by both the local Lutheran and Episcopal bishops. Megan is also called to serve as an Associate Pastor at St. Aidan's Episcopal Church.” All churches are in the San Francisco Bay area. (see here)

Any God-fearing denomination should find these comments heretical and incompatible with their teaching and take action against the pastor who made them. But the ELCA will take no action. They have proven to be accepting of these kind of teachings in the past (just look around this website) and Rev. Rohrer's teachings are well known by her superiors.

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Female Jesus Image Posted By ELCA Seminary Professor

5/3/2013

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The ELCA is responsible for the professors they hire. Today we are going to look at an ELCA professor who teaches at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. Her name is Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney, and she is an Associate Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament. Dr. Gafney, in her blog about a young actress, posted a picture of Jesus as a woman and said this, “And the world that lynched a Jewish single mother's child simply can't handle God in black female body. (See Janet McKenzie's iconic image of Jesus using a black woman as Christ/a.)” (see image and quote here)

How many ways can an ELCA Seminary Professor be wrong in just one sentence? And, how is it okay to post a purposely false representation of God the Son? What kind of teacher would do that? Jesus was male and presenting Him as female is blaspheming Jesus and dishonoring God and the Truth. Not surprisingly the ELCA seems to be perfectly fine with this. It has been reported that Dr. Mary Streufert, the ELCA Director for Justice for Women, from the Office of the Presiding Bishop did the same thing. (see here)

Let's now go back and analyze what else Dr. Gafney said in the sentence quoted above. She said that Jesus was “lynched.” That is not true. She said Mary was “single.” That is false, Mary in all likelihood was a widow, not single at the time of Jesus crucifixion. Do I even need to address the Professor calling Jesus “Christa?”

Someone wrote this comment to Dr. Gafney upon reading her article, “Thank you for an image of Jesus that will help me to continue in my studies to be a pastor in a church that still believes Jesus was white and God is a Father.

Highly respected theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler, Jr. had this to say about seminaries, “Theological education is a deadly serious business. The stakes are so high. A theological seminary that serves faithfully will be a source of health and life for the church, but an unfaithful seminary will set loose a torrent of trouble, untruth, and sickness upon Christ’s people. Inevitably, the seminaries are the incubators of the church’s future. The teaching imparted to seminarians will shortly be inflicted upon congregations, where the result will be either fruitfulness or barrenness, vitality or lethargy, advance or decline, spiritual life, or spiritual death.” (read here)

Read these articles to see what other sickness and untruth the unfaithful ELCA seminaries are setting loose upon God's people. (here)

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ELCA News and Notes

4/26/2013

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Inez Torres Davis, the Women of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (WELCA) Director for Justice, is a regular writer for WELCA's website. She made this statement in her latest contribution to that website:

“I pray to discover Sofia’s guidance so that I may identify and then take actions that carry God’s promises.” (see here)

I don't know how Inez Davis defines “Sofia,” whether it is some gnostic, feminist feminizing of God or if it is the pagan deity. But neither is right and it should be rejected by Bible-believing Christians.

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The ELCA's North Carolina Synod had this announcement in their latest e-newsletter:

LGBT Couples Retreat--Saturday, May 11

Abiding Savior Lutheran Church in Fairview, NC, will host an LGBT Couples Retreat on Saturday, May 11, from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. This one-day retreat offers a time apart for LGBT couples to work on their communication skills and meet other couples who value spirituality as an important part of their relationship. There will be time for worship, relationship building, Bible study, and fellowship. The cost of this retreat is $40 per couple which includes a light breakfast and lunch.

The retreat is made possible by a grant Abiding Savior received from Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. "This is an area of ministry with the LGBT community that our congregation thought was missing," says the Rev. David Eck, pastor of Abiding Savior. To download the brochure and register for this event, please go to the Abiding Savior website.

(see here)

This is the ELCA. And Bible-believing members are having it forced upon them.

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The ELCA's Southwest California Synod recently wrote this on their Facebook page:

“If you and your spouse/partner are Portico Benefits members, please complete the survey before April 30 and save the synod’s congregations and ministries money!”

Notice “partner.”

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The ELCA 1991 Social Statement on the Death Penalty declared “we oppose the death penalty.” (see here)

The ELCA's Rocky Mountain Synod is publicly advocating the repeal of the death penalty. Their March e-newsletter said this:

Abolition Sunday - Focusing on Repealing the Death Penalty

Lutheran Advocacy Ministry - CO has been involved with a coalition working to repeal the death penalty in Colorado for many years. This year is the year! We ask everyone to get involved to support the repeal of the death penalty. As Christians, we are called to be committed to justice and oppose the death penalty. "Executions harm society by mirroring and reinforcing existing injustice. The death penalty distracts us from our work toward a just society. It deforms our response to violence at the individual, familial, institutional, and systemic levels. It perpetuates cycles of violence" (ELCA Social Statement).

One way you can take part is participating in Abolition Sunday. During Abolition Sunday, you can host a guest speaker, watch a movie on the death penalty, gather facts sheets and petitions, and contact your Representative and Senator to support the repeal of the death penalty.

(See here)

So the ELCA believes the Bible is supportive of homosexual relations and abortions but is against the death penalty? They must be living in a Bizzaro World where right is wrong, up is down and wisdom is foolishness.

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Known Pagan goddess is Actually Holy Spirit Claims ELCA Seminary Professor

4/12/2013

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People scoff when conservative Lutherans point to goddess worship happening in the ELCA. The scoffers either do not believe it or think it is very isolated. They are wrong. (see here)

Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney is Associate Professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at The Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, an ELCA Seminary. She is an ordained Episcopal priest who teaches the future leaders and pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. (see her school bio here) In a Dr. Gafney blog dated February 11, 2013 the seminary professor compiled some questions she would like to ask the prophet Elijah. She said:

“When you killed the four hundred fifty prophets of Baal but not the four hundred prophets of Asherah was it because you really didn’t mind a little goddess worship on the side? Are we feminists right in saying that Asherah was just the Canaanite articulation of the Holy Spirit and not really another God?” (see here)

First, Dr. Gafney doesn't know if the prophets of Asherah were spared by Elijah that day or if they were even present at the referred to gathering. We do know that 1 Kings 19:1 says Elijah “had killed all the prophets with the sword.” So it seems more likely that they were killed with the prophets of Baal if they were there.

Secondly, and the reason for my blog, did you hear professor Gafney reveal that she believes: Asherah is the Holy Spirit, not another god? This is completely false. Yet that is what she publicly proclaims. I can not believe the ELCA would allow a professor who thinks this way to teach their future leaders.

The Bible says this about Asherah:

Judges 3:7 - So the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord. They forgot the Lord their God, and served the Baals and Asherahs.
2 Kings 21: 6, 7 – He (King Manasseh) did much evil in the sight of the Lord, to provoke Him to anger. He even set a carved image of Asherah that he had made, in the house of which the Lord had said to David and to Solomon his son, “In this house and in Jerusalem, which I have chosen out of all the tribes of Israel, I will put My name forever;"

Here are just a few verses from God's Word speaking about Asherah poles (likely “a sacred tree or pole that stood near Canaanite religious locations to honor the Ugaritic mother-goddess Asherah.” (see here):

1 Kings 14:15 - And the Lord will strike Israel, so that it will be like a reed swaying in the water. He will uproot Israel from this good land that he gave to their ancestors and scatter them beyond the Euphrates River, because they aroused the Lord’s anger by making Asherah poles.
2 Chronicles 19:3 - There is, however, some good in you, for you have rid the land of the Asherah poles and have set your heart on seeking God.

Clearly the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob wanted His people to have nothing to do with Asherah. It is plain to see from these verses that Asherah is not the Holy Spirit, as this ELCA seminary professor is trying to get us to believe. Worshiping Asherah is the worship of a false goddess.

So, if it's wrong (and it is) why isn't the ELCA leadership stopping it and why are they letting people who believe it be instructors in their seminaries?

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