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(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.)
The below church is a congregation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The biblical language of referring to God as “He” and “Father” is being challenged in many ELCA congregations which now also refer to God as “Mother”. This is because many “progressive” pastors think male language for God is oppressive and patriarchal. But Jesus taught us to pray to “Our Father who art in heaven”, never once to “Our Mother”. But these pastors seem to think they are better experts in language for God than Jesus Christ. And this is not just some radical individual church, the head Bishop of the whole ELCA has also prayed publicly to God as “Mother.” The person who sent me the below is concerned for her loved ones who attend this church. I would be too. If you are still a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, time to leave and join a denomination which unashamedly worships God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We cannot improve upon the teaching of Jesus Christ and people are arrogant who think they can do so. Sincerely in Christ, Pastor Tom Brock 
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(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.)
Fast forward to today. A while ago at Luther Seminary, a transgender chapel preacher said “Let us pray the Lord’s Prayer in whatever way you are comfortable, “Our Mother who is in heaven…”. At the ELCA’s recent Churchwide Assembly, many delegates announced their “preferred pronouns” before they spoke, regardless of whether those pronouns matched their God – given anatomy. This was their way of being “trans inclusive”. In today’s strange world of religious liberalism, if you don’t call someone by their “preferred pronouns” you are doing “gender violence.” What about respecting God’s “preferred pronoun”? God consistently revealed Himself as “He” in both the Old and New Testaments. Yes, there is some female imagery for God in the Bible, like when Isaiah talks about God caring for us as a mother. But the pronouns are always masculine and Jesus never prayed to God as “Mother” but only as “Father”. This kind of desexing of God language is also taking place in the United Church of Christ, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, and the Presbyterian Church USA. How about respecting God’s “preferred pronoun”? Sincerely in Christ, Pastor Tom Brock
Jennie (Jennifer) Chrien is an ELCA pastor at Shepherd of the Valley Lutheran Church, in Simi Valley, CA. She has this to say about Mary, Joseph and Jesus:
The ELCA's Southwest California Synod Bishop, Brenda Bos, a lesbian, made a comment under this Facebook post by Rev. Chrien. There was no admonition by the ELCA bishop. Below are some additional posts from pastor Jennie Chrien on her Facebook page.
(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.)
In the below worship service led by a transgender pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, this man who presents himself as woman says "The grace of Jesus the Christ, the love of God the Creator, and the communion of the queer-making Spirit be with you all." The creed in this service states "I believe in Jesus Christ, Sophia, the Word". "Sophia" is a feminine image for God that feminists use to worship the "Divine Feminine." Along the same line, God is referred to in the service as "The Divine Seamstress". This is the strange new world of the ELCA. One cannot say that the extremes of the below service are not shared by the ELCA's national leadership. ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton has made two gay pride videos and at the ELCA's Youth Gathering an 11-year-old boy who thinks he is a girl was put on stage to promote transgenderism to 31,000 Lutheran teens. At the installation of the ELCA's first transgender bishop, Bishop Eaton prayed to God as "Parent, Child and Holy Breath" and as "Rain, Estuary, and Sea". I hear from people periodically who say they stay in their ELCA congregation because they have been members so long and they would have to leave their friends. But sometimes Jesus says to leave and "shake the dust off your feet". I believe that time is now for Bible-believing Christians who are still in the ELCA and supporting it with their offering dollars and their presence. Our first allegiance is to Jesus, not to our friends nor to our denomination. Sincerely in Christ, Pastor Tom Brock
(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.)
The first article in the October 2021 edition of Living Lutheran, the official magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, says this: ”And the Spirit transforms you and me by her relentless presence in, with, and among humanity”. The Bible never calls the Holy Spirit “her” or “she”, but that does not stop the feminist ELCA from revamping the biblical language for God. Indeed, years ago, the ELCA came out with its most recent hymnal which desexed all the Psalms to get rid of masculine pronouns for God. I hope you attend a good church which unashamedly worships the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is the only true God. In Jesus our Savior, Pastor Tom Brock PS The same article also talks about the “kindom” of God (whatever that is) instead of the “kingdom of God“. I’m presuming we can’t even say the word “king” anymore because that is too patriarchal and oppressive. (The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.)
Christ Lutheran Church in Blaine, Minnesota, is a congregation of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I stumbled upon the below from their website, which encourages everyone to announce their preferred pronouns when introducing them/their/him/her/itself. It also appears they will now avoid referring to God as "He." Whether the people at Christ Lutheran like it or not, God has revealed--dare I say it--Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are in no position to think we are so enlightened that we may correct God in His use of His preferred pronoun. Sincerely in Christ, Pastor Tom Brock From Christ Lutheran's website: This congregation wants to ensure that all people feel welcome at Christ Lutheran Church. For that purpose, a Welcoming Team was formed in 2020. Their work has begun, with a focus on ensuring that LGBTQ+ people have a safe space within the church, and to provide ways to be inclusive to the LGBTQ+ community... (read more from their website here) Below is the account of an orthodox, Bible-believing seminary student who attended the ELCA's United Lutheran Seminary. We conversed over email at couple years ago and then again last week. What follows is Joseph's letter to me and to everyone reading, about his experience attending the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America seminary.
Dan, At the time of our correspondence, I was unsure of what direction my vocation was going to take so I did not want to divulge too much information about what I was encountering at seminary, for fear of retaliation from the so-called “powers that be.“ I use quotations because the people who are in charge of the ELCA are not actually the ones who are running the show. But I’ll get to that in a moment. The reason why I am writing today is because I feel that my personal story and experience might be of some benefit to your readers. First and foremost, I must be transparent in stating that I have since left seminary and Lutheranism altogether and returned to the Catholic Church of my roots. Recognizing that there are many Lutherans of a more traditional practice who might be skeptical of Roman Catholic theology, I want to emphasize the fact that we have far more in common with one another than those same traditional Lutherans might have with ELCA Lutherans, and the proof is in the proverbial pudding. Putting all theological differences and minutiae aside, I think I can say with certainty that traditional Lutherans and traditional Catholics are at least mutually faithful to the basic tenets of Christ’s teachings. With that said, I would like to share a little bit of what I experienced—and what I still observe from social media posts and the ongoing firsthand accounts of friends who are ELCA clergy—friends who I cherish. They are not the intended target of this expose. It has been said, ad nauseam I might add, that the ELCA is the “whitest denomination in America.” This is a common phrase uttered by some of the loudest, most bloviating “pastors” in the ELCA. Statistically speaking this may very well be the case. But what I find most interesting about that is the fact that the individuals who are so quick to utter this phrase are the same individuals who initiate every attempt at dialogue with the preemptive notion that if you’re white, you have an obligation to “listen” and not speak and this is actually done as a means of shutting down the dialogue before it can even begin. So if the denomination is 99%+ white, what they’re saying is that only they, the small 1%—many of whom are also white, interestingly enough— should be allowed to speak. This is neither dialogue nor an attempt at equality; it is a hostage situation. And in no venue was this made clearer than in the seminary classroom. I had a professor of New Testament studies who started the semester right out of the gate by informing the class that if you were a white, straight, “cisgender” male, you had an obligation to stay quiet and allow other people to speak before you. Understandably this put a number of us in the position of feeling like we were paying for classes that we were being discouraged from participating in. So I took the professor’s advice and decided not to say a word in class. As the semester went on, that professor started to become passive-aggressively antagonistic toward me by calling on me at random times to contribute—usually when she knew that my opinion on the topic du jour would likely lead me to say something that the “wokesters” in the class would pounce on. I chose not to give her what she was looking for, as there is no winning on their idealistic playing field, and of course she decided to dock participation points from my grade. This same professor--and others--would dock points if you referenced God as "Father." When I explained that God as my Father was the only way I knew how to encounter Him, I was told "it's not all about you." At that time, I was still writing for a Catholic blog and I wrote a critique that was aimed at dispelling all of the nonsensical, heretical revisionist history being spewed out in her class. The fact that I wrote for this website was not, to my knowledge, known to my classmates at the time. Little did I know that the “Google sleuths” were hard at work trying to dig up material to use against me. And they succeeded, though I must say that I was not exactly hiding anything as it was all public information in plain sight. This led to almost weekly summonses to the Dean’s office where my guidance counselor and this same professor would be waiting to interrogate me and threats would be made to “call my candidacy committee.” In other words, my orthodoxy was being used against me. During one rather bizarre exchange, I was leaving class one afternoon and was blindsided by a seminarian who proceeded to scream at the top of her lungs, crying maniacally with snot bubbles and an Oscar-worthy act, calling me a racist, a sexist, a transphobe, an imperialist, a supremacist and every other “-ist” imaginable because she had come across an article I had written in defense of Western Civilization--I was, after all, a history major during undergrad. This was in a crowded hallway in front of my peers. This was supposed to be graduate school. I was repeatedly threatened by other professors, many of whom I genuinely believe felt pressured to enforce and live up to the standards set by the loudest and most unhinged seminarians and pastors, that they were going to contact my candidacy committee about things that I wrote in assignments or said in class. I was told on a number of occasions that fellow seminarians did not “feel safe“ being in the same building as me because I identified as pro-life. I was told that I was anti-woman and unchristian for opposing abortion on the unthinkable grounds that all human life is sacred. A self-described “abortion doula” said that she did not feel her kids were safe around me because I was a homophobe and micro-aggressive mansplainer. When it was learned that I had attended Latin Mass in my early 20's at the private chapel of Mel Gibson, I was branded a white supremacist and an anti-Semite. When that young high school student, Nick Sandmann, stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March for Life while an activist banged a drum in his face, I applauded him in class for maintaining a dignified composure. I was branded a “colonizer” and anti-Native American for that. In my Congregational Education (I think that was the title) course, I gave a presentation in class on Martin Luther‘s devotion to Mary, the Mother of God, and I was told that I was trying to infuse patriarchal Catholicism into the seminary environment. I’m not really sure how that conclusion was reached based on the presentation I gave but then again logic and reason were probably considered “white supremacist“ on campus. Simply using the word “civility“ was considered racist. If that does not exemplify the soft bigotry of low expectations, I don’t know what does. And I suppose the part that amuses me the most is the fact that throughout this entire fiasco, my mentor and closest advisor on campus was a black Baptist professor—who I am still close with today—who was, at every stage of the game, flabbergasted by the charges lobbed against me. Of course the “wokesters” would call me racist for mentioning that, because in their world everything that they say is racist is de facto racist but this brings me back to my main point which is that the hierarchy of the ELCA, flawed as they may be theologically, is being held hostage. They no longer have any power because the small minority of individuals who openly brag about the fact that they are looking to dismantle everything, including orthodox theology, controls the narrative. If the presiding Bishop or other bishops say anything that the “wokesters” disagree with, they are swarmed upon and branded every negative thing under the sun. If those same bishops say nothing on an issue, they are charged with being complicit in bureaucratic and systemic white supremacy. So either way, the well-meaning bishops lose and the “wokesters” win at their own rigged game. By appealing to the court of secular public opinion, this small minority of heretical activist "pastors" are actively destroying the church from within and with great success. During my time as a vicar at a rather conservative Long Island parish, I was repeatedly told that the needs of my parishioners, many of them law enforcement officers and firefighters, didn’t matter because they were part of the “systemic white oppressiveness” that the “wokesters” were trying to dismantle. It was my obligation, they would say, to “challenge” them and oppose their “racism.” I never saw any racism at this parish. I simply saw people who loved God and loved their neighbors. This was a parish that routinely filled the church for all three Sunday services—unlike the first parish I was initially assigned to in Philadelphia where we averaged around 11 people for the one service they held every Sunday, but hey, at least they were “woke” and “relevant.” I lasted for three weeks at that parish until a parishioner said he would no longer attend the parish if I was there because he saw something I wrote on social media about the possible connection between mental illness and gender dysphoria. No conversation took place about it, I was simply told that I needed to find a new placement because this individual “didn’t feel safe” around me. I never realized what a menacing, imposing individual I was. Nevertheless, the fact that the parish that is attracting hundreds of people every Sunday with their orthodoxy is viewed as a threat to these individuals—and the fact that this same parish has to largely insulate itself from the rest of the ELCA for fear of retaliation—is all you need to know about who is running the show. Students who lean conservative or are at least moderate tend to stay silent and keep their heads down, which is shameful because these individuals are paying for the same education as everyone else and deserve to be able to participate in their own pastoral formation just like everyone else. The fact that they have to be afraid that anything they say which might be perceived as "offensive" (which in almost every case means they're upholding orthodox Christian teaching) is a disgrace. I know that the "woke" individuals read your blog, Dan, because it serves as conversational fodder fairly often on campus so I'm sure if any of my former classmates or their crony gurus read this, they'll have all kinds of snarky responses and defenses for their actions. They'll say I'm bitter and jaded and racist and all kinds of other things, but the fact is that they engage in deflection at every turn because they know exactly what they're doing. They are actively destroying the ELCA from within and they don't even try to hide it. These narcissistic activists are perfectly fine with seeing 3 million baptized Lutherans without a church in order to push their narrow-minded, heretical agenda of fabricating a Church of Christ without Christ, to reference Flannery O'Connor. They look to burn it all down yet they offer nothing of substance to replace it with, other than idealistic pipe dreams of egalitarian utopianism and yet, in reality, what they're really trying to do is seize power in order to become the oppressors that they seem to see in everyone else. They don't want equality; they simply want to control the narrative. I could go on and on but these are some of the highlights from my year at ULS. Best Wishes, Joseph M. Di Marius
God's Word is the authority, not man, not liberal denominations. Teaching things that go against God's Word is not a "loving" position. It is instead very harmful to listeners and people that indulge in actions because of the ELCA's false teaching.
(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.)
Today I took a not-so-pleasant nostalgic walk through Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minnesota, a college of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Some of my most difficult memories are here since this is where we often held the conventions of the ELCA Minneapolis Area Synod. A handful of conservative pastors and I would get to the microphone and ask “Why is the bishop’s office promoting homosexuality in its literature? Why is the ELCA paying for abortion for any reason in its healthcare plan which is paid for with offering dollars? Why are we incorporating non-Christian Native American worship practices into our worship services? As I walked today into the beautiful Christ Chapel at Guatavus, I saw the below placard. Notice, the chaplain’s office, overseen by Lutheran clergy, will help connect students with a “deity/God“, not necessarily the Christian God. Indeed, some years ago a Buddhist worship service was held in Christ Chapel and they laid an offering to Buddha on the altar. How far things have fallen since the 1800’s when Scandinavian immigrants founded Lutheran colleges to pass on the faith to their children. Today I would send no one to Gustavus, Saint Olaf College, Luther College, Concordia Morehead, or Augsburg University, as they have become so far removed from biblical Christianity. The congregation I served and I left the ELCA years ago, but I get comments today from people who have left the ELCA because they saw our TV show explaining these very things. In God our Father, Pastor Tom Brock
(The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.) Below is a recent chapel service at Luther Seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Seminary chapel at my alma mater has become radical in recent years with transgender and "womanist" preachers, prayers to "Mother God", Native American spirituality, and observance of both National Coming Out Day and the Transgender Day of Remembrance. In the below service, the preferred pronouns of each participant are listed (he/him/his, etc.) in order to be transgender-sensitive. And the closing benediction states "May the Spirit embrace your soul in her grace", even though the Bible never refers to the Holy Spirit as "her". Luther Seminary attendance has shrunk much since my days there and, as with other liberal seminaries, financial problems have led to the seminary selling off some of its buildings. Two ELCA seminaries in Pennsylvania had to merge into one United Seminary, whose new president, former ELCA Bishop Guy Erwin, is a homosexual with a "husband." The ELCA's Pacific Lutheran Seminary in California sold its building to a Muslim school. The ELCA, the Episcopal Church in America, the Presbyterian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, the Disciples of Christ, and the United Methodist Church are the most liberal denominations in America, and they have lost many members in recent years as these denominations drift further and further from Scripture. Once again the verse comes to mind "You reap what you sow." Sincerely in Christ, Pastor Tom Brock  (The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.) The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America continues to push for a feminist understanding of God and a diminishing of God the Father in its December, 2021 edition of Living Lutheran, the official magazine of the ELCA. In an article entitled "A Gift of Ministry: Embracing mom–pastors and a mothering God" the magazine quotes from ELCA Pastor LeeAnn Pomrenke's book "Embodied: Clergy Women and the Solidarity of a Mothering God". She writes "When I began recognizing the mothering behavior of God in my own experience, it made me feel less alone...We have fallen into a rut in referring to God mostly as "Father" in the church..." One must ask: Was Jesus in a rut when He taught us to refer to God as Father? Never once did Jesus refer to God as "Mother." Are we in a rut praying regularly "Our Father", the prayer our Lord taught us to pray? Do the people running the ELCA know more about God language than Jesus Christ? Another article in Living Lutheran written by Karoline Lewis, preaching professor at Luther Seminary, talks about God revealing "God's self". It is normal to talk about God revealing "Himself," but that is too patriarchal so now a new phrase has been invented. Living Lutheran magazine regularly eliminates masculine pronouns for God, using "God...God...God.." instead of "God...He...etc." This de-sexing of God language has been going on for a long time in the ELCA, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Episcopal Church, the United Methodist Church, and the United Church of Christ, but at its last national assembly the ELCA voted to officially declare itself in favor of more "expansive and inclusive" language for God. The liberal mainline Protestant denominations are shrinking, and they should. Any denomination which is embarrassed by 'Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" language and desires to "expand" beyond it does not deserve to exist. Sincerely in Christ, Pastor Tom Brock  A sign held by Cassie Hartnett read, "When Jesus Comes Back She'll Be Gay." Cassie Hartnett is a former vicar at an ELCA church in Maryland and she attended Union Theological Seminary. When ELCA leaders openly blaspheme Jesus it is time to leave and never set foot in an ELCA church again.  (The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.) Today I turned on TV and again saw a worship service from St. Andrew’s Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi, Minnesota. In a previous post (October 4) I criticized their program in which the preacher called Jesus’ response to the Syro-Phoenician woman “ugly” and wondered whether Jesus had made a mistake. That grieved me because years ago this congregation was known for being more biblical and evangelical than many in the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But St. Andrew’s has chosen to stay in the ELCA and it shows. On the program today the pastor gave the closing benediction and she said “In the name of the Parent, and of Jesus the Son, and the Holy Spirit”. Did you notice? She got rid of God the Father and replaced Him with “the Parent”. Why? The ELCA at its last convention committed itself to using more “expansive and inclusive” language for God. This means avoiding masculine images for God and coming up with new images which feminists find less oppressive and patriarchal. So now some ELCA congregations worship “God the Parent.” I live across the street from a liberal United Methodist church and visited one Sunday. The pastor baptized the child “In the name of the One who makes all things, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” I talked about this with a Catholic priest who said “I’d rebaptize the child.” I think I would too. Jesus taught us to baptize “In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:10) and we have no right to play around with that. This “de-sexing” of God language has gone on for many years in liberal denominations like the ELCA, Presbyterian Church USA, the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ, and the Episcopal Church. Back in 2006 the ELCA came out with its current hymnal in which all of the Psalms were de-sexed to get rid of masculine references for God. Some complained, saying we would stick with the Biblical language for God, but they lost. I pray that you attend a good, biblical church which unashamedly worships God the Father. In Jesus our Savior, Pastor Tom Brock  By Rev. Tom Brock (The following article was written by Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.) Perhaps you've heard about Nadia Bolz–Weber, the popular pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. She is the one who gave abortion rights activist Gloria Steinem a statue of a vagina to thank Steinem for her life's work. She was also the speaker at the ELCA's teen assembly who led 31,000 ELCA teenagers to repeat after her "I renounce the lie that queerness is anything other than beauty." Bolz-Weber also denies that Jesus died in our place for our sins, claiming that would be divine child abuse on the part of God the Father. And now she has a meditation doing what has become typical in feminist circles of the ELCA, "expanding" the language for God. Bolz-weber writes: "Our Father, Our Mother, Our Holy Parent, The Source of All Being from whom we came and to whom we return, You who knows us better than we know ourselves. Jesus called you Abba and so shall we, even as we may have an ambiguous relationship with parenthood - Be to us our Holy Parent, the one who loves without condition." (See here) Jesus taught us to pray to "Our Father", never once did He say to pray to "Our Mother." It is arrogant to think that we have the right to "expand" upon the language Jesus gave us for God, as if we know better than the Son of God. The ELCA's hymnal has also revamped God language. It contains a hymn entitled "Mothering God, you gave me birth". The ELCA hymnal has also de-sexed all the Psalms to get rid of masculine pronouns for God. Such rewriting of Scripture and the ELCA's "expanding" beyond the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one more reason people should leave the ELCA and join a more biblical denomination. Sincerely in Christ, Pastor Tom Brock  (The following article is from Rev. Tom Brock of pastorsstudy.org. You can follow Pastor Brock on Facebook - here and Twitter - here.) He is risen! (Yes, I said “He”). Pilgrim Lutheran Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota is a congregation of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This past summer the ELCA in convention voted to use more expansive language for God. This means, among other things, the ELCA desires to include more female imagery for God (God as “Mother”, etc). But back in 2015, Pilgrim Lutheran was already doing this. See the below from their website on how strange things get when a congregation wants to abandon using exclusively “Father, Son, Holy Spirit“ language for God. In Jesus our Savior, Pastor Tom From Pilgrim Lutheran’s website: “Use language that is expansive in communicating the nature and activity of God. Consider using one or more of the following strategies: Choose non-anthropomorphic language for God (examples: Eagle, baker, hen,bread), being careful not to limit these by following them with male or female pronouns. Choose titles that suggest the activity of God but do not imply gender. (Examples: Advocate, Healer, Refuge, Sustainer, Creator) Use second person language to speak to, instead of about, God. Use similes Replace pronouns with articles (for example, “God sent His Son” could be changed to “God sent The Son”) Keep in mind that although Jesus was male, his humanity is more significant to our faith than his gender. Consider using terms like Christ, Teacher, Emmanuel, Savior, Redeemer, Word in addition to or as substitute for Lord or other exclusively male descriptors." (See here)  |
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Dan Skogen
Former ELCA seminary student and former ELCA member who is fed up with the ELCA's consistent mockery of God's Word. If you have been helped and blessed by Exposing the ELCA's ministry, please help us continue to proclaim the truth of God's Word to ELCA members who need to hear it.
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