The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America leadership is extremely liberal, both theologically and politically, and it continues to grow more so with each passing year. Seeing this, hundreds of thousands of conservatives and Bible-believing ELCA members have left the denomination.
The election of Donald Trump has provided yet another opportunity for people to see how extreme the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is, and I have no doubt the ELCA will lose more members as a result of the visceral reaction so many ELCA leaders are having.
ELCA pastor Jonathan Barker of Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin was so affected by Donald Trump's election that the following Sunday he told his congregation, “What will each of us do now that there is grave evil facing each and every one of us…Will we stand up as our government plots policies of death…as our fellow citizens commit hate crime after hate crime by the hour based on racism, based on xenophobia, based on sexism, based on homophobia, based on transphobia?”
Then Pastor Barker told his parishioners of his experience the morning after Donald Trump won the Presidential election:
“Well Wednesday morning about 3:30 a.m. my soul was awoken by the cries and screams of hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions…who will lose their homes, who will lose their food, who will lose their crops as the seas rise and the weather changes…of those who would lose their land to pipelines and to oil wells and to toxic spills…of undocumented families being torn apart as some were sent back…of those being rounded up and being sent to prison under the pretense of law and order…of our Muslim brothers and sisters…of the LGBTQ community…of women…of all who know their rights no longer are secure…of those who will be bombed…of all the innocent who’ll die. I could hear this cry.” (see here)
On a side note, in this same sermon Pastor Barker brags about protesting in the middle of a freeway in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He says “I stepped out of a car onto the 43 southbound side of the freeway with 30 other brave souls…We shut the freeway down! For 10 minutes. As thousands of motorist honked and screamed at us. As we proclaimed from the freeway that black lives matter…”
Also in the sermon Pastor Barker has some controversial words about Milwaukee police officers. He says, “Two years ago…in Milwaukee. We had been marching for many months fighting for justice for Dontre Hamilton, who’d been gunned down by the Milwaukee police…and things were not going well. There was not likely going to be justice. The police in Milwaukee were going to get away with it again! Fifty years of the police getting away with anything they want to do in Milwaukee.”
The election of Donald Trump has provided yet another opportunity for people to see how extreme the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is, and I have no doubt the ELCA will lose more members as a result of the visceral reaction so many ELCA leaders are having.
ELCA pastor Jonathan Barker of Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, Wisconsin was so affected by Donald Trump's election that the following Sunday he told his congregation, “What will each of us do now that there is grave evil facing each and every one of us…Will we stand up as our government plots policies of death…as our fellow citizens commit hate crime after hate crime by the hour based on racism, based on xenophobia, based on sexism, based on homophobia, based on transphobia?”
Then Pastor Barker told his parishioners of his experience the morning after Donald Trump won the Presidential election:
“Well Wednesday morning about 3:30 a.m. my soul was awoken by the cries and screams of hundreds of millions. Hundreds of millions…who will lose their homes, who will lose their food, who will lose their crops as the seas rise and the weather changes…of those who would lose their land to pipelines and to oil wells and to toxic spills…of undocumented families being torn apart as some were sent back…of those being rounded up and being sent to prison under the pretense of law and order…of our Muslim brothers and sisters…of the LGBTQ community…of women…of all who know their rights no longer are secure…of those who will be bombed…of all the innocent who’ll die. I could hear this cry.” (see here)
On a side note, in this same sermon Pastor Barker brags about protesting in the middle of a freeway in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He says “I stepped out of a car onto the 43 southbound side of the freeway with 30 other brave souls…We shut the freeway down! For 10 minutes. As thousands of motorist honked and screamed at us. As we proclaimed from the freeway that black lives matter…”
Also in the sermon Pastor Barker has some controversial words about Milwaukee police officers. He says, “Two years ago…in Milwaukee. We had been marching for many months fighting for justice for Dontre Hamilton, who’d been gunned down by the Milwaukee police…and things were not going well. There was not likely going to be justice. The police in Milwaukee were going to get away with it again! Fifty years of the police getting away with anything they want to do in Milwaukee.”
Brian Foulks is a vicar at an ELCA church in South Carolina. He writes this, “It is clear that the many within the ELCA camp voted for Donald Trump…This problem that I am left to wrestle with is, ‘Why I am in the ELCA?’ Why do I persist to connect with people who are so opposed to equality, equity, and justice?”
And, “le(t)’s be clear that a vote for…Trump was a vote for opposing equality, equity and justice. (T)he man is unjust…That is a non-debatable with me.” (read here)
And, “le(t)’s be clear that a vote for…Trump was a vote for opposing equality, equity and justice. (T)he man is unjust…That is a non-debatable with me.” (read here)
Rozella Haydée White is the former Director for Young Adult Ministry for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Below are a number of tweets she made.
"Many Americans have come to recognize that certain systems and structures were designed to preserve white... https://t.co/WqXgymkseW
— Rozella Haydée White (@rozellahw) November 12, 2016
I'm not gonna say anything about the correlation of trump votes in Lutheran strongholds. I won't say it.
— Rozella Haydée White (@rozellahw) November 9, 2016
Oops. I said it.
Somebody lied. Somebody said that things were better.
— Rozella Haydée White (@rozellahw) November 9, 2016
If you voted for trump I don't think we can be friends
Tara Ulrich is a Director of Home and Family Ministry in the ELCA. She tweets:
But Trump IS a xenophobe and a racist!
— Tara Ulrich (@diakonia78) November 9, 2016
Emily Scott, an ELCA pastor at St. Lydia's in Brooklyn, New York, writes, “We can pray for our president, and yes, even love him as Jesus calls us to do, while still naming as evil the hate-based rhetoric he and his followers have espoused throughout this campaign.” (read here)
The ELCA’s Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago posted a blog on one of their websites by Lenny Duncan, a vicar at an ELCA Church and Candidate for Ordination, to the office of Word and Sacrament in the ELCA, that says:
“A theological battle was raging across our pews and we depended on polite society to win the day. They underestimated the power of white supremacy and evil.” (see here)
The most popular pastor in the ELCA, Nadia Bolz-Weber, wrote this, “Apocalypse literally means to uncover. To uncover what is already there. And the racism and violence and xenophobia and sexism we have been devastated by in this country was not created this year – it was just uncovered this year.” (read here)
See more hateful comments by ELCA leaders toward President-Elect Trump and people who voted for him here.
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