ELCA Lutheran Church of the Great Spirit

12/6/2023

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

Is the Great Spirit of Native American spirituality the same as the Christian God? That appears to be the teaching of the Christmas edition of Living Lutheran, the national magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

The magazine highlights (see link below) an ELCA congregation called Lutheran Church of the Great Spirit in Milwaukee which “combines the Lutheran church and indigenous ceremonies”. The church hosts a Full Moon ceremony and practices smudging (the burning of plants to drive away evil spirits). The church prays in the direction of the Four Winds to pattern itself after Native American spirituality.

I remember years ago, before I led my congregation out of the ELCA, I shared in a sermon that I had attended an ELCA convention in which we prayed toward the Four Winds to pattern our prayers after Native American worship. I got to the microphone at the convention and said “I am from German ancestry, what are we going to incorporate next, Thor and Oden worship to accommodate people like me?” After my sermon, a Native American woman of my congregation came up with tears in her eyes, saying “They’re trying to take us back to what Jesus saved me from.”

The Living Lutheran article quotes the pastor of Great Spirit Lutheran to say “Indigenous peoples were living the Christian way before the Europeans came”.

What would the Apostle Paul say to this? As Paul traveled the Roman Empire, he did not preach that Zeus was really the same thing as God the Father. In fact, Paul taught that the ancient pagan gods were demons, not reflections of the true God (1 Corinthians 10:20). The ancient pagans indeed were not worshiping the true God before Paul came along.

This Christmas, let us worship the one true God-Father, Son and Holy Spirit-and let us turn away from all the false gods that we and our ancestors have worshipped.

In Jesus our only Savior,

Pastor Tom Brock

(See ELCA article here.)

7 Comments

Rebecca

12/6/2023 12:20:33 pm

Dear Lord Jesus, open eyes to see and ears to hear. Open minds to recognize lies from Truth. Many "faithful" may not go to the place they believe they will go. Cause them to question, research, and be open to the fact that they may not be getting taught the truth about Truth, amen

Rich Jespersen

12/6/2023 07:57:38 pm

I attebded a dedication of a new ELCA sanctuary for a congregation on a Chippewa-Cree reservation in Montana. The presiding minister was an indigenous or native woman from ELCA central who led a smudging ceremony an invoked the spirits of native ancestors to come and bless that new sanctuary. The local Chippewa-Cree people, all faithful Christians were deeply offended that she would dare seek to bring back their ancestors into this veil of suffering. When I confronted her "spiritism" and unChristian, she accused me of being Euro-centric and a bigot. So much for ELCA outreach to our native friends.

Didaskalos

12/7/2023 09:27:30 am

Smudging isn't the only ritual incense burning performed by the ELCA. Like the ancient Romans, they've been pledging fealty to godless governments for years. And Caesar pats them on the head and commends them for their obedience to the zeitgeist.

“Emperor worship had begun as spontaneous demonstration of gratitude to Rome; but toward the end of the first century, in the days of Domitian, the final step was taken and Caesar worship became compulsory. Once a year the Roman citizen must burn a pinch of incense on the altar to the godhead of Caesar; and having done so, he was given a certificate to guarantee that he had performed his religious duty.” (Barclay)

The ELCA is nothing if not Caesar's obedient servant.

Didaskalos link

12/7/2023 04:50:42 am

The ELCA's false shepherds are in serious spiritual peril. "You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock. You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bound up the injured, brought back the strays, or searched for the lost." [Ezekiel 34:3-4]

Martin Luther called out pretenders like today's ELCA clerics:

Luther on Gal. 6:14:”The cross of Christ has condemned everything that the world calls good, including wisdom and righteousness…Some seek honor, riches, and pleasure for the name of Jesus…Do they boast about the cross of Christ? No. Rather, they glory in the world while using the name of Christ for appearances. They end up making a mockery of it.” (LW 27:404)

“It [the Gospel] teaches us everything — the nature of God, of ourselves, and what has been and is to be in regard to heaven, hell and earth, to angels and devils. It enables us to know how to conduct ourselves in relation to these — whence we are and whither we go. But, being deceived by the devil, we forsake the light of day and seek to find truth among philosophers and heathen totally ignorant of such matters. In permitting ourselves to be blinded by human doctrines, we return to the night. . . Paul says, ‘Neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness’ (Rom. 6:13), meaning: Let not the works of darkness get such control of you as to render your members weapons of unrighteousness.” [Martin Luther, “First Sunday in Advent,” Sermons of Martin Luther, Vol. 5, Baker Books 1995, pp. 17, 19]

Born again

12/9/2023 08:22:07 pm

There is only one way to the Father and it is not through the American Indians’ “great spirit.” As told in Jonathan Cahn’s Return of the Gods, evil spirits are descending on a nation that has turned its back on the one true God.

12/12/2023 07:46:21 am

And the sin-promoting ELCA is entirely unsympathetic to its members who are trying to break free from sin’s shackles.

“Tempters never make good comforters. Those who are the devil’s instruments, to command, entice, or allure men to sin, will afford them no relief when they have come to be troubled for what they have done.” (Matthew Poole)

12/11/2023 01:41:36 pm

This liberal behavior is not surprising. I remember Neil Young had a song about how innocent & perfect the indigenous people were until Cortez slaughtered them. While not defending Cortez, a lot of these tribes were vicious & cannibalistic with human sacrifice. Not the pure little innocent kittens Young made them out to be.

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ELCA Lutheran Church of the Great Spirit

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Dan Skogen

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