ELCA Lutheran pastor: Don’t worry about going to heaven, everybody is going there

10/29/2025

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

Lura Groen is a pastor of the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In the past, she has stated that God “is so f___ing queer”. Regarding abortion, Groen said “God told me, my body, my f___ing choice.”

In the below video, Groen preaches the heresy of Universalism, the teaching that everyone is going to heaven, regardless of faith in Christ. Universalism denies what Jesus taught about the reality of Hell. The just retired head bishop of the ELCA also taught Universalism, saying “Hell may exist, but I believe it is empty.”

In contrast, the Bible teaches that it is only through faith in Christ that a person can be saved (Acts 16:31, John 14:6, Acts 4:12).

Sincerely in Christ,

Pastor Tom Brock
Pastorsstudy.org

PS Groen is a woman married to a biological woman who identifies as a man. At least this was the case five years ago—I’m uncertain if their “marriage” is still intact today—when Groen’s spouse sued a Catholic hospital because the hospital refused on moral grounds to remove her healthy uterus. In June of 2025 Groen’s “spouse” lost her case, but got the sex change operation elsewhere. This is the strange new world of the ELCA.

6 Comments

Rebecca

10/29/2025 07:32:51 pm

wonder why she shows up for her job. Isn't it pointless in her mind? She has little or nothing to preach against.
May God reach her before it is too late for her and the thongs that will go with her!

Didaskalos link

10/31/2025 04:05:47 am

By their fruits you shall know them. A "pastor" who maligns God, flouts His Word, and leads others into Bible-proscribed sin has reason to be very concerned about where she's headed for eternity.

Martin Luther has a warning for her:
Luther on 1 John 3:4 — “We are all sinners, and at times we all fall into sin. But when true Christians fall, they soon come back, turn around, and struggle against the sin so that they won’t offend their neighbor…even if Christians are completely surrounded by sin, they should still fight against it. Some people think they’re Christians because they’ve been baptized. These people give their desires free rein and don’t care about conquering their sins. They merely follow their own cravings.” (LW, 30:269)

And real pastors, present and past, warn her away from eternal destruction:

==> Pastor David Guzik Enduring Word commentary on 2 Thess. 1: 8-10
-- https://enduringword.com/bible-commentary/2-thessalonians-1/

"In flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints and to be admired among all those who believe, because our testimony among you was believed."

a. In flaming fire taking vengeance: This is what the day of judgment will be like for those who persecuted the Thessalonians. For the persecutors, those who do not know God, and those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus, that will be a day of vengeance and everlasting destruction.

i. In flaming fire: It isn’t the fire that makes hell what it is. In the fiery furnace, the three Jewish young men were completely comfortable, as long as the Lord was with them in the fire (Daniel 3). What truly characterizes hell is that there, people are from the presence of the Lord, in the sense of being apart from anything good or blessed in God’s presence. From the presence of the Lord sums up the Bible’s understanding of hell. Nothing must be said more about its horrors, other than hell will be completely devoid of God and every aspect of His character, except one: His unrelenting holy justice.

ii. It is not wrong for God to take vengeance; we understand this when we understand what the word means in the ancient Greek language. “The word rendered ‘vengeance’ has no associations of vindictiveness. It is a compound based on the same root as the word rendered ‘righteous’ in vv. 5, 6, and it has the idea of a firm administration of unwavering justice.” (Morris) The idea is the application of full justice on the offender; nothing more and nothing less.

iii. Everlasting destruction: We must not be moved from the idea that the punishment of the wicked is everlasting. As the blessings of heaven are eternal, the penalty of hell is also eternal. “The perpetual duration of this death is proved from the fact that its opposite is the glory of Christ. This is eternal and has no end.” (John Calvin)

10/30/2025 11:28:52 am

Because the hirelings in ELCA "leadership" encourage their parishioners to live in unrepentant sin that the Bible clearly says will separate them from God for eternity, the denomination's primary mission is directly antithetical to Jesus' mission to save souls and bring them into His Father's kingdom. What more compelling reason can there be to leave an ersatz church that directly opposes Jesus?

'How Dismissing the Doctrine of Hell Leads Us to Hate Our Neighbors'
-- https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/how-dismissing-the-doctrine-of-hell-causes-us-to-hate-our-neighbors/

". . . More than anyone else in the Bible, Jesus talked about the doctrine of hell because he wants us to take it seriously. As Leslie Schmucker explains,

"Jesus has to talk about hell because it is the fate that awaits all people apart from him. Because of Adam’s sin, we’re all guilty and deserve God’s eternal punishment. Contrary to popular belief, hell is not a place where God sends those who have been especially bad; it’s our default destination. We need a rescuer or we stand condemned."

"You cannot believe in the Jesus of the Gospels and not believe in hell. Jesus doesn’t give us that option. You can also not love your neighbor and be apathetic about their spending eternity in hell. Jesus doesn’t give us that option either. If we believe Jesus and love our neighbor we will bring the doctrine of hell back into our churches.

“[W]e should shudder at churches that don’t know what it means to shudder about hell, Trevin Wax says. “I don’t know how you can take Jesus’s message seriously and miss that glaring and frequent aspect of his teaching. Mock ‘fire and brimstone preachers’ all you want, but take care that in the process, you’re not mocking Jesus himself.”

William E.Stevenson Jr.

10/30/2025 02:14:56 pm

Well, if that’s the case, that we’re All going to Heaven, then maybe the Good Pastor would be kind enough to fill me in on the fact that there Is a Hell, and if it’s going to be empty, why on earth did God Almighty establish it in the first place? I feel Great Compassion for Any member of a Congregation who believes in such rhetoric.

Born again

10/31/2025 03:18:10 pm

I’m not one to say who is going where, but this so-called pastor could be quite unhappily surprised one day.

Jerry Dimpel link

11/9/2025 07:13:34 pm

The thing about the ELCA Presiding Bishop's retirement that concerns me is that her replacement will probably be at least twice as liberal as she was.
And yes, it's possible to be more liberal than Bishop Eaton was

I wonder how long it will be before all ELCA congregations are like herchurch in San Francisco.

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ELCA Lutheran pastor: Don’t worry about going to heaven, everybody is going there

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