ELCA prayers for 'radical hospitality', saving the planet and 'valuing animals'---what about the salvation of humans?

10/22/2015

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

I attend a Missouri Synod Lutheran church. The Missouri Synod is much more Biblical than the liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, but for some reason my Missouri Synod church is using the Augsburg/Fortress "Prayers of the Church" of the ELCA on Sunday mornings.

Here is what I have noticed in the past two years. The Augsburg/Fortress prayers regularly pray for the environment, the planet, etc., but I don't remember one prayer for the salvation of the lost. Recently we prayed that God would help our churches practice "radical hospitality". I don't think most people know what that means, but in ELCA circles it can mean the affirmation of homosexual and transgender behavior. This past Sunday the Augsburg/Fortress prayers asked the Lord to "Strengthen the bonds between humans and the animals...Teach his to value all animals." I thought to myself "I have never heard an Augsburg/Fortress prayer asking us to value all human life, born and unborn."

Most of the Augsburg/Fortress prayers sound very nice, but don't hold your breath for the ELCA prayers to ask God to save people from eternal Hell through Jesus Christ or to save unborn children from the horror of abortion.

In Jesus our Savior,

Pastor Tom Brock
pastorsstudy.org

6 Comments

Rodney

10/24/2015 02:51:08 pm

"And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them..., The fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you." (Genesis 9:1-3)

I don't know what to make of a prayer asking God to "strengthen the bonds between humans and the animals." If those who admire the prayer are motivated by conservationism, they're living in a childish, "Doctor Dolittle" fantasy world. No serious conservationist proposes that we save endangered species by taming them.

If they admire the prayer because they implicitly accept the Eastern ideas of monism (that "all is one") or pantheism (that "all is God"), they need to be taught that pantheism and monism are incompatible with Christianity.

10/25/2015 09:08:44 pm

"Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools.... Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and you are on earth. Therefore let your words be few." (Ecclesiastes 5:12)

That means to my mind that foolish prayers (like the one asking God to strengthen the bond between humans and animals) should not be tolerated in the Church's public worship.

P. Townsend

2/6/2016 02:14:41 pm

"ALL IS ONE; THEREFORE ALL IS GOD. This principle expresses the twin concepts of MONISM and PANTHEISM, which have long been identified with the Eastern religions. The New Age god is impersonal and does not have existence distinct from creation. 'It' is a universal energy, the Force, the combined consciousness, the oneness (monism) of all living things. In this oneness, good and evil, life and death, are the same. Differences exist only in how a person perceives things."

"Indeed, refusal to distinguish between the Creator and creation not only brought on the fall into sin but is today responsible for every deplorable condition that is found in human society. Romans 1:18-32 leaves no doubt about the accelerating degradation that follows the deification of creation. The poet Vergil wrote, 'We make our destiny by our choice of gods.' We are shaped by what we worship. And worship of self lies behind the 'depraved mind' that expresses itself in 'shameful lusts,...every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity' (Romans 1:26-31)." (Phillip H. Lochhaas, HOW TO RESPOND: THE NEW AGE MOVEMENT, [St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1995], pp. 10, 46)

John

10/25/2015 10:05:07 pm

"Radical hospitality" is ELCA newspeak for communing with the unbaptized, or more broadly, for communing with non-Christians. This is the new ELCA social issue; affirmation of sodomy is old news to them. I have begun to suspect that the ELCA's pursuit of inclusiveness is not to gain inclusion of the world into themselves; it is to regain their own inclusion back into the world. And it is working all too well!

Chuck Braun

11/6/2015 09:20:50 am

My LCMS parish sadly also uses the ELCA's worship materials. I believe they are waiting for new LCMS downloadable liturgy to be released. Nonetheless, my pastor remains firmly committed to faithful Lutheran doctrine, preaching Christ crucified and risen for us.

I wonder why Pastor Brock left his preaching position in the AFLC, and is now attending an LCMS church. I also notice that an AFLC church in my district switched to LCMS. I realize both AFLC and LCMS are Bible-believing Lutheran bodies, but AFLC has open Communion and is somewhat more pietistic.

There's an old joke... What do you call three Lutherans? A schism. It is indeed sad to see even Bible-believing Lutheran Christians cannot agree on all points of doctrine. Sadder still is the story of the ELCA, which has serious theological cancer. We need to pray for all those in the ELCA who still trust in Jesus as Savior, yet are exposed to potentially damning doctrine. Just as there are non-Christians sitting in LCMS pews, there are a remnant of Christians still in the ELCA, both clergy and laity. I believe that the Holy Spirit is still at work, and can work through the bits and pieces of Word and Sacrament left in the ELCA to create faith and salvation. May the Spirit also lead the ELCA laity to open their eyes, demand the return to the Word of God. And may we always pray that Satan's schemes at work in the ELCA would be thwarted, and that there would be a revival. With God, all things are possible. And He will use even the actions of an apostate church body for His good purposes.

Aaron

11/19/2015 11:41:56 am

I recently visited an ELCA church for an Old Testament college course and this is exactly the kind of crazy stuff I heard. Prayers for the health and restoration of water-ways and oceans of the world, prayers for racial equality and other social issues and agendas, even prayers for EMTs to be able to do their jobs well (which seems like an oddly specific prayer to be shoehorned into a Sunday service). In all of that, not a single mention of Salvation through accepting Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior; not one mention of people being sinful and in need of Salvation. It really made me thankful to be a member of an Independent Baptist church that isn't afraid to stand on the Word of God.

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ELCA prayers for 'radical hospitality', saving the planet and 'valuing animals'---what about the salvation of humans?

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