ELCA’s New Proposed Standards for Pastors: Bishops Apologize for Offending LGBTQIA Community, Straight and Gay Pastors Should Marry their Partners, Cohabitation is Forbidden, but is Sex Outside of Marriage?

3/12/2019

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

Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber, a pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and speaker at the ELCA Youth Gathering, has stated publicly that she enjoys having sex outside of marriage with her boyfriend. She signed a statement by a group of ELCA leaders called “Naked and Unashamed” which wants to overthrow the old 1990 ELCA rules that said pastors should not have sex outside of marriage.

The ELCA bishops are presently working on a new set of standards for ELCA clergy to reflect the fact that the ELCA now ordains practicing homosexuals. The bishops state::

“We express our profound grief and deep regret for the times when Vision and Expectations (the 1990 rules) has been misused to single out, marginalize, and block people seeking to be leaders in this church when their peers were not always held to the same vision and expectations. This has caused considerable pain that has disproportionately been borne by those who have been historically marginalized or excluded from leadership in the church because of their gender, sexuality, race, or status. We apologize to those whose treatment under this document has made them feel targeted and less than the beloved children of God that they are.”

I think this means, in part, that the bishops feel bad for not supporting practicing homosexual pastors and their partners in the past. That all changed in 2009 when the ELCA voted to allow non-celibate homosexual pastors.

The proposed new statement reads that “Those who serve as (ELCA) pastors and deacons reflect a variety of sexual orientations and diverse gender identities…the greatest sexual intimacies should be matched with marriage. Pastors and deacons, as public witnesses to this church’s respect for marriage, are therefore to live in accordance with the understanding that deepening degrees of sexual intimacy are aligned with deepening levels of commitment to one another and the relationship. Such relationships are to be exclusive, monogamous, consensual, and in the ELCA, require marriage before cohabitation for those serving as pastors and deacons.”

Thus, in this new statement, cohabitation (living together) is forbidden for ELCA pastors. I believe this means that a homosexual pastor living with a partner in a sexual relationship now needs to get “married”. This is tragic. What if the homosexual pastor gets “married” and then later comes to realize that homosexual behavior is sin? But now the pastor has been saddled with a “marriage” at the insistence of the bishops of the Church. This is the strange new world of the ELCA.

And what about a heterosexual pastor like Bolz-Weber who engages in sex with her boyfriend, presumably in a “loving, monogamous relationship”? Since only cohabitation is explicitly forbidden by the proposed statement, is she allowed to continue to be sexually active and face no discipline?

The statement is in its rough draft form and hopefully the language will eventually make it clear that both cohabitation and fornication are forbidden. But we shall see. I believe the greatest error of the statement is telling homosexual pastors they must “marry” their sexual partners.

Back in 2009 the ELCA agreed that the conservative view regarding homosexual behavior would be honored alongside the liberal view. Where is the conservative view being honored in the ELCA today? What if an ELCA bishop were to say “I hold to the conservative view and I refuse to ordain a practising homosexual”? Would such a bishop be allowed in the ELCA?

You can read the entire proposed new statement in the link below at the very bottom. And I hope it will make you consider leaving the ELCA if you are still a member.

In Jesus our Savior,

Pastor Tom Brock

PS If you want to read what ELCA Pastor Bolz-Weber said in a podcast about how great sex is with her boyfriend, I have edited out her foul language below. As you read it, keep in mind she is an ELCA pastor in good standing with the denomination and spoke to 31,000 ELCA teens last summer:

Reverend Nadia Bolz-Weber: “But I get together with my boyfriend and start having sex and it was like 'holy s___,’ I was like, it felt like an exfoliation of my whole spirit. I'm like 'This is so good for my brain chemistry, and my body, and my heart. And I’m like f___ man, why in the world would the Church say ‘Don’t do this?’ Like I could tell it was what I needed, and it was so good.”
For new proposed standards for ELCA pastors:

https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Trustworthy_Servants_Common_Draft_3-4-2019.pdf

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4 Comments

Didaskalos link

3/14/2019 04:21:48 am

The moribund ELCA abjectly apologizes to employees it's now encouraging to live in impenitent sin for the former, wholly biblical counsel of its Council of Bishops (1993): "Neither the scriptures nor the Lutheran Confessions grant any authorization to the church to recognize as divinely approved any relationship other than the marriage of one man & one woman for the full expression of human sexuality; ..there is basis neither in Scripture nor tradition for the establishment of an official ceremony by this church for the blessing of a homosexual relationship. We, therefore, do not approve such a ceremony.."

'Just Christians: On Homosexuality and Christian Identity' -- http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/article.php?id=26-04-003-e

". . . The Church never can and never will give satisfaction—and the homosexualist knows it, for he knows the words against him are ineradicable—to the declared and impenitent homosexual, the person who, through an act of the vermiculate will, has identified his person with a sin, whether he demands acceptance of his sin through 'love,' or vindication through identification of his perceived enemies as bigots. Whether he presents himself as an object of love or indignation, what he demands in either case is acceptance not of the person, but of the sin-bound and sin-defined person. He demands the declaration of spiritual authority that there is nothing objectively disordered about this binding of man to sin, and assurance that this monstrous amalgam can indeed enter the kingdom of heaven. This can never happen among Christians until they abandon Christianity, which is at war with every sin, and whose indelible constitution places all perversions of the perfect man at the muzzle of its canons."

Stephen Hedlund

3/21/2019 10:03:55 am

Regarding the 2009 the ELCA agreement that the conservative view on sexual behavior would be honored alongside the liberal view, it is past time to stop harking back to that statement. The 2009 statement took a position in favor of honoring both the "liberal" and "traditional" views regarding marriage and sexual practice. The whole position defies the basic logical law of non-contradiction, that is: contradictory propositions cannot both be true, i.e., the two propositions "A is B" and "A is not B" are mutually exclusive and cannot both be true. Applied to the 2009 issue: "sex is reserved for marriage" and "sex is not reserved for marriage" cannot both be true, i.e., upheld, "honored"-- whatever. It made no sense at the time, it wouldn't have been seriously entertained throughout at least the history of western civilization up until recent times and it doesn't get any "more true" with time. Logic is still logic.

The 2009 statement cannot be credibly appealed to by either faction. The traditionalists especially should take an antidote to the koolaid they have evidently drunk and face up to the folly of appealing to a statement that says two contradictory statements can both be true, even honored. We've understood at least since Aristotle that it cannot be so. Jesus also used the same reasoning at least on one occasion when he pointed out that the same Pharisees who pooh-poohed John the Baptist for his austerity logically should have embraced the Son of Man who came "eating and drinking." But, the same ones who said John was possessed of a demon on account of his austerity called Jesus, who came eating and drinking, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners. And, he calls them on their logical fallacy with "Wisdom is justified by her children."

It makes no more sense to appeal to a position which advocates both "one man and one woman for life" and "not one man and one woman for life" that it did for the Pharisees to reject both Jesus' "eating and drinking" and John's "not eating and drinking." Jesus called the Pharisees on their illogical approach to John and himself and it is time for the ELCA to 'fess up to its folly as well.

Logic always has its way.

The problem, however, is a greater one for the conservatives (traditionalist, whatever) than it is for the liberals. This is because the liberals' position is "anything goes" and the conservatives' position is "anything does NOT go." While logically the liberals should not go along with the mutually exclusive positions, as a practical matter, so long as "anything goes," then operationally it doesn't matter that, so long as "anything goes" there are those in the group who choose (as a matter of individual conscience) not to engage in "anything," but to restrict their own practices for themselves to more proscribed limits within the universe of "anything.".

However, for the conservatives who adhere to "anything does NOT go," sanctioning "anything goes" for their brothers and sisters just doesn't work. What the conservatives do or don't do is all within the bounds of what the liberals sanction. But, what the liberals allow is out of bounds for the conservatives.

While the liberals should be appalled at the folly of accepting both A and not-A as true, as a practical matter they can deal with defying the rules of logic so long as operationally either A or not-A, whichever is their "truth," is broader than the truth of the other faction.

To the question, "Where is the conservative view being honored in the ELCA today?" the answer is that it is logically impossible to honor either position. A and not-A cannot both be true. Neither side can be satisfied with the logic. But, as a practical matter the liberals can live with it while the conservatives can't.

It is past time for the "conservatives" to stop appealing to a position which says that both A and not-A are true, call nonsense by its name and appeal to an authoritative "truth" that does not contradict itself. (Such authority would not include the ELCA's 2009 statement.)

3/22/2019 07:56:30 am

Martin Luther (centuries ago) and confessional Lutherans/Christians (a decade ago) have pointed out the folly of a "bound conscience" that is untethered from the Word and the impossibility of a "conservative" position that accommodates impenitent, Bible-proscribed sin.

The Idolatrous Religion of Conscience — A Lutheran Lesson for Us All
--Albert Mohler (Oct. 6, 2009)
http://albertmohler.com/2009/10/26/the-idolatrous-religion-of-conscience-a-lutheran-lesson-for-us-all/

". . .Luther was not merely claiming to be bound by conscience. He was specifically claiming that his conscience was bound by the word of God. Luther, unlike the ELCA, believed that the Scriptures offer a very clear presentation of the Gospel and of moral and theological teachings.

Luther affirmed the inspiration, authority, sufficiency, and clarity of the word of God and he took his stand on the authority of Scripture alone. The Word of God bound his conscience by its clear teaching.

Indeed, Luther was very suspicious of the human conscience. In the main, he was convinced that sin had so warped the capacity of conscience that it actually functions in most persons to foster a works religion which is the very opposite of the Gospel. The conscience makes the sinner aware of doing wrong, but then suggests works as a way of earning God’s good pleasure. As Randall C. Zachman documents in his important work, The Assurance of Faith: Conscience in the Theology of Martin Luther and John Calvin, Luther was convinced that the conscience uncorrected by Scripture would lead to “the idolatrous religion of conscience.”

In Luther’s own words: “God wants our conscience to be certain and sure that it is pleasing to Him. This cannot be done if the conscience is led by its own feelings, but only if it relies on the Word of God.”

Thus, the ELCA’s new principle of “bound-conscience” actually embraces and leads to what Martin Luther most feared — a burlesque of conflicting consciences without accountability to the Scriptures.

The point was not lost on many Lutheran observers. Retired ELCA Bishop Paull Spring of State College, PA, chairman of the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee, a group opposed to the ELCA’s radically liberal direction, noted: “In its emphasis on conscience, the task force forgot that Luther was not talking about his own right to his own opinion. He was declaring his commitment and allegiance to the Word of God.” He added: “It is exactly the opposite of the task force’s idea of conscience as one’s personal beliefs. They are encouraging the strange notion of a bound conscience as nothing more than individualism.”

The idea of a bound conscience is deadly dangerous unless the conscience is bound by the Word of God. Those who would claim a bound conscience but pervert, deny, subvert, or relativize the Word may indeed be bound by conscience. But a conscience bound by anything other than the Word of God is a conscience given over to idolatry.

This is a Lutheran lesson we all desperately need to learn. And Martin Luther himself deserves the last word:

“It is the nature of all hypocrites and false prophets to create a conscience where there is none, and to cause conscience to disappear where it does exist.”

Requiescat in pace

3/22/2019 03:05:50 pm

I knew the ELCA had fallen upon hard times, but potty-mouthed reprobate Nadia Bolz-Weber is ordained in that church body? "She said in a podcast about how great sex is with her boyfriend; I have edited out her foul language ... she is an ELCA pastor in good standing with the denomination and spoke to 31,000 ELCA teens last summer..." (I'm still digesting that.)
In the event the "lady" hadn't noticed: Jesus magnified (not minimized) the Ten Commandments to the point where we are ALL are guilty of things like adultery (from lust) and murder (from hatred). I wonder if the ELCA committing suicide falls under the latter commandment?

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ELCA’s New Proposed Standards for Pastors: Bishops Apologize for Offending LGBTQIA Community, Straight and Gay Pastors Should Marry their Partners, Cohabitation is Forbidden, but is Sex Outside of Marriage?

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