High Profile ELCA Pastor Believes Jesus, if not Single, Was In a Sexual Relationship With a Man

3/4/2015

Clint Schnekloth‎ is one of the most prominent and influential pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and his voice carries a lot of weight in the denomination. He is an author and blogger; he launched and facilitates the ELCA Clergy Facebook Group that has over 5800 members. And Pastor Schnekloth himself tells us that he -

“serves on the Advisory Council for Word & World and the Editorial Board for the ELCA Youth Ministry Network Connect Journal.”
“recently served on LWR's President's Advisory Council”
(is) “a frequent presenter at national and synodical events”
“is on the Board of Trustees for Augsburg Fortress.”
“is a regular contributor to The Lutheran, The Little Lutheran, Lutheran Forum, the Journal of Lutheran Ethics, and Word & World.”
“freelances for Augsburg Fortress publishing house. His most recent projects with AF include seasonal essays for Sundays & Seasons, lessons for Washed and Welcomed: A Baptismal Sourcebook, material in the Spark Bible, and an Advent Book of Faith bible study for 2011.” (read here)

As you can see, this is one of the most high-profile pastors in the denomination, and he has great influence over ELCA leadership and membership. Let's look at what this prominent ELCA pastor of great influence has been saying. Recently Pastor Schnekloth wrote, “God is gay.” in the ELCA Clergy Facebook group. He then followed that up by writing, “God is trans.” (posted here)

In a letter posted on his blog he writes -

“This is why I'd like to say here what I often say to LGBT families in our congregation. Not only are you welcome. Not only are you tolerated. You are beautiful. Your same-gender partnership is attractive and a witness in our church. We want to learn from you.” (read here)

Again on the ELCA Clergy Facebook page, Rev. Schnekloth writes -

“Here is what I want to know. It seems popular these days to go with the Gnostic notion that Jesus was married. But this seems to fall right into the hands of heteronormativity. If Jesus wasn't single, it's pretty clear to me he was in a committed relationship with the beloved disciple, another man. Why do we assume he was attracted to women?” (posted here)

How sad that this man's view, this man's theology, is whole-heartedly accepted in the ELCA.

After reading Pastor Schnekloth's defaming of Christ and celebration of sexual sin, it is with gladness that I can tell you there was a massive split in the church (Good Shepherd Lutheran Church Fayetteville, AR) that Rev. Schnekloth leads. Last month Rev. Schnekloth wrote -

“I'm doing a 'state of the church' sermon tomorrow. My plan is to name the reality of the new church that has broken off from us...” - (read here and for a news article of the new church read here)

It is almost unbelievable that anyone chose to remain under the leadership of this vocal, extremely liberal pastor. It is equally unbelievable that 3.8 million people have chosen to remain under the teaching of the satanically-inspired theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

17 Comments

Chuck Braun

3/4/2015 02:55:44 am

Amongst the 3.8 million souls left in the ELCA, many are homebound elderly folk who haven't a clue about the apostasy of the church body they belong to. Others may be children baptized into Christ but prone to being led astray from faith in Him when they grow up. Perhaps some are Sunday School teachers who are trying to give these precious little ones the only true Christian doctrine they may ever hear. (Just before I left my ELCA church, I was walking through the basement, past the open doors of the Sunday School classrooms, and on the chalkboard were the six days of Creation)

Perhaps there are some who recognize the false doctrine, and remain in the hope that they might be able to change the minds of those who accept it. (Imagine being a Bible-believing ELCA pastor who wonders what their flock will be taught should they leave. but yet detests the false doctrine of their local peers.)

But sadly, many may just be complicit, not willing to break up decades of shared fellowship with friends, perhaps not noticing the slow theological drift away from God's Word, or ignoring it. In spite of the peril to the salvation of themselves or their children...

Doubtless there are many who actually have come to embrace the false teachings they are now hearing. There were indeed folks at my old ELCA church who approved of gay marriage, and others who were excited about interfaith worship. One former pastor was actually a fan of the Jesus Seminar, which denied the Resurrection of Christ.

I have heard that on any given Sunday, there are more non-ELCA Lutherans in church (ELS/WELS,LCMS,AFLC,NALC,LCMC and others) than ELCA parishioners. Not that simply attending church is a guarantee of saving, trusting faith in Christ, but it's not a good omen for the ELCA. Perhaps millions of ELCA members have just gone inactive. Maybe for them the church is just a mere cultural stamp, and a place to go through the motions of the rituals of tradition, and Jesus has no place in their lives.

Thousands more may have just simply walked away silently to join other churches, and their names haven't been removed from the membership rolls...

Casey

3/5/2015 07:08:21 am

What's odd is that after I left the ELCA, I *started* receiving newsletter mailings from the headquarters office in Chicago. I have no idea how to remove myself from their mailing list or how I even got on it to begin with! For all I know, they are still counting me as a member. They aren't doing themselves any favors by falsifying data...

Dennis

3/5/2015 12:47:40 pm

A significant number of LCMC and NALC congregations dually affiliate with the ELCA. The LCMC and NALC websites do not tell us what the percentage is. So even if your congregation is LCMC or NALC, you're still part of an organization with considerable ties to and influence from the ELCA.

MIck

4/3/2015 05:10:50 pm

Or perhaps thousands are too apathetic and lazy to look into what the ELCA really stands for, and as such, are part of the problem themselves! But gee, my friends go there or I've been a member there are not good excuses to stay with an ELCA church. Christ himself warns us we can't be lukewarm, we need to take a stand. We need to do what is right BECAUSE it is the right thing to do, not simply choose to not decide.

Carmen Soto

9/28/2015 09:33:06 am

What kind of a Seminary did he come from? You don't question the Word of God. This man says what he imagines and thinks. People like him ruined ELCA. These are what you call the FALSE PROPHETS IN THE LAST DAY. I just hope the members of the Lutheran Church wake up and GET OUT! Lutherans don't read the Word, and better look up in their Website "ELCA is not Lutheran."

Kathy S.

3/4/2015 09:48:29 am

Clint Schnekloth's views about Jesus are the worst thing from the ELCA that I have read so far. Horrible and evil. I agree with Chuck Braun that many in the ELCA are complacent and just hoping the whole thing will go away. In the Catholic Church this happened with the priest sex-abuse scandal. The grand difference here is that the scandal was about abuse and violations of Christian principles; in the ELCA, views like Rev. Schnekloth's are often the norm and are accepted by the leadership.

Personally, I would like to believe that Rev. Schnekloth is simply crazy, and there is some evidence to support this. Below is his Facebook posting from yesterday. In a liberal church, you could find Free Trade coffee... but coffee from beans expelled by civets?

"The day: Made coffee first eaten and expelled by civets for the Bears group. Wrote a sermon for tomorrow that probably won't get preached, because of snow. Talked a lot about the weather. Read an essay on poiesis in Heidegger. Prayed. Ate lunch at the elementary, which was as always really good, but particularly loud today because children are like snow barometers. Read Tillich on reason. Advocated for refugees and incarcerated children. Bought foam core at Hobby Lobby. Made a list of transitional needs at GSLC. Now for a three hour Odyssey of the Mind practice in which we attempt to build a track that drives over Aragor, through Fluffy, and around the Weeping Willow. Then a one hour property owner's association meeting at which we decide when to open the neighborhood pool."

Didaskalos link

3/6/2015 03:18:59 am

Good gracious, Pastor Schnekloth "Bought foam core at Hobby Lobby"? Doesn't he realize that Hobby Lobby provides its employees with free (no co-pay) access to *only* 16 of 20 FDA-approved contraceptives? Is he not aware that Hobby Lobby is under a withering fusillade of calumny from feminists and liberals (probably a bunch of his fellow ELCAnites among them) for NOT covering contraceptives that can act as abortifacients? [ http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/381637/hobby-lobby-actually-lavishes-contraception-coverage-its-employees-deroy-murdock ]

As a pastor in a denomination whose health care plan flouts Biblical teaching by subsidizing the abortion of preborn babies for any reason up to 20 weeks [ http://www.exposingtheelca.com/on-abortion.html ], Pastor Schnekloth may be courting trouble for not showing more sensitivity to, and solidarity with, abortion acolytes.

Benjamin

3/4/2015 10:11:07 am

Rev. Clint Schnekloth cannot see the absurdity in statements like "God is homosexual" or "God is transsexual" because he doesn't actually believe in God, or else he has never in his whole life given a moment of serious thought to God.

Ring the Bell

3/4/2015 01:18:00 pm

I am no longer one of those 3.8 million. When I first started awakening to the antics of the ELCA, it was my hope that I'd be part of a resistance movement to keep it truthful to the Word.

Alas, I eventually realized that such efforts were futile, and left.

Unless people start researching what the ELCA has been up to, they simply haven't a clue - particularly the elderly who probably have been going to the same church for decades.

When I first joined an ELCA church, I didn't really know about WELS, LCMS, etc. I just saw the word "Lutheran". It took me many years before I realized that what I was getting wasn't Lutheran at all. What started opening my eyes is when I realized Confirmation students didn't use the Small Catechism and Rob Bell videos were used to "educate" (more like indoctrinate).

It's just plain sad, and dangerously heretical.

Lowell

3/5/2015 06:07:27 am

My "tipping point" has been reached. If the apostasy revealed last year at "Her Church" wasn't enough, this apostasy is over the top. While I'll pray for Pastor Schnekloth's soul and for his congregation to return to Biblical teaching, I'm leaving the ELCA and praying for the start of a local NALC or LCMC congregation.

Pastor Heidi Punt

3/6/2015 03:24:56 am

May God hear your prayer. Please note if I or the mission start congregation here at the foothills of NC mountains can help you, we will step up!

3/6/2015 07:58:07 am

It's a necessary, albeit often grievous, departure. Staying in today's ELCA, where heretical abandonments of Biblical Christianity crop up almost daily, is insupportable.

http://www.ligonier.org/blog/cost-compromise/ -- The Cost of Compromise

". . .What we are called to defend is no less than “the faith which was once for all handed down to the saints.” He’s [Jude is] talking about a serious struggle to safeguard the heart and soul of the truth itself and unleash that truth against the powers of darkness. Compromised truth has no hope of rescuing the eternal souls of men and women who have been unwittingly ensnared by the trap of devilish deception.

"This is a battle we cannot wage effectively if we always try to come across to the world as merely nice, nonchalant, docile, agreeable, fun-loving people. We must not take our cues from others who are perfectly happy to compromise the truth whenever possible for “harmony’s” sake. Friendly dialog may sound affable and pleasant. But neither Christ nor the apostles ever confronted serious, soul-destroying error by building collegial relationships with false teachers. In fact, we are expressly forbidden to do that (Romans 16:17, 2 Thessalonians 3:6, 2 Timothy 3:5, 2 John 10-11).

"Infiltrating churches under the guise of tolerance and cooperation is one of Satan’s most cunning ploys. He does not want to fight the church as much as join it. Undiscerning believers who partner in a common spiritual cause with unbiblical forms of Christianity or other false religions open the door wide to satanic corruption. The appearance of unity, no matter how enticing, is not worth sacrificing the clarity of the gospel.

"Furthermore, embracing those heretical systems falsely reassures their followers that all is well between them and God, when actually they are headed for eternal damnation. Partnering in a spiritual enterprise with unbelievers helps Satan muddy the doctrinal waters, and it cripples our ability to preach the need for repentance.

"Scripture is clear about how we are to respond when the very foundations of the Christian faith are under attack: our duty is to contend, not compromise."

Orthodox Christian link

3/9/2015 01:17:03 am

This is why so many are leaving the Lutheran, Methodist, Roman Catholic, and other denominations and are becoming Orthodox Chrisitan instead: because of liberalism infiltrating the church. All of these denominations are bringing the world into the church rather than the reverse. The RCs are becoming more and more like the lutherans. Only the Orthodox Church, which is the original Chrisitan Church, has maintained its doctrinal and liturgical purity for over 2,000 years! Dissatisfied with this? Try the Orthodox Christian Church, and you won't be sorry! I recommend an OCA (Orthodox Church in America) parish, as it will be more relatable to those coming out of such churches. http://journeytoorthodoxy.com/

Dan Pressler

12/20/2015 09:36:55 am

Do not use too broad a brush when painting a picture of the Lutheran Churches - ELCA is a liberal abomination, LCMS (to which I have belonged for 40ish years) is conservative & scriptural, WELS is what I consider Orthodox & scriptural (although I think the sometimes go beyond scriptural). I don't know anything about the smaller branches of Lutheranism. One of the reasons people leave scriptural churches is because they don't want to be told the way they are living is wrong & ungodly.

Dr. Orthox

3/9/2015 08:36:01 am

"Only the Orthodox Church, which is the original Chrisitan Church, has maintained its doctrinal and liturgical purity for over 2,000 years!"

Depends which side of the Great Schism you fall on. RCs will tell you that the opposite is true. ;-)

4/24/2015 05:07:01 am

Why do so many ELCA pastors and leaders employ so much weaselly ELCAspeak in their public utterances and writings? Why are there so few ELCA leaders who straightforwardly say, as the Bible plainly says, that God’s sole design for sexuality is in the marriage of one man to one woman for a lifetime?

The ELCAspeak equivocation in Pastor Schnekloth’s writings doesn’t exactly hide that he’s firmly wedded to the ELCA heresy of “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous” same-sex sexual relationships. His blog-quoted statement to his church's LGBT “families" [“. . .Your same-gender partnership is attractive and a witness in our church. We want to learn from you.”] doesn’t leave much doubt that he’s right in the ELCA's heretical mainstream.

Sorting out Pastor Schnekloth's public ELCAspeak:

** "If Jesus wasn't single, it's pretty clear to me he was in a committed relationship with the beloved disciple, another man.”

Smarmy ELCAspeak imputation translated: “If Jesus wasn’t sinless, as the Bible clearly says He was, then ‘it’s pretty clear to me' He would have sinned in a manner the ELCA and I enthusuastically endorse: a same-sex sexual relationship — but ‘COMMITTED,' you have to understand. ‘COMMITTED' is the magical ELCAspeak incantation that de-sins a sin clearly proscribed by the Bible.”

** "I actually think Jesus was as he is described in the gospels--single and celibate. He obviously lived an alternative lifestyle to the norm in his culture, . . .”

ELCAspeak translated: “I’m willing to magnanimously cede celibacy to Jesus. But that’s because He was such a social-activist, authority-confronting norm-breaker, not because it would have been a sin for Him to be in a COMMITTED same-sex relationship as I’ve previously written.”

** What I do find fascinating, however, in the uptick in stories about the married Jesus is how conservative all these conjectures seem to be. They want Jesus to have a nuclear family, like the "ideal" modern Christian household.”

ELCAspeak translated: “OK, let’s first ignore the fact that those stories about a married Jesus come from Bible-revisionist heretics. Man-woman marriage, whose sexual congress frequently leads to children, is today just a politically and theologically ‘conservative’ notion, not the sole Biblical mandate for marriage. The ‘ideal modern-Christian household' (one man married to one woman, with their naturally conceived children) is in reality an outmoded ‘conservative’ misbelief beyond which we ELCA illuminati moved when we overruled the Bible and granted COMMITTED same-sex sexual rights in our 2009 convention.”

And you, ELCA parishioner, are you going to continue to prop up in any way (membership, donations) a denomination whose multiplied heresies are leading people toward damnation instead of salvation?

While you’re looking for a Bible-honoring church, you can read -- in stark contrast to the heretical ELCAspeak that surfeits ELCA pastors’ and leaders’ eisegesis on sexual relationships — a clear Biblical exegesis from a genuine Lutheran pastor:

“. . . Paul elsewhere warns (I Cor 6, 9-10): ”Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with men, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Again (Gal 5, 19-21): ”The works of the flesh are manifest . . . of which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

"Warrant is given here likewise for censuring and restraining the rash individuals who assert that men should not be terrified by the Law, nor surrendered to Satan. No! it is our duty to teach men to purge out the old leaven; we must tell them they are not Christians, but devoid of the faith, when they yield to the wantonness of the flesh and wilfully persevere in sin against the warning of conscience. We should teach that such sins are so much the more vicious and damnable when practiced under the name of the Gospel, under cover of Christian liberty; for that is despising and blaspheming the name of Christ and the Gospel: and therefore such conduct must be positively renounced and purged out, as irreconcilable with faith and a good conscience.” [Martin Luther, "Easter Sunday Sermon": http://www.lutherdansk.dk/Web-sommerpostillen%20AM/Kirkepos.htm —pts. 9-10 ]

Project Samizdat link

3/16/2016 01:17:30 pm

C S Lewis commented on the convergence between mysticism and certain aspects of western science and liberal Christianity in his book "That Hideous Strength". This is a process some Emergent leaders advocate for today:
https://thereluctantsamizdatwordpresscom.wordpress.com/2016/03/04/shiva-the-supermen/

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High Profile ELCA Pastor Believes Jesus, if not Single, Was In a Sexual Relationship With a Man

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