Long ago Satan began sowing doubt and disbelief regarding the Word of God. Today we have the ELCA doing the same thing. God’s directives are often twisted and dismissed, while many historical happenings in Scripture are considered myths. A recent interview with the presiding bishop of the ELCA confirms the ELCA’s Scriptural maleficence when she said there may be a hell “but I think it is empty.” (see here) Other examples can be seen here, here and here.
Today we get another example of this. The official magazine of the ELCA recently published an article where the author, an ELCA pastor, tells how he was challenged by a friend concerning the miracles of the Bible and those of Jesus saying, “Do you really believe these stories…Water into wine? A sea parting? Feeding thousands with so little? Come on…(t)he Bible is expecting a little much from anyone who has a brain.” You would expect a minister of Christ to say, “Yes, I believe the miracles of Jesus (and those in all of Scripture) really happened.” But no, the author does not. Instead the author presents a couple of ridiculous explanations for the miracles, explanations that the author then dismisses. Then the author goes to an old ELCA standby, he “spiritualizes” the miracles. He tells the readers that another question is needed, the question “why,” “(W)hy were these stories told in the early church?” His answer? “Jesus brings abundance. He brings ferment, fullness and lavish plenty.” Later the author tells us, “These stories won’t stand up to scientific scrutiny.” And, “Did the stories really happen this way? For me, this is the wrong question. The stories are meant to illumine the abundant life right here, right now. So perhaps the right question becomes: Are the stories really happening?” (see here) The ELCA hosted and posted this article. Doesn’t the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America believe the account of Scripture? Do they not believe Jesus actually performed these miracles? They put forth an article that will not answer or confirm that these miraculous events by Jesus actually happened historically. Do you really want people who do not believe God’s Word teaching you about God and His Word?
6 Comments
John
9/19/2017 10:30:57 am
I read the article. It looks like the impersonal 3rd-person "Christ-like atheist close friend" may actually be the author himself, F. G. Honeycutt. He spends far more time arguing for the atheist position, than against it. Hey, with pastors like him, who needs atheists??
Reply
J.A.
9/19/2017 03:47:47 pm
Oddly enough, this is nothing new. In the early 1960's the LCA, one of the predecessors to the ELCA, was promoting a Sunday School curriculum that taught that the miracles in the Bible could be explained in earthly terms, like when Jesus changed the water into wine it was really wine leaching leaching into the water in the clay pots. Thanks be to God that we left the LCA then!
Reply
9/20/2017 09:04:55 pm
The often-displayed reason for the ELCA's furious backpedaling from the Bible: it can't abide the Christ-rejecting world's withering scorn for Christians who believe Jesus' accounts of the reality of creation, the flood, Jonah, hell, the necessity of repentance from sin, and Himself as mankind's only Savior.
Reply
Candide
9/22/2017 12:33:58 am
To add insult to injury, many ELCA leaders are merely followers of other social movements uncritically accepting their outcomes and not even holding true to the elements of the Christian faith they claim are core.
Reply
George in Texas
9/22/2017 08:52:22 pm
Please stop making sense here! This is one of the reasons why the ELCA and liberal Protestantism in general have become so heretical. To attract new money its important to cave and capitulate to what the church thinks would bring in the warm bodies. To hell with Scripture, the Gospel and the confessions we need to survive here to stay relevant. Jesus wept.
Reply
John
9/23/2017 09:30:06 am
George, you are exactly right. Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Prove all things; hold fast that which is good.
1 Thessalonians 5:21 Dan Skogen
Former ELCA seminary student and former ELCA member who is fed up with the ELCA's consistent mockery of God's Word. If you have been helped and blessed by Exposing the ELCA's ministry, please help us continue to proclaim the truth of God's Word to ELCA members who need to hear it.
Give online by clicking the "donate" button below: Categories
All
Archives
December 2024
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. - Ephesians 5:11
|