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Join the ELCA in Celebrating the 'Myths' of Jesus' Birth

12/20/2013

7 Comments

 
The ELCA must worship a God that has no power. A God that can not do miracles. A God that has to make up a birth story of His Son to make people believe He is special. A God that can not create a child in the womb of a virgin. That is the powerless, lying god of the ELCA.

Here is what the ELCA and many ELCA leaders are saying about the details of the birth of Christ -


  • “The myths that have grown themselves around the first two chapters of the Gospel of Luke (often conflated awkwardly with the first two chapters of the Gospel of Matthew) have created a narrative that theologically resonates, but realistically falls flat.

    Angels, traveling Magi, virgin births…it’s all hard to swallow as reality, even for the faithful. It’s a story for children’s books.

    And I’d advocate that you need not swallow it all to be Christian.  In fact, it sounds like so much myth mostly because it was written to evoke that kind of thought in the reader and that kind of hope in the reader’s heart.  You, too, are supposed to see that something unusual, epic, of mythical proportions is taking place in the person of Jesus.” - ELCA pastor Timothy Brown, Luther Memorial Church of Chicago. (see here)

  • Rev. Dr. Don Carlson, an Assistant to the Bishop of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod states, “I think that the stories are made up. (I’m retiring at the end of May anyway so don’t waste time with the heresy accusations.) They are myth,” and later he advises, “Tell the old mythic story in a way that that it is heard anew.” (read here)
  • Michael Rinehart, ELCA Bishop of the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, in a recent blog continually casts doubt on the virgin birth and then says, “Whatever the world may think about a literal virgin birth, no one questions that Jesus was adopted, and Joseph was an adoptive parent.” (read here) 
  • Delmer Chilton, former assistant to the bishop of the Southeastern Synod of the ELCA writes about the virgin birth in an article for the ELCA website Living Lutheran saying, "But the important thing here is not the virginity of the mother but the divinity of the child." (read here)
  • A former ELCA seminary teacher recently was reported to say that the virgin birth must be understood metaphorically. (see here)

  • In case you're concerned that I'm just pulling out quotes from a few radical ELCA leaders, note that the ELCA's official website even questioned the “Virgin Birth” in a section intended to reveal the teachings of the denomination. (read here)

  • David Lose, a professor and the director of the Center for Biblical Preaching at Luther Seminary (ELCA) authored an article titled, “Is the Christmas Story trustworthy?”  In the article, Professor Lose writes, “I would argue that . . . the gospel writers undoubtedly play fast and loose with the various stories, sayings, and incidents they inherited. . .”  Lose goes on to say how the gospel writers “craft” their stories and should be viewed “more as artists than as historians.” (read here) 

A Pew Research Poll this week reports that "Roughly three-quarters of adults (73%) say they believe Jesus was born of a virgin.” (read here)

But the people who are suppose to disciple us do not believe what God tells us in the Bible? Something is wrong here folks!

Denying Scripture is not just an Evangelical Lutheran Church in America problem, just look to the ELCA's liberal Lutheran twin to the north. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC) pastor Dawn Hutchings has this to say about the Nativity account,

"For this story is a parable and like all parable’s it represents a truth that cannot be fully expressed in words. Like all good parables the truth is not to be found in the details, but rather in the Spirit of God that breathed life into the parable. " (read here)

Not believing the virgin birth account, Pastor Hutchings speculates that Jesus was the result of Mary being raped. She writes,

“Some say the evidence is clear, if you’re willing to see it. After all there was a large cohort of Roman soldiers encamped near Nazareth.  The people of Nazareth had participated in an uprising against their oppressors and the Roman’s had raided Nazareth in retaliation.  There are numerous Jewish accounts of Roman raids that include details of strategic rapes. Could our young heroine be the victim of such a rape?” (read here)

This Christmas (and beyond) please, please stay clear of these Bible-denying Lutheran denominations.


7 Comments
Craig N
12/22/2013 07:14:56 am

When I was still a elca pastor, I was brought up on charges b/c I was saying that the elca were teaching problematic things. One of the things I highlighted was their refusal to state, for the truth, of what we confess in the Creed's about Jesus' birth.

Reply
Kathy
12/22/2013 10:24:21 am

Craig N, you stood up for the Christian Faith. The ELCA is rejecting both the Scripture and the Creeds.

The Apostles' Creed: "I believe in Jesus Christ... conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary."

The Nicene Creed: "We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ... by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man."

Reply
David Michael Carrillo
12/23/2013 03:47:51 am

Just reading this has made me sick. I used to travel and do ministry among 400 ELCA churches acroos the country. But I never bought into their "open minded thinking".
I simply preached the word. The people loved it, the pastors hated it. The people kept asking why they are never taught the Word in their ELCA churches.
My home church left the ELCA. I continue to travel and speak/sing in the Lutheran church body but no longer for the ELCA since I have become known as a fundamentalist Bible believing Lutheran Pastor and a threat to the pastors who preach pure trash Sunday after Sunday misleading their churches with social issues and social "gospel" yet denying the true Gospel of new life in Jesus Christ.

Reply
Joshua Lucas
12/23/2013 02:30:12 pm

the problem that I see here with the ELCA and the Christmas story is that the ELCA is rejecting the entire divinity of Christ and the virgin birth and the inspiration of Scripture along with the Old Testament fulfillment of the Isaiah promise of the Messiah that was to be born of a virgin. the comment that the ELCA pastor by saying that Mary was raped is absurd. This goes along with the same concept that the ELCA at its core doctrinal stances. SINCE ELCA rejects the resurrection of Christ it also stands to reason that the ELCA Rejects the divinity of Christ. So it is also safe to say that the ELCA is not even a Christian body. I think it would also stand to reason that the person should be willing to witness to any ELCA member and pray that the spirit would convert their heart to the true meaning of Christianity.

Reply
Didaskalos
12/25/2013 02:42:35 am

I’ve said it before: if Martin Luther were alive today, he’d sue the apostate ELCA for misappropriation of his name.

Luther writes:

“. . . we must believe that Christ’s mother was a virgin. The apostle [Paul in Galatians] makes this plain when he declares the Son of God was made of a woman — not of man like other children. He alone among men is born of woman only. . . .

“She [Mary] was selected in her virginity not for her own sake, but for Christ’s sake. He chose to be born of a virgin, that he might be born without sin. A sinless birth was impossible except through the instrumentality of a virgin woman, who was able to conceive and bring forth without the aid of man.

“Such seems to be included in God’s covenant, declaring that all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in the seed of Abraham. From the fact of a blessing being promised, it is evident that men must be under a curse because of their physical birth in sin resulting from Adam. Should this seed of Abraham be a blessing to all, it could not itself be under a curse; therefore, the Savior could not come of Adam’s birth, which is altogether under the curse.

“Further, to verify the testament or covenant of God who cannot lie, Christ must be the natural child of Abraham — his flesh and blood. But to what is such reasoning leading us? Christ is to be a natural child, born of flesh and blood, and yet not to be a child of carnal birth. The inconsistency of the reasoning is removed by the fact that a woman alone, independent of man, was chosen to effect the birth. Thus it was possible for a real, natural child, one truly the seed of Abraham, to be born sinless, of a woman, and productive of abundant blessings. In him, then, mankind, under the curse in consequence of its own sinful birth, may be blessed. Thus, the requirements of God’s covenant are fully met; the carnal birth of Adam with its inordinate desire is avoided, and a physical birth in spiritual manner really effected.”

(“Sunday after Christmas,” Sermons of Martin Luther, "The Church Postils." [Grand Rapids: Baker], vol. 5, pp. 248-50.)

Reply
Richard
1/25/2014 09:06:35 am

speechless....

Reply
Greg Borchert
2/6/2017 01:37:04 pm

Not all who worship and lead in ELCA congregations share this perspective. There are many who believe the Creeds that we confess. I for one believe every word of it.
I've also been a member of Lutheran Church Missouri Synod congregations, spent a year as a member of Chuck Swindoll's Stonebriar Church in Frisco, Texas, and spent close to ten years as part of a large Dallas-area Baptist megachurch. I could point out flaws in theological positions and actions in those churches as well. I don't base my participation in any congregation based strictly on tradition, doctrine and dogma. The ELCA is a melting pot of sorts, a place containing people with a broader range of perspectives that one might think. It is an entry-point and a home for some who might not find a home anywhere else. I trust God to take care of the rest.

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