Latest Living Lutheran magazine: Prayer can include coloring mandalas…and how to be a gay-friendly church

6/11/2018

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

The most recent edition of Living Lutheran, the national magazine of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has an article about “Seeking the Spirit Within”. It states “Prayer can include coloring mandalas, using beads, meditating over a piece of Scripture, walking a labyrinth or repeating a name or phrase.” A mandala is a ritual symbol in Hinduism and Buddhism, representing the universe, which is used for the purpose of meditation and trance induction. So why is the ELCA promoting this? Repeating a name or phrase over and over is also part of Buddhist meditation (think “Om”), but where does Jesus ever teach us to say a word over and over in order to meditate?

This is called syncretism, taking non-Christian practices and beliefs and mixing them together with Christianity. It is what got the ancient Jews in trouble when they tried to mix Baal worship with the worship of Jehovah. The ELCA needs to remember the words of the First Commandment regarding syncretism: Thou shalt have no other gods.

June is gay pride month and Living Lutheran devotes a whole article to ways your church can be gay-friendly. Don’t talk in Sunday school materials about mom and dad since we need to “remember your same-gendered-married couples.” Get a gender-neutral bathroom in your church. Celebrate gender identity and transition (changing one's sex) in your fellow Christians. Don’t say Christian “brothers and sisters” since this excludes non-binary and transgender people.

It appears the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has swallowed the GLBT agenda whole. Living Lutheran no longer allows the conservative view on homosexuality to be even heard.

Sincerely in Christ,

Pastor Tom Brock

5 Comments

Steve Hedlund

6/12/2018 09:57:05 am

Once again (and it's becoming all too common) there is reason to recall and heed Fr. Richard John Neuhaus' warning:

Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed. Some otherwise bright people have indicated their puzzlement with that axiom but it seems to me, well, axiomatic. Orthodoxy, no matter how politely expressed, suggests that there is
a right and a wrong, a true and a false, about things. When orthodoxy is optional, it is admitted under a rule of liberal tolerance that cannot help but be intolerant of talk about right and wrong, true and false. It is therefore a conditional admission, depending upon
orthodoxy’s good behavior. The orthodox may be permitted to believe this or that and to do this or that as a matter of sufferance, allowing them to indulge their inclination, preference, or personal taste. But it is an intolerable violation of the etiquette by which
one is tolerated if one has the effrontery to propose that this or that is normative for others.

George in Texas

6/13/2018 10:54:55 am

When the Christian Gospel takes second or third place behind political and social agenda, the institutional church (here the ELCA and its magazine) becomes superflous on the public scene. The saving merits of Christ for others are silenced and faithful Christians are robbed of their comfort in this Gospel! The ELCA is embarrassed by the scandal and foolishness of Christ's death on the cross for others or it would make its prime mission this Gospel. It would publish this as its unique mission in the public sphere.

6/13/2018 04:46:27 pm

But the ELCA will not preach this Gospel because it is not relevant to its own self-appointed mission to be relevant to American culture. In fact by its public persona the ELCA simply becomes another tool of the political Leftist agenda. That is why many are leaving the ranks of the ELCA for places where they can hear the clear voice of the Christian Gospel and not culturally-flitered messages which substitute for the unique New Testament kerygma (proclamation).

John

6/13/2018 02:50:16 pm

"Gay-friendly" is just a euphemism for "gay-bullied." June is also the month to celebrate the Supreme Court decision that recognizes that it is unconstitutional to dictate others' speech. Bake your own cake. Say mom and dad, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, and celebrate the truth of those terms. And if anyone takes exception to those terms, lovingly point out that exceptions make lousy rules.

Didaskalos link

6/14/2018 07:05:59 am

The Hammer of Pride -- https://stream.org/microsoft-pounds-hammer-pride/

“Pride” means forced subjugation to an ideology that tolerates no dissent. “Pride” is a blunt weapon which society uses to beat down anyone who does not salute.

“Pride” means the deconstruction of the human person, then refashioned into an ambiguous creature made and remade in the image of nothing but one’s feelings.

“Pride” means the denial of children’s genuine needs in favor of the wants of some adults. It demands that the family itself be dismantled and rebuilt according to definitions that satisfy those adults and treat the children as accessories or proofs of validation.

A child with no birth mother? Thank “Pride” for that.

Girls being required to let males compete on their sports teams, dutifully swallowing the unfairness when those boys steal the girls’ medals? “Pride” says that’s equality. Savor that one, feminists.

A teenage boy being irreversibly mutilated so that he’s left permanently sterile and will never have normal sexual function as either a male or a female? Again, that’s the handiwork of “Pride.”

“Pride” is thrilled to chemically and surgically butcher the healthy bodies of still-growing children for its own sake.

I will not celebrate any of this, nor support it."

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Latest Living Lutheran magazine: Prayer can include coloring mandalas…and how to be a gay-friendly church

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