News and Notes

Martin Luther -

If you are in the ministry and see that you have rascals and knaves, fornicators, adulterers, and robbers in your parish, you must say: “Since this is my duty, I will point out sins to peasants, burghers, and noblemen, and rebuke them for these without paying attention to their complaints when they say: ‘Look here, you are defaming me!’ ” For if I held back, I would make myself guilty of your sin. And why should I go to hell for you? They might retort: “Well, I am not asking you to do this; I am not forcing you.” Yes, this may be true. Still you do not want me to reprove you, and you refuse to let me upbraid you for your vices. You expect me to hold my peace, although I occupy an office which requires me to reprove sin, as the prophet Ezekiel does in chapters three and thirty-three, when he declares: “So you, son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel. If I say to the wicked to turn from his way, and you give him no warning or speak to warn him, to save his life, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity; but his blood I will require at your hand” (Ezek. 3:17 ff.; 33:7 ff.). Do you suppose it is a small matter to burden a ruler with such a responsibility? This burden has been imposed on the poor preachers, as it has on all who hold other offices, such as burgomasters, princes, and government officials. They should not keep silence in the presence of sin; nor should they themselves sin. For if I see adultery or other sins in people and neglect to take the sinners to task, God will visit their sins on me. We members of the secular and of the ecclesiastical realm have been ordered to punish wrongdoing. But no one does so. What is going to become of you, great kings and teachers in the church, who hear and see so much crime and sin but hush it up and do not punish it? Thus many people go to hell for the sins of others.

I read this quote from Martin Luther in a blog titled “Preachers Who Are in Hell For Other People's Sins: The Real Cost of Remaining Silent in the Face of Sin & Heresy.” Please check it out here.

---

I need your help. I will be writing a blog in the coming weeks addressing leaders in the ELCA teaching that the virgin birth and other events surrounding Christ's birth are myths. I also will be writing a blog about leaders in the ELCA teaching that hell and Satan are not real. If you have come across articles, blogs, etc. of ELCA pastors, teachers, seminary professors or bishops teaching these things please send the information and the links to me so I can include them in my research. Thank you!

---

2014 is drawing near, what better time for a new motto for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The current ELCA motto is "God's Work. Our Hands." Post some of your suggestions for a new ELCA motto. Here are some of mine:

• Sin Big, Sin Often, Deny It's Sin

• All Will Be Saved So Believe Anything

• Rejecting God's Word For 26 Years

• Bringing Back Goddess Worship
  

• We Encourage All Sinful Choices