Religious Freedom Under Attack By the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

5/22/2014

This week a federal judge threw out a 10 year old constitutional amendment, approved by the people of Oregon, banning same-sex marriage. A gleeful ELCA bishop, Dave Brauer-Rieke, went to the newspaper to proclaim his support for the federal judge's action. Bishop Brauer-Rieke of the Oregon Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, in an obvious attempt to draw in new parishioners and money to the crumbling denomination, writes, “My church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S., has always and unwaveringly supported civil rights for all people. This includes individuals who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender . . . This past weekend, our Assembly of Oregon congregations overwhelmingly affirmed the freedom to marry for same-gender couples in Oregon. Thank you, Judge McShane, for doing the right thing.”

Bishop Brauer-Rieke than writes that the “Assembly of Oregon Lutherans also passed a resolution 'to stand in opposition to any and all attempts to legalize discrimination in the name of religious freedom.'" In other words, if you are a Christian business person, the ELCA synod rejects your right to refuse to participate in a gay wedding or to refuse to hire a transsexual.

Bishop Brauer-Rieke writes, “In the public realm, Christians do not pick and choose.” (read here)

Thank you, Bishop and the Oregon Synod, for letting us know that your denomination stands against and is leading the charge against the religious rights of Bible-believing Christians.

6 Comments

Didaskalos link

5/22/2014 04:44:58 am

Another ELCA clerical wolf heard from. A Luther Seminary graduate. (Could an ELCA pastor-to-be major in Apostasy at Luther Sem three decades ago, or is the denomination's craven capitulation to the world a more recent phenomenon?)

Mercifully, God still has a faithful remnant supplying antidotes to ELCA leaders' toxins.

"What assertive homosexuality wants of Christianity is something it can never have. The movement for rights it claims to have been denied by traditionalist societies is not the deepest part of its quest, which is for approval by those who regard it as sinful -- which is at root approval by God. It cannot place high value on the approbation of "welcoming" churches, for it understands perfectly well that liberal religion, with its vaunted inclusivism, has no more moral authority to gratify it in this regard than a prostitute has to absolve her patrons. So the public homosexual is in the impossible situation of seeking approval in places where he can only find forgiveness, among those who are obliged to tell him, "It is written. . . ."

"This insistence fixes him in frustration and anger against those who hold to biblical religion, and may be relied upon to assure development of justifications for the punishment of the illiberal religions wherever homosexualism wins the power to do it. Attempts to incarnate itself in society can only be destructive to its religious enemies. It must be firmly opposed by those who do not wish it to do as it will in their culture, their governments, their schools, and their homes."

-- S. M. Hutchens (writing in the November-December 2011 issue of Touchstone Magazine: A Journal of Mere Christianity -- http://www.touchstonemag.com/archives/issue.php?id=165

ALLEN ANDERSON

5/23/2014 07:06:58 am

AMEN!!!!

Aaron Turner

5/23/2014 09:04:37 am

To declare that the constitution is unconstitutional is nonsense. The ELCA applauds such abuses by activist judges: it is working AGAINST a stable constitutional government. I don't see how ELCA parishioners can blithely go on supporting their church, thinking it is working for "justice."

sad pdx

5/24/2014 08:21:25 pm

Well he got what he wanted. Anyone who disagrees with Brauer-Rieke on his hobby horse (or his wife's equally creepy obsession with euthanasia and abortion) gets unceremoniously bullied into either silence or disappearance in the synod. I left, and it broke my heart. He sneers and he pontificates and he uses the cross as a mere prop for his political grandstanding and browbeating of anyone who disagrees. "Bound conscience" never stood a chance in his synod. He marches in the Pride parade right next to men advertising a "bath house." As far as I can tell, almost every pastor in the synod is on his side. I guess they would have to be. There was nowhere to go, so I am no longer a Lutheran. I took my fair share of rudeness and abuse on the way out. I'm sure he'd sneer "good riddance."

Jeff H.

5/26/2014 09:00:18 am

Liberals say the equal protections clause of the 14th amendment to the U.S. constitution requires all the states to have same-sex marraige. That claim is idiotic on the face of it. The 14th amendment was ratified in 1868. No one even dreamed up the idea of same-sex marraige until 15 years ago.

Tim

6/23/2014 11:54:16 am

The liberals' assertion is that same-sex unions (which are necessarily childless) are constitutionally entitled to the same monetary advantages as married couples who are undertaking the financial burden of parenthood. But "the equal protection of the laws" does not mean equal benefits. If it did, the whole concept of the welfare state would collapse. Young people would be entitled to retirement benefits; millionaires would be entitled to food stamps, and so on.

Of course, ELCA leaders never bother to think their ideas through before they lobby lawmakers.

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Religious Freedom Under Attack By the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America

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Dan Skogen

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