Sermon at ELCA Seminary Says Jesus Was 'In Many Ways Queer'

Sermon At ELCA Seminary Says Jesus Was 'in Many Ways Queer'

11/4/2018

The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago (LSTC) is a seminary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). A couple weeks ago, Masters of Divinity student Elle Dowd preached during worship in the school's Augustana Chapel (listen to it here or read it here).

Elle Dowd didn't want us to miss it, as she contacted me a number of times wanting me to read her sermon (and write about, no doubt).

The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago certainly thought highly of it as well, because they promoted it on their Facebook page and linked to the full audio of the sermon.

(Go see the seminary Facebook post here)

Here is Elle Dowd's second tweet seeking my attention:

I can never figure out what sets off @ExposingtheELCA and what they’ll ignore. Tell angry women to organize? Get called out. Preach a sermon in Lstc chapel comparing Jesus to a trans woman of color? Nothing. I thought for sure that’d be a thing because he hates our seminaries □□‍♀️
— elle dowd (@HowNowBrownDowd) October 19, 2018

Below is the type of teaching and preaching future ELCA pastors are digesting (and it has been like this for years).

Lowlights of the sermon:

"Grace and peace are yours from the One who made all genders in Their image. Amen".

"Jesus, a sexual minority himself at the time by virtue of being unmarried and in many ways queer, is telling this story of equality to the religious aristocracy..."

"And in Mark today Jesus just refuses to fall into their trap and stay within their bounds. This is a very queer thing to do as well, to blur lines, subvert hierarchies. Marcella Althaus-Reid says that – in addition to calling Jesus 'God in human drag' – Jesus is queer precisely BECAUSE of his transgressiveness. To be queer is to be transgressive. To break the rules and norms of society."

"And the church, with its queer-antagonistic, white supremacist, and misogynistic interpretations of scripture, has their blood on our hands."

"Creating a permanent criminal underclass is the foundation of mass incarceration and modern day slavery, and the United States Empire – cheered on by our own Religious Aristocracy – delights in setting traps of racism and poverty for the purposes of their own profit."

"In our white supremacist colonial context . . ."

You can read more about this ELCA seminary student here.

ELCA pastor Lura Groen responded to my tweeting this article:

What a powerful sermon! Thanks for publicizing it, so that more people may feel God’s Queer love!
— Lura Groen (@lura_groen) November 6, 2018

And this from ELCA pastor John Sipf:

@ExposingtheELCA
You know, I really should follow you.

You are lifting up so many wonderfully gifted theological minds in the Church today.

Thank you!
— John Sipf (@Pr_JT_Sipf) November 6, 2018

5 Comments

Didaskalos

11/5/2018 05:33:07 am

The ELCA and other pretend-Christian denominations like the Unitarians, Episcopalians, and PCUSA Presbyterians are in the full-time business of creating and demolishing spiritual straw men to spread their soul-damning heresies. These sellout denominations mix a little truth with their own Bible-revising lies and are understandably loved by the world for their "inclusivity."

Let's get the truth out first: God does indeed love all people. Cf. John 3:16 and a host of other verses which attest to that.

Rebutting ELCA lies that will damn people who fall prey to them:

* God's CHILDREN, not simply His creations (whose murder in utero the ELCA cold-bloodedly funds with members' offering dollars), are those who have repented of their sins and turned to Jesus as their Savior. Cf. Mark 1:15, John 1:12, and a host of other verses. Cf. also Martin Luther: "..it is impossible for anyone to be saved without faith. Otherwise every sermon, the gospel, & faith would be vain, false, & deceptive, since the entire gospel makes faith necessary."
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/geneveith/2011/03/luther-and-the-universalism-debate/

* There is a hell, and (contra Bishop Eaton, Nadia, and a host of other ELCA heretical universalists) it's not empty. Cf. Jesus: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life. Whoever rejects the Son will not see life. Instead, the wrath of God remains on him....Unless you believe that I am He [the Messiah, the Savior], you will die in your sins." Cf. also the Apostle Paul and 2,000 years of confessional Christian teaching.

* There are sins that the Bible unmistakably says will lead to damnation for those who "practice" (1 John 3:9 --i.e., willingly give themselves over to) those sins. Cf. 1 Corinthians 6:9-11, Galatians 5:19-21, Revelation 22:15, et al. One of those sins is an ELCA favorite: homosexuality. And, contra ELCA assertions, Jesus did condemn it with all other sexual immorality (Gr. “porneia”) in Mark 7:21. The Greek word covers all “illicit intercourse”: adultery, homosexuality/lesbianism, and fornication (another new favorite sin of the Bolz-Weber/Rasche "Naked & Unashamed" wing of the ELCA).

It's not a small matter that adult ELCA members, notably parents, who remain in the ELCA are putting their kids' and grandkids' souls in eternal peril as the ELCA descends farther into ersatz Lutheranism and ersatz Christianity.

That peril was starkly evident at the Youth Gathering when Nadia Bolz-Weber "employed a blasphemous parody of the set of renunciations that parents or godparents are expected to answer at a baptism: “Do you renounce the devil and all his empty promises?” One renunciation went: “Do you renounce the lie that Queerness is anything other than beauty?” And the youths dutifully chanted back: “I renounce them.” So the crowd was led to reject Christian teaching that homosexual orientation is “objectively disordered” and that acting upon it is sinful. Those who held classic Christian views became purveyors of the devil’s lies." [ https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/10/elca-hits-bottom ]

Give Martin Luther the last word on a denomination that is today's Demas ("For Demas, in love with this present world, has deserted me.."):
"There is no more terrible plague, misfortune...upon earth than a preacher who does not preach God's Word;..ravening wolves in sheeps' clothing, and it would be well if no one ever heard their preaching." http://www.trinitylutheranms.org/MartinLuther/MLSermons/Luke2_1_14.html

John

11/5/2018 05:11:20 pm

Surprise, surprise, Elle Dowd misses the same point that her Presiding Bishop Eaton also missed this month, even though Jesus Himself summarizes it by saying that it's so obvious a child can understand it: (Mark 10:6-9)

"But from the beginning of creation, 'God made them male and female.' 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate."

Eaton denies it in gobbledygook tweets, Dowd denies it in a near-1500 word gobbledygook sermon. Neither one dares to repeat what Jesus actually says. Neither can hear Jesus's words, because they do not hear His voice. They do not hear His voice because they are not His sheep.

If you can hear His voice, you are blessed. Get out, find others, and a Bible-believing pastor, and discover the difference. It makes all the difference, because He makes all the difference.

Marty

11/6/2018 09:46:47 am

All these social justice Lutherans are trying to see who can be the biggest heretic. It’s a race to the bottom.

Rev. T.C. Plexico

11/7/2018 12:05:56 pm

Thanks for keeping senior pastors like me .....ordained 1951
.... Abreast of the church (es) st large, particularly the ELCA.

Herr Hans Wurst

11/8/2018 09:12:31 am

I don't think that such a secular, leftist / activist diatribe in any way qualifies as a sermon, even if embellished with some pseudo-spirituality. Quite unScriptural / unChristian, to say the least. As mentioned above, appears to be a race to the bottom at the expense of the sheep. Most unfortunate is the fact that such wolves will be / are in positions to catechize our young. Food for thought & very sad.

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Sermon At ELCA Seminary Says Jesus Was 'in Many Ways Queer'

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