The ELCA Church and the Orlando Massacre

6/14/2016

Updated

Last Sunday a Muslim terrorist killed more than four dozen innocent people in Orlando, Florida and injured 54 others. Rightfully, many ELCA leaders respond to the attack with sorrow and prayers, but some of what they said should infuriate you.

ELCA pastor Heidi Neumark writes the following:

Pastor Tom Brock (of pastorsstudy.org) shared his thoughts on pastor Neumark’s comments saying, “If I understand her right, this ELCA Lutheran pastor is saying that we better say homosexual behavior is OK, or you are helping murder people. The opposite is true. By telling people homosexual behavior is OK, we are helping them go to a tragic eternity (I Corinthians 6:9-11).”

ELCA pastor Ángel Marrero blames Christians and Jews in an article he wrote for the Huffington Post saying, “this isn’t simply ‘extremist Islam’, as some would like to paint it. This comes out of centuries of many religious traditions systematically demonizing and dehumanizing LGBTQ individuals. This hatred isn’t out of nowhere. It is in parts of Islam, yes, but it is within parts of Christianity and Judaism, as well.
Facing such a reality, I feel I must apologize for the complicity and silence of the Church. I am sorry for the pain our sinful indifference and self-righteousness has caused, and continues to cause, throughout the world." (see here)

Bishop Jim Hazelwood of the ELCA's New England Synod wrote a letter in response to the massacre going into great detail of his desire for gun control. He also writes about his concern for "our Muslim brothers and sisters." (see here) He then jumps the shark with this accusation:

Thanks you @BishopHazelwood, @NESynod, @ELCA, for your words in support of LGBTQ people https://t.co/qpDCtu6FqJ pic.twitter.com/JqBx1Eb5QW
— ReconcilingWorks (@ReconcilingWrks) June 14, 2016

Much like the liberal media many ELCA leaders are:

1. calling for stricter gun control in America and
2. can't seem to understand the connection almost all the terrorism happening in the world has with the religion of Islam.

Bishop David B. Zellmer of the ELCA's South Dakota Synod said, “There is no place among us for words and actions that disparage the Islamic faith…This act of terror and actions like it are carried out by people who have taken a world religion and perverted it to their own evil purposes – not unlike others have done with Christianity in past centuries.” (see here)

Bishop Robert G. Schaefer of the ELCA's Florida-Bahamas Synod writes, “There are deeper issues here. Church, it’s time to be clear about honoring and speaking up for...reasonable gun control in this country.” (see here)

The ELCA's Southwest California Synod sent out an email saying, "I would also invite you to rechannel whatever anger and frustration you might be feeling into positive action. Such violence effects everyone, and motivations include terrorism, hatred of various groups, and mental health issues, all of which are often interrelated. But along with our task force, I am devoted to putting a stop to this carnage by the advocacy of stricter, common sense gun laws.

If you feel called to share in this endeavor, we recommend that you get involved with a movement (such as Everytown for Gun Safety, Women Against Gun Violence, The Brady Campaign, or our own joint task force). Meanwhile, know that the SWCA Synod Gun Violence Prevention Task Force will be reconvening this week with a renewed commitment to end the kind of tragedy we saw in Orlando so that we all might live in safety and in peace." (see here)

Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, Elizabeth A. Eaton tweeted this:

We are killing ourselves. All are created in God's image. We are LGBTQ. We are Muslims whose faith has been cooped by hate. God have mercy.
— Bishop Eaton (@ELCABishopEaton) June 12, 2016

ELCA Bishop Timothy Smith of the North Carolina Synod posted this on his Facebook page (be sure to read his comments at the end):

The ELCA's Southeastern Pennsylvania Synod (SEPA) shared a prayer on their Facebook page that included this:
"We pray for renewed action and perseverance in reforming our American gun laws, especially the sale of automatic weapons." (see here)

Dr. Samuel Torvend, Professor of Religion at the ELCA's Pacific Lutheran University writes, "The massacre of innocents in Orlando prompts us to pray for those who grieve, to resist homophobia and Islamophobia, and to work diligently for an end to the easy purchase of deadly weapons." - Quote posted on PLU's Facebook page. (see here)

Bishop Patricia Lull of the ELCA's Saint Paul Area Synod comments "I invite your prayers for the family and friends of those killed or injured, for the Muslim community, which repudiates this act of hatred and violence, and for all who work to curtail gun violence. We also pray for colleagues in the Florida-Bahamas Synod, ELCA, who are offering pastoral care to those involved in this tragedy. (see here)

My, my. The opportunists are out in full force.

7 Comments

Didaskalos link

6/14/2016 06:48:17 pm

ELCA pastor Neumark should have one urgent concern: getting the ELCA to stop its pretense of being Lutheran and to drop the "L" from its name. Much of what Martin Luther preached is viscerally despised by today's ELCA.

Now as in Luther's day, "lives hang in the balance." But as a godly, genuine shepherd of those lives, Martin Luther had no "slow, drawn-out" deliberation about condemning a Biblically proscribed sin that, unrepented of, leads to eternal damnation: "the heinous conduct of the people of Sodom ” [is] “extraordinary, inasmuch as they departed from the natural passion and longing of the male for the female, which is implanted into nature by God, and desired what is altogether contrary to nature. Whence comes this perversity? Undoubtedly from Satan, who after people have once turned away from the fear of God, so powerfully suppresses nature that he blots out the natural desire and stirs up a desire that is contrary to nature." (Commentary on Genesis, Luther’s Works, Vol. 3, page 255)

Before it caved in the to the world, the ELCA used to have a Biblical stance on marriage and homosexuality: Resolution CB93.10.25 of the ELCA Conference of Bishops (October 1993): “We...recognize that there is basis neither in Scripture nor tradition for the establishment of an official ceremony by this church for the blessing of a homosexual relationship. We, therefore, do not approve such a ceremony as an official action of this church’s ministry.”

That was then; this is now. When your ersatz-Lutheran denomination keeps kowtowing to the world's latest demands and rewriting Scripture at any number of its church-wide conventions, there's no telling what depths you can plumb.

And as long as the ELCA continues to preach widely the no-hell, everyone-goes-to-heaven, anti-Biblical doctrine of universalism, it's in no way evangelical, as Dan has often documented. Time to drop the "E" also.

Think of the waves of relief that would wash over ELCA pastors and bishops and seminary professors to be free of those chafing, ill-fitting titles "evangelical" and "Lutheran."

Pete

6/14/2016 11:27:59 pm

I too mourn for the lost and regardless of the beliefs or lifestyles or religious affiliation or belief hate is never the answer.

While I'm saddened I read the letter from the ELCA bishop.

She cites a bible verse... But leaves out the 2nd part saying we were created male and female. Certainly this is not by accident?

Genesis 1:27New International Version (NIV)

27 So God created mankind in his own image,
in the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.

Brad Parkman

6/15/2016 08:57:38 am

It sounds like ELCA pastors are using talking points from the Obama administration, which wants to portray the Orlando massacre as the act of a lone wolf who hated gays. Never mind that Omar Mateen was a Muslim, and that on the day of the attack he posted online "Taste the ISIS vengeance," and that he pledged allegiance to ISIS in his 911 call to the police. Never mind that ISIS claims responsibility for the attack, and that ISIS Radio called Mateen "a soldier of the caliphate in America." Never mind that Mateen had cased Disney World as a possible target before deciding on the Pulse Nightclub.

And above all, ignore the fact that the Koran prescribes death for all non-Muslims:
(Koran 4:50) "O ye to whom the Scriptures have been given! believe in what we have sent down confirmatory of the Scripture which is in your hands, ere we efface your features, and twist your head round backward, or curse you as we cursed the Sabbath-breakers: and the command of God was carried into effect."
(4:89) "They desire that ye should be infidels as they are infidels, and that ye should be alike. Take therefore none of them for friends, till they have fled their homes for the cause of God. If they turn back, then seize them, and slay them wherever ye find them; but take none of them as friends or helpers."
(5:33) "Those who wage war against God and His Messenger [i.e., Mohammed] and strive to spread corruption in the land should be punished by death, crucifixion, the amputation of an alternate hand and foot, or banishment from the land."
(8:12-13) "Thy Lord spake unto the angels, 'I will be with you: therefore stablish ye the faithful. I will cast a dread into the hearts of the infidels.' Strike off their heads then, and strike off from them every finger-tip. This, because they have opposed God and His Apostle."
(8:39-40) "Say to the infidels: If they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven them; but if they return to it, they have already before them the doom of the ancients! Fight then against them till strife be at an end, and the religion be all of it God's."
(9:5) "When the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other gods with God wherever ye shall find them; and seize them, besiege them, and lay wait for them with every kind of ambush: but if they shall convert, and observe prayer, and pay the obligatory alms, then let them go their way."
(9:29) "Make war upon such of those to whom the Scriptures have been given as believe not in God, or in the last day, and who forbid not that which God and His Apostle [i.e., Mohammed] have forbidden, and who profess not the profession of the truth, until they pay tribute out of hand, and they be humbled."
(9:124) "Believers! wage war against such of the infidels as are your neighbors, and let them find you rigorous."
(47:37) "Be not fainthearted then; and invite not the infidels to peace when ye have the upper hand."

The Koran even prescribes death for MUSLIMS who speak against Mohammed:
(33:36, 60-61) "When God and His Messenger have decided on a matter that concerns them, it is not fitting for any believing man or woman to claim freedom of choice in that matter: whoever disobeys God and His Messenger is far astray.... If the hypocrites, the sick at heart, and those who spread lies in the city do not desist, We shall rouse you, Prophet, against them, and then they will only be your neighbors in this city for a short while. They will be rejected. Wherever they are found, they will be arrested and put to death. This has been God's practice with those who went before. You will find no change in God's practices."

Andrew

6/15/2016 09:50:53 am

As Nabeel Qureshi wrote on the Gospel Coalition blog:

“If you find anyone doing as Lot’s people did, kill the one who does it, and the one to whom it is done” (Sunan Abu Daud 4447).

That is Islam.

And it wasn't an AR-15. It was a Sig Sauer .223. Quibble, I suppose, it's still an important fact.

Steven E Herman

6/15/2016 09:34:48 pm

what a bunch of ridiculous dribble. Biblical christians reject behavior, not people. Do you really think a Koran following jihadist is motivated by what a christian (infidel) thinks? Get a grip.

John

6/15/2016 09:40:00 pm

These ELCA propagandists hold Christians responsible for the acts of a Muslim terrorist. If the ELCA lets a Muslim terrorist get away with 50-fold murder of their LGBTQ darlings, they will let Muslims get away with anything. And blame Christians and Jews for everything.
Here's how to boycott them:
1. Let them know you are boycotting them, and why. Say it respectfully but firmly. Do not invite a discussion, for actions speak louder than words.
2. Send your boycott notice(s) to as many ELCA congregations and affiliates as you can find. Postcards work very well for this, and are cost-effective. If you or your congregation participates in Thrivent, this would also be a very appropriate addressee.
3. Keep the message simple. "Due to the ELCA's persistent defamation of Christians and Jews, I/we are boycotting all of your ELCA-sponsored activities."
4. Lutherfest season is coming up -- send those postcards to your local Thrivent chapter!

Aaron

6/17/2016 08:48:40 am

Conservative Christians believe homosexuality is a sin. Almost no Christians go so far as to propose enacting the death penalty for homosexuality according to the law of Moses [1]. The Book of Concord does not go that far: "Civil government deals with other things than the Gospel does. Civil rulers do not defend minds, but bodies and bodily things against obvious injuries. They restrain people with the sword and physical punishment in order to preserve civil justice and peace" [2]. Or again: "[The Gospel] commands that we obey present laws, whether they have been framed by heathens or by others. It commands that in this obedience we should exercise love. Carlstadt was crazy to impose on us Moses' judicial laws" [3]. And only a lunatic would condone taking the law into one's own hands. But none of this is especially relevant to the massacre in Orlando. Omar Mateen was motivated by radical Islam, not by Christianity. And the fact that he had been casing Disney World as a potential target proves that he killed his victims merely because they were infidels, not because they were homosexuals.

[1] Lev. 20:13
[2] Augsburg Confession, Article 28, Section 11. http://www.bookofconcord.org/augsburgconfession.php
[3] Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Article 16, Section 55 (some BC editions, section 3) http://www.bookofconcord.org/defense_15_politicalorder.php

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The ELCA Church and the Orlando Massacre

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