Two ELCA Pastors' Warped View of God and Abortion

5/25/2018

A recent article titled, “Can I Get An Abortion If I'm Religious?” features a number of religious figures in the United States who share their thoughts with the author, and two are pastors in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

ELCA Pastor Paul Eldred, who is "married" to a man, answered,

"In my reading, the Gospel of Luke tells us that Mary consented to becoming the mother of Jesus (Luke 1:38)…If God Gave Mary that option, why wouldn't we think that all women should have the choice to become a mother or not?"

Following that mind-blowingly ludicrous response

from the ELCA pastor, the author of the article continued, “For Eldred, the creation story in Genesis 1 reveals another biblical argument for access to comprehensive reproductive health care, abortion included. ‘We are told that God created humanity in God's own image,’ he says. ‘We believe this makes every human body holy and that every body bears divine image — this certainly includes the full expression of women's bodies, including trans, non-binary, etc. No one should be able to make choices about someone else's holy and divine body without their consent. God wants our bodies to be healthy, and that means that our choices on healthcare should be our own and are between us, our doctor, and our God.’"

Does everyone see the absurdity of that statement? What about the unborn baby’s body, Rev. Eldred? It is okay to destroy their “holy” body? I thought you said “No one should be able to make choices about someone else's holy and divine body…”

The second ELCA leader interviewed was Pastor Anna Ernst from Elmhurst, Illinois. She is quoted saying,

"I am concerned for the rights of all women. We cannot go back to clothes hangers and knitting needles. That is not life-giving, and I believe that is not what God wants," (see article here).

God does not want babies to be killed. This article gives us an example of the depravity of ELCA leadership and how far the denomination has gone since its founding.

To learn more about the ELCA and its leadership's position on abortion see here and here (scroll down).

7 Comments

Didaskalos link

5/26/2018 04:28:35 am

It hardly bears repeating at this point, but the ELCA can "reliably" be counted on to take positions directly antithetical to God's Word and confessional Lutheranism.

Easily the most diabolical, cold-blooded ELCA apostasy is that of the anytime, any-reason abortion funding by the ELCA itself and the abortion-excusing, abortion-funding activism of ELCA pastors and leaders.

Witness the ELCA's most lionized pastor and 2018 Youth Gathering speaker Nadia Bolz-Weber, who tweeted last December: "It's #ColoradoGivesDay ! I'm supporting Colorado Christian Services (adoption agency) and Planned Parenthood and the Colorado Adolescent Maternity Program so women can continue to have ALL the choices."

"ALL the choices” is, of course, the ELCA feminists' Mengelean-morality Abortionspeak.

“Real churches don’t kill babies.” Nadia’s ELCA does. https://www.exposingtheelca.com/exposed-blog/the-elca-health-plan-covers-abortions

Real pastors don’t fund and praise the nation’s biggest abortionist. Nadia Bolz-Weber and her feminism-trumps-God's-Word acolytes do.

* http://www.nadiabolz-weber.com/home/nadia-bolz-weber-supports-planned-parenthood

* https://www.exposingtheelca.com/exposed-blog/elca-love-for-planned-parenthood

Who opposes the ELCA's funding of murder in utero? Start with Martin Luther, Dietrich Bonhoeffer. and the Bible.

Luther: “For those who...do not spare the tender fruit [babies in the womb] are murderers & infanticides.” http://www.lutheransforlife.org/article/abortion-and-the-message-of-the-church-sin-or-salvation

Bonhoeffer: “Destruction in the mother’s womb is a violation of the right to live which God has bestowed upon this nascent life. To raise the question whether we are here concerned already with a human being or not is merely to confuse the issue. The simple fact is that God certainly intended to create a human being and that this nascent human being has been deliberately deprived of his life. And that is nothing but murder.”

"Abortion? Christianity Says No. It Always Has." — https://stream.org/abortion-and-christianity/

"Abortion and the Reformation" -- http://evangelicalsforlife.com/?p=54

Martin Luther's condemnation of fake pastors couldn't apply more to the ELCA's hirelings, who aren't content to privately war against God and His Word. They also feel compelled to drag others into sin with them: "If he leads a wicked life he only injures himself, but if he brings a false message in the place of God's message, he leads astray and injures every one that hears him, and causes idolatry among the people in that they accept lies for the truth, honor men instead of God, and pray to the devil instead of to God."

At this debauched point in its history, the ELCA has no kings but Eros and Moloch.

George in Texas

5/26/2018 12:31:55 pm

Eldred takes a particular and unique situation (Mary and God) and projects it to the general (all women of an time). That is precisely what is NOT the case. Mary's response to the Holy Spirit in the Lukan passage Eldred references is a unique and one-off situation. A general rule cannot be applied to the rest of women. By doing so Eldred de-values the mystery of the Incarnation and thereby misses the point in the narrative of salvation history.

Steve Hedlund

5/31/2018 01:38:40 pm

Correction: Eldred does not take particular situation and project it. He mischaracterizes what went on between the Gabriel and Mary.

The text reads:

...the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. 32 He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, 33 and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.”

34 “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?”

35 The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.

Note: You will conceive and bear a son, you are to call him, he will be great, he will be called the Son of the Most High, the Lord God will give him the throne of his father, he will reign, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, the holy one born to you will be called the Son of God.

These are all declarative statements. Gabriel was there to tell Mary that she had been chosen and what was going down. There is nothing to indicate that he was there to ask if Mary would agree to such a deal. She did acquiesce, but there is no way anyone could read this and come away with the idea that Gabriel was presenting the girl with an option to become the mother of God or not.

So the hypothesis of Eldred's proposition ("If God gave Mary that option") just doesn't stand. And, without a valid hypothesis, the conclusion ("all women should have the choice to become a mother or not") doesn't follow and is completely meaningless.

6/1/2018 03:33:01 am

Yes to this. Even better.

MN reader

5/28/2018 08:46:31 am

Our country has killed more people through Planned Parenthood etc. than Hitler & Stalin destroyed during WWII. Was the murder of millions of Jews and other undesirable people during the Holocaust legal? Since Pro Choice Hitler's health care plan made all the choices it was probably legal but morally bankrupt!

5/29/2018 04:02:14 pm

There are two basic considerations which need to be addressed before even getting into a discussion with either Eldred or Ernst:

1) If “health care” is defined as “means to maintain or restore health,” on what basis does abortion qualify as “health care”? And, if health care means something other than care given to maintain or restore health, what is it? Abortion, certainly abortion at will, has nothing to do with maintaining or restoring health.

2) Assuming all women have rights, and those rights include the right to abort the life of the persons developing in their wombs, what authority stands behind this right? Where does this right come from? If it is merely the authority of the U.S. Supreme Court, then it is a “right” subject to change based on political power. That shouldn’t do for the church of Jesus Christ. If the authority for it is “human rights,” it is merely the formal authority of a 1948 declaration of the United Nations, which is neither universal in fact, adhered to in even substantial part nor given any enforcement mechanisms. Its modern starting point is in early twentieth century secular humanism. If this right comes from some other authority of greater and more permanent power, please, what is it? (Christianity is not so much concerned with individual rights as it is with the duties levied upon us all to respect our neighbors’ lives, marriages, property and reputations and to be neighbors to our neighbors. Any “rights” our neighbors have in that case are entirely dependent upon duties levied upon us by our Creator.) It is specious to speak of “rights” without considering the authority and power that stands behind them.

But, without setting the basis for them, the assumptions of Eldred and Ernst are that abortion is within the definition of “health care” and women have an intrinsic right to abort their children (without any clear or commonly understood appreciation of the authority standing behind this “right” or the power this authority has to enforce it.

Eldred and Ernst, please clarify.

5/30/2018 08:03:07 pm

Yes to Hedlund's direction above. Also under the law there is no such thing as rights without responsibility. (The authority behind that asks for additional clarification from Eldred and the others on this as well). What type of wrath takes place for the woman and how does that manifest itself in the life of the woman who aborts? Scripture is clear that with the law comes the knowledge of sin (see Romans 3). As it is clear from Romans 4 that the law brings wrath...regardless if one does not believe this or not. One's belief or unbelief of these things that occur under the law does not make the law that way for the individual who believes or doesn't believe it to be so. The law is no respecter of persons. for that matter.

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

Two ELCA Pastors' Warped View of God and Abortion

Leave a Reply.

Dan Skogen

Categories

Archives

Home

Share

Exposed Blog

HELP

Contact