Universalism Is Now the Standard Teaching and Truth in the ELCA

3/11/2014

Universalism, the belief that all people will be saved, is prevalent in the ELCA. But an article in the ELCA's official publication, The Lutheran, shows us that universalism has gone from “a” belief, to “the” belief of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA has announced to its readers that the universalism is the doctrine the denomination is now built on.

The ELCA article “Who Gets Saved?” is written by pastor Peter W. Marty and he writes:

“No religion possesses the whole truth on God.”

"But Jesus is universal Lord and Savior, not just my personal Lord and Savior. He saves the whole world, and this doesn’t happen through tribal membership."

“We ought to think of the work of Jesus Christ as cosmic in scope. He is the light of the world, not merely the light of the Christian community. He refuses to be co-opted by any culture or possessed by any religion. He disassembles every category that followers want to erect for believing he is exclusive to their claims. In short, Jesus shuns domestication, giving no right for one group to say to another: 'My God is better than your God.'”

“'And I, when I am lifted up from the earth,' says Jesus of his pending death and resurrection, 'will draw all people to myself' (John 12:32). Not some people. Not Christian people. All people.”

“I happen to have been born in Chicago into a Christian family. I didn’t ask to be born into this family that practiced the Christian faith; I just was. Someone else was born in Delhi, India, on the same day I was born, but into a Hindu family. That kid didn’t ask to be born into his Hindu-practicing family; he just was. Surely we cannot claim that God privileges certain ones of us with an eternal home because of our birthplace or cultural background. Nor would we want to argue that we receive a club access card because we uttered a theological formula about Jesus.” (read article here)

Lutheran Pastor Tom Brock responded to The Lutheran article on Facebook saying, “If anyone doubts that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America pushes the heresy of universalism--the teaching that all people will be saved whether they believe in Jesus or not--see the article...from The Lutheran, the ELCA's official magazine. Tragic what the writer does with John 14:6, turning the teaching of Jesus on its ear. The author's point is that you don't really need faith in Christ to be saved. John 14:6, Acts 4:12 and 16:31 teach otherwise. No wonder the number of missionaries the ELCA sends out has gone down. If everyone is saved, no need to send missionaries.”

The other day a came across another ELCA pastor publicly proclaiming universalism. ELCA pastor Scot Ruffatto in Mukwonago, Wisconsin (former missionary of the ELCA to the Central African Republic) writes this on his church's blog:

“I interpret that the God revealed through Jesus Christ is saving EVERYONE no matter what.”

“Is it too radical to say that all people are saved through Christ whether they believe in him or not? Why should we care anyway? Wouldn’t it be great if the church proclaimed that everyone is going to heaven so stop worrying about it?” (read here)

“The only difference between 'us' and 'them' is that we are really fortunate to have taken the red pill and now we know the truth. The truth that all are loved, forgiven, empowered to endure this sometimes crummy world. Our job, then, is simply to tell everyone that they too can have that peace and everlasting life in Jesus. And if they don’t believe in Jesus it’s not that they go to hell, it’s simply that they are going to miss out on the fulness of life now.” (read here)

People will be going to hell for eternity because the ELCA has embraced the teaching of universalism and as a result are not proclaiming the Truth of God's Word which says, "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.” - John 3:16-18

See more documentation of the ELCA teaching universalism. (here and here)

4 Comments

John Klingler

3/12/2014 10:39:26 pm

I expect pastors to be smarter than this. The whole concept of salvation is Judeo-Christian. It does not exist in other religions. Therefore salvation is real only to those with Judeo-Christian faith. All other arguements about who is saved is mute. I don't know whether everyone will "go to heaven". All I know is that the Bible and our doctrine state that those with faith in the Trinity will be saved.

Didaskalos link

3/13/2014 03:48:05 am

Gene Edward Veith (author of 18 books on Christianity and culture; provost and professor of literature at Patrick Henry College) has written in a blog entry entitled “When the church 'doesn’t really stand for anything,’”: "Newsweek has an article about how Protestantism is dwindling in the land of Luther. It shows, I think, the futility of the liberal theology that the state church has embraced, the notion that in order to reach people you need to change your teachings so as to conform to the dominant culture. That’s a formula for making the church irrelevant.”

In its squishy capitulation to an imperious secular culture, the ELCA has declined as precipitously as European and Scandinavian Lutheran churches. What a German woman said of her state Lutheran church applies equally to the submissive ELCA: “I go to a service every now and then, but the church doesn’t have a role in my life,” she said. “It doesn’t really stand for anything anymore. I could just as well join Greenpeace.”

Terry Barbee

3/14/2014 12:56:15 pm

If universalism is true then what is the need for the church? What is the reason to follow anyone or anything?

The Rev. George Rahn

3/15/2014 10:50:52 am

"The joy of the Christian life is that we don’t have to figure out every saving move of God’s. Christ is bigger than our imagination: “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways” (Romans 11:33). Our job is to trust our lives to Christ, and testify to the beauty that comes with loving him."
The quote above from Pr. Marty tends to read Romans 11 from a Christological sense alone. But the intent of St. Paul's statements in the latter part of Romans 11 speaks toward the general issue of the hidden God of Luther. The confusion in Marty's statements here is to make Christ's work all of what the hidden God does in terms of salvation. From St. Paul's perspective Christ's death on the cross was for the whole world, yes. But to each of those who do not receive the promised mercy (Melanchthon) there is not salvation but condemnation and presumably, destruction. Not to state the full witness is to distort both God's law as well as God's promises in terms of how one gets saved.

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Universalism Is Now the Standard Teaching and Truth in the ELCA

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