What ELCA Synods Promote

2/24/2014

Check out what these ELCA Synods are bolstering:

The Metropolitan Chicago Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is proudly promoting in their synod newsletter:

the book launch for a book called “Queer Clergy.”

a talk about “Palestinian Solidarity.” (see here)

The Rocky Mountain Synod's newsletter from a few months ago promoted:

A lecture series by Marcus Borg & John Dominic Crossan, two extreme and heretical religious scholars, held at an ELCA church

A gathering of “progressive Lutheran theological thinkers.” (I've never seen an ELCA synod promote a gathering of conservative Lutheran theological thinkers)

An ELCA weekend event critical of Christians who support Israel. (see here)

Three ELCA synods in Illinois and Lutheran Social Services of Illinois promote Lutheran Advocacy—Illinois, a justice ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Among the issues they advocate for are:

an increase in Illinois' minimum wage

a state bill that would expand the sealing of criminals' records to include additional non-violent Class 4, 3, and 2 felonies. (see here)

5 Comments

Chuck Braun

2/25/2014 12:47:12 am

Well, I wouldn't say the Israelis are by any means without sin in their dealings with the Palestinians. But at least they don't strap bombs to children and sacrifice them. And while Israel has tried to work with the Palestinians, the Palestinians still want Israel wiped off the map. As a Lutheran Christian, I don't personally believe Israel will be restored to a new Temple and sacrifices being reinstated upon the return of Christ. But that doesn't give me the right to slander Christians who support Israel, the only democracy in the whole Middle East, people who desire to see the Jewish people come to faith in their Messiah, as do I.

One of the greatest contributions of Lutheranism is the "Two Kingdoms" doctrine which keeps church and state separate. The ELCA is trying to force our government's hand. Things like minimum wages are not the business of the church; they belong in the hands of our government. Isn't the purpose of the Church to be God's instrument in choosing souls for salvation in Christ for the new eternal world to come, not just providing for the physical needs of those in this present world? I'm by no means against feeding and clothing the hungry, both inside and outside the Faith. But neglect for offering the Bread of eternal life to the lost is the price paid when a church decides to spend their time lobbying for left-wing politics.

And why don't Borg and Crossan and their ilk just join the Unitarian Universalist cult of which they are de facto members, and stop calling themselves Christians? Churches who support their Satanic doctrines should just tear down their crosses, throw away their Bibles and hymnals, rip out the pews and put in soup kitchens. And they can all join hands and sing "Imagine there's no Heaven"...

Didaskalos

2/25/2014 11:12:50 am

The ELCA won't imagine there's no heaven. The ELCA likes heaven. It's a kind of liberal Democrat administration writ large and eternal. And everyone, don't you know, is going there. Thus saith the ELCA's favorite anthropomorphized "god," The Ineffable I'm OK, You're OK.

Hell? No way. Too judgmental. Not sufficiently inclusive. It got voted, seminaried, professored, pastored, and sermoned out of existence. It's been tossed down the ELCA Memory Hole.

2/25/2014 09:53:27 am

Comlmenting on Joseph Bottum's new book, An Anxious Age: The Post-Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of America, the editors of the Weekly Standard's "Scrapbook" section seem to have encapsulated the spiritual decrepitude of the ELCA.

["Bottum on Anxious America"] "Hazel Motes, the hyperanxious protagonist of Flannery O’Connor’s great novella Wise Blood, finds himself so bedeviled by the demands of religious belief that he rebels by founding a religion of his own: The Holy Church of Christ Without Christ. The mainline Protestant churches of the twentieth century, says our contributing editor Joseph Bottum, did something similar when the challenges of the secular world proved too much: They abandoned the inconveniences and discomforts of faith and became, instead, secular liberals."

Art Bergman

3/22/2014 09:12:22 am

The Rocky Mountain Synod's newsletter also urged congregations to update their constitutions. Congregations don't have to update their constitutions, but whenever they do, they must adopt all the changes made by the ELCA to the model constitution (that is, all those which are required provisions, indicated by an asterisk). That includes the changes made in 2011 which make it harder to leave the ELCA. See THE LUTHERAN HEDGEHOG, Fall 2011, p. 3.

Dean Olson

10/16/2014 10:45:50 am

It sounds like you conservative Lutherans would be more "at home" in a Missouri Lutheran church. Why rant an rave about a denomination that does not accept or support your conservative views? Find a place that does.

And, the biblical scholars you quote come from an evangelical position, where scripture is literal. I'm no longer Lutheran, but I went through LSTC in the late 60's (part of the first class when it opened) and no one on the faculty was conservative. (I take that back. The school opened the door for some Missouri faculty who left their seminary over their purging. I don't know exactly what they left (or were driven out of), but they were definitely conservative.) Look where they located the seminary, right in the middle of the University of Chicago campus.

Trinity Seminary, outside of Chicago, talks your talk.

Why am I even writing this? Because Dom Crossan happens to be a profound scholar whose focused his time and energy on the life and teachings of Jesus. He's not a literalist, he's not traditional, but he is genuine and fresh and right on the mark with his sense of who Jesus was and is.

I tip my hat to him and have found his work very productive and helpful in focusing our bible studies, especially on the life and teachings of Jesus.

I'm now Quaker and though I've let go of much that is probably still important to Lutherans, the one thing central for me is Jesus, what he said and what he did. And, how that message and ministry is alive and well and still be heard and seen today.

Dean Olson

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.

What ELCA Synods Promote

Leave a Reply.

Dan Skogen

Categories

Archives

Home

Share

Exposed Blog

HELP

Contact