Who Will You Trust? God's Word or the ELCA?

6/5/2023

What does the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America believe about the Bible?
We can tell by what they say, by what they promote, by what they deny, by what they preach. (I document this throughout this website)

This month the ELCA's magazine, Living Lutheran, published an article titled "The Story Behind the Story: Finding Greater Truths Behind Bible Tales". (Read here) As you read this article you will see the ELCA cast doubt on the Bible's account of historical events such as the Biblical six-day creation account, the miraculous parting the Red Sea, David fighting and killing Goliath, and Jesus walking on water.

Here are some quotes from the ELCA article:

- (Talking about the Biblical creation account and other culture's creation stories) "I can appreciate the beauty and poetry of these mythical details without taking them literally— and still worship the glorious Force that created the universe in ways I still don’t understand."

- "Many ancient civilizations had flood stories similar to the Genesis story of Noah’s ark, but that doesn’t take away from the core message: God loves us and will not let us be extinguished. God’s word, God’s promise of protection, can be trusted. So in a profound way that story is true."

- "Even the dramatic encounter between the little shepherd boy David and the giant Philistine Goliath may be misunderstood, says author Malcolm Gladwell. If it did actually occur..."

- "Jesus turning water into wine and walking on the sea? Modern physicists hoping to prove or disprove the first story have written scholarly papers breaking down the chemical elements of both wine and H2O. Critics of the second posit that Jesus might have been treading on a thin sheet of ice. To me both miracles beautifully symbolize Jesus’ care for us, however they came to be."

- "What Bible stories do you question? Which have strained credulity and even been stumbling blocks to belief? Why not let go of a desire to force these old, old stories into a rigid mold they may never have been meant to fit?"

Pastor Tom Brock writes this about the ELCA article, "But in Living Lutheran magazine, a person’s subjective opinion about what may or may not have happened in the Bible trumps the Bible’s claim to historical accuracy." (See here)

The Dean of Students and professor at an ELCA seminary told me personally that not one ELCA seminary professor believes Adam and Eve were real people.

When the ELCA chose this article for publication, they validated it. This is a teaching that is embraced by the denomination.

Denial of the Truth of God's Word is the root of the the problem, the source of evil, that has made the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America what it is today. It is a faux Christian church that embraces evil, that cast doubt on what God says, much like Satan did in Scripture.

6 Comments

Rebecca

6/5/2023 02:56:34 pm

I am in the Phoenix area and I have noticed for quite some time that elca churches no longer proclaim the elca synod on their signs. So many of the people are God-fearing yet they don't know the synod has departed from Truth and the Truth.
I don't think they read the Living Lutheran or they would know the facts of synod leadership. I love the Word of God and it hurts me deeply to know how they twist and rewrite it to please themselves.

Born again

6/5/2023 04:05:11 pm

Never ever trust the woke, leftist ELCA. Put all of your trust in Jesus, the triumvirate, and the Bible.

Didaskalos

6/8/2023 06:04:29 am

A new book well worth reading:

*Woke Jesus: The False Messiah Destroying Christianity* by Lucas Miles
— https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Jesus-Messiah-Destroying-Christianity/dp/1630062510

“To demonstrate how far we’ve truly fallen, a national survey by Gallup found that only 24 percent of Americans now believe that scripture is “the actual word of God, and is to be taken literally, word for word,” a record low based on 40 years of polling research. Perhaps even more concerning is the largest subset of Christians who, according to the same poll, believe the Bible is “inspired by God, but shouldn’t all be taken literally.”

While this may sound like a win, this downgraded view of the Bible reveals how Progressive Christianity has gained such a strong foothold over the last decade. While a non-literal view of a seven-day creation or whether Jonah was really swallowed by a whale may not seem like a great threat to orthodoxy, this diminished view of scripture exposes the real cancer—a distrust in God. Reminiscent of Eden, the question looming within the ethos of the Postmodern church, and arguably all of humanity, is: “Did God really say . . . ?” Beginning with this seed of doubt, scriptures are scrutinized, doctrines are dismantled, and moral boundaries are moved until what remains can hardly be called “Christian.”

The resulting distilled faith goes by many names, including “the Christian Left,” “Progressive Christianity,” or “Woke Christianity.” It abandons traditional biblical interpretations regarding marriage, gender, racial equality, justice, original sin, heaven and hell and salvation, and replaces them within a new fabricated morality, built around political correctness, cancel culture, hedonistic values, obsession with public health, allegiance to the Leftist state, universalism, and virtue signaling.”

Didaskalos link

6/5/2023 06:18:08 pm

Let's see. Jesus testified to the historical realities of Adam and Eve, Noah and the flood, and Jonah and the great fish. But the Church That Knows Better Than Jesus, aka the ELCA, quails at the specter of the woke world's disapproval, so of course it treats actual biblical people and events as colorful myths.

Caleb Knox writes about the moralistic therapeutic deism of today's milksop heretics:

". . .I suspect that most doctrinal errors of today are not the product of scholarly errors, but mindlessness. They are not presented in a summa or treatise; they instead bypass both the speaker and listener in vague platitudes and slogans. This ambiguity is their amnesty. Rather than fight on the battlefield in daylight, with clear lines, they sneak into congregations quietly. The Trojan Horse is filled with lies that are hidden until they enter and burn the city.

"Church teaching is becoming less rigorous, less zealous, and less distinct. Messages now slide toward a more general mean, bound together by vague clichés that neither elevate nor disturb. We are led astray, not by persuasion, but by telling us what we already know and keeping us where we presently are. I do not fear the strength of these orations but their simplicity, not their power but their pusillanimity. It is vague moralisms, not strong, developed doctrines that the Church must guard against. Such heresies may be less clear, but they are not less dangerous."

-- https://juicyecumenism.com/2022/06/16/subtle-modern-heresies/

Quentin Jones

6/6/2023 06:38:59 pm

Dating back to its predecessor bodies, the ELCA has held to a quatenus view of both the Book of Concord and Scripture for centuries. For all but one year (1992, I believe) of its existence, the mainline body has lost both membership and congregations.
A 2019 (note the year) study by Its own Office or Planning, Research and Evaluation has its membership below 1,000,000 by 2040 at the latest. (cf. Zchelle, Dwight. "Will the WLCA be Gone in 30 Years?" faithlead.org, 9/5/2019.) Hundreds of congregations will close as well.
If you live by quatenus, you die by quatenus.

6/6/2023 06:52:11 pm

P. S. I pray for those Confessional Lutherans and Evangelical Catholics who insist they can help turn the ELCA back to the truth and therefore stay in that church body, that they realize the futility of this stance and seek out more confessional Lutheran affiliations.

I also pray for the mainline progressives/liberals (the seeming majority group in the ELCA) who don't seem to see (or seem to ignore) the error on their church's teachings, that they will see the error of the church body's teaching and likewise seek out more confessional Lutheran bodies with which to affiliate.

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Who Will You Trust? God's Word or the ELCA?

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Dan Skogen

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