Women of the ELCA Links Christ's Death and Resurrection to LGBT Community

3/6/2013

Are you involved with Women of the ELCA? Did you know that this organization is a vocal supporter of homosexuality? If not, prepare to be stunned. Last week, Women of the ELCA posted a comment on its Facebook page which associates Christ's arrest and crucifixion to gay rights. The comment said:

“Many of you know Mary Button for the resources she's written for Women of the ELCA or articles for Cafe. You also might remember art that Mary created last year during Lent that she shared widely. Mary's done it again, creating Stations of the Cross that depict the struggle of the LGBT community in the 20th and 21st centuries. Mary offers this art for your Lenten journey.” (here is Women of the ELCA's facebook page. You will have to scroll down the page to find the comment).

The outright support shown by Women of the ELCA for the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) lifestyle included a link to the offensive LGBT Stations of the Cross artwork. (see artwork here)

Next to the piece, “Station 9: Jesus falls the third time” the artist writes:

“1978: Former Supervisor Dan White assassinates openly gay San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk, along with Mayor George Moscone. Milk was the first openly gay politician to be elected to public office in California.”

Associating Christ sacrifice and redemptive work with any human being, not to mention Harvey Milk, is disgraceful. Harvey Milk at age 33 had a sexual relationship with a 16 year old boy, yet Women of the ELCA is promoting this. (see here)

For “Station 11: Crucifixion,” the artist compares the Romans crucifying Christ to psychologists helping those with same-sex attraction to change their desires.

On “Station 12: Jesus dies on the cross,” the artist places these words on her painting, "How many transgenders have (to) die before you get involv(ed)."

Under “Station 13: Jesus is taken down from the cross” the artist associates it with what she calls “homophobic legislative.”

For “Station 14: Jesus is laid in the tomb” the artist writes “Dan Savage and his husband Terry Miller found the It Gets Better Project.” (read about Dan Savage here)

Really!?!? The ELCA has stooped to this? Christ is no advocate for gay rights. Christ is an advocate for all people, including gay people, seeking repentance for their sin and to follow him.

The ELCA leadership has been very vocal over the last three years, telling every member who disagreed with the ELCA endorsement of homosexuality that they would not be affected by it. That is a lie that served their own cause. ELCA synods, ELCA churchwide, ELCA leadership, ELCA publications, ELCA seminaries, ELCA colleges, ELCA Youth Gatherings and Women of the ELCA proclaim and publicize their support of homosexuality. Looking at ELCA churches, some of them perform gay weddings and support civil unions, some do not talk about the issue (their silence equates to acceptance), but relatively few ELCA churches continue to uphold God's Word on the issue; that it is a sin for which people need to repent. Homosexual approval and support rules the denomination. ELCA members are bombarded with it and those members are placing themselves and their children in a position of compromise by staying in ELCA.

12 Comments

Didaskalos link

3/6/2013 03:01:44 am

ELCA leaders are nothing if not credulous. They're still kissing up to foul-mouthed Bully in Chief Dan Savage, of whom columnist Brent Bozell rightly noted: "This man not only hates Christians, he despises Christianity itself." [ http://newsbusters.org/blogs/brent-bozell/2012/06/23/bozell-column-pathetic-dan-savage ]

A number of us have been asking on this website if there are any faithful-remnant ELCA leaders (bishops, pastors, seminary and college professors) who -- as the definition of "FAITHFUL remnant" denotes and demands -- are speaking publicly against the soul-damning heresies with which the ELCA is currently rife.

Apparently, all the Biblically faithful leaders have exited the ELCA. Seeing and hearing no Bible-honoring public testimony from ELCA leaders, we can only conclude that God has written "Ichabod" across the door of this erstwhile Christian denomination. Jesus' words "Behold, your house is left unto you desolate" describe the prevailing spiritual condition of every part of the ELCA.

So for this time of ELCA institutional apostasy, it's the believers who still populate ELCA churches who need our prayers for deliverance and a clear exposition of the faith once for all delivered to the saints that is coming from websites like Exposing the ELCA, Common Sense for a Senseless World, DavidBarnhart.blogspot.com, and several others.

Dan's posts are just another reminder for Bible-believing Christians of all denominations to be praying daily, "Lord, deliver Your children and their money (because it's Your money) out of the ELCA, and lead them to green pastures beside waters of rest. And fulfill your promise to them that 'I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.' "

Dwight

3/6/2013 08:13:42 am

The Evangelican Lutheran Church of America and it's affiliate The Evangelican Lutheran Church of Canada have for some time now been telling congregation members that the efforts to accept gays would not affect them.
Wel, let me know how this tid-bit of information affects your senses as a Bible believing Christ follower.
In my opinion the ELCA & ELCIC have now catapulted themselves toward oblivion. The apostasy and heresies they exude have determined their future as merely a cult.
I am sure that the Ethiopian Lutheran Church, upon learning of this latest fiasco, will feel quite vindicated in their decision to break association with the ELCA and any other gay affirming church.
We continue to pray for all sinners and especially those who sit in the pews of these churches who are unaware of the new doctrine being designed.
Read Matthew 5: 17-20
God Bless you,
Dwight

Steve Shipman link

3/7/2013 10:05:52 am

Well, I am an ELCA pastor and continue to speak out and write on issues of biblical faithfulness. And I know many others who do the same. The best faithful teaching and preaching happens locally in congregations. God does get His Word out, and it will not return unto Him empty, without accomplishing its intended purpose. Just because people have given up on trying to change the ELCA by political action, it does not follow that they are silent or unfaithful. Who knows what the Almighty is doing quietly in thousands of places?

Didaskalos

3/7/2013 01:53:09 pm

Thank you for your efforts to uphold tenets of the Christian faith in the face of their wholesale abandonment by so many ELCA leaders. Do you have a website where we may read articles or blog posts you've written (and hopefully sent to bishops and other leaders)?

As I wrote to another ELCA pastor, two issues are in play: your call to be obedient to whatever God is calling you to do in your local church and the ineluctable fact of the apostasy and heresy that permeate the ELCA, a denomination whose leadership is manifestly not proclaiming the gospel that Jesus did: ""The Kingdom of God is near! Repent of your sins and believe the Good News!"

The New Testament is replete with Jesus' and Paul's and Jude's and Peter's rebukes and warnings to apostate church leaders, who were tampering with God's Word and encouraging the flock under them to live unrepentantly in Bible-proscribed sin.

When so many ELCA leaders and pastors and teachers are blessing sin that the Bible says will cause the unrepentant sinner to forfeit the kingdom of heaven, driving people away from the kingdom is as serious a matter as a denomination can face. If God is calling you to stay and serve in such a denomination, He will also be calling you to be faithful in proclaiming the whole truth of His Word -- about sin and grace and repentance and redemption -- not only to your own congregation but in every public ELCA forum (newsletters, conventions, synod meetings) available to you.

That's not politics; that's 2 Timothy 4:2-3: "Preach the word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear."

Unlike the current leadership of the ELCA, the Bible doesn't equivocate about sin, and neither can pastors who follow the Lord of the Church. The Bible doesn't allow for annulments of its plain truths by vote of a denominational convention.

The Bible does hold out the hope of salvation and cleansing and restoration and life-altering change for those who repent of their sins and turn to the Lord, and ELCA pastors who honor that Word as divinely authored, inerrant, and authoritative must proclaim that Good News to every synod and college and seminary and convention and office of the ELCA.

Kathy Suarez link

3/8/2013 02:33:05 am

I very much respect what you (Dan), Didaskalos and others are saying. Even though this is probably none of my business, I will say: At the beginning of the 16th century, just like at the beginning of the 21st century, the Church was in a big, big mess. In fact, the Church is always in some sort of mess. Luther tried to reform it. Some people urged him to leave the Church; some people urged him to stay in it. Just like now. We all know the history.

A few years after Luther (and most of Germany) left the Church, Teresa of Avila appeared in Spain, at the height of the Inquisition. A big, big mess. Her friends were imprisoned and she was threatened. She remained faithful, in obedience, to the Church. She did not leave.

For me, this says it all.

3/8/2013 12:26:17 pm

www.lutherancore.org. Also in Connections magazine. My public statement of confessional resistance from 2009 is online in several places. Also I wrote several articles for Forum Letter including the report on Milwaukee CWA. For starters.

Janet Muldoon

3/8/2013 05:47:35 am

Who said, "if you are not welcome in a place, dust off your shoes and leave"?

george

3/10/2013 06:33:36 am

Jesus in the Gospels.

3/9/2013 09:02:20 am

Here's the bottom-line problem, Kathy: the ELCA has become an agent of unrighteousness.

At its highest levels, the ELCA is preaching and teaching heresies (documented in profusion on this website) that point people toward eternal damnation, not salvation. More un-Christlike than that, it's impossible for a denomination to be.

Two avenues remain for Bible-believing Christian pastors and parishioners: leave the ELCA or stay in it like an Old Testament prophet continually calling an erring nation to repentance.

Hundreds of thousands have left the ELCA in the last three years, believing that they'd be doing the Lord Jesus' Church irreparable damage if they were to stay and prop up a denomination that's working actively against His Gospel and "shut[ting] the door of the kingdom of heaven in people's faces." Those who have left the ELCA believe, with the Apostle Paul, ". . . what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness? Or what fellowship has light with darkness? . . .Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the Lord. . ."

Many remain in the ELCA. An ELCA member who is a Christian cannot in any way support -- by acquiescent silence or monetary contributions -- the denomination's hierarchy and its attendant heresies: "Rescue those who are being led away to death! Indeed, hold back those who are staggering to the slaughter! If you say, 'Behold, we didn't know this;' doesn't he who weighs the hearts consider it? He who keeps your soul, doesn't he know it? Shall he not render to every man according to his work?' "

In the face of the ELCA's soul-damning heresies, it's not enough for an ELCA member just to have occasional conversations with a small circle of friends in his/her congregation. The leaders of this denomination need to be called constantly to account by every member and pastor who names the Name of Christ: congregation-wide and synod-wide corporate prayer for ELCA leaders' repentance and return to confessional Christianity, letters to the editor in Lutheran magazines and local newspapers, letters and emails and phone calls to ELCA leaders, admonitions and exhortations to bishops in synod meetings, resolutions at synod and ELCA conventions to turn the ELCA from its ungodliness, blog posts and articles, Facebook and Twitter testimonies.

Bible-honoring Christians who feel called to stay in the ELCA may never see their church return to faithfulness to the Lord of the Church and to His Word. But while it remains in its self-imposed exile from Biblical Christianity, the ELCA needs constant prophetic exhortations from pastors and members to turn from its unrighteousness. The stakes are too high for those the ELCA is leading away from God's kingdom.

Kathy

3/10/2013 05:53:33 am

I completely agree with you, Didaskalos, and what the others are saying. When I saw the "art" depicting the Stations of the Cross, I became physically sick. Again, I agree with Didaskalos: "The stakes are too high for those the ELCA is leading away from God's kingdom."

However, and again I will say: this is none of my business, and I thank Dan for allowing me to comment.... As I tried to say in my comment above, I think there is a larger issue. I think we are now in a critical time of history. I did leave the church -- the LCA in 1974. I became a Catholic, and over the years I watched the decline of the ELCA.

In my comment above, I tried to draw a parallel between Luther and Teresa of Avila. Luther did not believe the Church of Rome was the true church. He left. Teresa believed the Catholic Church was the True Church, and stayed.

Didaskalos, you center on the Bible, and that is good. You and I interpret the Bible in the same way, so I approve of your point of view. The larger question is: In a 21st century Church with billions of people, how can we, each one of us, interpret the Scripture and stay united as the Church of Jesus Christ? That is my question. For me it is a burning question, and to answer it, I even started a blog (I'm not trying to advertise, :) Dan! -- I just wanted your commenters to know where I am coming from.) http://knsuarez.wordpress.com/

3/10/2013 07:09:58 am

it can only happen in and through faith in Christ. Christ has been raised from the dead and death no longer has dominion over him. United life together is solely in Christ's Body and officially at least in my reading, both Lutherans and Roman Catholics confess and teach this. But for us to "see" it, remember Jesus' words to St. Thomas: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe,"

RevRPL link

4/4/2013 02:52:39 am

Kathy, regarding the question in your final paragraph; I don't think it is a matter of personal interpretation of scripture. I believe it is a matter of allowing scripture to interpret itself and for us to inwardly digest that Word. We live in the eschaton (the time of the gentiles-the time of the Church-the end times-the time between Christ's incarnation and His second advent), when there will be great apostasy and an increase of evil in the world. So, for the Christian Church, the Una Sancta, the One Holy and Apostolic Church, which is the Body of Christ on Earth, wherever it is found in the faith of believers, will undergo persecutions and torments unrivaled in the world until Christ Jesus returns. And therein is our rescue--Jesus Christ the victorious one over sin, death, and the devil. We can hang on to that, as scripture encourages us to do.

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Women of the ELCA Links Christ's Death and Resurrection to LGBT Community

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