More Responses . . . (continuing from "People Respond")
Dear Pastor and Church Council
. . .We cannot support a church whose leadership has chosen to go off in a direction that is contrary to what God teaches in His Word. We cannot support a church that uses our finances to promote agendas that are in direct opposition to God and we will not be complicit in disobedience. No church should ever deny the authority of God’s Word and to do so begs the question of whether the church is genuine or counterfeit. Our family’s allegiance must first be to the Lord Jesus Christ and the sanctity of His Word, not to any particular person, church or denomination. We are leaving the ELCA because they have left us. . .
Letter to leadership - ELCA
. . .The key issue in this departure, in my opinion, is the abandonment of Luthers Principle of Solo Scriptura and the failure to apply scripture as being the inerrant Word. . .
Brothers and Sisters in Christ
. . .We find several important aspects of the ELCA completely contrary to our understanding of Christian faith. . .
ELCA Assembly illustrates the dominant Social Gospel
. . .Moral of the story: don’t let the radicals and progressives get to you. Stand up for truth. Support what’s right. Don’t be cowed, don’t appease and don’t give in! Keep going and, more than ever, fight the good fight.
South Carolina ELCA Synod Meeting 2010 - (One Youth's Experience)
. . .I do sincerely hope that the pro-gay people martialed their forces for this event in order to appear more numerous than they really are, because if what I saw there is proportional to the SC Synod at large, then we are in hot water. . .
We Knew Something Was Fundamentally Wrong
(2021) . . .Approximately 5 months ago, my wife and I made what we would classify as the most painful decision of our married life…to leave a local church that we had known and loved for many years. . .
The ELCA Has Left Us
. . .The ELCA leadership certainly didn’t want members voting on this controversial proposal because the vast majority would have opposed the decision. Last September, 91 percent of members surveyed at a congregational meeting of Hosanna! Lutheran Church of Lakeville, one of Minnesota’s largest ELCA congregations, supported separation from the ELCA. Also, the two largest ELCA congregations in North Dakota, Hope Lutheran and First Lutheran of Fargo, voted to stop funding the ELCA. . .
I Was Ignorant for Years
GOD bless you for your continued effort in exposing the ELCA. I left them for the LCMS after the big vote 10 years ago. I could not be happier with our local church’s biblical focus.
I am sure you have heard many stories, but here is mine.
I was ignorant for years as a youth educator/leader in Texas who actually believes the Bible. When I was elected to church council three years before the fallout I discovered what our pastors really thought along with other leaders.
I learned that almost everyone on council thought our church was a liberal social club and not a ministry of faith. They thought tithing members like me were fools.
The head pastor believed that all routes to salvation are valid. The pastors were also running the church into the ground financially to extract as much money for themselves as possible. We were incurring substantial debt to do this on the theory giving was going to rise in the future.
I was not a popular guy on council after I confronted the pastors on their beliefs and financial impropriety. I suggested we fire one pastor to become solvent. This happened years later once they retired and the situation got even worse.
A few people supported me at the time. Since then most have stayed. A few have left the church entirely for various reasons. I am sure most stayed because of personal relationships. I spent over a decade with those people and miss them as well.
Needless to say I left once my term was up. I went to a small rural ELCA church that had conservative ALC roots. I tried to inform them that the larger metropolitan churches were going to stack the vote and ordain gay clergy. They thought I was nuts. The rest is history in the ELCA.
I am now at a thriving rural LCMS church with Bible fearing pastors back in Missouri.
Jeff Meier
I am sure you have heard many stories, but here is mine.
I was ignorant for years as a youth educator/leader in Texas who actually believes the Bible. When I was elected to church council three years before the fallout I discovered what our pastors really thought along with other leaders.
I learned that almost everyone on council thought our church was a liberal social club and not a ministry of faith. They thought tithing members like me were fools.
The head pastor believed that all routes to salvation are valid. The pastors were also running the church into the ground financially to extract as much money for themselves as possible. We were incurring substantial debt to do this on the theory giving was going to rise in the future.
I was not a popular guy on council after I confronted the pastors on their beliefs and financial impropriety. I suggested we fire one pastor to become solvent. This happened years later once they retired and the situation got even worse.
A few people supported me at the time. Since then most have stayed. A few have left the church entirely for various reasons. I am sure most stayed because of personal relationships. I spent over a decade with those people and miss them as well.
Needless to say I left once my term was up. I went to a small rural ELCA church that had conservative ALC roots. I tried to inform them that the larger metropolitan churches were going to stack the vote and ordain gay clergy. They thought I was nuts. The rest is history in the ELCA.
I am now at a thriving rural LCMS church with Bible fearing pastors back in Missouri.
Jeff Meier
I Believe the ELCA is Not Acting in Accordance with the Bible. (A letter to church council - 2022)
. . .Based on the facts that I have gathered through research and discussion I believe the ELCA is not acting in accordance with the Bible in, at minimum, the following areas. . .
Pr. Jonathan Jenkins' Open Letter
ELCA Pastor Jonathan Jenkins has written the following in response to ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson's latest pastoral letter. . .
An Alarming Antinomian Statement
An alarming antinomian statement can be found in ELCA’s second working draft on sexuality: “This church’s ‘Confession of Faith’ begins with the Gospel, instead of the sequence implied in the phrase ‘Law and Gospel’. . .” (Human Sexuality, Working Draft: a Possible Social Statement of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, October 1994).
Against the Antinomians, Martin Luther, 1539
"The Antinomians have invented a new method by which grace is to be preached first and after that the wrath of God. That is a pretty seesaw, which pleases them wonderfully, because by this trick they can turn the Scriptures up or down and think they have become lux mundi [a world’s marvel]. But they put the shoe on the foot the wrong way, trying to teach us the Law after the Gospel and wrath after grace. I am well aware of the devil’s aim. I see what abominable errors he is bent on introducing by means of this exegetical teeter-totter."
Smalcald Articles, Martin Luther, 1537
Therefore the two doctrines belong together, and should also be urged by the side of each other, but in a definite order and with a proper distinction; and the Antinomians or assailants of the Law are justly condemned, who abolish the preaching of the Law from the Church, and wish sins to be reproved. . .
The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, 1531
Here we hold that the Law was given by God, first, to restrain sin by threats and the dread of punishment, and by the promise and offer of grace and benefit. But all this miscarried on account of the wickedness which sin has wrought in man. For thereby a part were rendered worse, those, namely, who are hostile to the Law, because it forbids what they like to do, and enjoins what they do not like to do. Therefore, wherever they can escape punishment, they do more against the Law than before. These, then, are the rude and wicked men, who do evil wherever they have the opportunity.
But to this office the New Testament immediately adds the consolatory promise of grace through the Gospel, which must be believed, as Christ declares, Mark 1:15: Repent and believe the Gospel, i.e., become different and do otherwise, and believe My promise.
The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, CFW Walther, 1884 Thesis VII.
In the third place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Gospel is preached first and then the Law; sanctification first and then justification; faith first and then repentance; good works first and then grace..
In the first place, the order may be distorted if you preach the Gospel prior to the Law. You may think: “Can a person be so perverse? Why, every catechumen at school knows quite well that the Law comes first and then the Gospel.” However, this can easily happen. We have instances in history which show that even entire religious associations became addicted to this error. For instance, the Antinomians in Luther’s time, with Agricola, of Eisleben, as their leader; and the Herrnhuters (Moravians) in the eighteenth century. Their hearers were never made aware of their deep sinful depravity; they were never made to realize that they were enemies of God, worthy to be cast down to perdition rather than to be saved.
- email sent from a reader.
Against the Antinomians, Martin Luther, 1539
"The Antinomians have invented a new method by which grace is to be preached first and after that the wrath of God. That is a pretty seesaw, which pleases them wonderfully, because by this trick they can turn the Scriptures up or down and think they have become lux mundi [a world’s marvel]. But they put the shoe on the foot the wrong way, trying to teach us the Law after the Gospel and wrath after grace. I am well aware of the devil’s aim. I see what abominable errors he is bent on introducing by means of this exegetical teeter-totter."
Smalcald Articles, Martin Luther, 1537
Therefore the two doctrines belong together, and should also be urged by the side of each other, but in a definite order and with a proper distinction; and the Antinomians or assailants of the Law are justly condemned, who abolish the preaching of the Law from the Church, and wish sins to be reproved. . .
The Solid Declaration of the Formula of Concord, 1531
Here we hold that the Law was given by God, first, to restrain sin by threats and the dread of punishment, and by the promise and offer of grace and benefit. But all this miscarried on account of the wickedness which sin has wrought in man. For thereby a part were rendered worse, those, namely, who are hostile to the Law, because it forbids what they like to do, and enjoins what they do not like to do. Therefore, wherever they can escape punishment, they do more against the Law than before. These, then, are the rude and wicked men, who do evil wherever they have the opportunity.
But to this office the New Testament immediately adds the consolatory promise of grace through the Gospel, which must be believed, as Christ declares, Mark 1:15: Repent and believe the Gospel, i.e., become different and do otherwise, and believe My promise.
The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel, CFW Walther, 1884 Thesis VII.
In the third place, the Word of God is not rightly divided when the Gospel is preached first and then the Law; sanctification first and then justification; faith first and then repentance; good works first and then grace..
In the first place, the order may be distorted if you preach the Gospel prior to the Law. You may think: “Can a person be so perverse? Why, every catechumen at school knows quite well that the Law comes first and then the Gospel.” However, this can easily happen. We have instances in history which show that even entire religious associations became addicted to this error. For instance, the Antinomians in Luther’s time, with Agricola, of Eisleben, as their leader; and the Herrnhuters (Moravians) in the eighteenth century. Their hearers were never made aware of their deep sinful depravity; they were never made to realize that they were enemies of God, worthy to be cast down to perdition rather than to be saved.
- email sent from a reader.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Succumbs to Heresy (2009)
. . .Yes, that is exactly what occurred when the leadership of that community "voted" to abandon Christian orthodoxy. . .
Why I Left the ELCA
. . .Soundbite 2 – Dr. Uwe Siemon-Netto. . .
There is a reason why I left the ELCA
There is a reason why I left the ELCA and Lutheran Church all together many years ago. I am a member of a Southern Baptist Church here in North Carolina, and received Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior at age 20. I went through the motions of Confirmation, I went through learning of Communion and the infant baptism however I did not truly know Jesus. I felt lost even after I was confirmed in the Lutheran Church at age 11. Not once was I taught God's word correctly that I remember, but I do remember that I started finding him through his Word in Scripture. To be truly forgiven of our sins, we must accept Jesus Christ and repent of sins, and be born again to "Walk in the newness of Life". I was raised by my Mom and Dad for which my dad was a Lutheran ELCA Pastor and Military Chaplain. I do not remember even truly knowing about Jesus and what I was taught that as long as you know Jesus died for you then you were saved. On the contrary to what the bible teaches you must repent, and have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The ELCA has strain away from the true Word of God, and I do know it is the deceit from Satan that has led that church away from God. ELCA please repent, ask the Holy Spirit and the Blood of Jesus to bring you back to the truth. We know Jesus Christ and God forgive and are love, but God is also Holy and cannot tolerate sin in his presence or kingdom. - email from a reader
My Path to Confessional Lutheranism: Part VI
. . .In my History of Lutheranism course, which was taught by an ordained (male) pastor, I was rebuked when I made a comment in class wherein I referred to a hypothetical child as a “he,” and I received two papers back with “corrections” wherever I had referred to God with a masculine pronoun. (I wondered if he had done the same to his Bible.) In the ELCA, it was increasingly anathema to refer to God by any pronoun (although in the most liberal circles, “She” was acceptable). . .
Letter to the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA
I am writing to express my sincere disappointment at the road that the ELCA is going down. . .
Why I Left the ELCA
. . .When I was first coming into the ELCA in 2016, I was very uncomfortable with the level of theological liberalism in the denomination. Many of its churches, and pastors had departed from historic Christian orthodoxy. . .
Note to All ELCA Bishops...Including Presiding Bishop Eaton (about herchurch, Ebenezer Lutheran in San Francisco)
. . .I am writing today in the hope that you will add a fellow ELCA congregation, and Pastor, to your daily prayers. The congregation known both as herchurch and Ebenezer Lutheran, in San Francisco, is in crisis. It is no longer Christian or Lutheran in any meaningful way. . .
Ressourcement: Why I left the ELCA for Greek Orthodoxy
. . .the abandonment of apostolic tradition on marriage, homosexuality, and abortion, the feminist destruction of the liturgy, and lax morality among the clergy and laity in the ELCA left me stunned, and disillusioned. Blessings of “same-sex marriages”, advocacy of abortion, the denial of the Trinity in the new Mass, and heretical churches like “Her Church” left me gnashing my teeth, and crying out to the Lord for him to raise up stalwart defenders, and renewers of the Evangelical Catholic faith. These defenders, and renewers never came. . .