Readers' Comments
I am a junior who recently transferred to an ELCA affiliated college. I stumbled across your website after sitting through a particularly awful religion class - in my first of two religion courses that are required to fulfill the general core here - trying to fight back the disgust I felt for having to study such nonsense. I was brought up in a strong Bible-based Lutheran church body, and I couldn't believe what I was being told was "truth" and "fact" in class. I wanted to see how the professor could possibly believe the things he was telling us - obviously I didn't realize how far astray the ELCA really was from God. This website has given me so much comfort and reassurance, and it's become a habit to come back to it after each class and reaffirm that God's word is certainly pure and living and true. Thank you so much for helping me to stand under all the falsehoods I have to endure in this class. You have given form to my frustrations and answers to my incredulity. I pray that God continue to bless your efforts. Thank you! - College student
I have been searching for a place for my disappointment, anxiety and alienation from my ELCA congregation. From abortion to sanctuary church status, I disagree with the path my church has chosen. I have decided many times to leave my church which I have belonged to since 1981, but have never pulled the trigger. This may give me the courage. Thank you
Hello, i just wanted to thank you for an awesome website. I am a formal ELCA pastor that left with the elca last year to join LCMC back on september 2009. The church I pastor is Calvary Lutheran in Kalispell, mt website www.calvaryinevergreen.org . Keep up the good work of sharing the truth about the ELCA. My constant prayer is that they can come to recognize their departure form God's Word and truly come to a place of repentance.
Kurt Rau
Kurt Rau
Dan, just want to let you know how much your website has helped me in my search for the reasons behind these decisions the ELCA has been making. The links to "critical issues commentary" in particular, opened my eyes to information and thinking of great dimension. I check your site every day eager to find more enlightening information and am seldom disappointed. May God bless you and your search for the truth. - (a longtime reader)
I am a former ELCA pastor. I pray that God will forgive me for all the sins I committed when I trusted that the ELCA was teaching God's will. I know better now; but the ELCA deceived me and made me one of their evil henchmen. Lord, have mercy.
Thank you for your leadership in identifying the false doctrine of the ELCA. I left this denomination a year ago after months of prayer and Biblical study. This was a very difficult decision because this was my denomination since my infant baptism nearly 70 years ago. I have concluded that the ELCA denominational leadership has been taken over by modern day intellectuals driven by their education in the science of sociology coupled with the cultural values of the people of Scandanavian descent of which I am one. Sociologists themselves say that long held cultural ideology is the most difficult to change. For example, infanticide and other behaviors for population control go back to the Viking pre Christian era. Personal responsibility for negative behavior appears to have have been undervalued. Even a child can understand that Jesus would never have engaged in or approved the behaviors that are now tolerated by the denomination. It seems so obvious. It seems to me that Jesus, the True Son of God, has been shut out. It is absolutely critical that Christians study the Gospels carefully to understand that Jesus was never a "pushover" when it came to teaching and preaching the Truth. The Bible defines good and evil. Love does not delight in evil EVER. - (a lifelong Lutheran)
Thank you again for enlightening me and steering my family in the right direction. We started attending an amazing LCMC church...(that) is growing, expanding, and the congregation is so friendly. I can feel the Holy Spirit when I walk through those doors. What a breath of fresh air! Thank you thank you thank you!
Thank you for your website! For years, I thought I was alone in my horror at what the ELCA was becoming. I could no longer stand to attend church - all the joy had been ripped out of it by the heresies expounded by the thing that had replaced the ALC. In the end, your site gave me the hope and impetus to leave the ELCA. Although my family had been Lutheran since the earliest years of the Reformation, we are now Roman Catholic, and very glad to be so.
Thank you for your website! It has been very valuable and helped many at my former church. I left an ELCA church. The pastor is somewhat liberal in his theological perspective but the community is conservative. The pastor would not allow any discussion regarding the August decision and tried to keep it a secret. Many of my fellow church members have never heard the term "ELCA" and just think they are "Lutheran." Your trifold phamplet should pose the question, "What kind of Lutheran are you?" Nine families have left our church. We have taken a stand for Biblical truth and as a result we have been rejected,and even slandered. We have lost friends who have been told by the pastor to treat the situation "Like a divorce." It is sad but I take comfort in the Lord's words, "Take up your cross and follow me." Our loyalty is to the Lord first and that supercedes any affection or allegiance to pastors, churches, or denominations. May the Lord call his faithful out of Egypt, to His honor and glory. - (Name withheld)
Thank you, Mr. Skogen, for this website. I am a member of an ELCA congregation, and I only recently found out about the policy changes that took place at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. Your website has been a valuable source of information for me. The more I read, the more it saddens me what the ELCA has become. - Mark
Thank you for starting this site, it has been very helpful for us that are still trying to fight to hold on to our church. - Name withheld
Thank you for this site, showing the many, many things wrong with the ELCA. It really helped open my eyes to what is going on and spurred me to leave my congregation, as I just cannot stay a member of the ELCA any longer, espcially as the ELCA has been pushing the transgender ideology much more in the past couple of years. I have found a wonderful, faithful NALC/LCMC congregation to attend and I am so thankful for God providing and blessing through them and through this site.
Thank you to the person that posted the "Why the Historical-Critical Method of Interpreting Scripture is Incompatible with Confessional Lutheranism" paper from John F. Brug. I'm not a pastor so didn't even know that there are different methods of interpretation. Perhaps this is why the ELCA's interpretation is so far off from other Lutherans. - A female reader
Thank God for this website. When I began to attend a certain church, it meant nothing to me that it is elca. But as I heard things not biblical, and especially reading the living Lutheran,, I was APPALLED at who and what is published. So many never question these articles but I do not want my name associated with elca. Jesus and what He taught is The Truth. elca stands for extreme unbiblical "standards". - Exposing the ELCA Reader
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this site and exposing the untruths of the ELCA. . . Again thank you for your ministry through this website. It is very good and most of all true. - Former ELCA pastor
Thank you so much for the hard work in putting together all these resources. Everything written is backed up with links and/or most importantly, Scripture. Our family recently left the ELCA, and we've never been happier. Originally, we were nervous about leaving our church because we had been members for many years. We found a Free Lutheran Church that has been such a blessing to us that is 100% Bible based, and we are doing our best to point others stuck in the ELCA to the Truth. I will continue to try to point others in the ELCA to this website so they are aware of this sickening, non-Biblical agenda the ELCA is trying to promote. Thanks again.
I was reading the ELCA global economic justice position. The ELCA supports the UN's human rights constitution. The problem with this is that slavery is wrong however the doctrine states that all people have a right to education, healthcare, home, food, and a job. If this were enacted it would turn the people that work and earn these things to slaves. The ELCA also pushes for a global judiciary (this is at the end). It is truly a Marxist point that the ELCA supports, because it is taking the position that government provides and not God and we do not have a right to the fruits of our labor. Am I wrong in reading that charity comes from the individual and not the government? Did Jesus say to give out money to Herod and let Herod provide and distribute the wealth equally? This is the ELCA's position. - Dawn Weaver
Dan, Thank you for the work you are doing. I pray that God will continue to use you and this ministry. The ELCA has put out a self proclamation that they are an EMERGENT CHURCH in a small "newspaper" SEEDS OF THE PARISH. I have yet to find anything Biblical being used in this movement. This is very serious. Please provide some information to the people who read your website as to the heresy that is being proclaimed. Thank you. - (Name withheld)
My husband is Lutheran and I joined the church when were were married. For the past few years, I have been confused by the liberal stance of the ELCA and how they are beginning to sound more like a left leaning political entity. When I came across your web site, it connected the dots for me. - Sent from a reader (2019)
We had a meeting nearly a year ago with our Bishop and 9 former homosexuals. They told their stories of broken marriages and broken lives and a feeling of dissonance with God's plan for them. It was the first time our Bishop ever met a former homosexual. These men and women had heart warming stories of redemption and deliverance (there words) and of healing.
I'm told by our Bishop that at no time did the committee on human sexuality speak with someone who had left the homosexual lifestyle. They simply weren't interested.
- Tom C.
I'm told by our Bishop that at no time did the committee on human sexuality speak with someone who had left the homosexual lifestyle. They simply weren't interested.
- Tom C.
Thank the Lord you are out there exposing this fraudulent Lutheran Church!!! - email from a reader
I am a former ELCA pastor, and left the church officially as of September 2009. The ELCA has lost it's footings, and as far as I am concerned, not Christian. I too would encourage people to leave dodge and join a Bible Teaching Church. - Pastor
I wanted to thank you so much for this website. My husband and I just left our local ELCA congregation in...that we joined 10 years ago after moving back to my home community from which I had been away from for 25 years. I hadn't adequately researched what the ELCA stood for prior to joining, thinking that "Lutheran was Lutheran". The Exposing the ELCA website provided a spark that lead us to investigate what was happening with the ELCA at the broader level than our local congregation. As we uncovered more and more unsettling information about the ELCA, we knew that we were not participating in a church that was Bible based.
Thank you for the work you do. My family has left our small local ELCA church after finding your website, learning what the ELCA was doing and sharing it with the church council who chose to do nothing about it. They don't think what the ELCA does affects us "that much" and they are afraid of losing half the congregation if they address it. Save the church, lose your soul. So sad. Your work is important. God bless! (2021)
Thank you for this website. I am currently a member of an ELCA congregation that I once was "in love" with. I am slowly and painfully removing my talents, financial support and "me" from it. This site has kept me going down that road because all you say is true. Unfortunately, my town does not have a moderate Lutheran church for safe harbor. I am adrift. For a lifetime Protestant, the Catholic Church is hard to swallow in many respects, though it comes closest to what my heart and head believe in the world of Today. God Bless You and your work. (name withheld)
Your web site has been an extremely valuable tool in our search for information and also as a look as to what others are doing. Please keep up the great work.
Regards, (name withheld)
Regards, (name withheld)
WOW, I just "stumbled upon" your website today (God lead me here) and it is exactly what I'm looking for to research info. for my ELCA congregation. Thanks for doing this--you've made my job so much easier! (name withheld)
I encourage you in your work. It does seem to me like the Word is clear when errors arise, mark and avoid. Rom. 16:17 There are so many passages that point up unity in the Word as the basis for fellowship:1Cor. 1:10, Phil. 1:27, 2:2, 2 Cor. 13:11, Rom. 15:5-6, 1 Pet. 3:8. Scripture warns about disunity and what it leads to. 1 Tim. 6:3-4 When Paul departed from the Ephesian elders he reminded them that he taught the 'whole counsel of God'and in defending himself before his enemies he stated he believed everything in the law and the prophets. Acts 20:27, 24:14
My people were from the old LCA in Iowa and I thank the Lord I am not entangled in the mess that is the ELCA. Another alternative to ELCA is the Lutheran church I joined in one of its missions - the Church of the Lutheran Confession. In Him, Dave
My people were from the old LCA in Iowa and I thank the Lord I am not entangled in the mess that is the ELCA. Another alternative to ELCA is the Lutheran church I joined in one of its missions - the Church of the Lutheran Confession. In Him, Dave
Just wanted you to know a Nazarene (in Iowa) read your website and am in agreement with you. My prayers for blessing of this important work you are doing. May God have mercy on this nation.
"But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house? And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them." II Chronicles 7:19-22 - (an Iowa resident)
"But if ye turn away, and forsake my statutes and my commandments, which I have set before you, and shall go and serve other gods, and worship them; Then will I pluck them up by the roots out of my land which I have given them; and this house, which I have sanctified for my name, will I cast out of my sight, and will make it to be a proverb and a byword among all nations. And this house, which is high, shall be an astonishment to every one that passeth by it; so that he shall say, Why hath the LORD done thus unto this land, and unto this house? And it shall be answered, Because they forsook the LORD God of their fathers, which brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, and laid hold on other gods, and worshiped them, and served them: therefore hath he brought all this evil upon them." II Chronicles 7:19-22 - (an Iowa resident)
. . .I was raised in an ELCA church and did not hear the true Gospel until I was 17. It took me a year of wrestling between what I learned growing up and what I read in the Bible before I accepted Christ. This website has helped me to clearly define what was wrong with what I grew up hearing. Now I have led multiple girls who also grew up in an ELCA church and clearly do not understand the Gospel. . . - Senior in college
. . .I applaud your efforts to expose just how much they have watered down the Bible and strayed from Christ's teachings. God be with you. . . - From Kim
I found your site through a friend. Thank God someone has stepped forward with the truth. I left elca in 2009 in disgust. It wasn't just the direction they were headed, but that they've been headed that way all along and have been deceptive about it. The people I left behind are good folks, but either asleep or not willing to rock the boat. Bless you for taking a stand. - (female reader)
I have just read a number of your excellent articles/blogs on a series of positions within the ELCA I also cannot agree with. I do try and use resources such as yours to show to people in trying to explain to them how far to being non-Lutheran the ELCA has become. - (male reader)
thank you for the work you do on this blog - i check it daily
Jason
You guys are always welcome to come home to Rome. :)
In the Lord Jesus,
Tony
In the Lord Jesus,
Tony
Hi, we are in the midst of a tough battle to vote out of the ELCA and have already joined LCMC. Love your website. . . - (Name withheld)
Thanks for your site; I'm glad I stumbled across it! - (Name withheld)