The ELCA Vault - Room 28
The ELCA Vault is a collection of articles, blogs, and documents related to the ELCA. The purpose of the Vault is to provide this important information to it's readers and at the same time not overload other sections of the website so as they become too convoluted.
Lutheran LGBT Organization Suspends ELCA's United Lutheran Seminary From RIC Designation Until List of Demands Are Met. . .a statement by the Board of Trustees, supported by faculty and staff, rejecting and repudiating reparative therapy for LGBTQ people. . .
ELCA Bishop Defends ELCA Youth Gathering Keynote Speaker. . . As have my colleague bishops, I have begun to receive inquiries and to read tirades on social media, all of them thus far citing ELCA Exposed, lambasting the ELCA for the Gathering’s choice of controversial speakers and keynoters. . .
Leave Them. . .68 self-proclaimed, "leaders of Iowa's faith community" issued a public pronouncement by signing a pro-abortion letter to the public. The Interfaith Alliance of Iowa is made up of the usual suspects. . .
United Lutheran Seminary (ULS) Board of Trustees Pathetic Reaction Manufactured Crisis. . .“Thanks to the Spirit’s work and relationships with an ever-expanding community of others, my understanding and ministry evolved into one that is ‘open and affirming’ of LGBTQ+ persons,” she added in a statement. . .
ELCA related articles in Lutheran CORE newsletter. . .First, things are allowed. Then they are promoted. Then they are celebrated. Then they become the norm. Then other views are marginalized. The final step is that other views are silenced. . .
The ELCA's United Lutheran Seminary Fires their Seminary President. . .we have received resignations from several Board members. . .
Open Letter to the ULS President and Board of Trustees (Google document). . .we call for the immediate resignation of ULS’s president, Dr. Theresa Latini. . .
Cultural Pressure vs. Religious Liberty. . .The cultural threats to religious liberty comes not just from the outside, but from the inside, as church members–who are also card-carrying members of their culture–come to agree with the spirit of the age, as opposed to the Holy Spirit. . .
Kingston church recognized for welcoming LGBTQ community. . .The designation means the Kingston church will be listed on a registry of churches in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that have adopted the LGBTQ-friendly policy. . .
Luther Seminary Student Allies Call for Racial Justice. . .Racism within the Luther Seminary community is a threat not just to Luther Seminary but also to the congregations and parishes that the leaders developed by the seminary will be sent to serve. It is necessary that the racism present on this campus be brought to light and corrected. . .
Reply to an ELCA Pastor - Witness Stone Blog. . . It concerns me deeply that a person would be part of an apostate denomination that encourages sin, teaches contrary to Scripture, advocates hatefully against the Jewish State. . .
Traveler speaks, sings at Prescott Valley’s Emmanuel Lutheran. . .we believe each person is a beloved child of God regardless of shape, size, economic status, religious background, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender identity, or anything else that could divide us. We give thanks to God for the unique identities with which we are created, and have found here a fellowship of believers that accepts us just as we are. . .
ULS Bookstore at Gettysburg Closing February 28thUnited Lutheran Seminary Bookstore & Gift Shop, located at 61 Seminary Ridge, Gettysburg, PA 17325, will be closing permanently February 28th, 2018. . .
Christian University Sponsors Pro-Abortion Event With Planned Parenthood Group. . .“It utterly baffles me why a Christian university is sponsoring an event that promotes abortion. Christian universities should never celebrate abortions which are the destruction of human beings formed in God’s likeness. Instead, they should be promoting loving and life-affirming options for those in crisis, like we do through our Pregnant on Campus Initiative. This is just another example of the pseudo-theology employed by faux Christians to mask their ideological agenda that promotes discrimination, death, and destruction, completely in contradiction to the “good news” that Jesus Christ himself came here to deliver.” . .
WALSH: Dear Churches, If You Aren't Making People 'Feel Judged,' You Aren't Doing Your Job. . . the problem is that the modern American Christian insists on being welcome along with his lifestyle, his self-centeredness, and his sin. He wants all of that to be welcomed, too. And most churches are more than happy to oblige. He will not be called to repentance from the pulpit, and his favorite sins will not be denounced, because that would make the poor soul feel "judged," and one cannot feel welcome if he is being judged. . .
Ignoring Palestinian Responsibility |
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. . .contrary to Hybels, Younan and Ateek, the Bible clearly states that God is not finished with Israel. In fact God seems to think the matter important (See Zechariah chapter 8). . .
Hartke: Lutherans want DACA amnesty, shutdown unacceptable
(Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service - LIRS). . .get it into your head that the Leftwing Open Borders advocates, including those leading the nine federally funded resettlement agencies, make NO SUCH DISTINCTION. They are advocates for any and all immigrants and are supportive of amnesty as you can see in this statement.. . .
The Church’s Cozying to Islam
. . .Eaton’s largely apostate ELCA Church has a history of cuddling Islam while castigating Zionism. I first encountered this in Barbara Rossing’s misleading book “The Rapture Exposed.” Her contempt for Zionism and Christian fundamentalism dripped from its pages. . .
Keynote Speaker at 2018 ELCA Youth Gathering Tweets About Making a Sculpture of a Vagina
Beloved ELCA pastor, speaker and author Nadia Bolz-Weber.
Interfaith day marked by outburst in the Capitol
. . .state senator confronted members of an interfaith prayer group at the Capitol Wednesday, accusing them of disparaging him as a "racist.". .
'Revolution and the Spirits' - Witness Stone Blog
What kind of pastor talks about drawing "upon the Holy Spirit and the Spirits?" Or writes about "Revolution" and uses the hashtag "#BurnItDown." . .
You Might Have a Case of Mainline Myopia If…
. . .Suffering from mainline myopia involves living in a bubble with no meaningful Christian fellowship with non-mainline believers, having an tunnel-vision view of Christian faith and the church that ignores the realities of other Christian churches, lacking much self-awareness of how much U.S. mainline Protestantism is really a tiny and shrinking fraction of even American Protestantism (let alone the wider, global body of Christ across 2,000 years), and often uncritically accepting even the most striking biases and blind spots promoted by mainline denominational leaders. . .
Mary, Queer of Heaven
(If you are looking for something stupid to read there is this from an ELCA seminarian). . .Much has been written about Mary, Mother of God. Not unlike the often perverted legacy of her son, there have many attempts to whitewash, sanitize, and tame this dynamic and defiant prophetess into an Idyllic Submissive Woman, often used to chain women to oppressive gender roles. . .
Created Male and Female (no ELCA leader signed this but other Lutherans did)
. . .We acknowledge and affirm that all human beings are created by God and thereby have an inherent dignity. We also believe that God created each person male or female; therefore, sexual difference is not an accident or a flaw—it is a gift from God that helps draw us closer to each other and to God. What God has created is good. "God created mankind in his image; in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them" (Gen 1:27). . .
Admonishing the Sinner
. . .Admonishing the sinner is showing them the love God has for them by warning that their thoughts, words or deeds do have consequences, consequences right now in the harm they can do to their relationship with God and the neighbor. . .
Religious Leaders Divided Over Trump's Jerusalem Decision
. . .Nathan Diament, executive director of the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, "because Jerusalem is the capital city for Israel and the Jewish people. ... The United States puts its embassies in capital cities, and it's unjust and discriminatory to say we're going to single out Israel as the one country where we don't put our embassy [in the capital].". .
Lutheran Church Decides That the Best Way to Retain Members Is to Stop Preaching the Gospel
. . .Christ the King Lutheran Church in Cary, N.C., believes that they've found the answer to stopping the mass exodus of tithing members. They've stopped preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and have embraced progressive theology and social justice. . .
The ELCA Should Be Embarrassed - Witness Stone Blog
ELCA pastor Lura Groen shared this vile post by Wil Gafney, former associate professor of Hebrew and Old Testament at the ELCA's Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. . .
500 years after Martin Luther’s bold act, Utah clergy explores whether Christian church will ever be one again
. . ."I think Luther would recognize some of the churches that today bear his name [but] he wouldn’t be especially fond of churches that have denied the authority of the scriptures.”. .
Trying to Become More Relevant Makes Liberal Churches Less Relevant
. . .many mainline churches have tried to recapture the interest of the Millennial generation by showing just how progressive and accepting of all viewpoints they rare. I see banners all the time hanging from Methodist or ELCA churches proclaiming their diversity and acceptance of views that have historically been anathema in Christianity. They don't seem to realize their stance makes their church less relevant in the mind of Millennials, not more. . .
This just in! Lutheran left tests theory that progressive doctrine is key to church growth
. . .What was all that conflict about? Why did members start leaving? Where did those members go? Is there any chance the falling numbers were, in part, due to fights about progressive doctrinal trends in the ELCA? Did anyone attempt to talk to any of the Christ the King members who departed? . .
Why The Nashville Statement Is Needed
. . .What these pastors, theologians, and Evangelical leaders have done is hugely important. So much is at stake! But it is only a start — and the laity cannot leave these leaders standing alone. . .
Christian Doctrine, Sex & Nashville Statement
. . .Dissenting Christian institutions are almost entirely confined to declining Western liberal Protestant denominations. If the Nashville Statement’s critics were correct, these dying churches should be flourishing by their embrace of the spirit of the age. . .
How Can I Tell God's Voice From The Devil's?
Here We Stand
. . .Meanwhile, within institutional Christianity, theological reform looks ever more necessary. Across the larger theological landscape, evangelicals see the desert of theological liberalism and the debris of doctrinal compromise. The so-called “mainline” Protestant churches – the most direct institutional heirs of the Reformation – abandoned the faith. Then their members abandoned the churches. . .
First Muslim college in U.S. buys Lutheran seminary campus in Berkeley
. . .A Muslim liberal arts college that offers subjects such as Islamic law alongside courses in math and philosophy has bought a former seminary campus for its undergraduate program. . .
Trust is Still the Problem in the ELCA (and synods aren’t helping) – page 7
. . .The one congregation, in suburban Harrisburg, reports a decline in worship attendance from 2006 to 2016 of 5%, or 128 to 111 (and with the same number the last three years, one wonders if it isn’t lower). Membership dropped from 380 to 238. A second, in center-city Harrisburg (and a very gay-friendly neighborhood) hovered between 50 and 57 and last reported 44. The third, a historic church in a community surrounded by growth, plummeted in attendance from 272 to 142 (from 185 just since 2013) and in membership from 1039 to 585. Evidently a lot of people no longer feel included or welcomed in these congregations. . .
Blessed Bi Jesus (written by an ELCA seminary student)
. . .Those of us who defy binaries in our sexual orientations, as well as people who defy binaries by their gender, have special insight and kinship with a God whose very existence busts binaries. We know that breaking down of binaries well. We live it daily. It’s in our very cells. . .
Holy Closure of North Emanuel Lutheran Church
. . .we close one of the long established congregations in this synod. After much prayer and discernment, North Emanuel Lutheran Church in Saint Paul will close with a final worship service. . .
Gay pastor discusses ‘Christianity and Queerness’ at Lutheran Center and LGBTQA+ event
. . .A little over a decade ago, he signed a letter by homosexual pastors across the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, affirming their right to continue their ministry at a time when the issue was heavily contested throughout the denomination. . .
The ELCA’s Summer Politics- Witness Stone Blog
. . .Some people applaud the ELCA’s political activism and their liberal views. . .
Jesus, Today’s Church, and ‘Inequality’
. . .Take Norma Cook Everist, a professor of church and ministry. In an article that she penned for The Lutheran, Everist insists that things haven’t changed a lick since Martin Luther said that “the poor” are routinely “defrauded” by “the rich.”“Inequality,” Everist remarks, divides the world into “makers” and “takers” while fostering the godless fiction that some people, and even “some children,” are “worth more” than others, and that some, “the poor,” are of “‘of no worth’[.]”
The project of reducing the Gospel to an activist’s manual on addressing “inequality” is fraught with difficulties. . .
The project of reducing the Gospel to an activist’s manual on addressing “inequality” is fraught with difficulties. . .
Views about same-sex marriage among Lutherans in the Mainline Tradition
. . .% of lutherans in the Mainline Tradition who. . .
Robert A. J. Gagnon Responds to Nadia Bolz-Weber's 'The Denver Statement'
. . .This is a standard, yea virtually perfunctive, card from the sexual leftwing playbook. How is it, then, that nearly every word in her caustic response to the Nashville Statement and its signers reeks of self-righteous certainty regarding God's will as it pertains to sexual ethics? . .
The Church of the Left
. . .The left’s secular religion functions as a theocracy. It promises salvation through Socialism, warns that human sin will destroy the world through global warming and is engaged in a perpetual struggle against those who do not share its values. It wages war on religious freedom because it is a kind of religion. . .
The ELCA Leadership Taking Part in a "Ministers March" the Washington Post Calls "A Moral Rebuke to Trump's Presidency" - Witness Stone Blog
. . . the ELCA is heavily involved. The Metro D.C. Synod of the ELCA shared a post of an article titled "Religious leaders plan rally in Washington as a moral rebuke to Trump's presidency." . .
Faith Lutheran Church in Prairie Village
. . .A small congregation gathered Aug. 6, 2017, for one of the final four worship services at Faith Lutheran Church in Prairie Village. After more than 60 years, the church is closing and the building will be demolished to make way for a city park. . .
Lutheran CORE News from our Executive Director
. . .But there is a movement within the ELCA - and we assume that it will be a growing movement - of people who say that faith in Jesus does not matter, at least in the way that the Bible says that it matters because "there is salvation in no one else." (Acts 4: 12) We understand that this resolution passed overwhelmingly, and that there was little or no expressed objection. . .
Hope City Church truly welcomes all
. . .Membership in First Lutheran has been in decline for several years and is now at less than 25. After celebrating its 150th anniversary in June, First Lutheran’s remaining members decided to sell the building to Hope City. First Lutheran will dissolve Aug. 31. . .
New pastor brings fresh ideas to Ascension Lutheran Church
. . .Most recently, Kraft led Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Charlotte, N.C. Over a span of 11 years at what she describes as a congregation of mostly LGBTQ churchgoers, Kraft said she tackled social justice issues and helped champion same-sex marriage rights in the southern city. . .
Join Pueblo de Fe for their last service
. . .today we are called to that same trust as we close one of our mission start congregations. After much prayer and discernment, the ministry of Pueblo de Fe will come to an end on July 23rd. . .
ELCA in Support of Sanctuary Cities - Witness Stone Blog
. . .article titled "Religious groups join suit against ‘sanctuary cities’ law" reports that. . .
A SatiricaL Piece - 'Another Statement on Human Sexuality: Because We Said So'
. . .We offer this new Statement to amplify and build upon this church’s understanding of human sexuality as described back then. . .
Wait just a minute: Fading Lutherans (ELCA) in Waco sold their lovely building to Anglicans?
. . .It's pretty common for congregations in oldline Protestantism to sell their buildings to all kinds of secular people, creating lovely art galleries, condos, restaurants, taverns and what not. However, leaders of the liberal Protestant mainline – First Lutheran Church in Waco is part of the edgy, progressive Evangelical Lutheran Church in America – rarely sell their buildings to new-born churches in conservative flocks, especially those emerging from the painful wars that are shaking the old denominations. . .
Churches in chains: ELCA, PCUSA, United Church of Christ
. . .There are other bad denominations like ELCA and United Church of Christ. . .
How The "(expletive) Pastor" Is Bringing Sex and Christianity Together
. . ."Jesus had a penis. And wet dreams." This was the philosophy that inspired Heidi Johnson to found the Pussy Club, a sex-positive group at Duke Divinity School where Christian female students would discuss, among other things, masturbation as a spiritual practice, in 2014. . .
Lutheran church welcomes first LGBT pastor
. . .Reverend Joanne Richmond is the nineteenth senior pastor in the history of that church. Richmond is the first legally-married lesbian pastor in the La Crosse Area Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. . .
Saron Lutheran and First Presbyterian vote to join ministries (Hoquiam, WA)
Two of Hoquiam oldest churches have voted to join ministries and worship. . .
When covering the Lutheran left, Minneapolis daily kindly omits sobering journalistic questions
. . .there are no dissenting voices within the ELCA ranks represented here: if there's anyone who disagrees with the direction in which the denomination is going, the Star-Tribune apparently made zero effort to include those voices. . .
God, Bible and LGBTQ issues
. . .The ELCA is one self-professing Christian organization which for many years has pioneered the way for acceptance of LGBTQ issues, feminism and same-sex marriage. . .
Modern Day King Jeroboam
Capital Pride Parade 2017: Top 10 D.C. Churches Marching with Rainbow Pride
. . .Pastor, Mike Wilker, is a “board member of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries that supports LGBTQ candidates for ministry and clergy.” One can visit the Reformation’s Facebook page that is has multiple posts of their participation in the parade. . .
Your Rabbi? Probably a Democrat. Your Baptist Pastor? Probably a Republican. Your Priest? Who Knows.
. . .Leaders of more liberal denominations tend to be even more likely to be registered as Democrats. . .
ELCA and Abortion: Is There Hope for Change? (Page 4)
. . . I joined tens of thousands of Christians at the March for Life in Washington...I couldn’t find the ELCA delegation. . .
Rebranded ELCA church is a place of welcome for believers and nonbelievers alike
. . .Two years ago, for instance, the church agreed to be the venue for a feminist symposium. During one session, 16 people took off all their clothes and ran around the church naked. . .
Gay black seminarian takes his gifts to rural Wisconsin
. . .Although his experience with the ELCA has been positive, Barnes says the church still has a way to go. He wants to be a part of pushing it forward, but he knows that his mission isn’t going to be a cakewalk.“As far as church politics, it’s still a boys’ club, and it’s still run by white men,” he says. “I’ll have to choose which battles to fight.” . .
If it doesn’t stem its decline, mainline Protestantism has just 23 Easters left
. . .some mainline Protestants have abandoned central doctrines that were deemed “offensive” to the surrounding culture: Jesus literally died for our sins and rose from the dead, the view of the authority of the Bible, the need for personal conversion and more. . .
Letter to Bishop Tiemann & Response
. . .We are appalled by the order of worship planned for the Southwestern Texas synod assembly this weekend. The “polka” worship service scheduled for Saturday includes a Thanksgiving for our Heritage that is racist and reeks of white privilege. . .
Glitter+Fire
. . .Queer-positive take on Pentecost. Some ELCA churches are signed up!
Clothed and Forgiven: Lutheran CORE's Response to "We Are Naked and Unashamed"
. . .this spirit of revision has crafted a new movement that hopes to reject any definition of marriage as normative for sexual relationships. . .