THE ELCA VAULT - ROOM 34
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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 its readers, and at the same time, not overload other sections of the website so as they become too convoluted.
Children, not parents, are the ‘only authority’ on gender identity, DFL rep’s book says (book publisher under ELCA parent publishing company - see here). . ."Queerfully and Wonderfully Made" encourages teens to "limit contact" with adults who do not affirm their choices. . .
. . .A number of years ago, Central Lutheran Church of Elk River, Minnesota, had the good sense to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America when that denomination decided to ordain practicing homosexual pastors. The liberals at Central Lutheran were not happy and left to form their own new ELCA congregation, Elk River Lutheran church. . .
. . .I pray for families with transgender children and youth across the country who are being denied access to medical care and safe schools and are even being criminalized for supporting their children. I pray that we all might transform our prayers into action for the sake of these young people. . .
. . . While LWR says not using the name of Jesus allows them to get into places where that would not be allowed, there are plenty of places where they do work where other Christian agencies are able to be explicit about Christ. . .
He super glued feet.
. . . The ELCA is a beautiful tapestry of cultures and identities. We want to celebrate Pride Month with a focus on our LGTBQIA+ Lutherans. We are excited to amplify the voices of our ELCA siblings who are proud to be a part of the LQBTQIA+ community, and to affirm and embrace everyone in the church. . .
Pride and Prejudice: An Apt Description of Our Fractured Times. . .In late 2022, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) started a series of Town Halls with LGBTQ advocates and open and affirming churches in Fargo about creating a network of “safe spaces” for people to go, . . .
Will Your Church Be Next?. . .I continue to be absolutely astounded at how quickly the ELCA is departing from Biblical moral values, confessional Lutheran theology, and a Biblical concept of the mission of the church. Once the dam broke, it did not take long for anything holding back the floodwaters to be completely washed away. . .
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly in Today's ChurchCongregation disheartened and upset at sudden closure of Fordham Lutheran Church
. . .“Our sexton finished his work Saturday evening and locked the doors like normal, but Sunday morning, we found the locks changed and have been locked out of our church ever since,” . . .
Welcome At the Table - WELCA. . .We are an LGBTQ+-centric congregation. Our mission is to provide spiritual guidance and healing for folks who experience rejection and bigotry due to homo/transphobia as they learn safe and edifying ways to re-engage with scripture, God, and faith-based relationships. . .
Camp hospitality: The ELCA’s outdoor ministries welcome all. . .“Once the Muslim Student Association realized we were an open, welcoming and affirming community—and word got out". . .
. . .Camp Agape is working with the alliance on a series of LGBTQ+ retreats this fall and will likely host a group next summer for a week of camping. The camp will host the event, and the alliance will coordinate programming. . . |
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The people appointed to the ELCA's Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church
"comprised of leaders of diverse representation from all three expressions that, working in consultation with the Conference of Bishops and the Church Council, shall reconsider the statements of purpose for each of the expressions of this church, the principles of its organizational structure, and all matters pertaining thereunto, being particularly attentive to our shared commitment to dismantle racism, and will present its findings and recommendations to the 2025 Churchwide Assembly in preparation for a possible reconstituting convention to be called under the rules for a special meeting of the Churchwide Assembly. [CA22.01.06]" (here)
The Creeds Don’t “Sparkle”
. . .The “Sparkle creed” shares none of this history. It was written for entirely different reasons and has not even come close to being vetted by the whole Christian Church on earth. In fact, the majority of the Christian Church on earth would outright reject it. . .
ELCA Moves In and Takes Over
. . . As a former ALC congregation, according to the ELCA constitution, Faith Lutheran Church of San Dimas, California should have had no problem keeping their property as they voted to disaffiliate from the ELCA and join another Lutheran church body. But that synod council used chapter S13.24 of the Model Constitution for Synods, along with rejecting the legitimacy of LCMC as a recognized Lutheran church body, to claim to have the right to the congregation’s property. . .
Culture Wars and Heresy Update
By ELCA Bishop Brenda Bos
A conversation with Rev Kelsey Brown: Celebrating the LGBTQIA+ Community
. . .I find reassurance and a deep peace in the reality that God created me and all people exactly how we were meant to be. For my LGBTQIA+ siblings especially, that means any and all iterations of our identities—not only did God create them but God called them good … all of them. . .
What will be the future of church in Seattle?
. . .While the lot remains large, the congregation at St. John is shrinking. On the books, Pastor Rieke said they have 110 people in their worship community. But at services every Sunday, it’s more like 25 to 35. . .
Local Faith Leaders Practice Inclusivity for Pride Month
. . .They said in a joint statement, “We believe that God made us each, Imago Dei, in the image of God. We believe that when the image of God is denied in our LGBTQIA+ siblings, whether by law, policy, or hatred, the Imago Dei is diminished in all of us”. . .
Lutheran, Presbyterian schools moving to Chicago campus of Catholic Theological Union
. . .Both mainline schools sold their properties earlier this year to the University of Chicago. . .
ELCA Church Council adopts new social message on climate
. . .The document comes at a time when the ELCA at its Churchwide Assembly last summer supported the social target of reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 50% by 2030. The social message challenges all expressions of the ELCA to seek that target, as well. . .
Future leaders make an impact
. . .“I learned a lot about intersectional justice as it relates to hunger, and talking about a lack of affordable housing as a social problem rather than a personal problem. Migration and hunger are a result of climate change and a lack of affordable housing. In Minnesota the lack of affordable housing is the No. 1 cause of hunger.” . .
A conversation with Margarette Ouji
. . .We need to prioritize education in our denomination on issues that folks of Arab and Middle Eastern descent face, like racism, xenophobia, homophobia, transphobia and other forms of injustice. . .
ELCA Church Council appoints members to the Commission on a Renewed Lutheran Church
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- Received a progress report on the "Salary Equity in the ELCA" resolution and affirmed commissioning of a survey concerning inequitable gaps in compensation for rostered ministers in the ELCA.
- Received a response on the "Gun Violence Advocacy" resolution from the Witness in Society team in the Service and Justice home area and commended the continued advocacy efforts being implemented across this church related to gun violence and universal background checks.
- Received a response on the "LGBTQ+ Programming for Events" resolution from the ELCA Christian Community and Leadership home area and encouraged consideration of the development of LGBTQ+-focused sessions for churchwide events whenever gatherings include such sessions for other communities. . .
Why the Assemblies of God Isn’t Dropping in Membership
. . .Denominations like The Episcopal Church, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and the Presbyterian Church (USA) began long ago to move away from orthodoxy and capitulate to new ideas about sex, gender, and marriage. . .
ELCA Pastor Response
. . .The ELCA is awash in heresy and cares little about preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world in order to bring the lost to Him. . .
Faith Lutheran Church incorporates acceptance of trans, LGBTQ people
. . .Claire Ackleow stepped out of her car, Gernand said, and took the hand of her spouse, Jules Ackleow. Jules is a trans, nonbinary person, and in that moment, Gernand said she knew a lot was going to change for the church she’d attended for so long. . .
A tale of two bishops: What happens when apostasy reigns?
. . .the present and all those denominations have been in precipitous decline for decades. The culture has been secularizing and those churches basically decided to secularize with it. All have been effectively in the hands of theological liberals for so long now that it is hard to remember a time when they were not (at least in leadership) monolithically progressive if not outright heretical. . .
Queer ELCA Pastrix Ordained With Drag Queen Nuns While Jennifer Knapp Serenades
. . .Two years ago, Dawn Bennett became an ordained ‘pastor’ in the thoroughly apostate Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA,) in what is perhaps the strangest ordination ceremony we’ve ever seen. Bennett, who is a self-described she/her bisexual, queer woman. . .
Mainline Protestantism: The wolves in sheep’s clothing have shed their fleeces
. . .a denomination of 3.3 million members that has caved so fully to the spirit of the age that it is rapidly becoming difficult to tell the difference between a church service and Drag Queen Story Hour. . .
Finding Faith: Jesus' message wasn't 'be right at all costs'
An ELCA pastor writes: . . ."Overturning federal protections that provide access to health care, the right to marry, the right to live out one’s sexual orientation, the right to define one’s own gender may make us feel better because of our interpretation of scripture. But in reality, what it does is put lives in jeopardy, impoverish the already impoverished, reduce human dignity, further marginalize the marginalized, alienate those already upset with the church’s hypocrisy and continues to splinter the body of Christ." . .
Queer bars offer sacred space for LGBTQ community
. . .Garcia credits queer bars and drag performers with helping her connect to her inner self. “It really was the bars that gave birth to my first concept of self as Nicole.” . .
Facebook post by the ELCA's Gulf Coast Synod that shares an article they published titled "Why Pronouns Matter":
Pronouns Matter to the ELCA - Witness Stone Blog
Reconciling in Christ Sunday - Video By ELCA Synod Bishop
Some Twin Cities faith communities are becoming more vocal in supporting abortion rights
. . .Edina Community Lutheran Church chose to make its sign universal ("People of faith for reproductive rights") instead of denominational ("Lutherans for reproductive rights"). It also ordered 50 of them, hoping other local congregations would display them, too. . .
Pilger church building finds new use
. . .St. Peter’s Lutheran Church is the unification of three congregations, two German-speaking and one Danish: . .
2023 Heresy Update Plus Your Bible Questions
ELCA opens nominations on commission that could change church’s governance
. . .the assembly determined the time had come to reconsider the language of the 1980s and look at “the principles of its organizational structure … being particularly attentive to our shared commitment to dismantle racism …” per the memorial’s language. . .
“A win-win-win”
. . .From the total offering of $956,251, 60% was designated for specific ELCA ministries and partners (30%, or $286,875, to the ELCA’s congregational vitality efforts and 10%, or $95,625, each to Lutheran Disaster Response, Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service, and ELCA Ethnic Specific and Multicultural Ministries). . .
Lawsuit accuses one-time minister at West Des Moines church of sexual misconduct during counseling
. . .The lawsuit, filed earlier this month in Polk County District Court, alleges that the woman met several times in early 2021 with Asa Crow, a minister at Lutheran Church of Hope, seeking "spiritual direction." . .
Woman claims minister, spiritual counselor suggested they get naked for therapy: lawsuit
. . .An Iowa woman has filed a lawsuit seeking compensation for emotional distress and negligence after a former minister at Lutheran Church of Hope in West Des Moines, who was also serving as her spiritual counselor, allegedly suggested they get naked in bed as a part of her counseling. . .
Christians must avoid nationalism -- Rev. Dr. Jerry Folk (retired ELCA pastor)
. . .White Christian nationalism is a threat to Christianity. Its message is the exact opposite of Jesus' message. . .
More desexing of God language in the ELCA Lutheran denomination
. . .In 2019 the ELCA passed a social statement that calls upon “Bishops, synods and churchwide organizations to use gender-inclusive and expansive language for God.” . .
Rhetoric rankles Lutheran pastors
. . .Mastriano fired back at the Lutherans in a Facebook Live video, calling their message “hateful” and describing them as “modern Pharisees” that include people with a “hostility toward Jesus Christ.” He railed against the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s more liberal position on abortion rights. . .
P!nk Thanks Pastor for Calling Out Evangelical Silence After Colorado Shooting at Gay Club
. . .All of you Evangelical and fundamentalist clergy who claim to be pastors and shepherds of God’s flock who step into your pulpits and preach hate and bigotry and transphobia and homophobia, you are blasphemers and you are false prophets,” Lerien started. . .
Alleluia Lutheran Church Service of Holy Closure
. . .A Service of Holy Closure led by Bishop Hutterer will be held Saturday 11/12/2022, 4 pm for Alleluia Lutheran Church, 8444 W. Encanto Blvd, Phoenix AZ 85037. . .
St. Mark's celebrates welcoming LGBTQ community since 1985
. . .So, as a pastor, it helps me to empathize with people who have gone through experiences like that," said Scott, who identifies as queer and gender-queer. . .