An LCMS Statement on the ELCA’s Study and Recommendation on Sexuality
Rev. Matthew Harrison is the Executive Director of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's Board for World Relief and Human Care. He and his department relate more often and more directly to agencies and entities of the ELCA than any other in the Missouri Synod. I appreciated Pastor Harrison's tone and clear word of concern about the implications and meaning of the ELCA's social statement.
Statement of Rev. Matthew Harrison on ELCA’s Task Force on Sexuality Study
ST.
LOUIS, Mo. – Yesterday the church commemorated the 463rd anniversary of
the death of Martin Luther. His last written words, found on a note in
his pocket, were "We are beggars: This is true." Hermann Sasse regarded
these final words as a summation of Luther’s great legacy to
Christianity. In all matters of faith and life, Christians are beggars
who receive what the Lord gives, and as the Lord gives. Salvation is
all by grace, all by Christ’s doing. All that we are to believe and
practice in the church is very clearly given in the Bible, God’s own
infallible Word.
Today the ELCA’s Task Force for ELCA Studies on
Sexuality released its "Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies"
(http://www.elca.org/faithfuljourney). The report recommends a path for
the ELCA’s 2009 church-wide assembly to recognize and accept publicly
accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same gender relationships of clergy
in those synods (ELCA regional divisions) and congregations, which
desire to approve of such relationships.
The LCMS position on
homosexuality is that of the Bible and the church catholic from the
very beginning. Revisionist readings of the Bible that assert otherwise
are deeply dependent upon views of the Bible that are at odds with its
self-definition as God’s very Word.
We at LCMS World Relief and
Human Care (LCMS Board for Human Care) have many tasks mandated by the
Missouri Synod, which involve a great deal of interaction and
partnership with ELCA offices, entities, affiliated agencies, and
individuals. We have sought to carry out these mandated tasks with
complete and uncompromising fidelity with charity, faithful to the
LCMS’s clearly stated positions, including those on human sexuality.
This task is becoming ever more complex, and the proposals of the ELCA
task force promise to increase this complexity greatly. We will
continue to the best of our ability to ensure that service
organizations recognized by the LCMS "respect and do not act contrary
to" (6.2.1 LCMS 2007 Handbook: Constitution, Bylaws, Articles of
Incorporation, page 200) the biblical position of the LCMS on this
issue.
To say that we are disappointed in the Task Force
proposals would be a vast understatement. But we are not surprised. We
are deeply concerned about many ELCA friends (on both sides of the
issue) and especially about those who find themselves holding the
orthodox position while their beloved church body slips into
heterodoxy. But we do not write in order to self-righteously castigate
the ELCA. Rather in deep humility and repentance, we think of our own
many and deep sins: our own failure to hear the word of God; our
failure to bear convincing witness on this issue; our own deep sins and
our lack of love for one another, which have often rendered our witness
of no effect; our lack of love and failure to reach out "with might and
main" to those who struggle with the issue of homosexuality.
Today,
Feb. 19, 2009, is a day of deep repentance. Join me in praying for the
future of the Lutheran church, in America and throughout the world.
Please join me too, in praying for the hundreds of Lutheran agencies,
which faithfully struggle to serve those in need. We are beggars: This
is true.
Rev. Matthew Harrison
Executive Director
LCMS World Relief and Human Care
(For
a further discussion on this topic from a biblical and Lutheran
Confessional viewpoint please see Armin Wenz’s The Contemporary Debate
on Homosexual Clergy published by LCMS World Relief and Human Care.)
I pray this does not pass. I’m afraid it just might, but I’m praying. If it does, I will be looking for an LCMS church when we move back to the States. While I love my church, there’s a point of no return for me. This is it.
Here’s the problem: The ELCA thinks it has discovered something more important than the gospel. Everything goes to pieces from there.
When you abandon, or call into doubt, Scripture and the Confessions, which the predecessor bodies of ELCA did long ago, this is just one of the more or less inevitable results.
The new ELCA mantra: “We are not beggars. We are victims!”
The new ELCA mantra: “We are not beggars. We are victims!”
I was reading through their documents and was surprised by how carefully they worded everything and how vaguely they worded several significant points. By allowing the Historical-Critical Method to influence their interpretation of Scripture, it seems that the minds of many have become blinded to the simple and clear Word of God. Consequently, it seems that they have also confused the Law & the Gospel, and are set on displacing God’s Word with an emphasis on social justice, civil rights, and civil equality— which are (in the civic realm) commendable, but opens a wormhole for the devil and his relentless damnable lies to come in and lead the ELCA (and those who adopt this statement) even farther astray.
In so many ways, it reminds me of the ‘Dialogue between Lutherans and Catholics on Justification by Faith’ and how, while the ELCA seemed to begin strongly grounded in Scripture, the ELCA quickly threw it all away— even God’s Word on justification itself— in order to gain accord with Rome.
On the reflective side, it gives us a living example of what will happen to our church bodies (LC-MS and LC-C in particular) if we follow in their footsteps. Unlike Judah, who refused to listen to God’s warnings or learn from the rebellion of Israel which led to both of their downfalls, may we recognise and learn from the ELCA’s error, repent & flee from sin (and encourage them to do likewise), and by faith continue to trust God at His Word. God have mercy on us sinners, and by His grace give us the faith to remain firmly rooted in Christ and His pure Gospel … and the boldness to reach out to others with that same living Word.
I left the ELCA three months ago, for a nearby LCMS parish. Very sound confessional, liturgical, evangelical church. I knew that this was going to happen, because the liberal elites on Higgins Road have kept on nudging the ELCA to water down the relatively conservative ministry standards, in a piecemeal fashion, until they are basically one option among many. The Word Alone Network folks are well-intentioned ( I am still a member of WAN), and they are fairly solid on most basic Lutheran theological principles, but they don’t have much power or influence in the hierarchy, either at the national level or in most of the synod offices. I was a member of the “evangelical Lutheran wing” of the ELCA, but that wing will soon have to decide whether to stay on and fight, or break free to fly with the truth of the Scripture and Confessions. I think that the EL in ELCA should be changed to “Endlessly Liberal”, and that they speed up the merger with their “EpiscoPALS”. They won’t have enough members left in either church body to afford the kind of top-heavy bureaucracies they now have, and they basically are slight variations on the same worn-out, watered-down “mush God” theology that is making the mainline churches “offline” and “sideline” shells of their once robust selves. Kyrie eleison on them, O Lord.
“EL in ELCA should be changed to ‘Endlessly Liberal’…” -Keith. May God have mercy on the ELCA as He did to the Ninevites when He sent Jonah to “preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” (Jon.1:2). I hope the “A” in “ELCA” doesn’t stand for “Apostasy.”
Now, more than ever before, Bible-believing, Confessional Lutherans need to repent for our past and present failures, and to study the Word of God, making it a high priority in our lives, regularly. We must seek to bring back the lost ELCAlites to the fold using God’s approach: Law and Gospel, plain and simple. The Law exposes their (and our) sin. It shows us our great need, that like the homeless, and all others in great need, we are nothing but beggars. The Holy Gospel shows us our Savior. WIthout our lost condition we would have no need of a savior. God makes it crystal clear on the pages of Holy Scripture that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” All of us. By even breaking a small law of God, we have broken the whole of God’s law. We are therefore poor, miserable sinners, deserving of temporal and eternal punishment. But for the grace of God, hell would have been our lot. But thanks be to God that Christ Jesus has paid the penalty for all our sins and the sins of the whole world. Homosexuals can repent, and be forgiven all their sins. Gossips, gluttons, and all other sinners can repent and be forgiven all their sins. Rapists, murderers, racists, child molesters, dishonest politicians, liars…all may repent, trusting God at His Word for complete forgivensess, that we may turn from our sin. May God give us the courage to boldly stand up for His truth rather than conforming to the patterns of this world. May He make us salt and light, a “catalyst for change” in this fallen, hell-bent world. May the grace of God remind us that in Him we are a new creation, and may He take our lives and let them reflect the Light of Christ in the deep darkness that surrounds us. Kyrie Eleison.