LCMS Response to ELCA Sexuality Statement
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod’s Commission on Theology and Church Relations has made public the response it was commissioned to prepare by The LCMS, a response to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s sexuality statement: Human Sexuality—Gift and Trust. The LCMS statement is very well done and very to the point. Here are the concluding sentences:
“The evaluation of Wolfhart Pannenberg rings true: “If a church were to let itself be pushed to the point where it ceased to treat homosexual activity as a departure from the biblical norm, and recognized homosexual unions as a personal partnership of love equivalent to marriage, such a church would stand no longer on biblical ground but against the unequivocal witness of Scripture. A church that took this step would cease to be the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church.” The ELCA has now taken this step, embodying apostasy from the faith once delivered to the saints.
Here is a copy of the CTCR statement:
Response_to_Human_Sexuality-Gift_and_Trust_Adopted_04-27-12_with_Appendix
I’d like to know who the 18 people were who voted against this resolution from the LCMS!
Its interesting that Panneberg is quoted-that was a wise move. He is highly regarded in the ELCA, or should I say he was until he wrote that acceptance of homosexuality disqualifies a church as being Christian.
Personally I’d say the ELCA crossed the apostasy line even before that decision, but the statement will do.
Thank you for the information about the LCMS response to the ELCA’s Human Sexuality—Gift and Trust. I am not a theologian, but in my opinion the ELCA’s primary motivation throughout this entire mess was political rather than religious. For that reason, the LCMS response will probably fall on deaf ears in the ELCA, since it does not satisfy the ELCA leadership’s craving for “social justice” (political activism).
I liked the report’s section on “bound conscience,” it really crushed it. That part of the ELCA rationale irks me the most. It seemed to me to be the most facile treatment of the true meaning of the phrase; a duplcitous move to throw a cheap “Lutheran” veneer on it. “Who are you to make me go against my “bound conscience”? You know what Luther said about going against conscience.” Ugh.
The ELCA says, “There is a place for you here.” We focus on ways to include people, not exclude them.
Unfortunately, the ELCA is “excluding” the truth in their zeal to promote homosexuality.