The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America at its Church wide Assembly voted that its bishops should refrain from disciplining  rostered workers who are in a "mutual, chaste and faithful same-sex relationship."

After several votes turning down efforts to change the ELCA’s "Visition and Expectations" document that governs the standards required for rostered workers, in order to permit such relationships, this was a substitute motion to ask at least for there to be an end to any disciplinary efforts against such rostered workers, a "cease fire" or a "time out" as it was put on the floor during the debate.

My sense is that many of the voting members of the Assembly simply had been worn out emotionally by the plaintive speeches made by, and for, homosexuals in relationships and this was perhaps regarded as a gesture of conciliation. Upon further reflection perhaps a number who voted for this will realize that they have, effectively, just given a green light to what in Scripture is very much a large, flashing red light and "danger" sign.

The best speech on this matter, in my opinion, was given by a dairy farmer from Wisconsin who rose and said, simply and powerfully:

I’ve listened to the debates over homosexuality all week. This debate is literally breaking my heart. In this post-modern world
which says everyone defines what is right or wrong for himself/herself,
the idea of discipline for violating boundaries is viewed as injustice.
We can not live our lives without boundaries. I’m a dairy farmer and I
work daily around large animals and large pieces of equipment. We
raised five children who always wanted to be with dad. Because I loved them
I built a fence and they had to stay in the boundaries of the fence, even if
they cried or begged. They could climb out. When they did they were
disciplined. It did not matter how much they wanted to be with me, or I
with them. Our Creator has given us boundaries, if we could live within
those boundaries a need for discipline would not exist.

Read more…

"Just as the confession distinguishes the church from strange religions, so also it distinguishes—this its task—truth from error, pure doctrine from heresy, the church from sect within Christianity. Thus rings the definition of confession in the introduction of the Formula of Concord: “Et quia statim post apostolorum tempora, imo etiam cum adhuc superstites essent, falsi doctores et haeretici exorti sunt, contra quos in primitiva ecclesia symbola sunt composita, id est, breves et categoricae confessiones, quae unanimem catholicae christiani fidei consensum et confessionem orthodoxorum et verae ecclesiae complectebantur.” (“And because directly after the times of the apostles, and even while they were still living, false teachers and heretics arose, and symbols, i.e., brief, succinct confessions, were composed against them in the early Church, which were regarded as the unanimous, universal Christian faith and confession of the orthodox and true Church.”) This setting of the limit of truth and error belongs to the essence of confession. If the improbant [“they (our churches) reject”] and the damnant [“they condemn”] (by which is designated the impossibility of church fellowship), which sound so harsh to modern ears are silenced, the Augustana ceases to be confession.

If this drawing of boundaries is called “loveless” and “unchristian,” then the same reproach is also directed toward the Apostolicum, every sentence of which was formulated against some heresy, and, above all, this reproach is directed toward the Bible itself. Just as the false prophets stand over against the prophets of God (Jer 23:21 ff.; 29:8–9; Ezekiel 13), [and just as] the false apostles stand over against the apostles of Christ (2 Cor 11:13), so the sect and heresy stand over against the church. And just as the struggle between truth and error rings through all of Holy Scripture, so also it runs through the history of the church, and the church would cease to be the church of Christ, messenger of the redeeming truth of the revelation of God to people, if it would cease to fight this battle. Here lies the greatest and most difficult task of the formation of confession. Here is shown whether or not Christianity still knows what the confession of the church means. The manner in which an age approaches this task shows what of courage and strength of faith, and what of humility and love are alive in Christianity. Here is shown whether the church knows of the reality of the Holy Spirit.

If the people of the Christian West, deep into the rank and file of the church, have forgotten this last sense of the confession of the church, then the reason for the downfall must not be overlooked. It happened because this struggle for the truth of the Gospel—the most difficult struggle which the church in the world has had to carry out—was not always fought with pure hearts and unsullied hands. Nowhere has the church failed so seriously as there where it should have struggled for the pure teaching of the Gospel. In the fight against apostasy from the church, the church has itself only too often forsaken Christ. Thus the confessing church has ever and again become the denying church. The history of Simon Peter, who was the first to express the confession of the church and the first to deny the Lord, has been repeated in the history of the church. But something else is also repeated therein: the tears of repentance and the reinstatement into the office, and this is the office of confession, of bearing witness, of martyrdom."

Source:
Hermann Sasse
The Confession of the Church
The Lonely Way, p. 113.

Call me an old stick-in-the-mud, or, as I recently admitted to a fellow Lutheran blogger, I unashamedly consider myself on the cutting edge of 16th century Lutheran theology, a new book from Augsburg-Fortress Press, to me, pretty well summarizes the problem with mainline Christendom in this country. Sasse once observed that the classic liberals of the 19th century were like little children playing in their sandbox unaware that the sun was setting on them. In the same vein, the publishing house of the ELCA, a church body in a flat spin, has issued an apologia for liberal theology, the "great movement" that has delivered to the church doubt, confusion and damning apostasy. Why would anyone wish to advocate for it? I’m all for understanding it, but defending it? Arguing for it? Not so much. Here’s how this new book is described:

I’ve not said anything about the murders at Virginia Tech simply because so many others have, and no doubt will continue to in the months ahead. The depth of sin once more was revealed in all its horrible brutality. A deeply mentally ill young man was passed around, in and out of "counseling" situations, but never stopped and institutionalized. Why? I do not know. I’m disgusted by the blog posts, by pastors no less, who have decided to turn this situation into a forum on gun control, either pro or con.

I’m deeply troubled by one aspect of this situation: the abject failure of the Lutheran pastor on the scene there to say a clear word about our Lord Christ during the special service held on the campus and broadcast nationwide.

I’ll put it plainly: If you are going to participate in an overtly syncretistic service like this, a bad situation to begin with, then for the love of Christ [literally!], speak of Christ and the power of His resurrection! Here is an excellent commentary on the situation that I entirely agree with.

Ashamed of the Gospel?  Missed Opportunity at Virginia Tech
By Frank Pastore
Sunday, April 22, 2007

Let’s
test your knowledge of world religions. Below is the entire message
delivered by one of the four religious leaders at last week’s
convocation at Virginia Tech, in the aftermath of the horrible mass
murders that left 32 dead and 21 injured.

The test is simple: determine the religion being represented.

We gather this afternoon for many purposes. To weep for lost
friends and family, to mourn our lost innocence, to walk forward in the
wake of unspeakable tragedy, to embrace hope in the shadow of despair,
to join our voices in a longing for peace, and healing, and
understanding which is much greater than any single faith community. To
embrace that which unifies, and to reject the seductive temptation to
hate. We gather to share our hurts and our hopes, our petitions and our
prayers.

We gather also to drink deeply of the religious streams
which have refreshed parched peoples for many generations. We gather
together, weeping. Yes, we weep with an agony too deep for words and
sighs that are inexpressible. But also we gather affirming the
sovereignty of life over death.

At a time such as this, the darkness of evil seems powerful
indeed. It casts a pall over our simple joys, joys as simple as playing
Frisbee on the drill field. We struggle to imagine a future beyond this
agony. If we ever harbored any illusions that our campus is an idyllic
refuge from the violence of the rest of the world, they are gone
forever. And yet, we come to this place to testify that the light of
love cannot be defeated.

Amid all our pain, we confess that the light shines in the
darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. We cannot do everything,
but we can do something. We cannot banish all darkness, but we can by
joining together, push it back. We can not undue yesterday’s tragic
events, but we can sit in patient silence with those who mourn as they
seek for a way forward.

As we share light, one with another, we reclaim our campus,
let us deny death’s power to rob us of all that we have loved about
Virginia Tech, this our community. Let us cast our lot with hope in
defiance of despair. I invite you to observe a moment of silence.

Difficult, isn’t it?

The message was delivered by Reverend William H. King, Director
of Lutheran Campus Ministries at Virginia Tech, and a member of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The video of the message
is available online.

Each of the four speakers were there to represent their
religion, to bring the message of comfort and hope rooted in their
faith tradition. The Muslim speaker read passages from the Koran in
Arabic and appealed to Allah, the Jewish speaker read from Ecclesiastes
3 while an assistant repeated the passages in Hebrew, the Buddhist
quoted the Dalai Lama, while the Christian did not even quote from the
Bible, nor mention the name of Jesus – the namesake of his religion.

What Mr. King said should be studied in every seminary in
America. It is precisely what not to do when given the opportunity to
bring the message of the Gospel of Jesus to those grieving the loss of
loved ones and struggling to make sense of the evil visited upon them.

The nearest thing to Christianity anyone heard at the
Convocation was the playing of Amazing Grace and the unison recitation
of The Lord’s Prayer. There was far more Bible coming from the pews
than being preached from the pulpit.

No wonder Christianity is so easily and regularly attacked on
college campuses. With advocates like this, who needs opposition? We’ve
got guys in our uniform playing for the other team.

Mr. King could have spoken the truth. He could have explained
why Christians are confident in divine justice, why we believe that
good will ultimately triumph over evil, why we know that there is life
after death for those that trust Christ. He could have explained that
Jesus paid the penalty for all our sins on the Cross that Friday long
ago, and rose bodily from the dead on Sunday to prove His sovereignty
over evil, sin and death.

In short, he could have preached the Gospel. After all, the murders were only a week removed from Easter.

But, Mr. King decided to do something apparently more important
in his mind. He decided to be politically correct and not offend the
members of his interfaith community by offering hollow words of
humanistic philosophy lacking any real substance, and by appealing to
various “religious streams” and by validating the search “for a way
forward,” he insulted those of us who actually believe Christianity is
true and other religions false.

In so doing, he denied his faith.

He offered those mourning no hope for the present nor any hope for the future.

He left the hearers dead in their sins.

A minister ashamed of the Gospel should not have been on that podium.

More sad news of the false doctrine embraced by many churches who are part of the LWF.  The Latvian Archbishop was the only voice from European Lutheran churches who spoke out opposing the liberal church’s views of homosexuality.

By Peter Kenny 
Lund, Sweden, 23 March (ENI)–Blessings for people living in
same-sex relationships triggered heated debate at a meeting of
the main governing body of the Lutheran World Federation in the
southern Swedish city of Lund, this week. 

Read more…

Indicating their hands were tied by church rules, the committee hearing the case of an ELCA homosexual pastor who admitted to his bishop that he was in a homosexual relationship ruled that he would be removed from the ELCA clergy roster in August 2007. But its ruling indicated that the rules of the ELCA should be change, for they saw no reason why a man living with another man in a homosexual relationship should be excluded from the office of pastor. Read the extended entry for the complete ELCA news release and the complete decision of the panel. Read it and weep. The slouching toward Gomorrah in the ELCA continues unabated. This "ruling" is empty and hollow. If you want to jump right to the ruling itself, here is a PDF of it:   Download elca_decision.pdf

Read more…

"As sinful and godless as it is to quarrel over mere words or indifferent questions, it is just as reprehensible to ignore differences concerning precious, certain, divine truths instead of fighting for them. . . . According to God’s Word, the church that wants to make peace by leaving some of the truth behind and declaring false doctrine to be acceptable is a house of whitewashed walls that are neither mortared nor built upon solid ground. As a result, any wind can blow it down, and any rain can wash it away. Such a church is more dangerous than the most awful sect, for at least the sect recognizes that only pure doctrine should be preached in a church. A so-called union church stands on rotten ground. No one in it can find and possess the pure truth because no one is willing to fight for it. May God protect every pious Christian from such false peace with man and against God."

-Dr. C.F.W. Walther
God Grant It
(Saint Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2006), p. 154-155.

It will be interesting to see how this trial turns out.

Link: US News � Gay Lutheran minister faces church trial (AP).

Many years ago when we were living in Chicago and I was finishing up my last year at Concordia College, my wife and I went out with one of her friends from her days at Valparaiso University. This lady’s husband was a seminary student at the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago. I remember this outing because of the bizarre conversation I had with the man. He was singing the praises of Paul Tillich and I had done a bit of reading in Tillich and for the life of me could not understand why anyone in their right mind, let alone anyone remotely interested in genuine Christianity, not to mention authentic Lutheranism, would want to waste their time studying Tillich and his drivel.

Read more…

PIcked up this news story just now on my lunch break. Prepare for another opportunity to explain to people what confessional Lutherans believe, teach and confess on these issues as, once again, we are lumped into the "general" Lutheran bucket on this stuff. No doubt homosexuality will be a major part of this latest "study" and so a short, to the point treatment of the subject will prove helpful. I would recommend What About Homosexuality.

CHICAGO (AP) “Lutherans talk about human sexuality."

That’s the subject of a study being released today by the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which has lost members amid
divisions over homosexuality.

Last year, delegates to the denomination’s national meeting split
almost evenly on whether to let gays and lesbians in long-term
relationships serve as clergy. The proposal, which needed a two-thirds
majority, failed but a church task force was told to keep studying
issues of sexuality and prepare the report that’s being issued today.

E-L-C-A officials say the new study will invite Lutherans “to
consider human sexuality through the lens of Scripture and Lutheran
teaching."

Here is a good case study in what is wrong with much of modern Christianity. Here is a church leader’s Christmas greeting. Study it and then comment on what you believe is missing from these thoughts on Christmas.

    "The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory…" (John 1:14). We live in a visited world.  On that holy night twenty centuries ago, God visited the world in the miracle of Bethlehem.  Held in Mary’s arms that night was the revelation of steadfast, unbounded love for all humanity.  The birth of Jesus disclosed God’s saving will and eternal desire for reconciliation and peace.

Read more…

Westminster/John Knox Press, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church USA, has published a new book, just in time for Christmas, savaging the truth of the Faith! [Am I allowed to mention the fact that Augsburg-Fortress Publishing House is now partnered with W/JK to produce the "Lutheran Handbook," and the ELCA's new Sunday School curriculum and also their Vacation Bible School?]. Here’s more on the book:

Christianity’s Origins Questioned by Sociologist
by David Klinghoffer

Westminster
John Knox Press, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (USA), kicked
up a controversy this summer when it published a book alleging that
9/11 resulted from a Bush Administration plot. Critics, including
Presbyterians, wondered what the press was doing promoting a conspiracy
theory like the one in David Ray Griffin’s Christian Faith and the Truth Behind 9/11. Now WJKP is back with another title that may again leave the faithful scratching their heads in wonderment.

The book, out this month, is Why Christianity Happened: A Sociological Account of Christian Origins (26-50 C.E.)
by James G. Crossley. It argues that a key feature of Christian
doctrine was merely a response to social conditions. Specifically, the
apostle Paul rejected observance of Jewish law as a requirement for new
Christians, thus turning one of Jesus’ original teachings on its head,
simply because there were so many new gentile converts to the Jesus
movement. It thus became implausible to require them all to follow Old
Testament laws like circumcision and eating only kosher food.

Note: the title is *not* my title, it is the newspapers’ title, and "queer" in this group’s view is a good thing. Don’t hold your breath waiting for the ELCA to remove from their fellowship any of their clergy or congregations doing this.

Consortium of San Francisco Lutheran Churches to Ordain a Queer Pastor on November 18th

Two questions: A) Why do pets and other animals need the church’s "blessing"? B) What Lutheran congregation in its right mind would so such a thing? I know, it is "cute" and I’m sure the kiddies and grown ups all are quite pleased with the whole thing and it makes a lot of people happy, but….is that any reason to engage in such activity? This happened in Georgetown, South Carolina at an ELCA congregation. I’m wondering what might happen if the congregation were to "bless" a nice fat pig and then slaughter it on the spot and roast it for a delicious pork feast. Now that might be something a bit more appropriate if we are truly to celebrate God’s gift of animals to us, "Take and eat" as St. Peter was told. But it would be terribly messy, might upset some folks and kind of be a damper on the whole "cuteness" thing going on here. In our house we "bless" animals every day when we pray, "Lord God, Heavenly Father, bless us and these Thy gifts, which we receive from Thy bountiful goodness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen."

Little
Daniel Cox ran around the lawn of Trinity Lutheran Church in Maryville
Sunday afternoon showing everyone in attendance his turtle Marty, one
of the numerous pets gathered by their owners for the first-ever
Blessing of the Animals service held at the church.

“Everything needs a blessing, even the animals. I figure this will help them,” Daniel’s dad, Richie Cox said.

While dogs greatly outnumbered the other pets that were there to
receive a blessing from Pastor Nedra Merriman, there were also ferrets,
guinea pigs, cats and – for a short time – a horned owl.

Merriman
said Blessing of the Pets and Animals services are quite common across
the country but, as far as she knows, this was the first held in
Georgetown.

The services are generally held in early October to
coincide with the Oct. 4 date of death of St. Francis of Assisi, the
Roman Catholic patron saint of animals and ecology.

She said such services were held at her church in Atlanta and she wanted to bring the tradition to Georgetown.

About two dozen people gathered outside the church under perfect fall
weather as the service began with Irene Mobley presenting and then
releasing a horned owl that has been receiving care from International
Center for Birds of Prey.

“It came into the center in June. She had
been found on the ground in Walterboro. She had severe emaciation, we
don’t know why. We gave her antibiotics and kept her and fed her and
now she was ready to be released,” Mobley said, adding that she fed the
owl half a rat prior to being set free.

As the owl flew out of
sight towards the marshes surrounding the city, Merriman and some kids
from her church read scriptures as the pets sat amazingly quiet and
still next to their owners.

Merriman, after the scriptures and a
prayer, walked around touching each animal, delivering a personal
blessing to each one. What the pets probably liked the most was the bag
of treats each was given for their owners to take home and feed them.

Shelley Kaufman had two dogs in tow – Jed and Molly – for the service.

“My mom is a member of the church and these dogs are very important to us,” she said.

Mobley also brought her ferret, Otter, to the service which seemed to take a liking to many of the dogs and other pets on hand.

Little Tyler Bone, who spent a lot of time rubbing the stomach of her
dog Cassie, had people laughing when she ran up front asking Merriman
to also bless two small stuffed animals she was carrying.
Merriman, herself a pet lover, had her dog Shelly by her side during the service.

“It’s amazing the friendship human beings develop with their pets. She
loves me when it seems other people may not. She is glad to see me and
I am glad to see her. I care for her the way God cares for me,”
Merriman said.

She said the service is “an acknowledgment of our great love for God’s creation.”

She also said she was amazed at how well the various animals got along.
She said she had feared there may be problems when they were all
brought together but the service was peaceful.

Source: