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See no evil, hear no evil and speak no evil is a phrase typically meant to describe someone who wants to avoid being embroiled in an uncomfortable or difficult situation. The three monkeys in a row covering their eyes, ears and mouth are universally recognized as the symbol of those that try to deal with misconduct or wrongdoing by refusing to acknowledge it, or by simply feigning ignorance. There are others, like the ELCA, do not simply feign ignorance. The leaders of the ELCA acquiesce to the cravings of a corrupted humanity, ignoring God’s word and create their own interpretation...

I promised that I would review Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson’s Reconciling Works Keynote Address that he gave on July 7. The text was made available by the Bishop’s Office to Pastor Daniel Ostercamp of Webster, SD, who made it available to me. You can read it for yourself here. I will leave to others the critical analysis of Hanson’s remarkably rosy picture of the ELCA. I will also ignore the several self-justifications of his own partisan (or insufficiently partisan!) leadership that pepper the address. The theological question I posed in my previous post was whether the bishop would nurture God’s...

IN 1998, John Shelby Spong, then the reliably controversial Episcopal bishop of Newark, published a book entitled “Why Christianity Must Change or Die.” Spong was a uniquely radical figure — during his career, he dismissed almost every element of traditional Christian faith as so much superstition — but most recent leaders of the Episcopal Church have shared his premise. Thus their church has spent the last several decades changing and then changing some more, from a sedate pillar of the WASP establishment into one of the most self-consciously progressive Christian bodies in the United States. Go to Columnist Page »...

Its numbers and coffers shrinking, the church votes for pet funerals but offers little to the traditional faithful. Episcopalians from around the country gathered here this week for their church's 77th triennial General Convention, which ended Thursday. Although other Protestant denominations have national governing councils, the Episcopal Church's triennial gathering stands apart. For starters, it's one of the world's largest such legislative entities, with more than 1,000 members. General Convention is also notable for its sheer ostentation and carnival atmosphere. For seven straight nights, lavish cocktail parties spilled into pricey steakhouses, where bishops could use their diocesan funds to order...

The head of the religion department at Luther College in Iowa recently argued that Jesus Christ, the central figure of Christianity, was in fact, a Muslim.“‘Was Jesus a Muslim?" asks Prof. Robert F. Shedinger in the beginning of a book he published this year entitled Was Jesus a Muslim? " I will answer with a very qualified yes." In a recent interview Shedinger also defended his controversial thesis explaining that a Muslim undergraduate student had sent him on academic odyssey that culminated with him asking himself "Was Jesus a Muslim?" "Even as a Christian I have to answer yes to...

ReconcilingWorks Keynote Address Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson July 7, 2012 I greet you in the name of Jesus. Amen. Often I am asked, “Bishop Hanson, what is your favorite Bible passage?” I usually resist the designation “favorite” because the scripture in which I am dwelling depends on where I am and what is taking place at the time. Yet when pressed, I often go to 2 Corinthians 5:14-21. The Good News keeps rolling from verse to verse. “[For] the love of Christ urges us on,” “And he died for all, so that those who live might live no longer...

Some years ago the Luther scholar Scott Hendrix published Luther and the Papacy: Stages in a Reformation Conflict, an important study which demonstrated how Luther’s quarrel was never with the catholic faith as such but with “the papists,” modern innovators who had betrayed that faith universally held. Nevertheless, Luther respected the papacy as a pastoral office, according to Hendrix. Indeed, the primary source of his anger was the betrayal of the pope’s universal pastoral duty by Leo X and his successors. Hendrix showed that Luther’s underlying and consistent criterion in judging the papacy is that by divine right the papacy...

Or how about 12 steps for ELCA dissenters? (With some apologies to my friends who are in recovery, knowing they will not take offense.) 1. We admitted that we were powerless over ELCA Assemblies and our churches had become unmanageable. 2. We came to believe that a power outside the ELCA could restore us to orthodoxy. 3. We made a decision to turn our lives over to the care of this power as we understood it, whether it be NALC or LCMC. 4. We made a searching and fearless inventory of our constitutions, looking for escape clauses. 5. We admitted...

After listening online to a recent sermon on "same-sex marriage" by John Piper. . . . I was surprised to read an article in the Star Tribune ("Key Minnesota pastors opt out of marriage fight," June 21) that misrepresented how Piper is addressing the November vote on a proposed marriage amendment to the Minnesota Constitution. [ . . . ] It's clear that Piper did, indeed, direct his church members to vote to approve the amendment. He did so by explaining how to think through this critical cultural issue biblically and logically, rather than merely telling them what to do...

The Minnesota South District of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod voted at its convention in St. Paul late last week to support the state's proposed marriage amendment. The district includes 245 congregations in the Twin Cities and southern half of Minnesota. Clergy and lay representatives approved a resolution affirming marriage as the union of a man and woman and were encouraged to support the proposed amendment on Nov. 6 that would add that definition to the state's constitution, according to a news release from church officials. The Minnesota North District approved a similar resolution in April. The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod is...

The ELCA's Southeastern Iowa Synod issued a statement in their weekly newsletter concerning the Southeastern Iowa Synod Council's removal of St. Mark's Lutheran church (Marion, IA) from the roster of ELCA congregations. Within the statement it says, "The congregation is being served by a pastor of LCMC, a church body considered to promote separation (schismatic) from the ELCA (see HERE ) This is interesting to me because firstly they openly claim that the LCMC promotes separation from the ELCA. What are the facts that support this allegation? The fact of the matter is that this congregation, which the synod took...

Message on Racial Justice in the wake of Trayvon Martin's death from Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson In the wake of Trayvon Martin's tragic death, I call upon members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to join in public lament and to ask searching questions as we renew our commitment to act courageously and to work tirelessly for racial justice. With all who mourn Trayvon's death we cry, "Lord, have mercy." For all who suffer the wounds that racism and violence infect we pray, "Christ, have mercy." For our turning God's gift of diversity into cause for distrust and...

We really need to start a series called, “Are ELCA colleges Christian?” I say that because it seems to me, more and more, worldly values and morals are taking precedent within ELCA colleges. St. Olaf College is affiliated with the ELCA. On St. Olaf's official website we learn of an event called the “Wellness Olympics” and are told this, “Back by popular demand, the Wellness Center is hosting a team-based competition that tests students’ knowledge of sexual health, reproductive anatomy, and STI statistics. It all culminates in an intense relay race to properly put on a condom while wearing ‘beer...

ELCA pastor, the Rev. Andrena Ingram, will be a keynote speaker at the 2012 ELCA Youth Gathering. (see here) This is the same Rev. Ingram who recently wrote: “This is my body, given for you. … this is a condom, given for you. Use it!” (read here) First, what a disgusting and irreverent use of God’s words. That is unacceptable. Secondly, as you can read, this ELCA leader is big on condom use. So much so that she passed out condoms during a HIV Testing Event/“community meal” held at her church. She writes that she, “Went inside our hall, found...

Pacific Lutheran University has its next president – the 13th in the history of the Parkland campus founded in 1890. Thomas W. Krise, the dean of the arts and sciences college at the University of the Pacific in Stockton, Calif., was chosen as PLU’s top leader in a unanimous vote of the Board of Regents Wednesday, according to PLU officials. Krise, 50, will start work at the 3,500-student campus in June. The retired Air Force officer and former English professor replaces Loren Anderson, who moves on this year after 20 years as president. What Krise brings to the job are...

"Kristen decided to share her secret with someone she trusted, a youth pastor. He told her something that forever changed her life and the life of her baby. 'Abortion is not an option,' he said. 'Two wrongs don’t make a right.' The kind pastor suggested that adoption would be a more loving option. 'His words reminded me that this was a baby we were talking about.'" --Peter Baklinski, LifeSiteNews.com, February 20, 2012 Not all Christian pastors would have spoken these words to Kristen, and not all Christian denominations teach their clergy to counsel in this way. I know this, tragically,...

Lutherans in Minnesota plan to officially voice their opposition to the proposed state constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriage. Close to 1,000 Lutheran representatives will vote on the issue on Friday at the annual assembly. The resolution says the amendment would prevent one group of committed couples and families from having the same rights and protections afforded to all others. In 2009, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America assembly in Minneapolis passed a policy that moved toward a more accepting response to same-gender relationships. The assembly also passed resolutions that allowed for congregations to support leaders within the ELCA...

Delegates attending the biennial convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada have voted to allow gays and lesbians to become ministers. The delegates voted 205 to 114 in favour of a motion that states sexual orientation is not in itself a factor that disqualifies a candidate for the church's ministry. The motion rescinds ones from past conventions which disqualified candidates from ordination if they were self-declared, practising homosexuals. The delegates also voted 192 to 132 to allow ministers to conduct or bless same-sex marriages, according to their consciences and the laws of their provinces. Delegates sang "Lord Listen to...

As the saying goes, “Show me your friends, and I’ll tell you who you are.” Who are the bedfellows of the ELCA? In a past blog, Exposing the ELCA revealed the close ties and similar ideologies the ELCA has with the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. Now we find that the ELCA is also very close with an organization called the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA).

The ELCA leadership loves ELCA Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber. She is the face and voice of today’s ELCA. Bolz-Weber pastors a church whose website states it is “queer inclusive,” “social justice oriented” and “irreverent."