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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America officially allows homosexual marriages, so says the “number two man” in the denomination, David Swartling. At the 2012 Southwestern Washington Synod Assembly it has been reported that, “(I)n response to a query from the floor of the assembly, Secretary of the ELCA David Swartling, at the assembly as the representative of the national church, said that the marriage of same-gender couples in states where that was legal was neither endorsed nor precluded by ELCA policy. Marriage in those circumstances was at the discretion of pastors and congregations.” (read here) One of the duties of...

Violence in Egypt, Libya, elsewhere condemned by ELCA presiding bishop 12-62-MRC CHICAGO (ELCA) -- In letters to Coptic Orthodox, Islamic and Muslim leaders across the United States, the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), denounced the hate video "Innocence of Muslims" and shared his commitment to speak against the violence and hate demonstrations that have erupted in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. In his Sept. 19 letters, Hanson expressed sadness about what has unfolded in recent days, especially the tragic deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and others. He lifted up the importance of...

On a small so-called Lutheran college campus in northern Minnesota, a national battle for the soul of America is being played out in microcosm. In response to the left’s cancer that has plagued America’s institutions, where fealty to leftist Pagan values is now a virtue, and the hostile intolerance of all other values a requirement, a courageous young lady has decided to lay down her own very small gauntlet against the oppressive and Orwellian indoctrination of the left. In her world, that indoctrination starts early, via the insidious and not-so-subtle “Coming Out” week, where Pagan propaganda is not only celebrated,...

Rebecca Julius sent me the following letter and gave me permission to share it with you. Rebecca is a student at an ELCA college. I praise God for Rebecca and pray God will raise up faithful men and women to stand up with her. In first Corinthians 5, Paul writes to God's people concerning sexual immorality, and chastises them for their pride and boasting over something evil. He talks about judgement - not hating or being hypocritical, but keeping those who profess Christ's name accountable to their faith and fellowship. Too often today, Christians that oppose homosexuality and same-sex marriage...

Augsburg College, the Lutheran liberal arts college in Minneapolis, has joined the coalition working to defeat the proposed marriage amendment. The college, with 4,000 students, is now part of Minnesotans United for All Families, which opposes the proposed constitutional amendment that would limit marriage to one man and one woman. State law already prohibits gay marriage, but supporters of the amendment want it put in the state Constitution, so the Legislature or courts cannot make a change. Pastor Grant Stevensen, Minnesotans United for All Families faith director, said in a statement: "Five of the six Minnesota synods of the ELCA...

“Grace is not your average Lutheran church,” so says the ELCA’s Grace Lutheran Church in a Houston, TX. I say that isn't necessarily so. I believe Grace Lutheran gives us a picture of what many ELCA churches ARE like and what most ELCA churches will be. And it’s time that all the Midwest ELCA churches, rural ELCA churches, head-in-the-sand churches and members everywhere understand what the ELCA has become. Let me tell you about Grace Lutheran. Their church website recommends giving kids a children’s book about homosexual marriage. The book is called Donovan’s Big Day. One of Grace Lutheran's church...

This week ELCA Bishop of the North Texas-Northern Louisiana Mission Area, Kevin S. Kanouse wrote a blog (see here) calling those who support Chick-fil-A bullies and he blamed “preachers (?)” for people going to show their support for Chick-fil-A. This after the widespread temper tantrum and bullying from liberals and homosexuals against Chick-fil-A’s president for stating he believes in the Biblical view of one man, one woman marriage. Notice, too, that the ELCA bishop disparages the preachers by placing a question mark after referencing them, apparently implying that he questions whether they are true Christian preachers. ELCA Bishop Kanouse mockingly...

GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. - The ELCA vote of 2009 divided Lutherans forever. The decision to allow gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships to be ordained into ministry caused a ripple effect of defections. On Tuesday many of those ripples gathered for a Lutheran conference at Calvary Lutheran Church in Golden Valley. Some of them reflecting on who they have become as a faith community since then. "The positive part about it is its helped people to I think discern who they are and what they believe and what is important in life and ministry," Pastor Steve Dornbusch of Calvary...

The ELCA online publication (likely the print magazine also) The Lutheran published another article highlighting some of the actions taken by ELCA synods this year at their synod assemblies. (see Exposing the ELCA’s blog containing The Lutheran’s first report here) Below are the most troubling, pertinent, non-Biblical, disappointing and liberal actions taken by the ELCA’s leadership from my point of view: The Grand Canyon Synod, - “Concluded that the Arizona SB 1070 Immigration Law is inconsistent with collective Christian beliefs and is harmful to the needs of Arizona, exhorting members to advocate for immigration reform that is ‘comprehensive, fair, humane,...

Preamble The statement of the Lutheran churches in Africa on MFHS takes place in the context and background of on-going discussions within the LWF communion of churches officially established in Lund, in 2007. According to the statement of the Africa region LWF preassembly meeting in Abuja in March 2010, the African churches participate in this process for the purpose of (a) strengthening the communion, (b) clarifying the generally shared position of the Lutheran churches in Africa, and (c) also to state clearly that this is not THE pressing issue for the Lutheran communion in Africa region. The Lutheran communion in...

I was surprised to see Amey Schnabel's article "22 votes for a pastor -- for progress" (July 10), in which she shared what felt like personal information about the workings of her hometown church. She wanted the world to know that 22 people voted yes to calling a partnered gay man to serve as their pastor. [ . . . ] In my 17 years serving ELCA parishes as a lay minister, I both saw the tears and heard the angry words of those who believe, like Schnabel, that they "read deeper into the meaning of what was written in...

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...