Posted on 05/22/2005 7:33:36 PM PDT by Mr.Atos
There is a very serious issue before us today. We have been asked to amend our fundamental principles to attain the popular approval of secular whim. The Church is being pressured from without and within to redefined its foundations to align with certain contemporary cultural prerogatives. Why?
Why are we being asked to do this?
Does such an alteration somehow benefit our faith?... Our culture? Our Church?
Why should we?... What do we gain? How do we develop?
The questions are key to understanding the substance of the issue before us today. Serious reflection and candid affirmation will guide us to the answers we seek. They will also expose the nature of that substance as it relates to us here within the Church - our fortress of refuge from the moral deprivations of cultural deterioration. We are asked to compromise our values daily, ‘out there.’ But, ‘in here’ we depend on sovereignty and unity on the foundation of principle. Tolerance is extended from the fortress. Protection is sometimes afforded the wayward. But, we do not amend our principle to attain the tolerance of popular consensus.
Some compare the issue before us to historic debates on race and the inclusion of people in the definition of humanity. Please do not humiliate the virtue of the Civil Rights movement by tarnishing it with false arguments and straw victims in this regard. The issues here are completely different. Men and woman retain the equality of their human condition regardless of their race. But, no rational argument can eliminate the difference in gender between the only two aspects of humanity, nor erase the fundamental...FUNDAMENTAL significance of each to the whole. Humanity was split into two distinct facets. Marriage is the acknowledgment of balance and reunification. It is a statement of profound and eternal commitment for the sake of creation. For it is the primary goal of marriage to unify for the sake of propagating creation.
Antoine De Saint Exupery tells us that love does not consist of gazing into one another’s eyes, but is best represented by two pairs of eyes staring outward in the same direction. Indeed, love defies the preconditions of common values, and cultural standards. It is solely a common personal commitment between two individuals that exists beyond another’s acknowledgment or approval. To deny it would be unconscionable. To forbid it would be a crime. And yet to endorse any preferential relationship in principle that contradicts a fundamental premise of codified virtue would be equally reprehensible. We view love and commitment as ideal preconditions of marriage. But, marriage is not merely the supreme manifestation of love and commitment. It is far more significant than that in the context of culture and indeed faith..
The fundamental premise of marriage is the reunification of the two aspects of humanity for the sake of procreation. Children are not created spontaneously, nor are they bestowed with rights by popular consensus. They are prototypical humans, conceived by a natural biological process that yields a free life. In this way, we are endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights through nothing more than our very existence. This fact is not defined by the Constitution of the United States, and by proxy the Government same. It is, rather acknowledged. Freedom exists by means of existence. It is therefore acknowledged as fact by all citizens unified by those codified principles; enjoying the liberty protected by law and extended in kind.
Children are not afforded the full liberty of citizenship in law at birth, however. Unable to comprehend their responsibilities as citizens, so-called minors are subject to the will of their guardian. Ideally that guardian is the natural parent; their direct biological ancestry. In absence, or as a result of extreme circumstance, they may be awarded custody by the State. But, make no mistake, natural guardianship is afforded by means of procreation and as such maintains absolute priority. It is the natural preconception of ‘family’ that is acknowledge by civilization to be its fundamental unit. It exists as such before and beyond the recognition of the State. Consequently, it remains only as long as the principle that defines it retains primacy.
Undermine the definition of marriage, and the premise of an inalienable existence is likewise subject to consensual interpretation. When the family unit ceases to be a fundamental aspect of natural law, natural law ceases to be a legitimate source of legal authority. Cultural whim then becomes a legitimate preconception for law... in both the Church and the State.
Cardinal Ratzinger warned the devout against surrendering virtue to the temptations of relativism. As Pope Benedikt XVI, his point takes on an air of extreme profundity. When we abandon fundamental principle to the temptation of perceived consensus for the benefit of popular approval, we undermine more than our faith. We contribute to the decomposition of the values of the culture with which we identify. And we likewise dissolve the civil unity of humanity as a whole.
Dare we compromise our faith-forged fortress for the sands of worldly blessing?
Ping!
bump
The moral crisis is that they are departing from Christ and his word. All the other stuff just follows in it's wake. Our congregation has already stopped funding the ELCA.
A gentleman visiting from Washington approached Mrs. Atos afterward and said, "thank God for the Missouri Synod." She replied, "my husband would agree!" As a traditional member of the Missouri Synod from down South in Texas, indeed I do. I will be reevaluating our current choices for family worship accordingly. LCMS or HRCC. The ELCA is effectively dead.
But, I would be interested to know from other ELCA members how these discussions have unfolded in their congregations. And have similar discussion taken place in Methodist, Baptist, and other Protestant congregations.
The Mrs. is Catholic. To date I have been able to tend us toward my beliefs. But, now the scales have tipped. With the coronation of Pope Benedikt the XVI, I'm rather partial to her encouragement.
The alternative might be to follow the affiliations that I developed working with LDS... a greater group of people one could hardly find.
The only reason I'm somewhat familiar with ELCA is because my wife was Lutheran. Their church was just fine, but I told her that we wouldn't support (even if indirectly) such immorality from the ELCU. That's why we started going to our present church.
FR search the keyword Methodist and see some reasons. They were on the fence, went slightly right last summer, and are now going hard left. They're also now doing the unity thing with the ELCA, as ELCA does with ECUSA.
Mr.Atos, for the ELCA congregation my family left, the feeling is that until it walks in their doors, don't worry about it; maybe it won't affect them. Only a few people asked us why we left, or for details, and then gave little resonse. The water in the pot has become piping hot, and the frogs are being eaten. With sauce.
So it would seem. But, I've never been fond of swimmming in pots.
Thank you for the insight.
At the convention, I picked up a book about the ELCA's history....written by a proud ELCA writer. I got about three chapters into it and threw it against the wall. The original organizers and Bishop had what is occuring now in mind when they merged the churches in the late 80s. Sexuality was the motivation.
Much of the ELCA's agenda is hidden in the works of the national/world council of churches. The average pew sitter would die of shock if they knew where their tythes headed off to support.
Leave the ELCA and encourage others to do so.
Archie: I couldn't agree more. I've lost patience. Mr. CGG and I saw the light 13 years ago. We've been LCMS since but all our family is still at ELCA. They don't like what's happening but I don't see any of them being upset enough to leave.
An expert on both ethanol and the faith. Good work.,p.
Oh, maybe I shouldn't have said "good work" on a Lutheran thread.
Thanks for the ping, Tony. As a conservative member of a fairly conservative ELCA church in a liberal synod, I am not sure how much influence I can have. However, I must say I really resent the people telling me to abandon my church while there is still any hope of steering it in the right direction. Although Mrs. Reb and I have not been members for long, our church is over 200 years old and has survived a lot of things over the years. I just hope and pray we can do our part in helping it survive this particular crisis.
I'm not sure I've read a more succinct statement of the issue anywhere.
Well done. I'm not sure what is left to be said here.
The irony in all of this is that this debate is happening in the Lutheran Church, which in my mind constitutes the REFORMED Catholic Church. It was reformed because the Church was bending to the whims of popular culture, as poluted as it was at the time, and suffering as a result.
Reb, that is precisely the point. There is no hope. When you look at the big picture and see the influence of the National/World Council of Churches on many denominations and follow the history of these organizations you see the enormity of the problem.
It is possible to lead entire ELCA congregations away from the ELCA, though hard to do. That is the desirable thing to do. We took the easy way out and left the ELCA.
At my age, I was able to look back to see where my church had evolved over the years from a Bible believing church to a totally apostate church and knew it was time to leave. God bless.
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