Posted on 03/09/2006 6:17:09 AM PST by American72
My husband has subscribed to a Daily Devotional Email from a Pastor Kerry at Covenant Lutheran Church (ELCA) in Houston, TX for a number of years. Although we are Missouri Synod, we know Pastor Kerry and have enjoyed the devotionals. Kerry recently went on a 6-month sabbatical doing who knows what and came back talking all this anti-war garbage. We were present at his Christmas Eve Service with the family (my husband's sister goes there) and almost got up and left when he started talking about our bombs killing innocents on Christmas Eve. My husband has already written him twice after his emails this week with no reply. Look at the website and read the devotionals from this week. Here are a few excerpts. I would post them all but it would be very long.
"Increasingly I am coming to believe that the best support, both now and in the long run, in the face of messages that say the quagmire in the Middle East will last for years, is to bring them home."
"Let us pray: Gracious God, the battles against evil rage in our hearts and in this world. Patience and love fall to power and weaponry. Our brother is dehumanized and our children are taught to kill with precision. Bombs are strapped to bodies and statesmen abuse the trust of their people and the power of their offices. Is there anything we can do or must we sit idly by? In Jesus’ name. Amen."
"I realize that I am not a philosopher or a theologian or an expert at anything, I’m nothing but a simple parish pastor. And I seriously question whether what we are doing in Iraq continues to be just and right or whether it has become something we are just doing because we have the might."
"Perhaps we haven’t learned much in the last 4000 years. But hopefully we have learned something. Hopefully we have learned that wars don’t solve problems. At best, war can create the opportunity whereby problems can be solved. I pray that is the outcome in Iraq and I pray that it happens as quickly as possible."
"Let us pray: Dear Jesus, just as people misconstrued the message of the Bible when they used it to convict you of blasphemy, so too people today use the Bible to justify their prejudices, fears and idolatries. Help us to truly and deeply see beyond the words on the page to the Word which your Spirit sows anew in our lives. In Jesus’ name. Amen."
ping
I would be leary of anyone named Kerry!!!!!!
Isn't the Missouri synod the conservative wing of the Lutheran church?
My daughter-in-law and grandkids are faithful Lutherans and they are a military family.
They have infiltrated our churches. I feel some did it to force social change. I would expect a pastor or priest to be averse to warfare. I would also expect them to preach Gods word and not that of CPUSA or the DNC. I would simply block their emails.
Alphabet Lutheran..probably went to a brainwa..er, convention during his sabbatical.
His fellow ELCA and UCC ministers chanted their liberal cult mantra and his sponge-like brain absorbed it.
We have many priests like this in the Catholic Church.
ELCA is liberal. Missouri Synod is conservative. Wisconsin Synod is even more conservative.
Hi, Tony! FYI ping...
Pot and kettle, there. This guy's a Leftist using his mail-order collar as a crutch for The Agenda.
Yes, Missouri Synod is conservative. We don't go to Pastor Kerry's church. We go to a Missouri Synod Church in Houston. My Sis-in-Law is ELCA, and turned my husband on to her pastor's devotionals a while back. Each time we hear stuff like this, we are reminded again why we left the ELCA a number of years ago. I couldn't stand receiving their Socialist magazine "The Lutheran" and listening to liberal rants every Sunday. My husband's family has been ELCA since he was born, and we are the only ones who have left. His niece is going to seminary to be an ELCA pastor, so we are definitely the "outcasts" of the family. Ha.
I wonder if he protested President Clinton's bombing of Orthodox Christians in Belgrade on Orthodox Easter Sunday, something that Adoph Hitler had also done some 50 years earlier?
Ok, that's really not a question, we already know that the "pastor" didn't.
"I realize that I am not a philosopher or a theologian or an expert at anything, I’m nothing but a simple parish pastor. And I seriously question whether what we are doing in Iraq continues to be just and right or whether it has become something we are just doing because we have the might."
Nothing wrong with that whatsoever. God didn't say we couldn't question our leaders nor their decisions. I've read of several conservatives who originally supported the action in Iraq have raised questions of late.
"Perhaps we haven’t learned much in the last 4000 years. But hopefully we have learned something. Hopefully we have learned that wars don’t solve problems. At best, war can create the opportunity whereby problems can be solved. I pray that is the outcome in Iraq and I pray that it happens as quickly as possible."
Nothing wrong with that either. Don't know of many wars in recent history that have solved a problem once and for all.
This is not your grandmother's Lutheran Church. The ELCA has a left wing agenda driven by Bishop Mark Hanson.
The last straw was having to put a special banner out front of the church with rainbow colors so gays would know we are a "reconciling in chris church" - we welcome gays, even though our mission statement stated we welcome all into Christ's house.
My former pastor started getting too liberal, so, I left.
My perspective with these liberal pastors is, they would hold on to their position if there were only one person to listen to them.
There is a verse of scripture I remember reading years ago.
I cant remember the exact text but it was something like this,
woe to the preachers who scatter my sheep. I know several who
will have some explaining to do.
These libs are getting tiresome.
I have never known a man of the cloth to be FOR a war, any war. Having said that, daily devotionals are not to be used as a political tool.
First off it's you're. Secondly, really? Let's look at first major war of the 20th century shall we? A trade war, and in effect the last colonial war. What did it solve? Besides Wilson's interference helping to create the vacuum in Germany for a certain corporal to step into, his support (including monetary) to keep Russia in the war as long as it was led to the communist revolution. Let's go to the Middle East. What certain nation are US troops currently in? When was that state created. Yeah, some fix. Having to deal with post WWI issue 90 years after the fact. Didn't solve a damn thing and laid the groundwork not only for WWII but for the Cold War as well. 50 years of unneeded strife and still mopping up colonial issues in the Middle East. That's a fix alright...
I'm glad to hear it. My DIL is from Wisconsin so I assume they are Wisconsin synod.
She loves her church and is very faithful. They live in Maryland and the kids get enough liberal crap from the school system. Dad (my stepson) is in Iraq. It would be terrible for them if they got this stuff at church as well as school.
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