Posted on 08/22/2009 5:15:57 PM PDT by rhema
As one whose profession it has been for many years to observe the plight of Christianity, I am always grateful for signs that our God is truly a Jewish God - one with a hilarious sense of irony. This happened again during the ELCA's national assembly, which will go down in history as a singularly boneheaded display of unfaithfulness.
Just as delegates worked themselves up to their decision to allow homosexuals in committed relationships to serve as pastors, a highly selective tornado knocked the cross off the roof of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, where some of their shameful meetings took place.
I could not help grinning: This was truly Old Testament-style: God sometimes uses nature to make a point. Of course you will have to believe in these things in order to grasp their ramifications. If on the other hand you accept Biblical truths only selectively, as did the majority of the Minneapolis delegates, then this incident could only have been a random occurrence - you know: as random as the beginning of the universe.
I was then reminded of another display of God's irony 40 years ago in East Berlin when a television tower, the tallest building in the whole city, went into operation. Walter Ulbricht, the East German Communist party leader, had ordered it built to symbolize the superiority of the Marxist-Leninist worldview that was the state religion in his land.
When the tower was inaugurated on a sunny day, the Communists were shocked. Its rotating ball-shaped dome consisting of hundreds of thousands of metal prisms reflected the sun in the shape of a huge cross regardless of the time of the day. Ulbricht's regime invested millions of marks to rid their edifice of this embarrassing phenomenon. It did not succeed. To this day, an enormous shining cross keeps dominating Berlin, which has alas become the most godless capital city in Western Europe.
To Christians in Germany this amusing episode serves as a reminder of who is still boss -- even after 56 years of Nazi and Communist dictatorship, and the demented two decades of secularization that followed Germany's reunification in 1990.
Until then, East Germany called itself German Democratic Republic, or GDR, for 40 years. Germans used to quip that this acronym stood for a threefold lie. The GDR was neither German, nor Democratic, nor a Republic. One wonders whether a similar analogy could not be made for the ELCA now that its national assembly of this denomination supposedly committed to the "Sola Scriptura" principle stressing the authority of Scripture.
Is it still "evangelical"? Surely not. Is it still "Lutheran"? No way. Is it in fact still "Church" in the original sense of this word deriving from the Greek vocable "Kyriake" (belonging to the Lord)? That depends on which Lord are we talking about - God or a wimp who does not care whether His word is mocked? The Greek word for church is "ekklesia," meaning "called out." In the light of the ELCA's new sexuality decision we must ponder the identity of the Spirit the largest Lutheran church body in the United States seems to follow these days.
To state it bluntly, there is nothing Lutheran about what has happened in Minneapolis. We have witnessed 19th century cultural Protestantism gone wild -- the theologoumenon that Christ and the highest expressions of aspirations of culture are in agreement. But what are at any given time the highest expressions and aspirations of culture? Do they not come across as Zeitgeist, or spirit of time? Were not Nazism and Communism two murderous manifestations of a Zeitgeist? The genocidal "choice" ideology that has slaughtered more than 50 million unborn children in America since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 certainly falls into the same category.
Aghast, faithful Lutherans wonder: "Lord where shall we Lutherans go?" Why is it that we Lutherans so often lose our way just at a time when no message is more needed then ours? Let it be known that there exists a paradoxical tension between Christ and culture: The certainty of being forgiven sinners through Christ's redeeming work on the cross frees us to engage the world with all its foibles but not to embrace them as the ELCA has just done.
I observed the ELCA's Minneapolis proceedings on my computer and murmured, "Lord, have mercy." Then I remembered one of my favorite lines in the Psalter: "He who sits in the heavens laughs" (Psalm 2:4). It's really good to have a Jewish God occasionally sending selective tornados and marking a godless edifice with a shining sign of the cross.
----Uwe Siemon-Netto Ph.D., D.Litt. is Director, Center for Lutheran Theology & Public Life, St. Louis, Missouri
Huh? We have the true faith.
You are probably believing the pedophilia nonsense so adeptly promoted by the MSM. Bad things happen in any place and Protestant churches have the same or higher rate of sexual harrassment as Catholic churches, but Protestant churches are counted separately by denomination so there are no collective statistics. There is only one Catholic Church.
The big problem with the Catholic Church was not pedophilia, but that it tolerated gays after Vatican II. This was because it accepted secular standards and gays were sent for counseling about their approaches to teenage boys ...but not removed, because this would have been considered “punitive” and American psychology wouldn’t have that!
The Church in the US only had problems when it attempted to adapt to American psychologically-defined “morality.” Our latest Pope has made it very clear that the Catholic Church has a different moral stance, and we’re willing to fight for it.
Protestants, on the other hand, have accepted homosexuality whole hog.
And, of course this one makes a heck of a Catholic lure too. Heh!
“These disenfranchised ELCA folk, who feel comfortable with the “liturgical tradition” of the Lutheran Church,would be most welcomed by their LCMS brothers and sisters.”
Uh...I hate to tell you, but a great number of LCMS churches now have adopted the worship of Pentecostals, complete with praise bands and rock ditties. They are usually headed by older pastors with comb-overs who consider themselves “groovy” and are in a ‘70s time warp. The latest edition of “The Lutheran Service Book,” the official hymnal, does have some fine traditional music, but these churches prefer flashing the words to “Shine, Jesus, Shine” on the giant screens instead of actually teaching a meaningful Lutheran liturgy to the next generation.
If you can find a traditional, liturgical LCMS congregation, you have found a pearl of great worth in an increasingly arid field.
Were refugees!
Please, this statement is lumping all protestants together. It is totally misleading.
Most of the LCMS churches in our area are also traditional with very solid pastors.
Are you saying the LCMS doesn’t want you? You have to be kidding. We’d welcome you with open arms.
What about entire ELCA congregations that leave the ELCA, would they be required to take instruction in the new synod? I would think they would welcome the opportunity to be instructed. I do. I am so grateful for my traditional, extremely knowledgeable pastor that I give thanks for him over and over.
Good catch!
I came home to Luther’s church from Catholicism years ago and the thought of his bravery, nailing the 95 theses on the door and all, still impresses me. Hopefully there are conservative ELCA preparing their own theses - or as we would say on FR their opus - as they leave that lib group.
Can you say "offering plate?" I knew you could...
I can forsee a bit of a hesitency on just welcoming the ELCA faithful with open arms and without conditions.
Another thing is we have a very biblical pastor at my church and I see a strong possibility that we may very well make a quick exit from the ELCA.
Ha! Ha! your great!
See the Missouri Synod or a good Baptist Church. Who needs a liberal church...what an oxymoron.
We have felt very welcome in our LCMS church! I am so glad we went ahead and made the move last year instead of waiting to see what would happen at this CWA. I was a voting member at the last one, and the writing was on the wall as far as I was concerned.
Most of the articles on the ELCA Lutherans are from people who are not Lutherans in the first place.
That Synod is not the true Lutheran Church.
The LCMS and Wisc. Syn are the traditional High German
and Conservative Lutheran Church.
They are unsurpassed in totality for their inspired words and memorable music.
One of the musical backbones of my life-long work in the conservative cause has been the stirring "A Mighty Fortress is Our God".....the Battle Hymn of the Reformation, written and composed by Pastor Martin Luther himself.
Leni
Look forward to it.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: If they make a mistake, I dont want them punished with a baby.
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