Some ELCA Pastors Use Dishonesty, Bullying to Keep Churches from Leaving the ELCA

Christian Newswire ^ | 2/3/10 | Rev. CJ Conner

[SmithL]

MEDIA ADVISORY, Feb. 3 /Christian Newswire/ -- ELCA leader and Pastor Barry Hoerz is no stranger to twisting arms to get his way. While he was a member of the Weyauwega School Board in Wisconsin, he sued his colleagues over a disagreement and resigned his elected office. Hoerz serves the dwindling Saint John Lutheran Church in Weyauwega, with an average attendance of about 100. He wrote a letter to the editor of the Appleton Post-Crescent- part of a broad ELCA letter-writing strategy to shape public opinion about congregations leaving the group. The headline was "Homosexuals Are Now Part of LCMC Ministry." Hoerz is a signatory to the "Reconciling in Christ" creed.

Hoerz went on to suggest that Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC) ordains practicing homosexuals just the same as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Privately, he has acknowledged that this is not true.

LCMC was formed over 10 years ago, long before the ELCA became embroiled in the controversies of gay marriage and sexually active gay clergy. Since then the group has worked faithfully and quietly to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all people, with a resolute focus on Christian Mission rather than social statements. A clear threat to the ELCA, LCMC has accepted 102 congregations into membership the past year, including many of the ELCA's largest and most vibrant churches.

LCMC is a Biblically orthodox and Confessional denomination- formed to remain faithful to the Bible and the Lutheran Confessions. By stark contrast, the ELCA is a "constitutional church" -- where a vote on doctrinal and moral issues by a constitutional assembly trumps the Bible and the centuries-old Lutheran founding documents.

When urged to offer a correction to the false statements, Hoerz replied "I stand on what I wrote, no correction given."

That's just how the ELCA "rolls" -- by any means necessary, no apologies given.

Washington Times correspondent Wayne Anderson wrote about the bully tactics that many orthodox ELCA congregations are facing (1). Similar reports are emerging daily as the ELCA fights to prevent congregations from following their Biblical conscience and leaving with millions of dollars of benevolence and assets. Pastor Barry Hoerz represents a movement that is hostile to those congregations, "bound conscience" be damned.

[icwhatudo]

So basically a liberal part of the Luthern church is ordaining homosexuals and to stop conservatives from leaving, they are pretending that other branches do it too?

[elpadre]

do we see a pattern here among mainline denominations??

[Ouderkirk]

The ELCA is dead and they know it. I left them a few years ago for the Missouri Synod. Keep it up ELCA you’ll create a whole new congregation of Catholics.