“The “sacred tradition” would have killed Galileo for believing a heliocentric solar system.”
Either the Church has changed, or it’s got nothing to do with sacred tradition.
The failure of the ECLA is something we see with other denominations, and other traditions, that differ from the ECLA. The question one has to ask themselves is what do all these folks have in common that would lead them astray?
Yes, that is the question.
I would suggest that when a denomination goes seriously wrong it’s because they have a wrong understanding of what the Bible is, and that most usually results in them shaping it to mean what they want it to say rather than letting the Word say what it will.
That’s how you get the ELCA stances, and how you get the Fred Phelps stances. The ELCA threw out the Old Testament and Fred Phelps threw out the New Testament.