Posted on 04/28/2012 11:15:55 AM PDT by rhema
The ELCA's Southeastern Iowa Synod issued a statement in their weekly newsletter concerning the Southeastern Iowa Synod Council's removal of St. Mark's Lutheran church (Marion, IA) from the roster of ELCA congregations. Within the statement it says, "The congregation is being served by a pastor of LCMC, a church body considered to promote separation (schismatic) from the ELCA (see HERE )
This is interesting to me because firstly they openly claim that the LCMC promotes separation from the ELCA. What are the facts that support this allegation? The fact of the matter is that this congregation, which the synod took action against, is dual-affiliated with the ELCA and LCMC. The LCMC is fine with the dual-affiliation, yet the ELCA is not. Who here is promoting separation from whom?
Secondly, the reason this congregation's pastor is a LCMC-rostered pastor is because last month the Southeastern Iowa Synod bishop, Michael Burk, removed this pastor from the ELCA clergy roster. (see HERE )
The bright side: calumny aside, St. Mark’s is free from Apostasy Central.
Uh huh, but I heard “Merry Christmas and happy Ramadan” from the ELCA pulpit.
Should we be surprised by the ELCA anymore-—the synod that promotes apostasy.
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Alleluia! Christ is Risen!
Vol. 6, SERMON LXXV, “ON SCHISM”, pp. 452-453
“That there might be no schism in the body.” 1 Corinthians 12:25.
I know God has committed to me a dispensation of the gospel; yea, and my own salvation depends upon preaching it: Woe is me if I preach not the gospel. If then I could not remain in the Church without; omitting this, without desisting from preaching the gospel I should be under a necessity of separating from it, or losing my own soul. In like manner, if I could not continue united to any smaller society, Church, or body of Christians, without committing sin, without lying and hypocrisy, without preaching to others doctrines which I did not myself believe, I should be under an absolute necessity of separating from that society. And in all these cases the sin of separations with all the evils consequent upon it, would not lie upon me, but upon those who constrained me to make that separation, by requiring of me such terms of communion as I could not in conscience comply with.
But, setting aside this case, suppose the Church or society to which I am now united does not require me to do anything which the Scripture forbids, or to omit anything which the Scripture enjoins, it is then my indispensable duty to continue therein. And if I separate from it without any such necessity, I am justly chargeable (whether I foresaw them or not) with all the evils consequent upon that separation.
— John Wesley
The NALC has been in existence for just over a year; during that time its first Bishop, Paull Spring, has openly courted congregations contemplating leaving the ELCA.
I have no love for the ELCA, having left there a little over a year ago; however, I believe that Bishop Spring’s behavior is an egregious breach of ecclesial good order.
The RCC (Roman Catholic Church) has been in existence for nearly 2000 years, and finds it amusing when several Lutheran denominations point fingers at each other and accuse the others of being “schismatic sects”
Exactly what I was thinking...
I heard that ELCA stands for Every Liberal Cultural Agenda.
Not too surprising in today's whatver-floats-your-theological-boat ELCA.
I am confused. To be schismatic, there must a schism, which is defined as “a formal division within, or separation from, a church or religious body over some doctrinal difference.”
To have the ELCA use the term, there must be some doctrinal difference. Yet, for the life of me, I did not know the ELCA had any doctrines left. I thought it believed in “ do your own thing.”
Bless my soul, this one made my day!
Bless my soul, this one made my day!
The expanded ELCA "foundation": "Do your own thing . . . unless it's a wholly Biblical thing, in which case you're legalistic, judgmental, homophobic, schismatic, unloving, repressive, [insert other pejorative adjectives here]."
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