Posted on 06/03/2009 6:50:55 AM PDT by MNDude
This is a link to the church of Tiller the Killer. I have to say that going through their web-site made me feel somewhat sick to the stomach.
I was expecting this to be a church that omits the name of Jesus Christ from their teachings, with a weird blend of New Age and Secularism.
Instead their mission statement tends to talk about being guided by the Holy Spirit and how we're a sinful people loved by God. They have links to their music and worship services and lots of smiling children pictures.
At a glance, the church doesn't seem to have too much that would scream false church.
Their media statements calls the death of Tiller a violent tragedy that "we deplore", while they allude to his baby killings as "our unresolved differences" that must be discussed peacefully.
I imagine during the holocaust there certainly must have been known German concentration camp murderers would kill thousands of Jewish children that attended their churches comfortably regularly. These camp workers would have had after church fellowship with other church attenders who would be thinking "I have a difference about your killing Jewish children", but it would go no further than this.
I'm curious on other's take on this church and their apparent inconsistancy with the Christian faith.
The ELCA is a screamingly lib church. They are in full communion with the Episcopals (able to share pulpit and communion). Just remember they do not represent all Lutherans. Some synods (branches) are still biblically grounded.
Which ones?
It doesn’t suprise me that it is an ELCA church. They are ok with all the liberal crap.
LCMS (Lutheran Church Missouri Synod) WELS (Wisconson Synod) are the main ones. There are also a handful of smaller synods like the Iowa Synod, etc (I’m sorry, I don’t know all of the smaller ones).
However, the ELCA is by far the largest synod. Its too bad they went apostate years ago.
Ping for later
LINO ping
LC-MS, WELS, and ELS. There maybe smaller synods also, but I am not very familar with them.
Liberalism cannot be rectified with Biblical Authority.
“Liberal” churches are simply those that have compromised, ie, become friends, with the world.
James 4:4
You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.
(and there are numerous other verses with the same admonition)
The AFLC (Association of Free Lutheran Churches) is now, I believe, the third largest synod in the U.S. They are as conservative and orthodox as the LCMC or WELS.
There are also the Apostolic Lutherans, mostly of Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian and Russian ancestry.
Thank you.
Interesting. Thanks.
“Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, to see whether they are of God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)
It is easy to come up with an attractive and deceptive website. Does that church body require Christians to live according to the Scriptures, even if following Jesus is unpopular in our evil age? In order to answer this question, one must study the Word of God, of course.
sorry I missed that one. My brothers soon to be former ELCA congregation might be interested - I will have him check it out. I was born and raised LCMS (still am)
Churches that only preach the “love of God’ are presenting a false gospel by omitting the judgment of God. Both are required to bring men to true repentance and salvation.
Those who only preach Gods judgment (like the Phelps bunch in Kansas) only stir up bitterness and anger.
Those who only preach grace allow men to live in a false sense of security thinking that God accepts them without any repentance on their part.
In my view churches like this one are the most dangerous because they are full of false converts who believe they are right with God when in fact they are on their way to hell
This is not very difficult to do. Do they strive to keep their lives square with humanly difficult biblical statements on Christian morality, or is it just a feelgood mush?
Phelps is a loopy loon, quite oddly fixated on the homosexual situation in America. I haven’t heard any chastisement from his lips about, say, Brazil where its president recently said the belief that homosexual conduct is wrong is tantamount to being touched in the head. God’s actual biblical prophets didn’t stop their comments where the national boundaries stopped. He isn’t even a very good example of an “all judgment” Christian.
My stomach agrees with yours completely. I read through the site, too, and was stunned that an entire church of kids and new Christians will be raised under these beliefs interpreted in a humanistic fashion. I watched a video of a church member speaking if “the evil” that had invaded their church to kill this man. I had no response.
Because Biblical writers, editors and compilers were limited by their times and world views, even as we are, the Bible contains material wedded to those times and places. It also means that writers sometimes provide differing and even contradictory views of God’s word, ways and will.
Listening to the living Jesus in the context of the church, we therefore have the task of deciding among these. Having done this listening, we sometimes conclude either that the writer’s culture or personal experience (e.g., subordination of women or keeping of slaves) seems to have prompted his missing what God was saying or doing, or that God now is saying or doing something new.
The key phrase from all of this gobbledy-gook is "we sometimes conclude....that God now is saying or doing something new"
To them, the bible is just a reference book. Their reasoning trumps biblical authority.
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