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.
It doesn’t suprise me that it is an ELCA church. They are ok with all the liberal crap.
Ping for later
LINO ping
“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.
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
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.
The ELCA is so far removed from biblical truths and teachings and more concerned with political correctness, it is no surprise this guy felt comfortable in this church and maybe he was one of the bigger donors to the church so they turned a blind eye to his sin.....
This is what I call a ‘Grapenuts’ Church.
This church (like many other apostate churches) have an amazing similarity to the cereal ‘Grapenuts’, which if you look inside the box, you will find neither Grapes, nor will you find any Nuts (pastors and congregation notwithstanding).
But the manufacturer of that cereal persists in calling it ‘Grapenuts’, just as these so-called churches persist in believing and proclaiming that they are ‘Christian’ churches.
They are but nicely carpeted and tiled gateways to Hell itself.
It's a short step from toleration of homosexuality (against Scriptural dogma) to 'hospitality' toward the issue of abortion. I use that term because their ELCA on Abortion page at ELCA.org (NOTE: This is NOT the website of Tiller's church) includes this sentence: "Our ministry of hospitality to all people ought to include women who have had abortions, women who are considering abortions, children, families, and those who bear and raise children under all kinds of circumstances."
I personally find the context of the term 'hospitality' to be telling and distasteful. I find little there that indicates intolerance of sin. And that's why I left that church for the LCMS years ago.
You'd be thinking wrong. Christians were murdered along with Jews in those concentration camps. Over 880 Catholic Priests were murdered in those camps, and over 1200 Catholic churches looted and razed to the ground by the Nazi's.
I am Lutheran. I was elca 'til helping my church leave them. We are now out and elsewhere. There is an old joke among Lutherans who share similar wording of mission statements, creeds, guiding principles such as "Vision and Expectations" (look it up): the joke is "Well, yeah, but we mean it."
By all that, I do not cast aspersions on the vast number of Lutheran Christians who populate elca churches. The denomination is a wretched, broken, dysfunctional, politically correct, embarrassment. But there are still people there who have not yet thrown off the chains. It is the Babylonian Captivity in todays context.
