I am a LCMS pastor, and the main issue with those denominations that have left the ELCA, such as CORE is doing, is with the LCMS’ position that only males can be pastors. The second issue is with closed communion.
I too am an LCMS pastor, and those are exactly the same two issues I would cite, in that order. They don't have a problem with women pastors, and they don't "get" the historic Christian practice of communion fellowship. And really, the underlying problem is an inadequate view of the authority and inspiration of Holy Scripture. That is what led to women's ordination, and now, homosexual pastors. ELCA "conservatives" are liberal by Missouri Synod standards.
What the members fail to understand is that the same arguments for women’s ordination are exactly the same ones for accepting homosexuality. Once you ignore the Scriptures and tradition on one point, it opens to door to anarchy.
Bingo. Both are symptoms of the same problem. As soon as they went for women's ordination, it was inevitable and predictable that they would eventually go for homosexual ordination.
Bingo. Both are symptoms of the same problem. As soon as they went for women's ordination, it was inevitable and predictable that they would eventually go for homosexual ordination.
I have sometimes written in this forum and on the ALPB forum boards that the slippery slope actually began first with the acceptance of artificial birth control (first among the laity, then among the clergy) and accelerated with the acceptancce of divorce and remarriage-after-divorce (again, first among the laity then among the clergy); all of which combined to create a guiding principle of sex-without-consequences that all but views orgasm as a G*d given right!
I suppose that makes me a right-wing Augustinian but so be it.