Lutheran (EL
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Be rooted in Christ!
Posted on 08/14/2013 7:05:18 PM PDT by lightman
My notes from the press conference:
Bishop Hanson was first introduced, but it was announced he would not be taking questions:
Hanson: Great honor to sit with bp elect Eaton. “Always being made new” theme of this assembly, and this call process was a call process for new leadership. In 25 years we’ve never looked back, always looked ahead. “A young church is a very mature church”—we have confidence we can engage in decisions that will not lead to divisions. It is wonderful to pass on mantle of leadership with confidence. We have a staff that will receive her as the CEO of the organization. [Gotta love that bit of honesty about the office of presiding bishop!]
Bp. Eaton: I would be honored to be Elisha to your Elijah. I want to thank Bishop Hanson. His whole ministry as PB has led to this point because it has been his passion that has made this an inclusive church. Thank him also for 12 tumultuous years of this church.
Ann Rogers Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: During your remarks you stated important to include voice of those who had difficulty with 2009 decisions. How do you propose going about this?
Bp. Eaton: This is one of the geniuses of the Lutheran movement—we thrive on paradox. As long as we agree on the cross of Christ, we can live together. If people believe they are being heard and there is a place from them, we will be OK.
Charles Austin The Lutheran: You spoke about reconciling people . . . What other kinds of thinks might be different six years from now then they way they are now.
Bp. Eaton: God only knows. We don’t know what the church will look like; God knows. In some ways it will be completely different; in some ways, it won’t be different.
Guy from Institution on Religion and Democracy: Is there a conflict between desire to reach out to ethnic communities and 2009 decisions?
Bp. Eaton: People want a place where they hear the gospel, where they feel they are valued.
Via phone, from Chicago Tribune: I covered the papal election [Eaton: Oh, this was just like that] There was a “room of tears” at the Vatican for prayer and processing. Anything like that?
Bp. Eaton: We have nothing like that, no frescoes. I did weep at worship this morning. [Note: before the press conference, i also noted her talking on the phone to her spiritual advisor]
Me: Do you have strategies about reaching out to NALC and LCMC?
Bp. Eaton: Already the tough questions. There’s going to have to be a lot of work done from those denominations as well as ours to come to a place where we can have an open and civil dialog. The pain is not going to be something that is going to be easy to overcome, but we will do what we can through God’s grace since that’s the only way that can happen.
Dan Lehman, The Lutheran: Do you have any thoughts of what we might see in the first 100 days.
Bp. Eaton: Our daughter and son-in-law are living in Chicago, so one of the first things is I’ll be moving in with them! I think one early thing will be just to have some conversations with the conference of bishops.
Liz Hunter The Lutheran. How are you planning to help the ELCA reclaim its distinctively Lutheran voice?
I certainly won’t be doing that by myself; we had a consultation at churchwide in June and people had some wonderful ideas. I hope in what I say and write, I can help us understand Lutherans have a different theology than other Protestants, and we really have to free ourselves of the siren song of a popular culture that doesn’t understand where true joy and freedom can be found.
End of press conference (total about 22 minutes). Impressions: I thought she handled herself very well in what is certainly a new experience for her. She came across as she did in the assembly as serious, with a sense of humor, thoughtful. No especially profound or well thought out answers, but that's the nature of press conferences.
His successor is Bishop Elizabeth Eaton, who has served as Bishop of the Northeast Ohio Synod since AD 2006. She was reelected last year.
Prior to her election as a Synod Bishop she served exclusively in parish ministry, the final 15 years in the same parish.
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Be rooted in Christ!
Bishop Easton’ husband is a Priest of The Episcopal Church.
Ah so! That accounts for it. As I was reading through those answers, they sounded like they came from the Episco-speak Manual of Style For News Conferences -- you know, the kind of stuff that Mrs. Shori does so well.
Wilken: “Is apostasy too strong a word to describe what we’ve watched over the last — better part — of the decade that culminates this afternoon in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America?”
Harrison: “No, it is apostasy. There’s no way around it. It gives me great pain to say that, but there’s no other word for it.”
Aye, hence the graphic and tagline that have accompanied every ELCA-specific Lutheran Ping since that day of Infamy.
Having served in the Northeastern Ohio Synod while Eaton served as bishop, not much will change. She talks about making sure that the ELCA doesn't slide into just another liberal Protestant denomination but she's not tolerant of Lutheran orthodoxy in matters of sexuality. As an interim pastor, I was told that she was the pastor of the congregation I served. I served in her stead. She did not like the fact that I allowed the congregation and leadership of the church to investigate the happenings that were occurring in the church as a result of the 2009 CWA. She came close to accusing me of leading the congregation out of the ELCA. I did no such thing despite some disapproval of those in the congregation who thought I should be outspoken. When I finally determined that my future as a pastor in the ELCA was over I moved to the NALC and resigned as interim pastor.
She has been very forthright to say that there were clergy in the synod that were not preaching the gospel and was very disapproving of pastors who were welcoming the unbaptized to communion. She was extremely critical at conference meetings with clergy about the pastoral office, but it went no further. Some might say, "What else is a bishop to do?" I could think of a few things.
She famously said at a conference meeting after the 2009 vote when a question was raised by a congregational member about scripture passages which he believed spoke against homosexuality: "I don't believe in the Bible." I'm not sure she's done anything great for the Northeastern Ohio Synod in years as bishop...but she also hasn't wrecked it. She's probably not the best and certainly not the worst. In all things, I do continue to pray for her in her service to the Church.
Clearly a humble man, this PB Eaton. Clearly.
Skimming through the article (skim is the best I do with the elca anymore) Eaton represents continuity.
So, Hanson could have been reelected, but wasn’t? Eaton - what’s your take Pastor?
If Hanson would have been re-elected it would have been like the Titanic refugees voting for Captain Smith.
Bishop Eaton made some good oral and written statements in the election process. She is a “company woman” but not so much as the other serious challenger, Council of Bishops Chair Jessica Crist, who I met briefly seven years ago and who impressed me very little. She was a politician then, and her overt campaiging proved to be her undoing.
Is it good for the ECLA to have a woman Presiding Bishop? In the sense that the ELCA “Full Communion Partner” Episcopal Church also has one, probably. But this will drive a deeper wedge to Missouri, Rome, Constantinople, and other bodies opposed to the Ordination of women in general and women in the Episcopacy in particular.
If the bishop really wants to “include voice of those who had difficulty with 2009 decisions,” she’ll propose repealing those decisions.
She said that NALC and LCMC are denominations. My wife, Nicole, is a seminary student, and she said that Lutheran is the denomination.
Note that Eaton doesn’t directly answer a single one of the questions put to her. A dying denomination hammers another nail in the coffin.
Listening to her was like reading 1984 again!
I am celebrating the Orthodox Feast of the Dormition of the Most-Holy Theotokos today, and received the Holy Mysteries at Divine Liturgy this morning! Joyous Feast, and the Blessings of the All-Holy Trinity to all reading this!!!!!
The pseudo-bishop Elizabeth Eaton, however, is a feminazi graduate of Harvard Divinity School!
The ELCA is now celebrating a “milestone”—the election of their first woman presiding “bishop”. However, that is no milestone at all. NOTHING will change—it will be heresy, gaydom, and dhimmitude AS USUAL!!!!
If y’all want to check out the Orthodox Church, better late than never. Our Lord forgave and abundantly blessed the Holy Apostle Thomas, who was late both for the Resurrection of Our Lord and the Dormition of His Mother. He will forgive and abundantly bless you all as well!!!!
......Bp. Eaton: I would be honored to be Elisha to your Elijah. I want to thank Bishop Hanson. His whole ministry as PB has led to this point because it has been his passion that has made this an inclusive church. Thank him also for 12 tumultuous years of this church.....
.....[Author]: Do you have strategies about reaching out to NALC and LCMC?
Bp. Eaton: Already the tough questions. There’s going to have to be a lot of work done from those denominations as well as ours to come to a place where we can have an open and civil dialog. The pain is not going to be something that is going to be easy to overcome, but we will do what we can through God’s grace since that’s the only way that can happen.....
What a bunch of ARROGANT hyper-liberal claptrap from the feminazi heretic Elizabeth Eaton!!!! PHOOEY!!!!
The female orthodoxy issue is frankly something I can stomach if it brings the ELCA back to something vaguely Biblical, which it isn’t now.
Even the Catholics are contemplating changes to the male/female thing at this point.
You gotta love Constantinople though. They just keep their head down, wear their flak jackets, and keep on praying.
Read about all the Coptic Christian churches going up in smoke last night?
....Council of Bishops Chair Jessica Crist....
Yet ANOTHER feminazi from Harvard Divinity School!!!!
The ELCA has got to get out of the feminazi/Harvard Divinity School box if it wants to have even an iota of discernment to see what’s really going on!!!!
There has already been some head shaking (and I suspect a whole lot more will follow) about the state of the Lutheran theological education and how it is that 2 of 3 finalists for this election would be from a non-Lutheran seminary.
One of the handful of orthodox bishops put it this way: "Realistically speaking, she's the best we could have hoped for."
?The best..."???
KYRIE ELEISON!
Do ELCAnites have no sense of irony? The ELCA is nothing if not in complete thrall to popular culture's every dictate. LGBT/feminist/universalist/syncretistic/hedonistic culture says, "Bow!" and the ELCA says, "How low?"
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