Posted on 01/23/2015 10:13:29 AM PST by rhema
A while ago, I read a blog post over at First Things that was a blast from my past. The author, a Lutheran pastor, recently left the ELCA to become a member of the newly-formed North American Lutheran Church (NALC). He said, “My real disaffection with the ELCA didn’t start with sex. It began in earnest over the ELCA abortion statement and the subsequent decision by the national council to treat elective abortion for pastors and dependents as a reimbursable medical expense under the church health plan.”
It was this exact issue that was my first step on the path toward the Catholic Church. Until I had learned of that same decision, I had assumed that the Lutheran Church was opposed to abortion; after all, how could anyone who claimed to follow Jesus Christ support the killing of unborn children? Wasn’t “Thou shall not kill” a pretty essential element of Christianity? In my 22 years as a faithful, churchgoing member of the ELCA, I could not remember hearing a Lutheran pastor preach a sermon on abortion. It was not an issue discussed in any of the three ELCA churches I’d attended up to that point in my life. Shortly thereafter I accessed online the ELCA’s Social Statement on Abortion (SSOA), and as I read it my faith in the ELCA was shaken to the core.
The first statement that bowled me over was, “A developing life in the womb does not have an absolute right to be born…”
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicstand.com ...
The offense wasn’t in offering a Christian prayer in the presence of non-Christians, but in participating in a non-Christian religious ceremony after announcing himself as a member of the LCMS clergy.
it is called syncretism and is unbiblical.
Oh, oh. The Catholics are giving payback to the Lutes!
And, the LCMS speaks out about it.
My wife, Nicole, used to attend an ELCA seminary, Lutheran School of Theology Chicago, and she heard some professors say that the devil doesn’t exist. She gladly transferred from LSTC and graduated from a non-Lutheran seminary, Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, which is in Bannockburn, IL., and, in Dec., she was ordained by the Lutheran Evangelical Protestant Church (LEPC).
LCMS is liberal!? Where did you derive this?
The Catholic church is more liberal than the LCMS. That is why the friends and family who left the ELCA felt they had to either go Catholic, or stop going.
The witness of the Apostle Paul on Mars hill says otherwise.
The author was not a pastor, she read about a pastor that left the ELCA for NALC and it reminded her about her journey. Or perhaps I missed your point.... lol
The many ELCA spinoffs are simply turning back the clock about 20 years. They will be in the exact same spot in a decade or so and try to figure out why.
What keeps the LC-MS, WELS, LCMC, and NALC from becoming one?
Many are called few are chosen :)
Paul didn't present the Greeks views of 'God' as valid. He preached Christ and a message of repentance. No comparison to the event in question.
bishop Benke did not validate any of the other faiths represented at Yankee stadium by offering an overtly Christian prayer....the only “validation” comes from ascribing far to much to “ministry of presence”.
Not by offering the prayer. He remained for the non-Christian prayers. Further, He isn’t a bishop. His activity did violate synodical teaching. He was saved by a liberal.
For some reason that is what those in the Atlantic Disrict all their DP.
Raises a question regarding the Atlantic District.
Atlantic and Eastern are anomalous in several ways.
Here is a page from Wahlund’s blog telling more about her conversion:
http://a-star-of-hope.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-conversion-story.html
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