The 2009 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Churchwide Assembly made grievous decisions that will not help the denomination in the years ahead. Those decisions were the adoption of a social statement on sexuality and four resolutions that approve of sexual relationships outside of marriage and direct a change in the ELCA’s ministry standards to allow for practicing homosexuals to serve as ordained pastors and lay ministers. One biblical phrase kept coming to mind in the weeks leading up to the ELCA churchwide assembly and very often during the August assembly—“ears to hear.” The phrase occurs repeatedly in the Old and...