THE ELCA VAULT - ROOM 31
The ELCA Vault is a collection of articles, blogs, and documents related to the ELCA. The purpose of the Vault is to provide this important information to it's readers and at the same time not overload other sections of the website so as they become too convoluted.
Lay hands suddenly on no man. . .. . . I wonder then if this office (at least in the ELCA) has become largely symbolic and administrative and less oriented to the parish and to the role of the bishop as chief pastor of the synod. . .
Reaction to Bishop Elizabeth Eaton’s Comments on the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation, Part 1, 10/24/17Podcast
‘Progressive’ Christianity Is Nothing but a Political Cult. . .The “Christian” worldview produced by this heavy-handed rewrite of scripture and tradition is handy for activists. It directs one’s religious energy, sentiments, and thinking away from heaven, the next life, or God. We even stop thinking of our neighbors’ eternal souls, and our duty to edify them by gentle word and good example. . .
Is the Wesleyan Church’s Neutrality on Israel Antisemitic?. . .Regrettably the Reformers did not abandon Replacement Theology. In 1543 Luther urged Christians to “set fire to their synagogues or schools.” By the way, in 2016 the Evangelical Lutheran Churches in America (ELCA), 3.7 million strong, triennial Churchwide Assembly adopted the Corporate Social Responsibility review team to screen companies profiting from Israeli occupation. In August 2019 they voted (96% in favor) to cut foreign aid to Israel…”to ensure U.S. taxpayer funds not support military detention, interrogation, abuse or ill-treatment of Palestinian children.”. .
Handing Over the Keys. . .when the ELCA National Assembly passes an amendment questioning whether Lutherans can ethically witness to people of other faiths, we can’t expect their members and congregations to be engaged in evangelistic outreach. . .
Reflections on the Augsburg Confession. . .One of my greatest frustrations serving as a pastor in the ELCA is the feeling that the Augsburg Confession has been eclipsed as the standard for how we will live together. . .
Not Here to Be Boiled. . .an ELCA pastor brazenly asserted to me as a seminarian at a regional youth gathering that, “we only know about the Trinity from the Bible; God could easily be more like the Hindu idea of Brahmin, having countless avatar pseudopods to minister to the ‘endlessly diverse people’ s/he has created.’”. . .
Church Releases App Where Kids Can Marry LGBTQ Couples. . .The Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has released an LGBTQ-inclusive app for children. . .
ELCA: Answer the Question!. . .How can the ELCA say that 2019 is the tenth anniversary of LGBTQIA+ persons’ being able to serve freely in the church when what was actually voted on and approved at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly was only the ordination of persons in publicly accountable, life-long, monogamous same gender relationships? . .
Obsessed with Diversity. . .How can someone say that the Holy Spirit agrees with the ELCA when the ELCA is saying that the Christian faith has nothing unique that is important and essential to offer to the world? . .
(ELCA) Lutheran pastor's wife rejoices that transgender daughter, 12, just got 'life-affirming' hormone-blocking implant. . .'Insurance covering this procedure for my transgender daughter is provided to my husband through his employer...the church'. . .
Oakwood church designated as welcoming to LGBTQ community. . .“We are looking forward to that day of celebration,” Rickman said. . .
ELCA clergy denies Christ as sinless! Nadia co-sign?Woman pastor leads local church. . .“I don’t know if I am the first but I am right now the only out LGBTQ, lesbian pastor [in Bakersfield],” Wilder said. . .
Pulpits vs. pews: Thinking about choices that mainline Protestants make on Election Day. . .Say what? United Methodists and folks in the liberal ELCA lean Republican?Remember, we are talking about the laypeople in the pews, not the leaders in the pulpits. . .
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The circuit preacher was an idea of the frontier past. Now it’s the cutting-edge response to shrinking churches.
. . .they drive from church to church to church, holding the same service five times for a couple dozen people in each simple white-walled sanctuary. . .
“Seven Sisters” of Mainline Protestantism Still Bleed Members
. . .Each posts yearly decline, and, over the decades, the bloodletting has become undeniable. . .
Crossroads Lutheran Church welcomes Rev. Kwame Pitts
. . .She especially wants to be an advocate for the LGBTQIA community, many of whom have been harmed by organized religion in the past. . .
Two Churches. Too Many
. . .the church hosted a feminist art symposium where at one point several women who were part of a performance art piece on sexual violence, took off their tops in the middle of the sanctuary. “When those people started running around naked, I thought, oh God I’m going to be fired tomorrow,” said Park’s pastor, Amy Kienzle. . .
What Will It Be Next? Part 2
. . .as we find the ELCA slipping further and further away from the historic, orthodox Christian faith, a traditional view of the mission of the church, and Biblical morals and moral values. . .
CWA Reflections: God Has a Way of Sorting His Church
. . .the decisions generally represent a socially-conscious array of All the Right (Left?) Things, with condemnations of patriarchy and white supremacy leading the charge. . .
Will the ELCA Will be Gone in 30 Years?
. . .according to current trends, the church will basically cease to exist within the next generation. . .
Christ Lutheran Church recognized as LGBT friendly congregation
. . .The recognition comes from Reconciling Works, a national organization that works to promote inclusion for those of all sexual orientations at Lutheran churches. Christ Lutheran Church formally approved the public statement by a unanimous vote at its annual congregational meeting. . .
Dear ELCA
. . .You have also been tricked into setting love against the commandments. . .
Death in the Delivery Room: The Testimony of Jill Stanek, R.N.
. . . I had specifically chosen to work at Christ Hospital because it was a Christian hospital and not involved, so I thought, in abortion. It hurt so much that the very place these abortions were being committed was at a hospital named after my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I was further grieved to learn that the hospital’s religious affiliates, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America and the United Church of Christ, were pro-abortion. I had no idea that any Christian denomination could be pro-abortion! . .
Catasauqua congregation bids farewell to 167-year-old church, which will become Islamic worship center
. . .“'We’re all connected within this Creator. And this place will still be used to praise God and do ministry in God’s name.'” . .
Plenary 7 ELCA - ... unity at what cost
. . . In the document, it states that we do not know enough to make judgement on other religions. . .
Raising questions: ELCA Lutherans become ‘sanctuary’ denomination, but what does it mean?
. . .One ELCA church in Phoenix is providing shelter to migrants, and several others are collecting donations, she said. . .
It’s Not Just Evangelicals: Trump and Mainline Protestantism
. . .Not only do 49% of ELCA respondents in the 2018 CCES identify as Republican (vs. 42% as Democrats), but even more approve of Donald Trump: 52% of those Lutherans, 35% strongly. When Burge drilled down to look at religious behavior, he found that ELCA support for Trump was strongest among those who attended church most often and weakest among those who show up just once or twice a year. . .
Lutheran denomination declares itself a 'sanctuary church' for migrants
. . .“What I have seen has been immense and amazing and transformational. And it’s because we listened to our young leaders, we listened to our leaders of color, and we strengthened our muscles of taking risk for the sake of gospel and liberating love.”. .
Postmodernism Gone Viral, Part 2: Sloppy, Tendentious Exegesis
. . .These are just two more reasons for its rejection by any church that hopes to remain part of the Church of Jesus Christ. . .
'Breaking the Law': Fox News Panel Slams Church Denomination For Sheltering Immigrants, Fighting Deportations
. . .During a segment on Fox & Friends earlier today, host Pete Hegseth discussed the Evangelical Lutheran Church's (ELCA) move to declare itself a "sanctuary church" as the White House cracks down on illegal immigration. . .
Lutheran ‘Love’: ELCA Bishop Leila Ortiz Praises Polyamory
. . .“It is a kingdom that is not as interested in being right as it is in being in relationship,” Ortiz preached at the ECLA’s 2016 Churchwide Assembly. . .
ELCA Assembly 2019: Guns, Gender Identity, and Native “Colonized History”
. . .Another memorial from the Sierra Pacific Synod notes society’s “paradigm shift as it regards its understanding of biological sex, gender, identity, gender expression, and sexual orientation” and recommends the development of a social statement on gender identity and gender expression. . .
Indiana's religious leaders call for expanded civil rights
. . .For the sake of clarity in our state law and within our public interactions we believe that it is right and appropriate to add sexual orientation and gender identity to the state civil rights code that already contains protections based on race, age, gender, disability, military status and religion. . .
2019 ChurchWide Engagement - What ReconcilingWorks will be doing
. . .Join ReconcilingWorks and Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries in our room in the convention center (Room 101B) to explore and learn about the past 50 years of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQIA+) history in the life of the Lutheran church and the ELCA. . .
The Point: Christian in Name Only
. . .A church that has abandoned core tenets of the Christian faith, right down to the worship of the one, true God, is not a church anymore—it’s just a building where lost people pray to the gods they’ve made, not the One who made them. . .
Church’s final gift: $3.6 million for homelessness services on Eastside
. . .For many churches, the decision to close is financial. For Grace Lutheran, it came as membership dropped from its historic peak of 300 to 400 members down to around 25, and they considered the work it would take to keep it open. . .
F-M area marks anniversary of Stonewall riots, impacts on LGBT community
. . .Pastor Joe Larson of St. Marks Lutheran Church, who is openly gay, said the cultural changes that followed the Stonewall riots are important to him personally. . .
Omaha church encourages inclusion of LGBT individuals
. . .the church began an internship program for seminary students who are LGBTQIA+. Recently, Augustana created a Center for Reconciling Action, the first of its kind in Nebraska. . .
What Will It Be Next? (This Article starts halfway down the page)
. . .A recent graduate of an ELCA seminary told me that at the seminary where he attended, "Gay is passe. It is now transgenderism." According to this person, "Transgenderism advocacy is rampant. They want to totally eliminate marriage for sexuality." . .
Pope Francis is more Lutheran than The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)!
. . . Regardless of whether you support or oppose Pope Francis, you are probably confused by what I am saying. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is the most liberal church body in the United States of America, which has the word “Lutheran” in its name. . .
In California, celebrating a new name and affirming authentic identity for transgender Episcopalians
. . .“‘Dead name’ sounds so powerful and hurtful for some people,” she said. “Some trans persons don’t use the word because they appreciate their history, their previous name, but they also know that is not representative of who they are now.” . .
Pastor Bolz-Weber on the Bible
. . .Last year, popular ELCA Rev. Nadia Bolz-Weber remarked. . .
The Church’s ‘Savage Wolves’ Problem
. . .The command to love your neighbor as yourself is found in Leviticus 19:18 and repeated numerous times in the NT (Matt. 19:19; Mark 12:31). It’s sandwiched between Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 that describe same-sex relationships as an “abomination” with a severe penalty, something you don’t find with the ritual laws mentioned by the pro-homosexual “churchgoer.”. .
Catasauqua (ELCA) congregation bids farewell to 167-year-old church, which will become Islamic worship center: ‘This will still be a place of worship’
. . .news of a Muslim congregation taking over the property had created worries for some members of St. Paul’s. . .
Progressive Christian Wild Goose Festival Celebrates Planned Parenthood, Abortion: Evangelical Author
. . .Button explained during her remarks that she no longer says "all abortion is a tragedy," and has learned from her employment at Planned Parenthood that "for a lot of people an abortion is a life-saving thing." . .
Wrong Diagnosis, Wrong Treatment, Wrong Patient
. . .Now “one in eight adults in America are regularly attending an evangelical church, but fewer than one in 25 Americans show up to a mainline church nearly every week.” These numbers are particularly important because they show a gap not only in raw membership, but in religious commitment. Of the folks on the rolls in Mainline and evangelical churches, only the evangelicals show the kind of loyalty that translates to long-term institutional viability. . .
Duluth center aims to bridge LGBT+ groups
. . .The Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, 2spirit + Arrowhead Resource and Community Center — or LARCC, for short, pronounced like "lark" — is a partnership of the LGBT Elder Network, Northland Prism Community, Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota's Together for Youth and Gloria Dei Welcoming Ministries. . .
A Church Closes and the ELCA Rakes in the Money - Witness Stone Blog
. . .the synod was presented a check for $750,000. . .
ELCA's Metropolitan New York Synod (MNYS) Annual Assembly to plan programming celebrating LGBTQIA+ congregants
. . .and cast the vision for the Synod's strategic plan for the upcoming year, including major initiatives surrounding ecumenical efforts, inclusion of immigrants, and programming celebrating LGBTQIA+ congregants. . .
Another Heresy Update Of False Teaching In Todays Church
Should Christians Just Admit That The Bible 'Got It Wrong' And Move On?
. . .This is a rejection of the Church’s very responsibility; indeed, this is a rejection of the responsibility of every thoughtful Christian and disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. . .
Church-Goers Vote to Deny Same-Sex Couple from Marrying in Childhood Church
. . .man who hoped to get married in his hometown church in Lake Mills will not be able to.
Derek Harmon, who now lives in California, grew up in Lake Mills. He hoped to marry his partner, Jésus, at Salem Lutheran Church, just like his siblings who married their spouses. . .
Derek Harmon, who now lives in California, grew up in Lake Mills. He hoped to marry his partner, Jésus, at Salem Lutheran Church, just like his siblings who married their spouses. . .