Posted on 08/22/2009 5:15:57 PM PDT by rhema
As one whose profession it has been for many years to observe the plight of Christianity, I am always grateful for signs that our God is truly a Jewish God - one with a hilarious sense of irony. This happened again during the ELCA's national assembly, which will go down in history as a singularly boneheaded display of unfaithfulness.
Just as delegates worked themselves up to their decision to allow homosexuals in committed relationships to serve as pastors, a highly selective tornado knocked the cross off the roof of Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, where some of their shameful meetings took place.
I could not help grinning: This was truly Old Testament-style: God sometimes uses nature to make a point. Of course you will have to believe in these things in order to grasp their ramifications. If on the other hand you accept Biblical truths only selectively, as did the majority of the Minneapolis delegates, then this incident could only have been a random occurrence - you know: as random as the beginning of the universe.
I was then reminded of another display of God's irony 40 years ago in East Berlin when a television tower, the tallest building in the whole city, went into operation. Walter Ulbricht, the East German Communist party leader, had ordered it built to symbolize the superiority of the Marxist-Leninist worldview that was the state religion in his land.
When the tower was inaugurated on a sunny day, the Communists were shocked. Its rotating ball-shaped dome consisting of hundreds of thousands of metal prisms reflected the sun in the shape of a huge cross regardless of the time of the day. Ulbricht's regime invested millions of marks to rid their edifice of this embarrassing phenomenon. It did not succeed. To this day, an enormous shining cross keeps dominating Berlin, which has alas become the most godless capital city in Western Europe.
To Christians in Germany this amusing episode serves as a reminder of who is still boss -- even after 56 years of Nazi and Communist dictatorship, and the demented two decades of secularization that followed Germany's reunification in 1990.
Until then, East Germany called itself German Democratic Republic, or GDR, for 40 years. Germans used to quip that this acronym stood for a threefold lie. The GDR was neither German, nor Democratic, nor a Republic. One wonders whether a similar analogy could not be made for the ELCA now that its national assembly of this denomination supposedly committed to the "Sola Scriptura" principle stressing the authority of Scripture.
Is it still "evangelical"? Surely not. Is it still "Lutheran"? No way. Is it in fact still "Church" in the original sense of this word deriving from the Greek vocable "Kyriake" (belonging to the Lord)? That depends on which Lord are we talking about - God or a wimp who does not care whether His word is mocked? The Greek word for church is "ekklesia," meaning "called out." In the light of the ELCA's new sexuality decision we must ponder the identity of the Spirit the largest Lutheran church body in the United States seems to follow these days.
To state it bluntly, there is nothing Lutheran about what has happened in Minneapolis. We have witnessed 19th century cultural Protestantism gone wild -- the theologoumenon that Christ and the highest expressions of aspirations of culture are in agreement. But what are at any given time the highest expressions and aspirations of culture? Do they not come across as Zeitgeist, or spirit of time? Were not Nazism and Communism two murderous manifestations of a Zeitgeist? The genocidal "choice" ideology that has slaughtered more than 50 million unborn children in America since the Supreme Court's Roe v. Wade ruling in 1973 certainly falls into the same category.
Aghast, faithful Lutherans wonder: "Lord where shall we Lutherans go?" Why is it that we Lutherans so often lose our way just at a time when no message is more needed then ours? Let it be known that there exists a paradoxical tension between Christ and culture: The certainty of being forgiven sinners through Christ's redeeming work on the cross frees us to engage the world with all its foibles but not to embrace them as the ELCA has just done.
I observed the ELCA's Minneapolis proceedings on my computer and murmured, "Lord, have mercy." Then I remembered one of my favorite lines in the Psalter: "He who sits in the heavens laughs" (Psalm 2:4). It's really good to have a Jewish God occasionally sending selective tornados and marking a godless edifice with a shining sign of the cross.
----Uwe Siemon-Netto Ph.D., D.Litt. is Director, Center for Lutheran Theology & Public Life, St. Louis, Missouri
My pastor is a friend of our very own, Charles Henrickson, if this gives you an idea of the kind of pastor we have. He is especially scholarly and learned and a complete treasure. I still can’t believe that God brought us to this little church. It is exactly what we wanted.
Those making the change are likely to be the best catechised of their congregations; the congregations making a change are likely to be the most thoroughly schooled in the Lutheran Confessions.
Expect any remedial catechetical sessions to be very lively exchanges, for the "learners" may be as well or better taught than the teachers!
I hadn’t heard the TV tower story before but it is an ironic one! And one can see the cross clearly in your photo. That serves the Marxists!
Nope, you folks learned absolutely nothing from the Reformation.
"Home"? To a church where a Grandmother will tell her daughter to verbaly, emotionally and physicaly abuse her child because he wasn't confirmed in the Roman Catholic Church?
If that is "home", I choose to be "homeless"!
A synod built on a seminary split, ELCA’ns choosing to believe that the bible is part divine inspiration, part author embellishment set it all off in the 1970’s. They were once part of the Missouri Synod if my memory is correct.
Actually, I’m suprised that they didn’t have gay clergy before - their reputation has been as a pc group for a long time. Lutheran in name only.
Back to the only Church that wasn’t founded after Pentecost Sunday, 33 A.D.
The ELCA has never been affiliated with LCMS. The ELCA came from the old ALC(American Lutheran Church, of which I belonged)the AELC and LCA.
I now am a member of the LCMS, a true Bible believing church.
Inaccurate and less than charitable - I know many evangelicals, both black and white, who don't accept it at all. I had to warn one of my co-workers that his insistence on spreading that word at work could be hazardous to continued employment.
Any church with an outreach would welcome you with open arms. Or, at least they OUGHT to.
First of all, the ELCA is NOT the only Lutheran denomination. There are several conservative Lutheran denominations that teach that all forms of homosexuality are contrary to the Word of God. You have plenty of options. You shouldn’t be surprised that the ELCA voted to accept another practice contrary to the Word of God. It has been teaching false doctrine since it’s conception. Why did it take you so long to figure this out? What are you going to do about it?
Yes, agree, “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” is my favorite all time hymn. Thank God for Martin Luther (this is coming from a former Presbyterian now Independent Baptist).
Christ promised, in a high priestly prayer spoken the night before He was crucified, that His Church would be unified (Jn 17:1-26). Jesus is perfectly righteous, so His prayers for His Church will be answered. He said the world would know His Church by the unity of His disciples (Jn 17:21).
There are well over 20,000 Protestant denominations. Where is the unity there?
Paul describes the Church as the “Pillar and Foundation of Truth” (1 Tim 3:15). Why so many “truths” in Protestantism?
The essential nature of Protestantism is to attempt to bring renewal through division and fragmentation (protest). This is unscriptural. Jesus, Paul, and John ask for unity and beg members not to let divisions occur.
If you believe Sacred Scripture, you believe Christ promised that the Holy Spirit would guide His Church and the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. The Reformation happened in the 1500s. Does this mean the gates of Hell had prevailed against the Church and that the Holy Spirit ceased to guide Christ’s Church after the apostles died? As said in 2Tim 4:3-4, “when the truth is not pleasing, they will create their own.”
Only the Catholic Church claims Christ as its founder; all other Christian religions claim Christ as their head, but a human as their founder.
The Lutheran Church’s decision is an opportunity, a sign, and a challenge to examine its origins. I ask you, in all humility, to take a fresh look at the Catholic Church. It is full of imperfect people; but its doctrine is unchanged from the time of the apostles. It backs this claim up biblically and historically. If you would like to examine this objectively, read “Surprised By Truth.”
I hope this does not offend you. I just needed to say it to someone who obviously loves God’s word and is searching. God bless your search.
Your typo makes me smile that is my real name. :)
Yes unfortuantely what they have been taught I’ve found generally whoever taught it to them didn’t know a thing about Catholicism. Oh well the ones who have come back and joined normally are shocked at what they’ve been lied to about though.
Please. The Church would never tell her to do this. If the grandmother was a nutcase, that was something she did on her own.
Since Lutherans came from the Catholic Church, I see them coming back too. I will not be surprised at all if we have Lutherans as well as some disenchangted Anglicans and Episcopalians in our RCIA classes that are starting in September.
What do the rest of you think?
There are many individual Protestants that haven’t, obviously, but the problem is that an increasing number of Protestant churches are officially accepting and approving homosexuality. I should have been more specific and I apologize.
Sin exists in any group, in any family, in any church. But that’s a wholly different matter from when the group, family or church suddenly announces that they approve of that sin and it’s no longer a sin anymore. That’s what has happened in this case.
What do the rest of you think?
As other denominations fall away, more and more people will be drawn to the Catholic Church. I think the last two Protestant denominations will be Southern Baptists and Assembly of God.
And how many homosexual priests will they find there?
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