Posted on 08/23/2009 2:23:37 PM PDT by tcg
What happened is that representatives of the ECLA succumbed to heresy. Oh, I can hear it now, “how dare he say such a thing?” Because… it is true, and there is nothing compassionate about failing to help fellow Christians to reject error. Christians abandoning the clear teaching of the Sacred Scriptures and the unbroken Christian Tradition is not a new phenomenon in the 2000 year history of the Christian Church. What is new is the massive support that such a sad turn of events receives from this kind of media report. ...
All one has to do is look to the first few centuries of the Christian Church to see that this is not new. The same issues and struggles existed very early on. Irenaeus, the Bishop of Lyon, France, was born in Asia Minor in the year 125. His efforts are one example of the many early Church Fathers who contended for the truth and pulled no punches. His seminal work was entitled “Against Heresies” precisely because so much of his work was spent exposing and opposing false teaching in order to protect the Christians of that day from their poison. His treatise is a refutation of the teachings of certain “Christian” Gnostics whose followers fell for similar heresies as those which were voted upon by the ELCA this past week. Irenaeus’ goal was stated in the Fifth Book of the treatise, to “…reclaim the wanderers and convert them to the Church of God” and to “confirm at the same time the minds of the neophytes” (Preface, Book V).Irenaeus loved the heretical Christians enough to speak the truth precisely to try and lead them back to the faith. We must follow his example.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholic.org ...
Just another butt boy and lizard organization; another part of the bigger useful idiot’s brigade!
Often you will hear, "Oh, that's just those people in Chicago! We don't give our money to them, and they don't really have anything to say about what we do here."
Wrong on all counts. They'll find out soon enough that these high-living fruits have already picked off the low-hanging fruit.
Didn’t the American Episcopal Church do that first?
Yes they beat the ELCA Lutherans by a couple years, and watching the whole thing is very much a deja vu experience. The same vicious homosexual hostility and collusion from political leftists that has crippled the episcopalians is at work destroying the Lutheran traditions and orthodoxies.
One of the sad things is that in both churches there is a large ballast of lifelong members, most of them getting up in years, who identify with the denomination and yet know very little of what is being perpetrated in their names.
To be fair, it was 2/3. Not that it matters, but the % was 66.67%.
They had already succumbed to it. They are just adding to it.
It’s not that we members of the ELCA do not understand how heretical the ELCA is becoming. There’s only one reason why I am still with the ELCA. I love my home congregation. The people are good. They believe the Bible. We have been assertive about our rejection of the ELCA’s move toward gay clergy. We even withheld our synod dues for several years at one point in protest of the direction that the ELCA was going on this.
My heart breaks. I pray and I will continue to speak the truth in love to those who rule the ELCA and pray for ears to be opened to the word of God, and for them to understand that the grace of God does not exclude the necessity of the repentance for sin.
This makes me more and more glad to be Catholic.
man...Satan is sure tending his crops
...and me to really be Lutheran.
First ever call for me for a Religion Forum zot. Lurked for a week now this..zot.
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Obama Says A Baby Is A Punishment
Obama: “If they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”
With all due respect, the problem started on 31 October, 1517.
Had the Church not decided to sell indulgences, that Sunday would have passed as any other.
Sorry about that,the day i posted it,my laptop was acting up and having stuck-key error.
Sorry again.
I can truly understand your dilema, but you are living in a state of denial. For years I have heard clergy and laity in the ALC, LCA, and now ELCA make the same argument. It has become a rationalization to remain within an apostate church. Putting loyalty to a building or to friendships above that which is pleasing to God, it like the Israelites trying to serve the Lord and Baal. If you serve the Lord, then serve the Lord; if you serve Baal, then serve Baal. You can’t serve both.
Thank you!
Pick up your congregation and move into one of the other Lutheran movements that also believes in the Bible. If the congregation won’t come then they do not believe in the Bible.
I have had a similar choice to make here in Oz with the uniting church the door out got bigger and bigger until the same decision was made. The congregation all said they belive in the Bible but if they had ever read it then it was not obvious as they fell for the party line hook, line and sinker - either that or they made excuses for staying. Nothing should stand between you and God including love for your congregation.
Sorry I am being so tough but I feel you may need to hear it.
Blessings
Mel
"If the French Revolution gave birth to the spiritual tsunami described by Mark Mallett, it was nevertheless conceived by the Protestant Revolt. Martin Luther’s heresy of Sola Scriptura destroyed the unity of the Christian faith in the western world." [1]
As a former Lutheran, I assure you that I’m quite familiar with Luther’s theses.
OK, which one supports the claim made in your post #21?
Yet even mighty Luther had his doubts."With how much pain and labor did I scarcely justify my conscience that I alone should proceed against the Pope, hold him for Antichrist, and the bishops for his apostles. How often did my heart punish me and reproach me with this strong argument: 'Art thou alone wise? Could all the others err and have erred for a long time? How if thou errest and leadest into error so many people who would all be damned forever?'"(Luther, "Letter to the Augustinians in Wittenberg", Nov. 25, 1521: De Wette, 2. 107, cited in O'Hare p. 195)
With all due respect the trouble started on January 3, 1521 when Pope Leo X ex-communicated a ‘reluctant rebel’
Sigh. I’ll explain it again in seventh-grade terms.
Luther’s error was in thinking that he (and other individual believers) had the ability to infallibly define the teaching of the Christian faith for himself instead of submitting himself to the teaching of the Bishop of Rome and the bishops in union with him. He became “as God, knowing good and evil” by his own reason instead of humbly following the teaching given orally from our Lord to His Apostles and from them to us through their successors, the pope and bishops of the Church.
It is the orthodox Lutheran belief that Christians were obligated to follow the doctrine established by Scrpture when it conflicted with that established by man. Thus, Luther’s rejection of the sale of Indulgences (and thus the uproar over the ELCA’s rejection of Scripture on sodomy).
Where is this "scripture only" precept found in Scripture?
Who gets to decide what "the doctrine established by Scripture" is?
Who defined Scripture?
Jesus Christ was, Himself, the Word of Scripture made flesh John 1. Christ, Himself, asserted the authority of Scrpture. Matthew 26:53-56 And, of course, the role of Scripture in determining the orthodoxy of faith and practice is confirmed by the Apostle Paul. 2 Timothy 3:16-17.
Scripture is believed by Lutherans to have been determined by the early Church fathers and not to require interpretation.
Now, let me ask you. What was the Authority for the Bishop of Mainz to sell Indulgences?
What? "Instinct in Scripture"? What does that mean? Sorry, but I don't understand you.
Also: when "scripture" is mentioned in the New Testament, the word refers to the Tanakh (תנ"ך), aka the "Jewish bible", which contains the Law, the Prophets, and other holy writings. The Christian canon of Scripture (the Bible as we know it) didn't exist until it was defined by the Catholic Church around AD 300. What did Christians live by during the three hundred or more years in which Scripture as we know it did not exist?
Answer: the Tradition of the Catholic Church, which not only defined Scripture for us but passes down to this day the oral teachings of the Church, which include such doctrines as the Trinity, the elevated nature of Our Lord's mother, and the infallibility of St. Peter and his successors the popes when teaching on matters of faith, morals, and Church discipline.
It is by that authority that the doctrine of Indulgences is taught, and it is that authority that Luther and all those rebels since him have betrayed.
Well, Pope Pius V, in 1567, agreed that the sale of indulgences was offensive to God and they have been outlwed since.
Indulgences themselves have been and are part of the Deposit of Faith handed down to us via the Church from our Lord and His Apostles, and are taught by the Catechism to this day.
There is plenty of this going on in the Catholic church, too. Many priests are pure lefties. I wouldn't get too smug.
You might want to Google on something to the effect of, say : “Pius V sale of indulgences 1567”.
You claimed (without evidence) that selling indulgences was part of the official teaching of the Church. I posted evidence refuting this claim. You refuse to concede the point despite this. Since you didn’t have an answer to the evidence I posted, you lose the point.
There’s no point wasting words on one who doesn’t understand what argument is. One might as well “argue” with a brick wall — or a Wittenberg door. Therefore, I’m finished talking to you. Think what you want.
The immediate cause (of Luther's actions) was bound up with the odious greed for money displayed by the Roman curia, and shows how far short all efforts at reform had hitherto fallen. Albert of Brandenberg, already Archbishop of Magdeburg, received in addition the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Bishopric of Hallerstadt, but in return was obligated to collect 10,000 ducats, which he was taxed over and above the usual confirmation fees. To indemnify him, and to make it possible to discharge these obligations, Rome permitted him to have teached in his territory the plenary indulgence promised to all those who contributed to the new St. Peters; he was allowed to keep one-half the returns, a transaction which brought dishonour on all concerned in it."
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