Lutheran Ping!
Be rooted in Christ!
Posted on 09/19/2011 4:43:02 AM PDT by Cronos
The new bishop of a breakaway Lutheran denomination says there will be "no compromise" on the issue of gay pastors with its liberal counterpart, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America.
Bishop John Bradosky, 59, a native of Greensburg, said while he is open to dialogue between the North American Lutheran Church and the ELCA, there is a limit to what can be agreed to.
Closing the breach between the two would "require some really major changes" on the part of the ELCA, Bradosky said.
"I'm not sure there is an openness to those kinds of changes," he added.
"We're certainly open to conversations with groups that we disagree with," said Bradosky, who was installed as bishop in August after a vote by 800 NALC members at a national convocation in Hilliard, Ohio. "We're not afraid to talk about issues and our concerns."
At the same time, Bradosky said the NALC will not "compromise" its faith or its "understanding of the gospel."
In August 2009, the 1.2 million-member ELCA endorsed a statement on human sexuality that did not condemn homosexuality. Critics charged the ELCA's position opened the door to non-celibate gay pastors leading Lutheran parishes.
"A gay pastor is a sinner like the rest of us who chooses not to sin," said Bradosky, arguing that on the basis of scripture there is a crucial difference between a gay celibate pastor and a practicing homosexual pastor.
The NALC has 250 parishes nationwide with an estimated 110,000 members. The denomination, formed a little over a year ago, continues to grow with about a dozen new parishes being added each month, Bradosky said.
(Excerpt) Read more at pittsburghlive.com ...
Cheers! Let's pray for these folks on their difficult journey
“there is a crucial difference between a gay celibate pastor and a practicing homosexual pastor. “
Although I applaud and thank God for those brave enough within the Lutheran church to stand by biblical truths, the above quote made me a bit uneasy. I am not sure a pastor should be even a celibate homosexual; in fact; he should not be a homosexual at all. If a sinning thief becomes saved and no longer steals, do we continue to acknowledge he is a thief but is ok based on the fact that he hasn’t stolen anything in years? No, we do not call him a thief any more. Identifying someone as a”celibate homosexual” seems to me that one is really saying that this person cannot help being a homosexual but that he has chosen not to engage in sexual relations with men. However, to my mind,if you continue to affirm the homosexuality aspect, then you cannot ignore the possibility that he might choose to indulge his inclination at some point. However, a reformed homosexual, one who condemns the practice and becomes heterosexual, has every right to interpret his calling to be a pastor as spiritual. I am not sure this “break away group” understands this.
Female pastors are the (PC) camel’s nose in the tent. NALC needs to look deeper to become a truly confessional Lutheran entity.
I am supposing that "celibate homosexual" may not mean "a person who continues to label himself as a "homosexual" because of some lingering Gay Identity issue." It may simply mean a person who has, by God's grace, moved past homosexuality and is successfully resisting temptation in that regard. Much as a "recovering alcoholic" is still an "recovering alcoholic" even if he hasn't had a single drink in 25 years.
God does not demand, and does not guarantee, that a person's homosexual temptations will be replaced by heterosexual temptations, or by no temptations whotsoever. If one had to be temptation-free, then nobody could be a pastor.
Scripture says that Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, but without sinning.
And certainly good pastors may be assailed by heterosexual temptations as well--- even if it's just in the sense of a married man having an unabated *spark* of interest, unbidden, when he sees a really attractive woman.
So when they're saying "celibate homosexual," they may just mean it's a person who suffers the "suggestions" of temptation, but overcomes by the power of Christ.
That person's "identity" is not homosexual. His "identity" is a "saint" -- God's beloved.
well, I agree that female pastors or celibate homosexual pastors IS a problem. Single or Married pastors who are not divorced and remarried is the correct way to stop going down the slippery slope imho
I certainly agree that a person with turbulent ongoing homosexual struggles should not be a pastor (the same goes for anyone with a strong, ongoing struggle with any serious emotional disorder.)
But on the other hand, say there's a man who had some sort of homosexual experence as a teen, has worked through confusions, regrets and conflicts about it, hasn't had any signs of obsessive ideation or unchaste behavior for years, and does not regard himself, nor is he regarded by others, as gay --- such a man might be suitable, depending on his bishop's careful assessment of his vocation.
There are many great saints who had a difficult "Sins of Youth" period which they moved past upon their deeper conversion and growth in Christ. Doesn't St. Paul say, "And such were some of you?"
I agree if a person has left it behind. But if a person says they have an affinity for gay sex, they should be meditating in solitude.
Amen to that. Which led some of the hermits to the desert.
Be rooted in Christ!
Be rooted in Christ!
John needs to reread Matthew 10:14:
And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, as ye go forth out of that house or that city, shake off the dust of your feet.
“Female pastors are the (PC) camel’s nose in the tent.”
I’ve believed this, too, but female clergy do not appear to have caused (or been precursors to) in other non-Lutheran denominations what has occurred in the ELCA.
I’m in the MoSynod, which for the present seems not threatened in this manner, although it is said, and with good reason, that many LCMS-ers are willing, nay eager, to accept female clergy.
Homosexual or “gay” identity is a delusion.
Satan puts all sorts of thoughts into our minds—we can choose to entertain them or (with God’s help) dismiss them. If one experiences same-sex attraction (which is one example of such thoughts), one can dismiss it. If one entertains such thoughts, and they then become frequent, one might conclude that he/she is “a homosexual”. Then one might go on to act on their attraction.
I agree. You get your identity from your Savior, not from your temptations.
You have been deceived.
What do you make of Deborah in pee-monarchic Israel. She was a Judge.
I’ve seen your handle on other threads where the “Deborah connundrum” was explained. I tend to agree with those explanations (mostly).
The worst part is that public school teachers are instructed to tell pre-teen/teen students that they are “gay” if they experience same-sex attraction. MANY young teens experience episodes of same-sex attraction, but don’t entertain these thoughts!!! They grow up to be happily heterosexual.
The cracked ideology that is being spread by those “gay youth” ideologues in the public schools (even good public schools in desirable suburbs) may be creating more homosexuals.
Perversion is a turning of sex away from its natural function and its proper fulfillments. I don’t “worry” as much about kids “becoming” homosexuals (that won’t happen on a large scale) but about their becoming heterosexual perverts: supposedly “straight” people who turn sex away from marriage and childbearing, or in other words, from fidelity and fertility. The public schools all spread the contraceptive ideology, which is the major perversion of our time.
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