Posted on 06/06/2013 2:59:21 PM PDT by lightman
While we have differences with Lutherans, the WELS and Catholic orthodox have much more in common with each other than with liberal lutherans and catholics.
To take please in the fall of the ELCA is to take please in one flank of the army of Christ falling -- insane.
One issue here is the history of word definition abuse by socialists/liberals/progressives. Note: partnered gays. What does that mean?
In normal male/female relationships there is a sense of primal, sexual exclusivity and a oneness. There are no homosexual ‘partnerings’ with this same sense of exclusivity. It’s more like roommates who are a ‘team’ and who share a resource burden.
Their is no sexual exclusivity. Furthermore, you wouldn’t ordain someone who isn’t vested in following the Scriptures, at least not in a Christian church. The Scriptures clearly and unequivocally condemn homosexuality and all sexual sin, while celebrating and affirming man/woman marriage and monogamy (more accurately monogyny with God-ordained and specific exceptions for polygyny).
Our family left the Episcopal church years ago after the election of Vicki Gene Robinson...an openly gay bishop.
Left his wife and kids to be with his gay lover...then made bishop. Yikes.
To all conservative Lutherans, Missouri and Wisconsan synods or you are more than welcome in the “Conservative” Anglican Church in America.
Praise to the Lamb of God.
Except the ELCA keeps all the wealth.
>> “...extraordinary, inasmuch as they departed from the natural passion and longing of the male for the female, which is implanted into nature by God, and desired what is altogether contrary to nature. Whence comes this perversity? Undoubtedly from Satan, who after people have once turned away from the fear of God, so powerfully suppresses nature that he blots out the natural desire and stirs up a desire that is contrary to nature.” (Luther’s Works, Vol. 3, 255) <<
Notice: Luther holds that unnatural desires (homosexuality) spring from repressing natural ones (heterosexuality). From this, he advises, “Be a sinner, and sin boldly, but let your trust in Christ be stronger.” In other words, once you restore your faith in Christ by being unashamed of your sinfulness, you will be saved despite your sins.
The problem is that this advice denies concupiscence, the tendency for sin to be habitual. Also, many people, once they act on a sin, face the temporal consequences of that sin, including increased shame. Luther, here, is part right: The alcoholic who goes on a bender often “hits bottom,” and finally seeks grace. But one would certainly not tell someone struggling with alcoholism, “go ahead and drink! God loves you anyway!”
For centuries, natural Christian abhorrence of truly shameful behaviors, including homosexuality, kept people from actually acting on Luther’s advice... except for when they hit bottom. The problem is that the logic of the practicing gay, when confronted by Luther, is to say, “God loves me as I am, therefore I need not change.”
Luther was reacting against a notion in Catholicism that wasn’t doctrine, but which was widespread and false: If I am shameful, all I need to do is receive these sacraments, and I can go on my way. In truth, Christianity requires that one expose their shamefulness to the light (as Luther demanded), but not by acting out evil impulses (as Luther taught), but by fearlessly confessing them. At least among the modern, gay priests expected that the priesthood would make their gay inclinations irrelevant; they found, instead, that their unhealthy sexuality metastosized (another point to Luther). The gay, or even molesting, priests (I think it’s safe to say that’s what Luther refers to) needed to acknowledge their wickedness and seek out forgiveness, instead of simply entering a cycle of self-loathing. But they certainly should not go to the logical extreme to which luther points, which is to be openly homosexual!
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