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KIRKWOOD, Missouri, February 9, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The President of the Missouri Lutheran Synod added his voice to the growing chorus of religious leaders from across denominational lines who are objecting to the HHS mandate requiring employers to cover sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs in their healthcare plans. “The Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod objects to the use of drugs and procedures that are used to take the lives of unborn children, who are persons in the sight of God from the time of conception,” wrote Rev. Dr. Matthew Harrison, in a statement issued February 3rd. “Increasingly we are suffering overzealous...

On Private Confession and Absolution Confession has not been abolished in our churches. For it is not customary to administer the body of Christ except to those who have been previously examined and absolved. The people are also most diligently taught concerning faith in the word of absolution, about which there was a great silence before now….Nevertheless, confession is retained among us both because of the great benefits of absolution and because of other advantages for consciences. (Augsburg Confession XXV [Kolb/Wengert 73:1-2; 75:13]) As a consequence of the vows I took to uphold the Scriptures and the proper interpretation of...

During his State Visit to Germany, the Holy Father gave this address at Erfurt during an ecumenical gathering at the Lutheran church. Erfurt is, of course, where Martin Luther’s Augustinian convent was. A highlight: Faced with a new form of Christianity, which is spreading with overpowering missionary dynamism, sometimes in frightening ways, the mainstream Christian denominations often seem at a loss. This is a form of Christianity with little institutional depth, little rationality and even less dogmatic content, and with little stability. My emphases and comments. Ladies and Gentlemen,As I begin to speak, I would like first of all to...

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...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87vo2jkmJUg

Michele Bachmann Leaves Church Accused of Anti-Catholic Bias By James Oliphant July 15, 2011 Taking a page from President Obama’s political playbook, Michele Bachmann has formally left a church in Minnesota accused of holding anti-Catholic views. According to CNN, the church that Michele Bachmann and her husband Marcus had attended for more than a decade, Salem Lutheran in Stillwater, Minn., granted the couple’s request to be released from their membership last month, a week after Bachmann told a national audience that she would run for the Republican presidential nomination. The Bachmanns had approached their pastor and verbally made the request...

The torments that the two major American Lutheran churches have visited on themselves.The two largest Lutheran churches in America have now broken up: the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod (LCMS) in the 1960s and 1970s after a brutal conflict between insurgent conservatives and complacent liberals, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) in the last few years, as the predictable result of a flawed ecclesial foundation. While both stories are instructive in their own right, the striking thing about them is that they are compellingly connected. The refugees from the first conflict were instrumental in shaping the flawed foundation of the second....

Editor: Reminds us of the old saying, "we'll get to you through your children", or the Jesuit adage, "give us a boy till seven, and I'll show you the man" The following was translated from the website, "The Catholic Church in Germany" put out by the German Bishops, thank you very little. It's a children's book which features a visit by two friends of different confessional backgrounds to each others churches. Lena is Protestant. She and Laura are good friends. Last Sunday Lena asked: "Would you like to go with me to Protestant Service?" And Laura said yes. There was...

ELCA NEWS SERVICE September 30, 2010 Lutherans' Ecumenical Journey Highlighted by Unexpected Moments 10-256-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Two Lutherans retracing Martin Luther's 1510 journey from Erfurt, Germany, to Rome report that "unexpected company or hospitality" from people they've met are among the best moments they've experienced so far. The Rev. Dr. Sarah Hinlicky Wilson and her husband, Dr. Andrew Lars Wilson, left Erfurt on foot Aug. 22 and are now in Italy. Luther was an Augustinian friar who created controversy with his 95 Theses. Luther's statement, which he nailed to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany in...

Conservative Lutherans began forging the new body just weeks after the ELCA gave the green light in 2009 for non-celibate gays and lesbians to serve as clergy. Over the last year, hundreds of congregations have moved toward severing ties with the ELCA, which is the largest Lutheran denomination in the country with 4.5 million members. The ELCA experienced its biggest-ever drop in membership last year, with 90,000 less members than the year before. The vote on Friday to forge a new body took place during the annual Convocation of Lutheran CORE, a renewal group that seeks the renewal of Lutheran...

Convention delegates overwhelmingly adopt resolutions HOUSTON—Delegates to the 64th Regular Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) endorsed Thursday resolutions to support efforts to end human trafficking/slavery and to uphold the sanctity of life. More than 98 percent of voting delegates supported a resolution that upholds efforts to end human trafficking/slavery. The resolution also directs the LCMS president to write a letter to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime expressing support for that office’s efforts to end trafficking/slave trade. It also directs the LCMS Board for National Mission to provide LCMS pastors and congregations with information about this...

HOUSTON • Delegates of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod elected on Tuesday as its president the denomination's director of disaster response, a candidate backed by its more conservative members. The Rev. Matthew Harrison of Ballwin received 54 percent of the vote for the three-year term. He defeated the incumbent, the Rev. Gerald Kieschnick, who received 45 percent and who had served three terms.

ELCA NEWS SERVICE April 7, 2010 Tanzanian Bishop, African Churches Comment on ELCA Assembly Decisions CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania (ELCT) said in an Easter sermon that the ELCT does not support certain decisions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) nor the Church of Sweden's decision to allow its clergy to conduct same-gender marriages. The ELCA assembly, held this past August in Minneapolis, approved proposals that would create the possibility for Lutherans in committed, publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA clergy...

The head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America plans to affirm to an overseas bishop that the U.S. church is committed to the centrality of the Word of God. The Rev. Mark S. Hanson will share the statement when he meets with presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania, the Rev. Alex G. Malasusa, in May, according to the ELCA News Service. Malasusa had recently rebuked the ELCA for its liberal direction on homosexuality. "I will share with Bishop Malasusa the ELCA's strong commitment to the centrality of the Word of God in our faith and witness....

ELCA Church Council Approves All Full- Inclusion Revisons Without Opposing Votes This weekend, the ELCA Church Council meeting in Chicago moved the decision of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly into policy by replacing the language in church documents that excluded ministers in committed same-gender relationships with a policy that allows congregations and organizations to call a fully-qualified minister in a committed, same-gender relationship. And, the Council also approved the way to reinstate ministers who have been removed from the roster because of the previous policy and to receive ELM pastors onto the roster of the ELCA. The Council also made the...

ELCA Council Adopts Significant Revisions to Ministry Policies CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted a series of historic and sweeping revisions to ministry policy documents April 10, the result of months of extensive writing, comment and review by hundreds of leaders and members following the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the interim legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. The council is meeting here April 9-12. The next churchwide assembly is in Orlando, Fla., in August 2011. The changes were...

The Pittsburgh 9.12 Project, a grass-roots conservative group, was forced to seek a new home after complaints about a North Hills church's decision to allow them to use their meeting room. The group, an affiliate of the movement promoted by Fox commentator Glenn Beck, had staged a series of gatherings in St. John Lutheran Church of Highland. The church's meeting room was also to have been the site of a similar conservative group, the Pittsburgh Tea Party movement, last weekend, but that session was canceled due to weather . . . The decision came after a blog post on the...

We all know that in August of 2009, at the ELCA Church Wide Assembly, the delegates voted to adopt a resolution that committed the ELCA to a find a way for people in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as rostered leaders. It was a bold move against Holy scripture. The liberal, homosexual supporting leadership found a way to pass their agenda. Let's be honest here, do we really think that the ELCA will . . . 1) Deny homosexuals from being rostered that are not in a monogamous relationship? 2) Deny homosexuals from being rostered that are...

ELCA Publisher's Board Terminates Defined Benefit Retirement Plan 10-001-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Augsburg Fortress, the publishing ministry of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), announced in a Dec. 31, 2009, letter to participants that it will terminate its defined benefit retirement plan effective March 5. The action, approved by the board of trustees of Augsburg Fortress Dec. 18, affects 500 plan participants. Not affected by the decision is the company's current retirement plan -- a defined contribution plan -- in which Augsburg Fortress' current employees can participate. That plan is a 403b plan "common for non-profit organizations," according to...

On November 19, 2000 a ceremony held in Poznań, Poland, honored the grandfather of Redeemer member Andre Manitius, Pastor Gustaw Manitius (1880-1940), a Lutheran pastor and bishop who was martyred by the Nazis. A city park was dedicated in honor of Pastor Manitius, and a cross which had belonged to him was returned to his church. (See photograph in the online photo Gallery). Pastor Manitius was honored for the courage and dedication of his service to the Lutheran community in Poznań, and for the faith that empowered him to resist the Nazis regardless of the cost to himself of doing...

Led by a Palestinian Lutheran bishop, 16 Palestinians Christians have blasted Israel in a new declaration that the 4.9 million Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is obligingly disseminating. “We…declare that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land is a sin against God and humanity because it deprives the Palestinians of their basic human rights, bestowed by God,” asserted the “Kairos Palestine Document. “It distorts the image of God in the Israeli who has become an occupier just as it distorts this image in the Palestinian living under occupation.” Not content to criticize the Jews, the manifesto also excoriates Christians who...

A decision to ordain actively gay clergy has caused deep fissures in the nation's largest Lutheran church group, with some traditional Lutherans saying they have been subjected to threats and retaliation as they consider breaking away. Several disaffected members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) say the decision made at the church's national convention in Minneapolis in August could prompt a major exodus from one of America's biggest Protestant denominations. "I wouldn't even begin to tell you how many thousands [of calls] I've gotten," said Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran Coalition for Renewal, or CORE, a national coalition...

Lutheran Churches in Eastern Europe have added their voices to those of Lutherans worldwide who are critical of the decisions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly to endorse same-sex unions and to allow pastors to be in same-sex sexual relationships. The leaders of the Lutheran Churches in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania met Nov. 3-4. The bishops issued a message noting the crisis of faith and fellowship caused by the actions of the ELCA and the Church of Sweden in endorsing same-sex sexual relationships. These churches are all members of the Lutheran World Federation. “At the present time a common witness...

A megachurch in Glendale, Ariz., unanimously voted Sunday to cut ties with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and will be joining the smaller Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ. At a congregational meeting following worship, Community Church of Joy voted 129-0 to terminate its affiliation with ELCA as the church’s vision, values and mission are no longer aligned with the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination, according to the Rev. Walter P. Kallestad, senior pastor of the congregation. "There is such a different direction that the ELCA has chosen, a path they're traveling on, and we really believe that it just...

The presiding bishop of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination warned Wednesday that withholding financial support to protest a recent gay clergy vote would be "devastating" to the church. Bishop Mark Hanson laid out his concerns in a letter to leaders of the 4.7 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is based in Chicago. The ELCA churchwide assembly voted last month to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, dropping a requirement that gay clergy remain celibate. The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, said the gay clergy vote was the devastating event — "a...

Many members of the clergy must be using the Bible like the old Sears catalogue – for toilet paper – because they obviously don't read it. Last week, another once-great church succumbed to the relentless, media-savvy campaign of determined homosexuality. "Leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America voted to lift the ban that prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian people from serving as ministers," reported the Associated Press. In July, the Episcopal House of Bishops and laity approved liturgies for same-sex couples and endorsed the right to elect gay bishops. Lutherans and Episcopalians join other denominational giants, Unitarians and...

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...

Leaders of the nation's biggest Lutheran denomination voted Friday to allow gays in committed relationships to serve as clergy in the church -- making it one of the largest Christian denominations in the country to significantly open the pulpit to gays. Previously, only celibate gays were permitted to serve as clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a denomination of 4.8 million members. But delegates to a church assembly voted 559-451 to allow gays in "life-long, monogamous" relationships to serve as clergy and professional lay leaders in the church. The vote is the culmination of a years-long process in...

MINNEAPOLIS, MN - Leaders of the country's largest Lutheran denomination have moved toward a more welcoming view of homosexuality. Delegates of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting in Minneapolis, approved a "social statement on human sexuality" that acknowledges differing views on homosexuality. It says the ELCA is strong enough to accommodate such differences. -snip- Wednesday's vote was a prelude to votes scheduled Friday on whether to let people in same-sex relationships serve as Lutheran ministers.

FRIDLEY, Minn. - The Rev. Dave Glesne stood before the members of Redeemer Lutheran Church a few weeks ago and told them there might be some painful decisions in the near future. Glesne is against letting people in same-sex relationships serve as pastors of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, and he says his congregation is behind him. They're worried this suburban Minneapolis church could find itself on the losing side as leaders of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination vote on whether to take that step at their biennial national convention, which starts Monday in Minneapolis. "Of course the question...

WITTENBERG, Germany -- Martin Luther, a renegade monk, triggered the Reformation here five centuries ago . . . Today, fewer than one in five people identify themselves as Christian . . . " . . . east Germany is perhaps the most atheistic region in the world" . . . The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, the second-largest Lutheran body in the United States, has bought a building next to the old Town Church, where Luther used to preach . . . plans to start a congregation . . . "In east Germany, you actually have to go up to people and...

A Christian group in Missouri will be allowed to freely distribute religious literature at “gay pride” event this weekend after a federal judge ruled in their favor. Another Christian group in Michigan, however, was not so fortunate in its quest for free distribution at a recent Arab festival but is still hopeful for a favorable conclusion. On Thursday, U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds denied a motion from Calif.-based ministry Arabic Christian Perspective (ACP) for a temporary restraining order that would have prohibited the city of Dearborn, Mich., from restricting the group from handing out literature during the Arab International Festival,...

News of Dr. George Tiller's death was only hours old last week when bloggers began asking the question: What kind of church accepts a doctor who performs abortions into its membership? "I wonder what kind, if any, preaching against sin this church did since Tiller felt welcomed there," opined Blue Collar Todd, who declares on his blog that "liberalism, or sometimes called progressivism, is a false religion that stands in total antithesis to biblical Christianity." Todd has already made up his mind, and so have others who called or e-mailed me this week to criticize a column I wrote describing...

"What if church wasn't just a building, but thousands of doors?" asks a new website launched by the United Methodist Church. "Each of them opening up to a different concept or experience of church. . . . Would you come?" After watching its membership drop nearly 25 percent in recent decades, the United Methodist Church, which is still the nation's largest mainline Protestant denomination, thinks it knows the answer. So it's pouring $20 million into a new marketing campaign, including the website, television advertisements, even street teams in some cities, to rebrand the church from stale destination to "24-7 experience."...

Kansas Abortionist George Tiller was shot today as he was going to Church.

utheran Seminarians Support Task Force Recommendation 09-107-MRC CHICAGO (ELCA) -- In an open letter to the 65 synod bishops of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Lutheran seminarians expressed their support for a recommendation that would allow Lutherans in committed same-gender relationships to be included on professional church rosters. On Feb. 19 the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality released a report and recommendation for a process to consider changes to ministry policies that could make it possible for Lutherans who are in "publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gendered relationships" to serve as ELCA associates in ministry, deaconesses, diaconal...

The California Supreme Court is letting stand a lower court ruling that allowed a private religious school to expel two girls for an alleged lesbian relationship. The state's highest court this week declined a request from the girls' attorney to review the case. The 4th District Court of Appeal in Riverside in January had upheld California Lutheran High School's right as a private, religious organization to exclude students based on their sexual orientation. The teens initially sued the Riverside County school in 2005 based on a state anti-discrimination law. Advocates for religious freedom called it the right decision but the...

The long-awaited position on ordaining gay clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America isn't a clear yes or no. An ELCA task force admitted Thursday that it could not reach a consensus on the issue that has polarized its members for years. But with the matter expected to dominate this summer's national convention in Minneapolis, its position paper offers this suggested solution: The ELCA will allow the ordination of gay pastors but will leave it up to individual congregations and synods whether to ordain or appoint pastors. The term used to describe this compromise is "structured flexibility." While acknowledging...

Lutherans weigh making gay clergy a local decision ERIC GORSKI Feb. 19, 2009. The nation's largest Lutheran denomination will consider allowing individual congregations to choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, an attempt to avoid the sort of infighting that has threatened to tear other churches apart. A task force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recommended that course Thursday in a long-awaited report on ministry standards. The panel, however, said the church needs to clarify a number of questions before overhauling its gay clergy policy. The report, issued at the same...

Lutherans join ''March for Life'' in Washington, D.C. March for Life logoLutherans from throughout the country will join the thousands who are expected to gather in the nation's capital Jan. 22 for the 36th annual "March for Life." LCMS World Relief and Human Care (WR-HC) also will be in Washington, D.C., providing information, insights and updated web coverage throughout the day from marching Lutherans as they affirm the blessing of God's gift of life. This year's march participants include a coalition of Lutherans, including: Synod President Gerald B. Kieschnick; members of the LCMS Sanctity of Human Life Committee (under the...

This past year, we have seen a flurry of activity around states either permitting gay and lesbian couples to marry or defining marriage as a union only between a man and a woman. The conflict in our culture is often misconstrued as a standoff between religious persons and nonreligious persons. This does not ring true for me or for many of the Christians I know. My own church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, has been engaged in a long, cautious process of investigating whether the unexamined conventional wisdom we have received from our ancestors in the faith rings true:...

A few weeks ago, in the historic Castle Church of Wittenberg in Saxony, Lutherans from all over the world opened the “Luther Decade,” celebrations that coincide with Martin Luther’s (1483-1546) arrival in Wittenberg 500 years ago in 1508 and commemorate the achievement and global significance of the German reformer. Nine years later, on 31 October 1517, Luther not only castigated the abuses of indulgence sellers with his “95 theses” but also offered a new understanding of what it meant to be a Christian. Ushering in the modern age, Luther held that the individual, not the institutional church, stood at the...

Officials of the declining 4.9 million Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) have revealed what God’s priorities are in the U.S. presidential campaign. And remarkably, the divine priorities was very akin to the Democratic Party’s priorities, if not further to the left. Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, with three other ELCA officials generously wrote both presidential candidates a public letter with the divine guidance. Although famed Protestant Reformer Martin Luther championed the Bible as God’s exclusive revelation, modern ELCA activists have located more useful counsel in the secular welfare state and environmental agenda. “The Scriptures are clear about God's concern for...

STATEMENT ON THE ANTICHRIST Introduction to the StatementAs Martin Luther grew in his appreciation of the gospel, he also grew in his recognition that the Papacy is the Antichrist. A 1954 WELS pamphlet entitled Antichrist put it this way: “It was because Luther cherished the Gospel so dearly that his faith instinctively recoiled and protested in unmistakable terms when the Pope put himself in the place of Christ and declared His work insufficient and in vain. That is the use to which Luther’s faith put the prophecy of Scripture. For him the tenet that the Pope is the Antichrist was...

ELCA Presiding Bishop, Other Religious Leaders, Meet with Obama 08-087-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) was among more than 30 national Christian leaders who met here June 10 with U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Hanson was invited by Obama's staff to meet privately with the Senator in a meeting in which Darfur, the Iraq war, gay rights, abortion and faith issues were discussed, the Associated Press reported. Hanson said the meeting's purpose seemed to be an effort by Obama "to begin...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Rumors that the Vatican is set to rehabilitate Martin Luther, the 16th-century leader of the Protestant Reformation, are groundless, said the Vatican spokesman, Jesuit Father Federico Lombardi. News reports in early March alleged that Pope Benedict XVI was dedicating a planned September symposium with former doctoral students to re-evaluating Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy. The story "does not have any foundation, insofar as no rehabilitation of Luther is foreseen," Father Lombardi told the Italian news agency ANSA March 8. Vatican officials said the topic of the pope's annual summer gathering of former students...

Tom Kauffman thought that once a storm blew over people could go home, clean up a few things and return back to normal, everyday life. But two mission trips to Biloxi, Miss., changed his thinking. People are still recovering from the impact of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast in 2005. "A storm doesn't just blow over and people don't go back to their homes the next day," said Kauffman, 69, of Manchester Township. "There's a lot of pain and suffering and a lot of waiting. I opened my eyes up." Kauffman plans to return to Biloxi a third...

Stockholm (dpa) - Marriage and same-sex unions were ``equal forms of living together,'' the Church of Sweden, a Lutheran church, said Wednesday. The central board of the church said it would accept pending changes of marriage laws that would offer same-sex unions the same legal status as traditional marriage. However the term ``marriage'' should be reserved for the union between man and woman, the board - elected by the Church Assembly, the highest decision-making body in the church - said. The church was one of many bodies asked to comment on proposals to change current legislation presented earlier this year....

In spring 2005, the Rev. Carol Solovitz, pastor of Zumbro Lutheran, had the honor of preaching the English service for two weeks in Wittenberg, Germany, in Martin Luther's church: the Stadtkirche (city church). Inspired by her visit, members of Zumbro met in April 2006 with the prospect of forming a tour to Germany. By September 2006 -- a year in advance -- the trip was sold out. On Sept. 10, 2007, a full bus left the church parking lot on its way to the Minneapolis airport, flying Iceland Air to Frankfurt. On our first day, we toured the Wartburg, where...

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Two state officials have been added to the list of defendants in a lawsuit filed by the nation's largest group of atheists and agnostics. The Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation says that referrals to the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, which serves troubled children, are funded by taxpayer money and that staff at the ranch facilities in Minot, Fargo and Bismarck indoctrinate children with religion. The Boys and Girls Ranch, which is affiliated with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and state officials dispute the foundation's claims. The group initially...