Lutheran (EL
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Marantha--Come, Lord Jesus!
Posted on 12/17/2009 3:51:32 AM PST by rhema
Congregants at American Lutheran Church in Long Prairie, Minn., have voted in favor of a resolution to leave the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination.
The congregation voted 129-11 Sunday to exit the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. A two-thirds majority vote was required. A second two-thirds vote must be taken for the congregation to officially separate from the ELCA.
The decision by members of American Lutheran comes as the 4.6 million-member ELCA deals with the aftermath of its Churchwide Assembly in August when the church moved to allow gays in committed relationships to serve in the clergy. The assembly also passed a controversial sexuality social statement.
Since the assembly, several churches have expressed desire to leave the ELCA.
The Rev. Bill Bakewicz, pastor of the 766-member congregation in Long Prairie, was pleased with the 92 percent vote, taking it to mean that the church’s congregation will remain intact.
“It’s very gratifying for me to know that we’re not going to go through that experience” of a church split, he said.
He said the church may lose a “handful” of people.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we did because you’re not going to ever get a hundred percent on something like this. It’s not going to happen,” he said.
A date for the second vote has not been set. Bakewicz said the church has not decided what denomination it would affiliate with.
In a written news release, ELCA Northwestern Synod Bishop Larry Wohlrabe said he was “saddened” by the vote.
“ALC has been a strong and active congregation in our synod,” he said. “I have made some friends in the parish, and I have high regard for their pastor.”
Wohlrabe said “members of ALC have been struggling for some time with their affiliation with the ELCA. The congregation has, over the last few years, brought several resolutions to our synod assemblies that have expressed disagreement with or disappointment over certain actions and stances taken by the ELCA.”
He concluded his statement by saying, “Whether they stay with us or depart from the ELCA, we will continue to regard them as brothers and sisters in Christ.”
Well, no. The reason they're voting to leave the Synod is because the Synod has reneged on its discipleship.
* as of August 19, AD 2009, a liberal protestant SECT, not part of the holy, catholic and apostolic CHURCH.
Marantha--Come, Lord Jesus!
They didn’t take the vote on Christmas or Easter.
There’s room in the Missouri Synod which hasn’t fallen for the devil’s blandishments about alternative lifesyles.
Yes, this is true, but one should consider carefully the Lutheran doctrine on water baptism as being necessary for the reception of the Holy Spirit. And further, as water baptism as being a "means of grace."
Is that not also the doctrine of baptism as practiced in the ELCA, and other denominations of the Lutheran persuasion?
Yes, I believe it is. My intended point was that moving to the MO synod may be better in some respects, but not in others. As long as one is changing churches, why not change to the best one you can find?
This teaching that water baptism is a "sacrament" and a "means of grace" comes periously close to being a "work" that is necessary for salvation, even though the Lutherans,and others, claim it is not. Their claim that in water baptism, God does a work cannot be supported from Scripture.
Lutherans believe and teach that a saving faith is a gift from God, whatever the circumstances of its being conferred. See, for example, Ephesians 2:8-10, plus numerous other like examples, esp. in Romans.
The error of the Lutheran is that he is confusing water baptism with spirit baptism.
To whose righteousness conferring “works” do you refer?
I don't follow your question. But in my last post I spoke of the Lutherean belief that water baptism is a "means of grace." The means that water baptism is one of the ways that God confers grace to the sinner. Any other thing that one would call a "sacrament" or a "means of grace" would mean that through those means, God confers grace to the one performing that act. The RCC has 7 such "sacraments." Protestants should have none.
But if one is referring to Acts 2:38,the Lutheran is talking about baptism as that act whereby God confers the grace of forgiveness of sins to the one performing the act. If this is your belief, you are immersed in a works righteousness system. This is why Lutheran writers such as Robert Kolb try to explain that water baptism is a work of God. He does this for the express purpose of denying that it is a work of man, hence a work by which the baptized earn their salvation.
If the “work” of the human baptizer could confer righteousness on the one being baptized, that would be a form of vicarious salvation, a concept wholly foreign to me. No Lutheran believes that the participation of the officiant, for example, a pastor performing a baptism, is the vehicle or the means by which the Holy Spirit works faith.
The thing Lutherans believe is that the person being baptized receives some kind of special grace. Lutherans believe that water baptism is a, "work of God." This is simply not true. Water baptism is an act of obedience. It conveys nothing of spiritual ability or of advancing or improving one's stand before God. Because when a believer is baptized he has done nothing but what was his duty to do. Therefore, it derives no award or reward from God.
Do you think water baptism is something God and not man does? Who was commanded to be baptized? God or men? When Christ instructed his disciples to, "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name . . ., who were to be objects of such baptizing? Believing men or God? Water baptism is not something God does, it is something man does in obedience to the instruction of Christ.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.