Pietist has a post on his blog that caught my attention. Click on the title to check out his other posts.
Someone who read The Lutheran blurb on Wartburg seminary professor of contextuality Craig Nessan's paper presented to the ELCA bishops wrote:"In reading this quote, I see no source identified. Does anyone know where this is being quoted from to see the wider context? Martin Luther took a different view, Nessan said, quoting him: "It is not enough simply to look and see whether this is God's word, whether God has said it; rather we must look and see to whom it has been spoken, whether it fits us. That makes all the difference between night and day.
"I couldn't identify where in Luther's writings this quote comes from, but I think Luther probably said something like that and it is a correct approach to biblical interpretation, but capable of being horribly misused by people who are looking for a way to nullify the clear teaching of scripture. Yes, God commanded the people of Israel to practice circumcision, but he didn't command Christians to do the same. Yes, God commanded the people of Israel to observe the seventh day as the sabbath, but did not command Christians to observe the seventh day. Yes, God told various leaders in the Old Testament to totally destroy their enemies (Amalakites, Canaanites, etc.) but he did not command us to do this. Yes, God told the people of Israel to abstain from certain foods, then told Peter to call nothing unclean.
Yes, God commanded Israel that if a man died without children, his brother was to marry the widow, but didn't give that command to us. Yes, God told Hosea to go out and marry a harlot. Yes, Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell all that he had. The fact that some commands in scripture were given to particular people in a particular time and place and are not binding on all people at all times does not mean that the moral teaching of scripture is purely relative and we can replace it with more contemporary ideas of right and wrong that are more congenial to people who don't like any moral restraints.
Yes, that makes biblical interpretation more difficult because the Bible is in some ways a complicated book. Christians have always known that, so most of us are not Seventh Day Adventists or Messianic Jews. But the church never had so much trouble as it has today in distinguishing what was obligatory for ancient Israel as opposed to what God expects of us who believe in Jesus. There is a difference between taking scripture seriously as God's Word and simple minded literalism that ignores important distinctions, for example between the Old and New Testaments.
The problem with what the ELCA is likely to do in its statement on how Lutherans read scripture is that it will relativize parts of scripture that have universal relevance, and that it will use the "gospel" (misunderstood as cheap grace) to undercut biblical morality or any appropriate use of God's law. It will also likely use the historical critical method to raise questions about the trustworthiness of scripture and its historical reliability. The notion of cultural relativity will likely be pushed much too far, and we will end up with a notion of scriptural "authority" that pretty much allows revisionists to do whatever they wish with scripture and accuse the rest of us of holding to an unLutheran biblicism or some such nonsense, in much the same way that Walt Bouman criticized Robert Gagnon as being "too Reformed" and not having a Lutheran understanding of scripture. Bouman implied that if Gagnon had a Lutheran understanding of scripture, he would not see homosexual behavior as morally wrong. And I have heard other revisionists say that those of us who hold to traditional moral understandings are unLutheran, particularly if we believe that creation itself established heterosexual marriage as normative.
What we are likely to get from the ELCA study is half truths that can be twisted to serve the revisionist agenda, just as some would misuse the quote from Luther cited by Craig Nessan. I fear that antinomianism will be defined as true Lutheranism.
Jim Culver
---Katie
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
I have let society down....
....by being a stay at home mom.
This is an interesting article by Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Click on the title to read the entire article.
What I find so fascinating is the anti-choice position of the feminist who is claiming that women should not abandon the workplace to raise children. Here are a couple of interesting quotes:
According to Hirshman's diagnosis, this problem is largely traceable to the fact that too many women are staying at home with their children. In particular, she attacked the notion that women should feel free to choose motherhood as a life calling. In attacking "choice feminism," Hirshman asserts that women who give themselves to mothering undermine the status of all women and threaten the emergence of an egalitarian civilization.
Clearly, what she argues that liberal feminism was unable to propose, she now intends to take up as her central argument. She clearly believes that housekeeping and child-rearing are not interesting and should not be socially validated.
Make no mistake--Hirshman does not want women to have any real choice in the matter. "Choice feminism" is an abysmal failure, in her view, because it validates what should never be validated--motherhood.
There is more. Hirshman argues that allowing motherhood as a choice is "bad for women individually." Hirshman is ready to tell young women that they have no inherent right to choose a status lower, in Hirshman's view, from what they should seek and demand in the public sphere.
-----
Wow.
---Katie
This is an interesting article by Al Mohler, president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Click on the title to read the entire article.
What I find so fascinating is the anti-choice position of the feminist who is claiming that women should not abandon the workplace to raise children. Here are a couple of interesting quotes:
According to Hirshman's diagnosis, this problem is largely traceable to the fact that too many women are staying at home with their children. In particular, she attacked the notion that women should feel free to choose motherhood as a life calling. In attacking "choice feminism," Hirshman asserts that women who give themselves to mothering undermine the status of all women and threaten the emergence of an egalitarian civilization.
Clearly, what she argues that liberal feminism was unable to propose, she now intends to take up as her central argument. She clearly believes that housekeeping and child-rearing are not interesting and should not be socially validated.
Make no mistake--Hirshman does not want women to have any real choice in the matter. "Choice feminism" is an abysmal failure, in her view, because it validates what should never be validated--motherhood.
There is more. Hirshman argues that allowing motherhood as a choice is "bad for women individually." Hirshman is ready to tell young women that they have no inherent right to choose a status lower, in Hirshman's view, from what they should seek and demand in the public sphere.
-----
Wow.
---Katie
Tuesday, March 21, 2006
What is at stake if we affirm homosexual behavior.
This is from the Exodus blog. I was blessed to hear Mike Goeke speak at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly. You can read his testimony at the Exodus site, I think.
A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle touted the merger of 1,400 ‘open and affirming’ churches (meaning churches that unconditionally welcome gay identified people) with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The article stated that leaders in the gay rights movement consider their biggest challenge to be that of convincing Christians that homosexual behavior is not a sin. I saw a part of this movement when I spoke at a gathering of pastors and church leaders from a denomination that is heavily divided over the issue of homosexuality. One man spoke of his desire that everyone be welcome at his church, and that they be ‘inclusive’ and, especially, that no one leave their church ‘offended’ by what they hear. Of course, this was not the first time I had heard these types of thoughts. Many people I talk to, including pastors and parents and friends, are concerned that they not ‘offend’ gay people. Let me just say a hearty 'THANK YOU' to my wife, and my parents and family, and my friends, who cared enough about me to offend me!
I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I consider the ramifications in my life had the people in my world bought into the lie that to love me was to affirm my homosexuality. When I left my wife to pursue homosexuality, she boldly told me that she knew God could work in me and in our marriage and that she would not pursue divorce. She set boundaries with me and protected her interests, but through it all she professed her love for me and her desire to work through this together. My parents (and other family members) told me that what I was doing was wrong. They found Exodus, got materials, and tried to get me to talk to a counselor. They also called frequently to check on me, sent me money when I needed it, came to see me on my birthday, and flew me home for holidays. My friends drove hours to talk to me about what I was doing, and told me what they believed. They flew from other towns to take me to dinner and tried to convince me to get help, and to turn from what I was doing. They also sent me cards and letters and birthday cards full of love and affirmation of our friendship.
And each of them offended me. Each of them made me angry. I viewed them as bigoted, and unenlightened, and ignorant, and prejudiced, and hateful. If they truly loved me, I told them, they would accept my homosexuality and affirm me in the lifestyle I was living. I ignored their calls and I viewed them with skepticism. I did my best to sever my relationships with those who were offending me. But they would not let me go. They did not coddle me, but they refused to give up on me.
When I finally took “You Don’t Have to be Gay” from my Dad, just to shut him up, I was ready to draw a line in the sand and cut all ties with my wife, my family and my friends. But the time planned by God for the piercing of my heart had come. As I have said many times, that book showed me more than the sentimental, saccharine love of Jesus that the gay community had sold me. It showed me the powerful love of the risen Savior, and I was compelled back to Him by that love. The offending parties in my life were waiting (with true love and true grace), not holding my sin against me, but standing there, ready to walk the long journey out of homosexuality alongside of me.
Today my marriage is restored and has grown beyond my imagination. I have three beautiful children and am living out the call on my life to vocational ministry. Healing has happened in my family relationships, and I am closer to that cadre of friends than ever before. As I listen to people debate the ‘gay’ issue and talk of affirmation and inclusivity of homosexuality, I wonder where I would be today had Stephanie accepted my claim that I had always been gay and would always be gay, and pursued divorce like I wanted her to do. I wonder where I would be if my parents had joined PFLAG and supported me in my quest to live homosexually. I wonder where I would be if my friends had encouraged me to divorce Stephanie and had rallied around me in my homosexuality. I wonder where I would be if my pastors and spiritual shepherds had encouraged me to accept the very thing I needed to lay before the cross of Christ. I shudder at the thought. I know it must have killed them to think of losing me, but they loved me enough to take that risk. They offered me an alternative and allowed me to make a choice. THANK YOU, dear friends, for your offense to me. At the time, the Truth you shared was the aroma of death to me (II Cor. 2:15) but today it is the sweet fragrance of LIFE.
------
We cannot be afraid to speak the truth in love. Even if it causes offense.
---Katie
A recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle touted the merger of 1,400 ‘open and affirming’ churches (meaning churches that unconditionally welcome gay identified people) with the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force. The article stated that leaders in the gay rights movement consider their biggest challenge to be that of convincing Christians that homosexual behavior is not a sin. I saw a part of this movement when I spoke at a gathering of pastors and church leaders from a denomination that is heavily divided over the issue of homosexuality. One man spoke of his desire that everyone be welcome at his church, and that they be ‘inclusive’ and, especially, that no one leave their church ‘offended’ by what they hear. Of course, this was not the first time I had heard these types of thoughts. Many people I talk to, including pastors and parents and friends, are concerned that they not ‘offend’ gay people. Let me just say a hearty 'THANK YOU' to my wife, and my parents and family, and my friends, who cared enough about me to offend me!
I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach when I consider the ramifications in my life had the people in my world bought into the lie that to love me was to affirm my homosexuality. When I left my wife to pursue homosexuality, she boldly told me that she knew God could work in me and in our marriage and that she would not pursue divorce. She set boundaries with me and protected her interests, but through it all she professed her love for me and her desire to work through this together. My parents (and other family members) told me that what I was doing was wrong. They found Exodus, got materials, and tried to get me to talk to a counselor. They also called frequently to check on me, sent me money when I needed it, came to see me on my birthday, and flew me home for holidays. My friends drove hours to talk to me about what I was doing, and told me what they believed. They flew from other towns to take me to dinner and tried to convince me to get help, and to turn from what I was doing. They also sent me cards and letters and birthday cards full of love and affirmation of our friendship.
And each of them offended me. Each of them made me angry. I viewed them as bigoted, and unenlightened, and ignorant, and prejudiced, and hateful. If they truly loved me, I told them, they would accept my homosexuality and affirm me in the lifestyle I was living. I ignored their calls and I viewed them with skepticism. I did my best to sever my relationships with those who were offending me. But they would not let me go. They did not coddle me, but they refused to give up on me.
When I finally took “You Don’t Have to be Gay” from my Dad, just to shut him up, I was ready to draw a line in the sand and cut all ties with my wife, my family and my friends. But the time planned by God for the piercing of my heart had come. As I have said many times, that book showed me more than the sentimental, saccharine love of Jesus that the gay community had sold me. It showed me the powerful love of the risen Savior, and I was compelled back to Him by that love. The offending parties in my life were waiting (with true love and true grace), not holding my sin against me, but standing there, ready to walk the long journey out of homosexuality alongside of me.
Today my marriage is restored and has grown beyond my imagination. I have three beautiful children and am living out the call on my life to vocational ministry. Healing has happened in my family relationships, and I am closer to that cadre of friends than ever before. As I listen to people debate the ‘gay’ issue and talk of affirmation and inclusivity of homosexuality, I wonder where I would be today had Stephanie accepted my claim that I had always been gay and would always be gay, and pursued divorce like I wanted her to do. I wonder where I would be if my parents had joined PFLAG and supported me in my quest to live homosexually. I wonder where I would be if my friends had encouraged me to divorce Stephanie and had rallied around me in my homosexuality. I wonder where I would be if my pastors and spiritual shepherds had encouraged me to accept the very thing I needed to lay before the cross of Christ. I shudder at the thought. I know it must have killed them to think of losing me, but they loved me enough to take that risk. They offered me an alternative and allowed me to make a choice. THANK YOU, dear friends, for your offense to me. At the time, the Truth you shared was the aroma of death to me (II Cor. 2:15) but today it is the sweet fragrance of LIFE.
------
We cannot be afraid to speak the truth in love. Even if it causes offense.
---Katie
Sunday, March 12, 2006
Please, homeschoolers are not poorly socialized.
Nathanael Blake has a pithy answer to those (somewhat irritating) people who express concern that homeschoolers won't be properly socialized:
The standard (though rarely articulated) definition of successful socialization is to "fit in" with a lot of immature little savages raised by television, video games, and the internet. Spending at least 35 hours a week, nine months of the year, with 20-30 kids of one's own age (with a harried adult supervising) is the antithesis of what is needed in order to learn how to function in society.
Read the rest of "Homeschooling, Sweet Homeschooling" by clicking on the title.
Yes, I know that his definition of traditionally schooled kids does not fit everyone, but does anybody really equate proper socialization with being stuck in a classroom with a bunch of people your own age?
---Katie
The standard (though rarely articulated) definition of successful socialization is to "fit in" with a lot of immature little savages raised by television, video games, and the internet. Spending at least 35 hours a week, nine months of the year, with 20-30 kids of one's own age (with a harried adult supervising) is the antithesis of what is needed in order to learn how to function in society.
Read the rest of "Homeschooling, Sweet Homeschooling" by clicking on the title.
Yes, I know that his definition of traditionally schooled kids does not fit everyone, but does anybody really equate proper socialization with being stuck in a classroom with a bunch of people your own age?
---Katie
Thursday, March 09, 2006
NY Times supporting vouchers???
Is this the beginning of the end for government control of education?
City Schools That Work
By JOHN TIERNEYMILWAUKEE
At first glance, the near north side of Milwaukee can be a bleak place, now that it has lost the department stores, factories and other businesses that used to thrive there. But if you want to see inner-city children getting a good education, it's the most beautiful spot in America.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel refers to one of the area's arteries, North Avenue, as the Main Street of School Reform because of the new schools that have opened since the city's radical experiment in education began 15 years ago. At that time, there were two newspapers in Milwaukee, the liberal Journal and the conservative Sentinel, and they both editorialized against the new school-voucher program.
Now there's one combined newspaper with a different point of view. The Journal Sentinel, which endorsed John Kerry in 2004, has parted company with the Democratic Party on the voucher issue. It backed Republican efforts this year to expand the program, which has led to the creation of dozens of new private schools in Milwaukee.
"We've seen what school choice can do," said Gregory Stanford, an editorial writer and a columnist at the paper. "It's impressive to go around to the voucher schools and see kids learning. Their parents are much more satisfied with these schools. And the fears that the public schools would be hurt have turned out to be wrong."
In fact, the students in public schools have benefited from the competition. Two studies by Harvard researchers, one by Caroline Hoxby and another by Rajashri Chakrabarti, have shown that as the voucher program expanded in Milwaukee, there was a marked improvement in test scores at the public schools most threatened by the program (the ones with large numbers of low-income students eligible for the vouchers).
The competition spurred the public system to shift power from the central administration to individual schools, allowing councils of parents and teachers to decide who should teach there, instead of forcing the schools to accept incompetent teachers just because they had seniority.
"Poor teachers used to shuffle from one school on to another in what we called the dance of the lemons," says Ken Johnson, the head of the school board. "But we couldn't let that continue once our students had the option to go somewhere else. We had to react to students' needs. We had to start seeing them as customers, not just seat-fillers.
"Some of the new voucher schools have flopped — but the advantage of a voucher program is that a bad private school can be shut down a lot faster than a bad public school. And while critics complain that there still isn't definitive evidence that voucher students are doing better over all in their new schools, the results so far in Milwaukee and other cities are more than enough to declare vouchers a success.
"All the good research, including the voucher opponents' work, shows that kids who accept vouchers are doing at least as well as their public school peers," says Joseph Viteritti of Hunter College. "That's remarkable, considering how much less money is being spent on the voucher students."
In Milwaukee, where the public system spends more than $10,000 per student, private schools get less than $6,400 for each voucher student. But when you see what can be done for that money, you realize what's wrong with Democrats' favorite solution for education: more money for the public-school monopoly.
At the CEO Leadership Academy, a high school with 125 students in the new wing of a Baptist church, you find students who compare the school to a family. They rhapsodize about small classes, teachers who stay after school to help them and the feeling that the school is a calm oasis from the streets — not what they got in their old public schools.
"When I first heard about this school, they told me the school day's longer and you have to wear a uniform," said Elliott Barnes, a ninth grader. "I didn't like that at all. But then I walked in here and noticed right away how many people were smiling in the hall. In my public school, when a stranger smiled at you there, you started worrying.
"The school principal, Denise Pitchford, worked in the public schools, but she took a pay cut in exchange for less red tape. "I wanted the flexibility to give immediate personal attention to every student," she said. "To me, it represented less money but a better opportunity." Just like the whole voucher program.
--------
Of course, in FL, we just got rid of part of our voucher program because it might be used to send kids to religious schools.
---Katie
City Schools That Work
By JOHN TIERNEYMILWAUKEE
At first glance, the near north side of Milwaukee can be a bleak place, now that it has lost the department stores, factories and other businesses that used to thrive there. But if you want to see inner-city children getting a good education, it's the most beautiful spot in America.
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel refers to one of the area's arteries, North Avenue, as the Main Street of School Reform because of the new schools that have opened since the city's radical experiment in education began 15 years ago. At that time, there were two newspapers in Milwaukee, the liberal Journal and the conservative Sentinel, and they both editorialized against the new school-voucher program.
Now there's one combined newspaper with a different point of view. The Journal Sentinel, which endorsed John Kerry in 2004, has parted company with the Democratic Party on the voucher issue. It backed Republican efforts this year to expand the program, which has led to the creation of dozens of new private schools in Milwaukee.
"We've seen what school choice can do," said Gregory Stanford, an editorial writer and a columnist at the paper. "It's impressive to go around to the voucher schools and see kids learning. Their parents are much more satisfied with these schools. And the fears that the public schools would be hurt have turned out to be wrong."
In fact, the students in public schools have benefited from the competition. Two studies by Harvard researchers, one by Caroline Hoxby and another by Rajashri Chakrabarti, have shown that as the voucher program expanded in Milwaukee, there was a marked improvement in test scores at the public schools most threatened by the program (the ones with large numbers of low-income students eligible for the vouchers).
The competition spurred the public system to shift power from the central administration to individual schools, allowing councils of parents and teachers to decide who should teach there, instead of forcing the schools to accept incompetent teachers just because they had seniority.
"Poor teachers used to shuffle from one school on to another in what we called the dance of the lemons," says Ken Johnson, the head of the school board. "But we couldn't let that continue once our students had the option to go somewhere else. We had to react to students' needs. We had to start seeing them as customers, not just seat-fillers.
"Some of the new voucher schools have flopped — but the advantage of a voucher program is that a bad private school can be shut down a lot faster than a bad public school. And while critics complain that there still isn't definitive evidence that voucher students are doing better over all in their new schools, the results so far in Milwaukee and other cities are more than enough to declare vouchers a success.
"All the good research, including the voucher opponents' work, shows that kids who accept vouchers are doing at least as well as their public school peers," says Joseph Viteritti of Hunter College. "That's remarkable, considering how much less money is being spent on the voucher students."
In Milwaukee, where the public system spends more than $10,000 per student, private schools get less than $6,400 for each voucher student. But when you see what can be done for that money, you realize what's wrong with Democrats' favorite solution for education: more money for the public-school monopoly.
At the CEO Leadership Academy, a high school with 125 students in the new wing of a Baptist church, you find students who compare the school to a family. They rhapsodize about small classes, teachers who stay after school to help them and the feeling that the school is a calm oasis from the streets — not what they got in their old public schools.
"When I first heard about this school, they told me the school day's longer and you have to wear a uniform," said Elliott Barnes, a ninth grader. "I didn't like that at all. But then I walked in here and noticed right away how many people were smiling in the hall. In my public school, when a stranger smiled at you there, you started worrying.
"The school principal, Denise Pitchford, worked in the public schools, but she took a pay cut in exchange for less red tape. "I wanted the flexibility to give immediate personal attention to every student," she said. "To me, it represented less money but a better opportunity." Just like the whole voucher program.
--------
Of course, in FL, we just got rid of part of our voucher program because it might be used to send kids to religious schools.
---Katie
Wednesday, March 08, 2006
House Republicans Are Revolting!
That's what the announcer on the ABC (I think) news feed said on WDBO radio said tonight! He he...I think he meant that the House Republicans are in revolt, but perhaps deep inside he meant it the way I took it.
Anyway, apparently they aren't going to let Bush make the port deal. I wonder if Bush is really going to finally take out the veto pen for something that is such a loser issue.
---Katie
Anyway, apparently they aren't going to let Bush make the port deal. I wonder if Bush is really going to finally take out the veto pen for something that is such a loser issue.
---Katie
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
ELCA's Mountainous Sin
This is from Pietist's blog. Click on the title for the entire article. (You'll have to scroll down a ways - he is much more prolific a writer than I!)
ELCA's Mountainous Sin (It's Nearly Broken-back!)
It should be slowly dawning on more and more members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that "Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore. The ELCA is coming out with a new hymnal in which they are removing most of the masculine language from Scripture and hymns and the usage of the current Lutheran Book of Worship. The question is raised again, "By whose authority do you do this?" The obvious subservience of ELCA leaders to the activists of the GLBT movement (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans-gendered) and their relentless push to normalize homoeroticism, raises the question, "By whose authority do you do this?"
If you write them, they will send you a form letter (probably becasue they get so many objections, yet they keep on going, like the Energizer Bunny). To the first example, they will say, "We studied it carefully." To the second, "We will take a four year journey together and then vote." It becomes more and more obvious that the staff people of the ELCA believe they have so much authority that they can reconfigure the way we are ordered as a society, and will reach even as far as a religious person can and change the words that come out of God's mouth.
Less that two years ago I set forth to see if I could come to understand how the ELCA got to where it is, and it slowly dawned on me that we have become so ill-versed in Scripture, and Lutheran theology (the Confessions) that many no longer can even recognize heresy. Examples abound. Go to www.herchurch.org and you'll find an ELCA congregation that invites women to go to Crete and pour libations on the altars of pagan gods. You might say that this is but one congregation and they hardly speak for the theology of a denomination? Well, go to http://www.mnys.org/headlines/hansen_preaches_nyc.htmland you can hear our top official float one heresy balloon after another, celebrating that since some theologian has written convincingly that God is at work in all religions (!!!) that we can rejoice that all are saved, that since another theologian has written convincingly that the Office of the Keys based on Jewish authorities of the time of Jesus actually means "loosing the current understanding of the law." (Martin Luther placed this traditional teaching of the place of the forgiveness of sins in the life of the Church in the Small Catechism part of our Confessions)
-snip-
Go to www.commonconfession.net and learn about the two newly formed groups for reform and renewal in the ELCA. Take the Common Confession to your Church Council and listen to the discussion and speak to the situation. If they find a problem with any of the simple seven statements of classic Lutheranism, our understanding may being its slow (or not so slow) dawning.
------
So, I've been there and done that - did not go so well, but I am hanging in there. If your pastor has already drunk the ELCA Kool-Aid, you can expect to get an ugly reaction....
---Katie
ELCA's Mountainous Sin (It's Nearly Broken-back!)
It should be slowly dawning on more and more members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) that "Toto, I don't think we are in Kansas anymore. The ELCA is coming out with a new hymnal in which they are removing most of the masculine language from Scripture and hymns and the usage of the current Lutheran Book of Worship. The question is raised again, "By whose authority do you do this?" The obvious subservience of ELCA leaders to the activists of the GLBT movement (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Trans-gendered) and their relentless push to normalize homoeroticism, raises the question, "By whose authority do you do this?"
If you write them, they will send you a form letter (probably becasue they get so many objections, yet they keep on going, like the Energizer Bunny). To the first example, they will say, "We studied it carefully." To the second, "We will take a four year journey together and then vote." It becomes more and more obvious that the staff people of the ELCA believe they have so much authority that they can reconfigure the way we are ordered as a society, and will reach even as far as a religious person can and change the words that come out of God's mouth.
Less that two years ago I set forth to see if I could come to understand how the ELCA got to where it is, and it slowly dawned on me that we have become so ill-versed in Scripture, and Lutheran theology (the Confessions) that many no longer can even recognize heresy. Examples abound. Go to www.herchurch.org and you'll find an ELCA congregation that invites women to go to Crete and pour libations on the altars of pagan gods. You might say that this is but one congregation and they hardly speak for the theology of a denomination? Well, go to http://www.mnys.org/headlines/hansen_preaches_nyc.htmland you can hear our top official float one heresy balloon after another, celebrating that since some theologian has written convincingly that God is at work in all religions (!!!) that we can rejoice that all are saved, that since another theologian has written convincingly that the Office of the Keys based on Jewish authorities of the time of Jesus actually means "loosing the current understanding of the law." (Martin Luther placed this traditional teaching of the place of the forgiveness of sins in the life of the Church in the Small Catechism part of our Confessions)
-snip-
Go to www.commonconfession.net and learn about the two newly formed groups for reform and renewal in the ELCA. Take the Common Confession to your Church Council and listen to the discussion and speak to the situation. If they find a problem with any of the simple seven statements of classic Lutheranism, our understanding may being its slow (or not so slow) dawning.
------
So, I've been there and done that - did not go so well, but I am hanging in there. If your pastor has already drunk the ELCA Kool-Aid, you can expect to get an ugly reaction....
---Katie
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