An issue that goes hand in hand with universalism is the belief that there is no hell. Here's some information on the topic of hell with relation to the ELCA. http://www.exposingtheelca.com/exposed-blog/category/hell
Yes, the ELCA does teach and believe in universalism. Many ELCA leaders are believers in universalism. Many ELCA seminary professors are teachers of universalism. The ELCA publishes articles supportive of universalism. And no condemnation of this teaching comes forth from the ELCA. So yes, they teach it and they are supportive of the teaching. Here are some links to articles about the ELCA and universalism. Many of the articles have links to the ELCA (leaders, teachers, pastors, ELCA publications, ELCA schools and ELCA websites) stating their belief in universalism.
An issue that goes hand in hand with universalism is the belief that there is no hell. Here's some information on the topic of hell with relation to the ELCA. http://www.exposingtheelca.com/exposed-blog/category/hell
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Here is how Dr. Martin Luther King answered this question -
"Question: ...I am a boy, but I feel about boys the way I ought to feel about girls. I don't want my parents to know about me. What can I do? Is there any place where I can go for help? Answer: Your problem is not at all an uncommon one. However, it does require careful attention. The type of feeling that you have toward boys is probably not an innate tendency, but something that has been culturally acquired. Your reasons for adopting this habit have now been consciously suppressed or unconsciously repressed. Therefore, it is necessary to deal with this problem by getting back to some of the experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. In order to do this I would suggest that you see a good psychiatrist who can assist you in bringing to the forefront of conscience all of those experiences and circumstances that lead to the habit. You are already on the right road toward a solution, since you honestly recognize the problem and have a desire to solve it." (see here)
The ELCA has taken some heat by some for posting the following comment/prayer.
Click on the "comment" link to read what people are saying. On Twitter a number of ELCA leaders are complaining that the ELCA Facebook page should remove some comments of people who were not happy with the comment/prayer (if you can even call it a prayer).
Last month the United States Supreme Court ruled that there is a federal constitutional right to same-sex marriage. Here is how many leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America responded.
The ELCA's Bishop Robert Alan Rimbo of the Metropolitan New York says of the recent Supreme Court decision making gay marriage legal in the United States, "in the spirit of Jesus, we applaud the court’s decision. We will continue to embrace all of God’s children as they seek to have their loving relationships blessed by people of good faith." (readhere)
Below is a tweet from the ELCA Executive for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations and assistant to the presiding bishop -
This post on an ELCA Facebook group is from the former president of the ELCA's Wartburg Theological Seminary - "Duane Larson 1 hr · Princeton, IA So humbled and privileged that in just a few hours I will preach and preside at the wedding of (two men). A first for this congregation and this community. We expect a packed house. God's timing is superb!" Rev. Strickland is the Director for Worship of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America -
— Rev Kevin Strickland (@PrKevinELCA) June 26, 2015
The ELCA's Bishop Guy Erwin of the Southwest California Synod retweeted this -
This ELCA Synod offers resources for churches concerning gay marriage from Reconciling Works (an LGBT advocacy organization) and from a transgender ELCA Pastor Megan Rohrer -
The ELCA pastor that moderates a large ELCA Clergy Facebook page tweeted -
A camp run by an ELCA church posted this -
Some ELCA Gay Pride Parade marchers -
From Gustavus Adolphus College -
ELCA churches are conducting gay weddings, as are other liberal denominations. The website, Exposing the ELCA has a poll on its home page asking "Would Jesus attend a gay wedding?" (go vote here) In the video below it asks a similar question, "Should a Christian attend his gay friend/family member's wedding?"
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Robert A. J. Gagnon, Associate Professor of New Testament at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, had this to say following his posting of the video, "Christians should not attend a ritual celebration of an act that God finds abhorrent. The closest analogy in Scripture is Paul's injunction in 1 Cor 10 that Christians not attend events at an idol's temple, not even if they believe that the idol has no real existence, not even if the event being celebrated at the temple is something seemingly innocuous like the celebration of a birth or a job promotion. In the context... of 1 Corinthians, with its dual commands to "flee sexual immorality" and "flee idolatry," there is no way that Paul would have permitted attendance of any wedding ceremony of the incestuous man in 1 Cor 5 to his stepmother, had such an event taken place." (see here) Every once in awhile, in the comment section under an article or blog you come across a comment by someone that is so good you want to share it. That happened to me this week while I was reading a Michael Rinehart, Bishop of the Texas Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, blog. Bishop Rinehart is extremely liberal politically and theologically. Under a recent death penalty focused blog by Bishop Rinehart I found this gem:
Linda writes "...The fundamental issue is that the ELCA is a political and social activist group with a specific cultural agenda. The ELCA pastors are required to pledge loyalty to the organization itself as well as to the rightly preaching Gospel and rightly administering the sacraments. When they find those two at odds, there is tremendous pressure placed upon the pastor with a threat of taking him off the roster and never issuing another call. If a faithful Lutheran pastor disagrees with the Synod bishop, he runs the risk of being labelled schismatic and pulled from the clergy roster if he won’t toe the mark. The hierarchy manages that change and advocates for it, and waits for the orthodox to leave (without their buildings, and preferably quietly) or just to age out. The ELCA seminaries teach symbolic and allegorical reading of Scriptures, although they don’t call it that, and they have an agenda of radical feminism and full participation for homosexual practitioners to be pastors and administer and take part in the sacramental life of the church. Surveys are undertaken of the congregations not to determine what the faithful need to be reminded of or grounded in, but to change church teaching based on what people are already doing and already believe in practice. We actually had a young 30-something woman who was a member of our former small ELCA church state that she believed we could get more members if we didn’t require our members to be baptized as our constitution provided. Indeed. Let’s be so inclusive that we are no longer the Lutheran or even a Christian church at all. Radical hospitality. My brother calls it the Burger King of churches: have it your way at ELCA. At present the ELCA is having congregations read and participate about what they believe and practice regarding Holy Communion. I believe this will eventually result in a policy statement which captures what most people believe and are already doing, rather than the ELCA actually bothering to catechize the faithful with confessional Lutheran teachings and correct any errors in understanding and/or practice regarding the sacrament. They will not want to reinforcing Lutheran teaching that Holy Communion is a sacrament for the baptized who believe, and that even believers must be rightly disposed to participate or should refrain (or be denied the sacrament if the pastor has knowledge). Now the saying goes that the ELCA practices radical hospitality – ALL means ALL regardless of their understanding of Holy Communion. No matter that Scripture teaches that when you eat and drink of the Body and Blood of Christ without being properly disposed that you are bringing judgment onto yourself. That’s just one example, albeit a pretty big one, I know. ELCA. Asking people what they already practice and believe to ok it is hardly Evangelical. Not calling them to learn or abide by the confessions is hardly Lutheran. Advocating worldly social and political agendas is not being Church. About the only word of truth left in the ELCA, then, is the last one. America. It is true that it’s located in the United States of America. I am waiting for the call for the Gospel rightly preached to be deemed hate speech by the culture at large. It’s coming. ELCA will soon follow and the rightly preached Gospel, the fullness of the Word, will be silenced within the ELCA churches by discipline of individual members by the Synod (this used to be done at the congregational level. In 2013 the ELCA changed the constitution to provide that the Synod now undertakes that discipline. Apparently the congregations can no longer be trusted to administer such member discipline any longer. After all, they may not toe the party line at the congregational level. But the Synod surely will. All the beautiful Lutheran language in the well-drafted and crafted ELCA constitution has been relegated to symbolic and/ or ceremonial status in the church. Many ELCA...are persons of good faith, but it’s just not the Lutheran or the Christian faith except in name and symbol and outward ceremony. The substance has been stripped. Nobody preaches about original sin or even sinning unless its about “sinful structures” that promote some -ism, take your pick. Like patriarchy in our culture. That is a sinful, oppressive thing that only radical feminism can make right. It’s all about inclusivity, moral relativism and the historical-critical method which sounds like a good contextual way to read the Bible and allow its truths to come through. Instead, it is the leadership’s way of teaching seminarians to dismantle Biblical truths one by one in study, all in favor of the wisdom of the age. By the resounding failure of pastoral and theological leadership in the Human Sexuality study, I fully expect gender fluidity and gender bias studies to be commissioned within the ELCA. After much time and money expended by a future task force the ELCA will teach...that God did NOT make them male and female, and that the term eunuch in the Bible is a pejorative term that refers to and perpetuates fear of the stranger or 'other' from biblical times and perpetuates transphobia. If you disagree you will be called transphobic, even though the only thing you fear is that the Gospel is no longer rightly preached in your church. I only wish that I were writing this tongue-in-cheek. It’s the reason we led our church out of the ELCA and joined the LCMC. Peace and blessings to you." (read here) Witness Stone Blog and ELCAToday.com wish you a Merry Christmas. Enjoy -
The following comes from ELCA pastor, author and speaker Nadia Bolz-Weber. Her theology is heretical and her beliefs are immoral (see here) and what comes out of her mouth is ugly. ("What goes into someone's mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them." - Mathew 15:11)
Nadia Bolz-Weber is scheduled in 2015 to speak at the ELCA Luther Seminary’s 2015 Mid-Winter Convocation “Spiritual but Not Religious;” Discovery, Reflection and Vocation at the ELCA's Bethany College; Visiting Writers Series/Institute for Faith and Learning at the ELCA's Lenoir-Rhyne University and the next day at the ELCA's Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary; Festival of Homiletics (Luther Seminary) at the Colorado Convention Center and the ELCA Worship Jubilee. (see here) Explicit language warning:
— Nadia Bolz-Weber (@Sarcasticluther) October 9, 2014
This information comes from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America "Report of the Secretary," April 2014.
"ELCA Disaffiliation Votes" "(T)he numbers of ELCA congregations disaffiliating for the past five years are the following: 2009 - 10 2010 - 302 2011 - 298 2012 - 49 2013 - 16 Total - 675 Nine hundred fifty-four congregations took a first vote. Several of these took multiple first votes. We still get occasional requests for explanation of the process of disaffiliation. These are referred to the appropriate synod office." (see here - page 14) I highly recommend watching this video (not the big Hollywood movie about Noah). Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Berlin, PA held their 2nd vote to change their church affiliation today. The vote was 120-5 to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Holy Trinity's first vote to leave the ELCA was in November 2013. It passed 132-12.
Teachers have great influence on those they teach, so subjecting your mind to a sound Biblical teacher is of great importance to any Christian.
Not so in the ELCA... The ELCA's Northeastern Iowa Synod announced that this week Bishop Steven Ullestad would be "Learning from Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber about outreach to the generations." (see here) Do you know who Nadia Bolz-Weber is and what she believes? Rev. Bolz-Weber writes in her new book "Pastrix" that the goddess of Wicca is "simply another aspect of the divine, like God's aunt or something." (see here) She has also said - - "oh my god, nobody believes every line of the creed.” (see here) - "And just to be clear: The cross is not about God as divine child abuser sadly sending his little boy off to be killed because we were bad and well, somebody had to pay." (see here) - "I know it's a big deal to like build faith in home; we don't do that." (see here) - "I think that there is a really insipid message to girls when you use the exclusive male pronoun for God..." (see here) "I confess that I am a Christo-centric universalist. What that means to me is that, whatever God was accomplishing, especially on the cross, that Christological event, was for the restoration and redemption and reconciliation of all things and all people and all Creation – everyone. Whatever God was getting done there, that is for everyone. How God manages to play that out through other religions, other symbol systems, I will never understand. I have to allow for the idea that God is actually nimble enough and powerful enough and creative enough to do that.” See here “. . . Preaching hopefully in some way is the word of God, speaking is not. So I thought, I wonder, we can look at Paul that way. You know like sometimes he was just going off on his snotty opinions, he has some authority to speak on it but that’s not necessarily the Word of God.” from here That is what Bolz-Weber believes, yet the Northeastern Iowa Synod's writes that "she is a prophet and a gift to our church." (see here) It is not just an ELCA bishop that sits under ELCA pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber's instruction. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has cast Bolz-Weber into the role of "teacher" to their leadership and youth. She is highly revered by the ELCA. She speaks to ELCA synod assemblies, ELCA National youth gatherings and ELCA conferences. (see here) Nadia Bolz-Weber isn't the only ELCA chosen high profile instructor/speaker/teacher who openly teaches against Scriptural truth. Highly controversial scholars Marcus Borg (see here) and John Dominic Crossan (see here) are also Evangelical Lutheran Church in America favorites. People of the ELCA, with these kinds of teachers is there any question what kind of ELCA pastor they will produce? As the The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod invites members "to join two marches this month to show their support for the sanctity of life" (see here) you hear and see nothing promoting the protection of unborn children coming from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. In fact, the ELCA supports the killing of unborn babies. Evil has taken over this denomination.
How anyone who is pro-life, who believes children in the womb should not be burned to death and ripped apart limb from limb by abortionists remains in this denomination is beyond me. This applies to the ELCA "equality" supporters also. I've got many, many emails and comments from ELCA pastors and leaders I could show you.
Jesus was nice. But there is no way He would let worshipers of a false god into the God's temple to worship their deity. The story linked below highlights ELCA people who think they are being nice. But they are sinning and walking in complete opposition to what Christ would want or do.
Stunned by loss of building, Islamic Center members welcomed to Central Lutheran - read here Below is an update on the lawsuit by ELCA supporters against Bethel Lutheran Church in Holdrege, Nebraska. (this update was posted on the church's facebook page - see here)
Bethel Lutheran Church On July 3rd Judge Harder granted Bethel's request for dismissal in the lawsuit filed against the church by a small but vocal minority seeking to force the congregation to return to the ELCA and the removal of all non-roistered ELCA pastors. This is an answer to our prayer. However the plaintiffs now have 30 days to refile an amended complaint. Judge Harder found that the original complaint did not establish subject matter jurisdiction under which the court may analyze the dispute. Please join us in rejoicing for the Lord's answer to our prayer as well as prayer for repentance and reconciliation instead of further litigation. Thank you all for your prayers and support. Here is a previous report on the situation. Evangelical Lutheran Church in American Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson was caught showing off his dance moves at the Southeastern Synod Assembly this weekend. (see video below) He seems to be enjoying himself, maybe its a happy dance from hearing one of his synods elected a homosexual man as synod bishop. Listen closely at the 52 second mark, it kind of sounds like Bishop Hanson takes the Lord's name in vain. One person commenting on the youtube page seems to think he did. Its not very clear though and possible he didn't. What does it sound like to you? The ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church.
Take a few minutes to read what Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jefferts Schori, said in a recent sermon. Here is a report about the presiding bishop's message, and here is the complete sermon. How about a sneak peak? The Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop instructed:
There is more said by the Presiding Episcopal Bishop so please read the above links. As mentioned above, the ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church. The ELCA's official website explains what 'full communion' means. It says: 'Full communion' means a mutual recognition that the partner churches hold 'the essentials of the Christian faith' within the catholic and apostolic tradition. In such a relationship, according to 'Called to Common Mission,' neither church 'seeks to remake the other in its own image, but each is open to the gifts of the other as it seeks to be faithful to Christ and his mission. They are together committed to a visible unity in the church's mission to proclaim the Word and administer the Sacraments' ('Called to Common Mission,' paragraph 2). Full communion describes a relationship in which the partner churches fully recognize each other as part of the whole Church of Jesus Christ and seek to cooperate with each other in witness, life, and service. Mutual recognition of Baptism and a sharing of the Lord's Supper, allowing for joint worship and an exchangeability of members, also are part of a relationship of full communion." (see here) Many of you have probably read something about the legal battle between Grace Lutheran Church in Eau Claire, WI and the ELCA. Here is a good rundown of all that happened. This was posted on a Lutheran message board. (see here) Here is a brief summary of what has happened so far. Offer a correction if you think any of this is not accurate. Check out the video below made by a Minnesota ELCA church and posted by the Southeastern Minnesota Synod, ELCA (see the Synod's facebook page here) What are your thoughts on this video? Good, bad, cool, not cool, fine, wrong, mocking, sacrilegious or what? Harlem Shake (Palm Sunday Edition) Zion Lutheran Church Minot ND |
Dan Skogen 'See!' he said to all the people. 'This stone will be a witness against us. It has heard all the words the LORD has said to us. It will be a witness against you if you are untrue to your God.'
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