E-mail
Print
RSS
G-bookmarks
Live
TechnoratiBethlehem Lutheran Church in Saint Paul, Minnesota is a congregation of the more conservative Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod. It is not unusual these days to find families leaving the ELCA to join the church. However, a new member’s class at Bethlehem Lutheran is an unusual place to find young men from the ELCA’s Luther Seminary in Saint Paul. Pastor of the Church, Robert Krueger, says that he sees more ELCA students coming to his traditional and liturgical congregation. “They all have expressed a disappointment in the direction the ELCA is going, and its general disregard for the Bible as the Word of God.”
One of those seminary students, Barcon from Madagascar says, “The ELCA’s acceptance of practicing gay pastors and gay marriage would not happen in my region of the world. Even if the homosexual lifestyle is fully accepted by society, how can the Christian Church go against what is taught in the Bible? Even the un-churched know that this is not the teaching of God or of real Christianity.”
This doesn’t surprise Rev. Bill Sullivan, national service coordinator for Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, a young denomination established primarily for Churches leaving the ELCA. “For some time now we have gotten a few calls a day from congregations planning to leave the ELCA, who want to research their options.” These are mostly congregations that are planning to leave regardless of the outcome of the sexuality vote and he hears often from seminarians planning to leave the ELCA too.
Another edit of the “Draft Social Statement on Human Sexuality” was prepared by the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality and was released in February, 2009. As anticipated, it recommends the full acceptance of practicing gay pastors and gay marriage in a call to “the love of God and neighbor.”
In disagreement, ELCA Theologian Dr. Carl Braaten wrote, “The summary of the law is love to God and neighbor. This summary, however, does not nullify the force of the individual laws and commandments of God. They are binding on the people of God, the church of Jesus Christ. “ Braaten expresses concern that foreign missionaries would be at risk for persecution, particularly in Muslim lands, if the ELCA goes forward with the recommendation to fully embrace homosexuality. He also says that such a move would put the ELCA in impaired fellowship with most of the world’s Christians. He chides such a unilateral move as arrogant, disregarding Christians in the rest of the world.
Outside of the official “dialogue” in the ELCA, there is a silent conversation happening nation-wide. It may very well be a conversation that is underestimated in influence because it is not well publicized.
In 2005 and again in March of 2009, the ELCA has had to re-structure in light of financial constraints, eliminating nearly 100 high level positions. These were actions taken in both time of economic expansion and recession. In 2009, 5.6 million dollars was trimmed from the mission budget, a radio ministry was eliminated, and significant cutbacks in hunger appeal funding were introduced. Most of the ELCA’s seminaries have also made significant cuts, as well as the ELCA publishing house Augsburg Fortress. The ELCA continues its “contingency budget planning” in preparation for the upcoming sexuality vote.
Since 2001, the ELCA reports a loss of 400,078 members. In 2007, on any given Sunday, only 28.9% of ELCA’s 4,709,956 members attend services. This is a steady annual drop in Church attendance, and leads many to theorize that the trends suggest the loss is far higher than the ELCA is able to quantify. Continue »
Prophet »
Agree: 
Disagree: 
