Lutheran apostate church

(Guestpost from Drew)

Yesterday the Evangelical Lutheran Churches of America decided to okay the ordination of homosexual pastors. This toleration does not simply extend to celibate pastors who have an a inward “orientation” toward their own sex. On the contrary, it actually means that practicing homosexuals may now lead churches within this denomination. The vote ended with 68% in favor of the proposal. 

Supporters of the proposal argue that this move will help the denomination stay relevant to younger congregants. Oh, the appeal of watering down the truth to gain followers! The church has always experienced the problem of encroaching paganism. But once you open the church door to Satan just enough to get his foot inside, he eventually squeezes in with his entire body. This proposal by the ECLA illustrates the danger of compromise.  How could practicing homosexuals get anywhere near the leadership in the first place without an initial compromise of morality? Paul told the Corinthians to excommunicate such sexually immoral congregants:

It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans: A man has his father’s wife. And you are proud! Shouldn’t you rather have been filled with grief and have put out of your fellowship the man who did this? (1 Corinthians 5:1-2)

Obviously, if the ECLA had taken this biblical idea the least bit seriously, there would be no need to respond to homosexual congregants desiring ordination. They would have no such congregants in the first place!

These churches get where they are by abandoning the Bible as an authority. Obviously if the Bible has little value as an authority, the church may as well conform its morals to those of atheistic society. Homosexuality represents an acceptable, alternative lifestyle? Oh, hmm… Well, I guess God must have just gotten that one wrong. (But of course, I’m sure he is still trustworthy on other matters!)

I would like to know something:  If Moses and Paul were wrong about the immorality of homosexuality, how can we be sure they were correct about other doctrines? For example, is stealing actually okay? What about murder? (More observant readers may recall that the ECLA also communed with partial-birth abortionist and church usher George Tiller before his oh-so-unfortunate demise.)

If the Bible means nothing, how do we know that there is only one God, or that Jesus actually died for our sins. How do we know that God justifies us on the basis of faith? After all, maybe Jesus was just a good moral teacher. How do we know that there will be a literal, physical resurrection of the dead?

Once churches abandon faith in God’s word, they lose their saltiness. Moreover, they lose the power of God to spiritually subdue the world. God certainly understands our imperfect nature, but he nonetheless maintains only limited toleration for corruption within his church.

“To the angel of the church in Thyatira write:
      These are the words of the Son of God, whose eyes are like blazing fire and whose feet are like burnished bronze. . . . I have this against you: You tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrificed to idols. I have given her time to repent of her immorality, but she is unwilling. So I will cast her on a bed of suffering, and I will make those who commit adultery with her suffer intensely, unless they repent of her ways. I will strike her children dead. Then all the churches will know that I am he who searches hearts and minds, and I will repay each of you according to your deeds. . . . Only hold on to what you have until I come. To him who overcomes and does my will to the end, I will give authority over the nations. (From Revelation 2)

The Lord will judge his people. Moreover, to receive authority over the nations, we must first resist godless corruption within our own churches.

I did notice one rather comical statement in the article.

The Rev. Katrina Foster, pastor at Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church in The Bronx, a borough of New York City, said Lutherans heard similar warnings about flouting Scripture when they made past changes that are now seen as successful — chiefly, the ordination of women. “We can learn not to define ourselves by negation,” said Foster, a lesbian.

Without getting into a side-debate about the proper role of women in church, how could anyone call the ordination of women in this case a “success”? The leadership of the ECLA — female and male alike – obviously lacks good sense. And apparently, they somehow had lesbian delagates voting on this proposal even before it passed.

At this point, I imagine that a dead German professor is spinning in his grave.

Fortunately, some of the more conservative-leaning conregations are considering schism from the ECLA. Others, however, want to stay and fight:

Even though the Rev. Mark Chavez believes the leaders of his church made a decision in direct contradiction of the Bible by lifting a ban on sexually active, monogamous gays and lesbians as clergy, he’s staying with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. “I’m not leaving,” Chavez said Friday night, promising an effort to keep the church from moving even further toward what he sees as an embrace of behavior condemned by Scripture.

That is a noble intent, Rev. Chavez, but wise up! A church will get nowhere by tolerating evil. How can the temple of God retain communion with Satan? Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her plagues!