Saturday, July 16, 2005

The Ecclesiastical Mass Confusion Perpetual Motion Machine

July 15, 2005 ELCA News Service writes, "ELCA Churchwide Assembly To Consider 196 Memorials From Synods."

First of all, I have to say that words fail to express the deep sense of alienation I feel when I see that a historic Reformation church poised on the edge of a deep chasm is going to spend a week talking about things that are none of their business. Look here:

"Memorials covered topics such as caring for creation, ELCA
engagement in the Holy Land, Jewish-Christian relations, new
worship resources, anti-racism work, support for the ELCA
publishing house, and constitutional matters such as the
composition of the Church Council and possible ratification of
ELCA governing documents. Nearly half of the memorials are
related to three proposals on homosexuality."

OK, the last line. All three proposals are crap. They should have never been put forward. They all dishonor God, revelation, the apostolic faith. Dissenting position One from the Task Force Report is the only one that deserves passing, but since there never should have been a Task Force, well, understand?

That takes care of "nearly half." Now, working backward: are we going to work on that constitution forever? Is this a perpetual motion machine? I'm afraid we really got this all wrong. We are not the federal government. We do not need to meet to pass bills that lobbyists and activists what passed. We are to preach Christ and Him crucified. We are to go into the world with apostolic faith and means so that people be converted and turn from Satan to the Father. Hello!!??!!

Now for the last. If anyone truly believes that the ELCA is supposed to be telling any government how to run their state, forget it. Maybe the USA, OK, if they were killing babies or something, but Israel? The 5,000,000 donut eatin' Lutherans are supposed to tell Israel how to safeguard the region. They need their head examined.

OK, now let's vote on whether racism is good or bad. Give us a break folks.

Lastly, the publishing house would not need any support if they printed things people wanted to read, OK.

Your turn. Leave a comment.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The disconnect between Higgins Road and the laity in the ELCA is astonishing. No one cares about restructuring except ELCA employees. The memorials on the environment, Israel, etc. reveal an arrogance that I find to be an abuse of ecclesiastical authority. Most ELCA positions on social issues are willful ignorance self-rightesounsly presented as the proclamation of God's will. Let the good men and women who work in these various fields do their jobs. Unlike our church leaders, who pull a few verses from the Prophets and claim to speak for God, those in the lay vocations of economics, environmental science, and politics actually study and attend to empirical realities. It amazes me that the ELCA can dismiss large parts of Biblical teaching through academic sophistry, and then claim authority to tell governments and voters how God wants them to act based on a simplistic application of a few Bible verses to complex scientific and social issues. Intellectual incoherence is too kind a way to characterize our Church's approach to social issues.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps equally sad is that, in the midst of all these materials, the assembly in Orlando is likely to get "burned out" and approve, without much consideration, the proposed new worship materials. These materials, the so-called Renewing Worship (should be "Refuting Worship") are only a close second to the sexuality proposals in their apostasy. The liturgical texts (and hymn revisions) represent a clear rejection of the Triune God as He has revealed Himself to us. If the laity were paying attention, one hopes it would never pass.

Anonymous said...

I haven't gotten a chance to look much at Renewing Worship. My initial inclination is to be against it, simply because ELCA leadership is so darn fluffy and liberal these days, and I just hate their crap. But based on your personal experience with RW, could you tell me more about what's wrong with it, please?

Thanks,

Katie

The good ship ELCA...

The good ship ELCA...
Or the Shellfish blog...