Oh yeah, I believe it. Scripture mentions quite a bit that the torment in Hell will last an eternity. So yes.
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"Too often Christians hide in churches designed to keep its members comfortable and safe while the world is going to hell, while we are playing the 'religion game', as we fragment and abandon self sacrifice for comfort." - Matt Slick
One ALC member told me before the merger with the LCA that some ALC members were upset because the LCA did not accept a literal interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. Is this really what the Mo Synod and the WELS are holding against the current ELCA or is it because the ELCA ordains women pastors?
All these and more.
From the ELCA website:
ELCA Confession of Faith
What we believe in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
This church confesses the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
This church confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and the Gospel as the power of God for the salvation of all who believe
Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate, through whom everything was made and through whose life, death, and resurrection God fashions a new creation.
The proclamation of God's message to us as both Law and Gospel is the Word of God, revealing judgment and mercy through word and deed, beginning with the Word in creation, continuing in the history of Israel, and centering in all its fullness in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
The canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments are the written Word of God. Inspired by God's Spirit speaking through their authors, they record and announce God's revelation centering in Jesus Christ. Through them God's Spirit speaks to us to create and sustain Christian faith and fellowship for service in the world.
This church accepts the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life.
This church accepts the Apostles', Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds as true declarations of the faith of this church.
This church accepts the Unaltered Augsburg Confession as a true witness to the Gospel, acknowledging as one with it In faith and doctrine all churches that likewise accept the teachings of the Unaltered Augsburg Confession.
This church accepts the other confessional writings in the Book of Concord, namely, the Apology of the Augsburg Confession, the Smalcald Articles and the Treatise, the Small Catechism, the Large Catechism, and the Formula of Concord, as further valid interpretations of the faith of the Church.
This church confesses the Gospel, recorded in the Holy Scriptures and confessed in the ecumenical creeds and Lutheran confessional writings, as the power of God to create and sustain the Church for God's mission in the world.
Statement of the confessions from the LCMS website:
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod accepts the Scriptures as the inspired and inerrant Word of God, and subscribes unconditionally to all the symbolical books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church as a true and unadulterated statement and exposition of the Word of God. We accept the Lutheran Confessions as articluated in the Book of Concord of 1580 because they are drawn from the Word of God and on that account regard their doctrinal content as a true and binding exposition of Holy Scripture and as authoritative for all pastors, congregations and other rostered church workers of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod.
You see where the ELCA states that the Word of God is inspired but the LCMS states that it is inspired and inerrant. Big difference there.
From the LCMS site on what holds us apart:
ELCA
Q. What are the main differences between the Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)?
A. In terms of the official position of our two church bodies as reflected in formally adopted statements of belief and practice the three main areas of difference between the LCMS and the ELCA are the following:
1. The doctrine and authority of Scripture. The LCMS believes that the Bible is without error in all that it says. The ELCA avoids making such statements, holding that Scripture is not necessarily always accurate on such matters as history and science. Differences between the LCMS and the ELCA on the authority of Scripture also help to explain why the ELCA ordains women to the pastoral office, while the LCMS does not (based on 1 Cor 14:33-36 and 1Tim 2:11-14). Similarly, on the basis of what Scripture clearly teaches (Rom 1:18-28; 1 Cor 6:9), the LCMS unequivocally rejects homosexual behavior as contrary to God's will, while the ELCA has declared that it lacks a consensus regarding what Scripture teaches about homosexual activity. Consequently, those who disagree with one another in the ELCA have been called to respect the ‘bound conscience’ of the others. The ELCA has also determined to allow the ordination of practicing homosexuals as long as they are in a life-long, committed relationship.
2. The commitment to Lutheran confessional writings. The ELCA, while affirming its commitment to the Gospel of Jesus Christ as witnessed to in the Lutheran confessions, also tends to emphasize the historical character of these writings and to maintain the possibility of dissent to confessional positions that do not deal directly with the Gospel itself understood in a narrow sense. All LCMS pastors are required to affirm that the Lutheran confessions are a correct explanation of the teachings of Scripture.
3. The level of agreement necessary to join together in one church body. While the LCMS believes that the Bible requires agreement in all that the Bible teaches, the ELCA holds that disagreement in some matters of doctrine, such as the mode of Christ's presence in Holy Communion, do not prohibit church fellowship.
I thought there was something similar on the ELCA site, but am not finding it right now.
Regarding Communion from the LCMS site:
Communing at non-LCMS Church
Q. Is it wrong for a member of an LCMS congregation to receive Holy Communion at an ELCA church? Is it wrong for an ELCA member to receive Holy Communion at an LCMS church?
A. The LCMS practices "close communion," which is summarized as follows by the Synod's Commission on Theology and Church Relations: In keeping with the principle that the celebration and reception of the Lord's Supper is a confession of the unity of faith, while at the same time recognizing that there will be instances when sensitive pastoral care needs to be exercised, the Synod has established an official practice requiring "that pastors and congregations of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, except in situations of emergency and in special cases of pastoral care, commune individuals of only those synods which are now in fellowship with us." By following this practice whereby only those individuals who are members of the Synod or of a church body with which the Synod is in altar and pulpit fellowship are ordinarily communed, pastors and congregations preserve the integrity of their witness to the gospel of Christ as it is revealed in the Scriptures and confessed in the Lutheran confessional writings.
The Synod has not attempted to define precisely what constitutes "special cases of pastoral care," but has entrusted to its pastors and congregations the responsibility to make judgments in individual cases about the propriety of communing non-LCMS Christians.
With regard to LCMS members communing at non-LCMS altars, the CTCR says the following in its report on the "Theology and Practice of the Lord's Supper":
"In accordance with the confessional nature of participation in the Lord's supper, and in agreement with Lutheranism's historic position, it is inappropriate to attend the Lord's Supper at non-Lutheran altars. Since participation in Holy Communion, Scripturally and confessionally understood, entails agreement in the Gospel and all its articles, it would not be appropriate to attend the Lord's supper in a church with which such agreement is not shared."
Since we are not in agreement with the ELCA, we don't commune at their altars and nor do we commune members from the ELCA. By doing so would state that we are in agreement when we really are not.
__________________ God Bless,
Jane
Make me to know your ways, O, Lord; teach me your paths. Lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation; for you I wait all the day long. Psalm 25:4-5 (ESV)
Here's the ELCA Web site's brief summary of the differences between us and the LCMS:
The differences between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and The Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) largely arise from historical and cultural factors, although some are theological in character.
When Lutherans came to North America, they started church bodies that reflected, to some degree, the churches left behind. Many maintained until the early 20th century their immigrant languages. They sought pastors from the "old country" until patterns for the education of clergy could be developed here. Eventually, seminaries and church colleges were established in many places to serve the Lutheran churches in North America and, initially, especially to prepare pastors to serve congregations.
The earliest predecessor synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was constituted on August 25, 1748, in Philadelphia. It was known as the Ministerium of Pennsylvania and Adjacent States. The ELCA is the product of a series of mergers and represents the largest (5 million member) Lutheran church body in North America. The ELCA was created in 1988 by the uniting of the 2.85 million member Lutheran Church in America, 2.25 million member American Lutheran Church, and the 100,000 member Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches. Previously, the ALC and LCA in the early 1960s came into being as a result of mergers of eight smaller ethnically-based Lutheran bodies composed of German, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Slovak, Dutch, and other folk.
The LCMS sprang from German immigrants fleeing the forced Prussian Union, who settled in the St. Louis area and has a continuous history since it was established in 1847. The LCMS is the second largest Lutheran church body in North America (2.7 million). It identifies itself as a church with an emphasis on biblical doctrine and faithful adherence to the historic Lutheran confessions. Insistence by some LCMS leaders on a literalist reading of all passages of Scripture led to a rupture in the mid-1970s, which in turn resulted in the formation of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, now part of the ELCA.
The ELCA tends to be more involved in ecumenical endeavors than the LCMS.* The ELCA, through predecessor church bodies, is a founding member of the Lutheran World Federation, World Council of Churches and the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. The LCMS does not belong to any of these.
The pattern of Scripture interpretation generally practiced in the ELCA seeks to consider carefully the meanings of passages and their form, including the time and place in which passages were written. Emphasis is placed on the message of a specific text within the context of Scripture. As indicated in the ELCA's constitution, "This church accepts the canonical Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life." For more information on the history and current documents of the ELCA, look at other resources linked to the "About the ELCA" section of the ELCA Web site.
QuiltAngel and the resources from the LCMS Web site are correct that one of the key points of division between us is the conservative/confessional emphasis on inerrantism. From the LCMS Web site:
Luther said the following in the Large Catechism: "We know that God does not lie. My neighbor and I--in short, all men--may err and deceive, but God's Word cannot err" ( LC IV, 57). Again he states in the Large Catechism, "If you cannot feel the need, therefore, at least believe the Scriptures. They will not lie to you, and they know your flesh better than you yourself do" (LC V, 76). Luther's view on this question is summarized by the Lutheran Cyclopedia as follows: "Scripture remained [Luther's] sole authority. Though many things in the Bible puzzled and amazed him, he admitted no error in its original MSS. At the same time he emphasized the human part in its writing."
The Lutheran position on the inerrancy of the Holy Scriptures was first developed by the Lutheran dogmaticians (theologians) of the seventeenth century.
We in the ELCA do not believe that inerrantism is a hallmark of Lutheran theology. As the LCMS Web site points out, this doctrine did not originate with Luther or his contemporaries, but with later theologians in the era of so-called Protestant/Lutheran Orthodoxy. It's an open question, though, whether the theology of the Protestant/Lutheran Orthodox dogmaticians was faithful to the principles of the Reformation, or a diversion or regression from those principles. They certainly were not the only group claiming to be the rightful inheritors of the tradition and principles of Luther and the rest of the Reformers. Chiefly, their Pietist opponents rejected Protestant/Lutheran Orthodoxy's insistence upon doctrinal purity and propositional systematizaton. So these disagreements between the LCMS and the ELCA today have really been around pretty much ever since the first generation of Reformers left the stage. Arguments between this group and that over which is the more faithful heir to Luther's Reformation have been going on practically since before his body was cold and in the ground. They're unlikely to stop anytime soon, though many of us do hope for a day when at the very least they can be rather less aggressive and vitriolic.
It's important to note that these theologians were writing against a different backdrop from that of the first-generation Reformers. Some argue that, even though Luther never explicitly articulated a doctrine of inerrancy, a) it can be safely inferred from his writings nevertheless, and b) it was taken for granted and thus didn't need to be articulated explicitly. I don't buy this explanation from present-day defenders of inerrantism, and here's why: Descartes, Copernicus and Galileo's scientific and philosophical discoveries were dramatically altering what people even understood the term "authority" to mean. For that matter, the Reformation itself with its rejection of papal authority had already set that wheel in motion. So, when the theologians of Protestant/Lutheran Orthodoxy from the 16th c. onward wrote about "authority," it simply won't do to backtrack and import their ideas wholesale into one's reading of Luther, who absolutely didn't have any of the issues--or even the same notion of what authority even was--in mind that they did.
The ELCA, obviously, does not view the Protestant/Lutheran Orthodox dogmaticians as the truest heirs of Luther's Reformation. Our reading of Luther does not read him through the lens of these theologians writing after his death in an entirely different epoch of human history. Rather, we hold that a reading of Luther in his own milieu grounds the authority of scripture in the person of Christ. From the ELCA Web site:
The Bible’s authority is interpreted through Jesus By no means does that human presence in sacred Scripture detract from the Bible’s testimony to God. Rather, this human testimony provides layers of faith and insight by those who contributed to the canon. The Bible’s reliability lies not in reading it as science or proscription, but as humankind’s chief witness to God, reflecting on faith as it is to be lived. Again, ELCA Lutherans judge all Scripture through the window of God’s chief act — that of entering human flesh in Jesus of Nazareth — and they interpret Scripture by listening to the living Jesus in the context of the Church. Because Jesus’ person, life and witness become the lens through which we read and interpret all Scripture, we can judge slavery as "not of Jesus," yet understand the customs of the time and read Paul’s inspiring letter to Philemon, master of the slave Onesimus, as testimony to faith.
On several occasions, Martin Luther suggested that not all books of the Bible have the same value for faith formation. Similarly, as in all of life, ELCA Lutherans ask, "Is what we find here consistent with God’s revelation in Jesus?" This is a central question/prescription that provides guidance for acting as moral beings and for calling humankind to justice; it also becomes the authority for our reading Scripture, for it is the Jesus of Scripture, the living Word, who reveals God and judges Scripture, just as he is the judge for all else in life. Therefore, it is a question that ELCA Lutherans find best answered within the life of the Church in community, for this risen Jesus is Lord of the Church.
The best way that I can put the ELCA understanding of inerrantism is that it has authority running in the wrong direction. Rather than scripture's authority resting in Jesus, inerrantism posits that our ability to trust the kerygma (preaching) about Jesus is dependent upon written texts that receive their authority from elsewhere (i.e., being verbally authored by God). On our view, inerrantism always runs this risk of wresting primacy of place away from Jesus and giving it to the bible (or, at the very least, forcing him to share primacy of place with it).
It's important to note that inerrantism is not the Reformation doctrine of sola scriptura. Conservative/confessional Lutherans (along with other conservative Protestant Christians) will often conflate the two, but they are not the same; one is not equivalent to the other. In articulating the doctrine of sola scriptura, Luther was rejecting some specific competing would-be authorities. His articulation of sola scriptura was motivated by a concern to free theology from the trappings of Greek philosophical categories that were rampantly employed in the Augustinian and Thomistic theological tradition that he had inherited. It had nothing to do with the entirely separate issues about the nature of authority that led the dogmaticians of Protestant/Lutheran Orthodoxy to articulate their doctrine of inerrantism. Thus one can affirm the Reformation principle of sola scriptura while rejecting the later theological innovation of inerrantism. Anyone who accuses the ELCA of abandoning sola scriptura because we are not inerrantists is simply confused about the real and important distinction between the two.
Finally, we absolutely do not agree that full doctrinal agreement is required for fellowship at the Lord's Table. The Augsburg Confession, in its Article VII, clearly states what is required for table fellowship, and full doctrinal agreement is nowhere to be found there. Nor is there any good scriptural support for the view that communing is a public confession of doctrinal agreement at all. Thus our table remains free of sectarian prohibitions against partaking of it.
JoeCatch: There is much truth to what you say. The debate regarding the inerrancy of Scripture is not new, but I have never read where Luther was big on this point. What baffles me is that even those who hold to such a very conservative position still pick and choose regarding which verses they want to accept.
If the Fundamentalists and those Lutherans who accept the inerrancy of Scripture were totally faithful to the Gospel's words, they would strive to live by the difficult commands of the Lord which he gave in his Sermon on the Mount. Namely, they would try to love their enemies and turn the other cheek. We can debate what those words mean, but I do not believe that they could possibly mean supporting the invasion of a foreign nation without any real cause, namely Iraq! I cannot speak for the conservative Lutherans, but polls certainly showed that the vast majority of the Fundamentalists in the Southern U.S. were in favor of the invasion of Iraq. Similiar polls also show that the bulk of Fundamentalists support the death penalty. While I have no proof, I would suspect at least a significant portion of conservative Lutherans support capital punishment and quite probably supported the invasion of Iraq. Again, what about the Lord's command that we love our enemies? I highly doubt that killing a criminal is showing him love.
Need another example? What about divorce? We all know what Jesus had to say about this subject and yet how many Christians accept Jesus words about divorce as written in the Gospels? I dare say that there are millions of conservative Protestants who believe in the inerrancy of Scripture who are yet divorced and remarried. Logic dictates that many of those divorces did not meet the required Gospel test of adultery. Again, we all pick and choose. Some may do it more (like the ELCA) and some may do it less (like the WELS and the Mo Synod and the Fundamentalists), but virtually all Christians choose which Scripture verses to accept and which to reject.
Last edited by Basil the Great; 1st November 2009 at 01:23 AM.
Basil, howdy. I don't have time for a detailed reply. But I would say based on what you have written, you don't understand Lutheran theology (i.e. justification by grace through faith, proper distinction Law and Gospel, Two kingdoms, simul iustis et peccator, uses of the Law, etc.), nor Lutheran hermeneutics, nor the many distinctions on so many levels (on just the above mentioned topics) between Lutherans and Fundamentalists. It might be good for you to investigate further, before making such sweeping claims.
__________________ For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 1 Corinthians 2:2
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However, I simply do not understand why you would have had problems with them previously, when they at least as a denomination accepted the Athanasian Creed and the Lutheran Confessions. Maybe I am missing something???
You are missing quite a bit. It starts with their view of the Bible as "containing" the inspired word of God and that much of it only pertains to the people at the time it was written, which is basically a license to disregard those parts they do not agree with. (The LCMS and WELS maintain that the Bible is the inspired word of God, without error, and is applicable to all people of all time.) This leads to such unBiblical practices as women's ordination and open communion.
They also do not fully subscribe to the Lutheran Confessions. Their full communion with several Reformed church bodies is evidence of that.
They seem to forget or ignore that they themselves have already rejected much of what was passed on down to Martin Luther from the Church Fathers, like the tradition of praying for the dead, the seven sacraments, etc.
Lutherans reject many unBiblical traditions, such as the primacy of the papacy, praying to the saints in heaven, justification by works, transubstantiation, etc. The ones you mentioned above are no different. Why would Luther want to pass down those things that are contrary to God's word?
The Athanasian creed was not authored by Saint Athanasius . Most scholars consider it to be from the 6th century. It is thought that it first originated among Christians in Gaul. It probably came to be known as the "Athanasian Creed" because of it's strong trinitarian statements. Just some interesting trivia. I was reading about it yesterday actually.
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"Only love overcomes the fragmentation of human nature."
St Maximus the Confessor
"For one who loves transforms all that he loves into himself, while one who hates loses even what he has. One who loves belongs to the loved one while one who hates does not even belong to himself. "
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