ELCA exposed? Confused...

[JesusIsMyTicket]

Hey there, if this needs moved go ahead. I'm really unsure if I put this in the correct place.

For a few months now, I have been going to an ELCA church. It is the Lutheran church nearest to me. I was made aware the ELCA is generally viewed as a more "liberal" Lutheran church. I don't mind extra hospitality or anything.

My concern? It seems some true Lutherans have come and forewarned me some of these ELCA churches have flown off the deep end. Particularly renaming God, alliances with Islam, etc.

And yeah, I'm concerned. My pastor as far as I've seen has not been allied with these forces. She calls God a man and doesn't feel a need to gender neutralize it. Many of the other congregants are fairly conservative, and probably wouldn't gel with half of that stuff the ones going off the deep end are. Someone suggested since a large portion of this congregation is people over 40, she simply hasn't had the ability to enforce that theology yet.

Does ANYONE have experience and can tell me if this is heavily exaggerated? I am sure you can find weird churches in any denomination...but I am concerned with being apart of what sounds like the makings of some ultra-progressive cult...

 

[Tolworth John]

The easist way to resolve this is to take your concerns to the minister.
They should be able to reasure you of their orthodx belief or to confirm their heretical belief.

 

[Albion]

Hey there, if this needs moved go ahead. I'm really unsure if I put this in the correct place.

For a few months now, I have been going to an ELCA church. It is the Lutheran church nearest to me. I was made aware the ELCA is generally viewed as a more "liberal" Lutheran church. I don't mind extra hospitality or anything.

My concern? It seems some true Lutherans have come and forewarned me some of these ELCA churches have flown off the deep end. Particularly renaming God, alliances with Islam, etc.

And yeah, I'm concerned. My pastor as far as I've seen has not been allied with these forces. She calls God a man and doesn't feel a need to gender neutralize it. Many of the other congregants are fairly conservative, and probably wouldn't gel with half of that stuff the ones going off the deep end are. Someone suggested since a large portion of this congregation is people over 40, she simply hasn't had the ability to enforce that theology yet.

Does ANYONE have experience and can tell me if this is heavily exaggerated? I am sure you can find weird churches in any denomination...but I am concerned with being apart of what sounds like the makings of some ultra-progressive cult...

Yes, I had a similar experience with that church. That was before it got as liberal as it is now. While the people were overwhelmingly traditional, moderate people, and the pastor was wonderful, as soon as there was a new pastor, so did everything else change. But the liberal craziness you want to avoid will become evident even before that happens, if it does. You will be reading official pronouncements in the national magazine, the pastor will ask the congregation to get on board with whatever the national church has announced as its political cause du jour, or something else. There will be guest pastors when yours is on vacation. The proposals that are scheduled to come up at national convention will be discussed locally. The church will of course want to be involved with ecumenism in the community, which means liberal denominations, and with local organizations. Guess which ones are likely. And so on. And it will become a progressively big distraction for you.

 

[Tangible]

The ELCA is a mixed bag. There are congregations, especially rural ones, that are very conservative theologically and socially. Then there are congregations like www.herchurch.org which are probably not even Christian, at least not in the orthodox sense of the word.

What is troubling to many is that there seems to be a huge disconnect between the very liberal denominational leadership and many of the local congregations and parishioners.

As a conservative, "Quia Confessional" Lutheran, I also have theological issues with specific positions the ELCA have embraced, such as their positions on abortion, traditional marriage, open and unrepentant practice of homosexuality, and the ordination of women, to name a few.

Most of these differences in social and theological positions stem from the embrace by the ELCA of the Historical-Critical method of biblical interpretation. Conservative Lutherans use the Historical-Grammatical method and believe that the ELCA in many points have departed from biblical and Confessional Lutheranism.

Frequently Asked Questions | Denominations - The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Ecumenism Underlines ELCA-LCMS Differences

 

[JesusIsMyTicket]

that herchurch thing is almost enough to make me hide under a rock. Dear Lord, what has the world come to?

 

[Tangible]

that herchurch thing is almost enough to make me hide under a rock. Dear Lord, what has the world come to?

Yeah. And I can't for the life of me understand how they remain a member congregation in good standing with the ELCA.

 

[Open Heart]

Then there are congregations like www.herchurch.org which are probably not even Christian, at least not in the orthodox sense of the word.

I never heard of "herchurch" before so I went to the website. Wow! I can't believe it claims to be Lutheran. It's really New Age. Absolutely not Christian. In other words it's an eclectic mix of a number of different religions, including pagan religions. I thought stuff like this died out in the 90's.

 

[FireDragon76]

The denominational leadership is more liberal than the average pastor or laity. This goes back to how the denomination formed in the 80's. And there is a great deal of activism by laity more concerned about multiculturalism and other socially liberal causes.

I'm not really thrilled by that aspect of the denomination, but other Lutheran churches are facing questions to their identity, but in different ways.

I think the herchurch issue is down to the leadership not wanting to seem "sexist" or "medieval". A lot of the leadership is extremely sensitive to those issues.

I think one issue is that the LCMS and ELCA come from very different backgrounds. The ELCA is largely shaped by Scandinavian, not German, Lutheranism. There is a lot of pietist and broad-church influences. So alot of folks in the ELCA cannot simply join groups like the LCMS. The historical-critical method and women's ministry also is something shared by many conservatives in the denomination.