ELCA haven!lol

[BabyLutheran]

Shh, please don't tell anyone! I am going to hide out in the subforum for a while. I feel so sinful that I go to an ELCA church, I want to hide from the LCMS people...maybe they won't look in here for me lol.

j/k

 

[Edial]

Shh, please don't tell anyone! I am going to hide out in the subforum for a while. I feel so sinful that I go to an ELCA church, I want to hide from the LCMS people...maybe they won't look in here for me lol.

j/k

So ... how is it going?

 

[BabyLutheran]

So ... how is it going?

I am a [bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse][bless and do not curse], I only stayed for a few hours!

 

[MagnusEmboden]

I SEE YOU THERE, BL!

And I'm telling everyone!!!!


lol

But they'll probably say I belong here too....

 

[Edial]

I guess ELCAers adopted the boxing ring as their home.

 

[BabyLutheran]

Why isn't there a moderate branch of the Lutheran church anyway. Let's start our own synod!

I hate the ultra liberal stuff, but also don't care for closed communion, so neither one works for me too well.

Of course if I had visited an LCMS church, my wife would never have gone for the closed communion thing, and we would have never been Lutheran at all.

 

[Edial]

Why isn't there a moderate branch of the Lutheran church anyway. Let's start our own synod!

I hate the ultra liberal stuff, but also don't care for closed communion, so neither one works for me too well.

Of course if I had visited an LCMS church, my wife would never have gone for the closed communion thing, and we would have never been Lutheran at all.

Most of the ELCA are either moderate or conservative.

What do you mean by "moderate"?

 

[BabyLutheran]

Most of the ELCA are either moderate or conservative.

What do you mean by "moderate"?

Or maybe I should have said, why didn't the way out there ELCA people just start their own synod, and leave the moderates and conservatives alone?

 

[IowaLutheran]

I once posted that the west coast ELCA churches and Episcopal churches should go off and form their own little denomination over on the Episcopal board - not sure how well that was received. That denomination could have all the Hindu masses (this really happened in an Episcopal church in LA recently) and goddess rosaries (we've discussed this ELCA church from SF ad nauseum here) and we wouldn't have to be associated with them.

There has to be a middle ground between right-wing legalism and left wing universalism. Most ELCA churches I know are holding that middle ground.

 

[Edial]

I once posted that the west coast ELCA churches and Episcopal churches should go off and form their own little denomination over on the Episcopal board - not sure how well that was received. That denomination could have all the Hindu masses (this really happened in an Episcopal church in LA recently) and goddess rosaries (we've discussed this ELCA church from SF ad nauseum here) and we wouldn't have to be associated with them.

There has to be a middle ground between right-wing legalism and left wing universalism. Most ELCA churches I know are holding that middle ground.

Agree.

 

[RevCowboy]

Why isn't there a moderate branch of the Lutheran church anyway. Let's start our own synod!

I hate the ultra liberal stuff, but also don't care for closed communion, so neither one works for me too well.

Of course if I had visited an LCMS church, my wife would never have gone for the closed communion thing, and we would have never been Lutheran at all.

The problem with moderate Lutherans, is that Luther strove for moderacy. Lutheranism compared to other denominations tries to follow a middle ground, more so than any other.

On the spectrum of broader Christianity, all kinds of Lutherans fall into the moderate area. So both ECLA and LCMS lay claim to moderate orthodoxy, and both are essentially that. The differences are really where the interpretation of the confessions is somewhat ambiguous, but also on some issues of biblical interpretation. And of course there are examples of ultra conservatism and ultra liberalism in both the ELCA and LCMS. Despite this, the vast majority of Lutherans are similar.

One of the fears I have about conservative anti-historical critical hermeneutics, which I do not subscribe to, is that it leads to "american evangelical style fundamentalism" and you can see this in the LCMS. 2/3 of there congregations are starting to look more like pentecostal churches than ELCA churches. In 50 years the LCMS might be just another american evangelical denomination. The LCMS has been headed down this road since seminex and will need to change to stay Lutheran.

At the same time the ELCA may have some "ultra-liberal" folks, but I seriously doubt that this is what is being taught in its seminaries. The ELCA probably should deal those folks, but they are such a small minority that it will not affect the core of Lutheranism in the ELCA.

 

[D.W.Washburn]

The problem with moderate Lutherans, is that Luther strove for moderacy. Lutheranism compared to other denominations tries to follow a middle ground, more so than any other.
it will not affect the core of Lutheranism in the ELCA.

We're Lutherans, darnit! We've never seen a fence we couldn't straddle.

That's a blunt but jocular way of saying that we are dialectical in our theology.

One of the fears I have about conservative anti-historical critical hermeneutics, which I do not subscribe to, is that it leads to "american evangelical style fundamentalism" and you can see this in the LCMS. 2/3 of there congregations are starting to look more like pentecostal churches than ELCA churches. In 50 years the LCMS might be just another american evangelical denomination. The LCMS has been headed down this road since seminex and will need to change to stay Lutheran.

Yes.

At the same time the ELCA may have some "ultra-liberal" folks, but I seriously doubt that this is what is being taught in its seminaries. The ELCA probably should deal those folks, but they are such a small minority that it will not affect the core of Lutheranism in the ELCA.

And the danger facing the ELCA, as Carl Braaten has pointed out, is that we will become just another liberal Protestant denomination. And we, too, may need to change to stay Lutheran.

So, here's the fence that we must now learn to straddle. We must learn to maintain a Lutheran identity in the 21st Century west. We won't do it by trenching in and becoming biblical and confessional literalists (ie. becoming more Lutheran than Luther). At the same time, however, we must not lose our commitment to the Scriptures and the Confessions, lest we lose that which makes us Lutheran.

 

[LutheranHawkeye]

The problem with moderate Lutherans, is that Luther strove for moderacy. Lutheranism compared to other denominations tries to follow a middle ground, more so than any other.

On the spectrum of broader Christianity, all kinds of Lutherans fall into the moderate area. So both ECLA and LCMS lay claim to moderate orthodoxy, and both are essentially that. The differences are really where the interpretation of the confessions is somewhat ambiguous, but also on some issues of biblical interpretation. And of course there are examples of ultra conservatism and ultra liberalism in both the ELCA and LCMS. Despite this, the vast majority of Lutherans are similar.

One of the fears I have about conservative anti-historical critical hermeneutics, which I do not subscribe to, is that it leads to "american evangelical style fundamentalism" and you can see this in the LCMS. 2/3 of there congregations are starting to look more like pentecostal churches than ELCA churches. In 50 years the LCMS might be just another american evangelical denomination. The LCMS has been headed down this road since seminex and will need to change to stay Lutheran.

At the same time the ELCA may have some "ultra-liberal" folks, but I seriously doubt that this is what is being taught in its seminaries. The ELCA probably should deal those folks, but they are such a small minority that it will not affect the core of Lutheranism in the ELCA.

I'm glad you talked about this Rev. I too have been fearing that the LCMS will become just an evangelical protestant Church. I think the risk of the LCMS becoming just another evangelical church is too close for comfort. Moderate is best imo.

 

[Korah]

I once posted that the west coast ELCA churches and Episcopal churches should go off and form their own little denomination over on the Episcopal board - not sure how well that was received. That denomination could have all the Hindu masses (this really happened in an Episcopal church in LA recently) and goddess rosaries (we've discussed this ELCA church from SF ad nauseum here) and we wouldn't have to be associated with them.

There has to be a middle ground between right-wing legalism and left wing universalism. Most ELCA churches I know are holding that middle ground.

I'm West Coast ELCA, but I'll leave it if it follows along the same path the Episcopal Church did--that's why I left it in 2004.
I've been attending almost four years, and I've never heard the Athanasian Creed recited, even though we ELCA supposedly believe in it. I hate that Creed, so I look upon ELCA as in a highly desirable middle ground.
The split I see is between the two services in my church, the traditional Lutheran early service more like a Mass and the later service more like contemporary Mega-Church worship.
I see LCMS as going off the deep end into Fundamentalism, as seen by replacement of "catholic" in the Creed with "Christian". It's like they think (maybe they do) that they're the only Christians and all RC, ELCA, and even non-LCMS Protestants are going to Hell.
Korah

 

[D.W.Washburn]

I'm West Coast ELCA, but I'll leave it if it follows along the same path the Episcopal Church did--that's why I left it in 2004.
I've been attending almost four years, and I've never heard the Athanasian Creed recited, even though we ELCA supposedly believe in it. I hate that Creed, so I look upon ELCA as in a highly desirable middle ground.
The split I see is between the two services in my church, the traditional Lutheran early service more like a Mass and the later service more like contemporary Mega-Church worship.
I see LCMS as going off the deep end into Fundamentalism, as seen by replacement of "catholic" in the Creed with "Christian". It's like they think (maybe they do) that they're the only Christians and all RC, ELCA, and even non-LCMS Protestants are going to Hell.
Korah

Hi Korah:

The Athanasian Creed was printed in the LBW but rarely used. It was occasionally trotted out for Trinity Sunday services, but that's about it. It's omission from the ELW is only a small loss. I think that it is good to have in print as a resource, but not for liturgical use. We are much better served by having the Small Catechism printed in the ELW. Then again, if they had left out some of the ugly illustration pages, we could still have the Athanasian Creed printed...

I don't like the ugly illustration pages. Could you tell?

I've been a Lutheran long enough to know that the old Service Book and Hymnal used the word "Christian" in the creed. In a church that I used to belong to, there was a stubborn old woman who pointedly said "Christian" even after the LBW was introduced. She just didn't understand what the word "catholic" means, I guess.

I can assure you that the LC-MS does not believe that everyone else is going to hell, though sometimes it seems as if they do. I think that they do believe that they are a bastion of doctrinal purity, however. They believe that others are in error, and therefore in need of correction.

Anyway, welcome to CF and to the ELCA/ELCIC subforum. I look forward to hearing more from you.

 

[BabyLutheran]

I just looked up that Anasthasian creed. I have never seen it or heard of it in any church I have ever been to. For one thing it would take the entire service to recite it.....lol

 

[LutheranHawkeye]

I just looked up that Anasthasian creed. I have never seen it or heard of it in any church I have ever been to. For one thing it would take the entire service to recite it.....lol

Yeah, its pretty lengthy. It sounds more like a formula for math then it does a creed lol.

 

[BabyLutheran]

I guess we have to give them some slack, they had to creed-ify the beliefs to fight all of the whacky heretical views back then...

Hmmm, I wish that we could do that now!

 

[gtmyers]

The LCMS church here has for its main 11am service, contemporary worship. They sing all modern praise and worship songs. They have drums, guitars, and a praise team that leads worship, just like the non-denominational ones do. They do say the creed, Lords Prayer, and confession and absolution though---does this make them real Lutherans or just non-denominational want-to-be's. At their 8:30am service they have a traditional service. Its mostly all older folks. The group is smaller than the 11am one. They do not sing or chant the liturgy even at the 8am.

So with that said, we are going to the ELCA church in town because it is a confessional Lutheran Church. The 11am service is all from what I remember a Lutheran church being. They do indeed sing and chant the liturgy. Its great! The music is wonderful and the pipe organ makes it even better. They process in at the beginning just like I remember. I don't think the LCMS one even does that at all.

Just goes to prove there are both types of congregations in both churches.

 

[BabyLutheran]

I wish we chanted once in a while. I will have to ask the pastor why we don't