| I am at work at my church and I am doing some Research &
Development for some of the issues in emerging in the culture, coming
up in my synod, and my church, and what I should do to understand those
issues better, and what to teach my Youth, like how to serve others and
stand up for Jesus more than standing up for "tolerance". I
desire to teach my Youth, with whom God has given me responsibilty
and has given me charge over, to have a personal Relationship with God
through belief in Jesus Christ, to think critically and to develop a
Biblical Worldview that includes a sound Biblical theology, a process
of sanctification from the Holy Spirit. I desire to teach them about
Redemption, Hope, Peace, Assurance, and Love from God and toward
others... Rather than those "social issues" that seem to preoccupy our
rather "Bible devoid" churches, synod offices, and council leadership
bodies of today... I read a couple magazine articles... blah.
nothing worthwhile. I looked through some websites... some
relevant, mostly relative and worthless. THEN I CHECKED YOUTUBE and typed in "Bishop Hanson" and "Goals" and "ELCA" ... YAHTZEE! I found something worthwhile. I
watched a YouTube video featuring the head bishop, Bishop Mark Hanson
of the ELCA (ELCA means EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH in AMERICA). In the
video, Bishop Hanson is using a bunch of politically correct jargon
about "people of faith", "world in crisis", and about "Millennium
Development Goals" and "Social Justice"... some of it talked about
issues regarding "world issues", "social justice" and "government"... I heard a lot of "P.C.", not a lot of "J.C." (Jesus Christ). In
the video, I heard almost nothing about living a life of action,
inspired to move and live by gratitude for what God has done for you
and inspired to action by Scripture, addressing world issues because
you love God and understand that He has things for you to do... I
heard almost nothing about a biblical view about our broken world, or
about discipleship, or about a Biblical Worldview. Almost nothing
stated in the video in any way resembled those things that Jesus, and
later Paul, so many times told us as believers to do, to repent,
follow, define, worship and live in. Read Matthew or the Gospel of
John, or even Colossians or 2 Timothy, see first hand what I am talking
about. In the video, I saw a lot
of "Social Gospel" and "Emancipation Gospel" and "Global
crisis/Ecology" stuff. I agreed with a few small things Bishop Hanson
said, but overall I thought it lacked direction, it lacked real
foundation and "a spine". World Vision and Food For The Poor have
"spines", foundations in Truth... and they get the mission work DONE.
We as Christians should care about the world and those hurting inside
of it. We should do things in the culture, we should attack world
hunger, we should move toward helping disaster relief, we should care
about HIV/AIDS and the people it effects, we should seek to use the
evironment that God has given us as good stewards, not raping the
natural resources we have been given... BUT because we love God and
respect the things He would have us do. Then was this comment listed under the Video: "This is the man leading the ELCA down the path to Hell. He has caused the church to accept homosexuality... welcome to the slippery slope!" WHOA! Where did this come from? IF ANYONE is leading the any church down the path to Hell, its us who refuse to know our Bibles and challenge our leaders with love & humility. While
I agree that the many denominations have virtually walked away from
Scripture on many issues, pushed for the tolerance of homosexuality,
for gay marriage rights, and have torn down some classic family values
(aka Conservative Christian values) and have pushed a few other
agendas, the majority of the ELCA has not "accepted homosexuality". Most of the leadership has, some hasn't. But let it be known that MOST congregates
(people belonging to a congregation or church) within the ELCA have not
accepted homosexuality, nor do they necessarily support homosexual
marriage, nor gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans-gendered pastoral
ordination... In fact many within the ELCA believe that we should allow
those individuals who consider themselves as bisexuals &
homosexuals into our churches and we should love them and treat them
with respect, but many ELCA congregates
believe that we should also treat all sexual sin and sexual expression
outside of marriage of one man & one woman, including all
homosexuality, as sin, as is listed in the Bible. Sarcasm:
Some of the ELCA leadership, including the the baby-boomers and
ex-hippies, say "But those are the geriatrics, the grand-parents, the
people who fought the Nazi's and communists, the greatest generation to ever live. What could they possibly know?" Sad
thing, that some of the "loud ones" within the mostly silent
conservative moral majority (including some of those "grandmas and
grandpas") make homosexuality out to be a "much worse sin" that the
other sins & perversion in the their own lives... So
then, the rest of the much-less-vocal moral conservatives within ELCA
congregations often stay silent when it comes to sin because they don't
want to be labeled as hypocrites, as close-minded, or as bigots... and
sometimes when they do stand up against sin issues and against the
liberal homosexuality agendas, they get a tongue-lashing from the
leadership within their own church, their synods, their friends...
people they should be able to trust. Sometimes
these concerned, conservative followers of Jesus even get "pushed out"
of their synods or church congregations by those who consider
themselves "open-minded", the "very vocal" liberal minority within
congregations. So, in essence, those loud "squeaky wheels" pushing the
pro-homosexuality, pro-relativism, pro-humanist, pro-universalism,
pro-"diversity" people "get the grease" and have their way. AND
it hasn't just been "politicians" within the church, like Bishop
Hanson, its been a conglomerate of "tolerant", liberal, "progressive",
bishops & pastors who have been indoctrinating people who are
becoming new ELCA pastors and new ELCA congregates. Bishop Hanson just happens to be allowing these heresies within the denomination. We who attend, are members of, or
who work for the ELCA (and Christians wordwide) should pray for Bishop
Hanson, that God Almighty would convict and change his heart on these
major issues. We shouldn't waste so much time, effort, energy, and
money on "blaming him". The Catholic church in the 1400's did the same thing. They encouraged the average individual to not
read the Bible (because they "wouldn't understand it"), not to be
actively involved in relationship with their God, to not ever challenge
their priests on any issues. They pushed people around, manipulated
whole villages of people, and they allowed the leadership of individual
churches to teach whatever they wanted and to do whatever they wanted
"in the name of God", as long as the church heirarchy retained power
over people. That's what led to the deep corruption within the Roman
Catholic Church at that time (believe it or not, its much better
today), and that's what led Brother Martin, a catholic monk, AKA Martin
Luther, to read the Scriptures deeply for himself and post up his "95
Thesis", which could have been named 95 PROBLEMS IN THE CHURCH &
IDEAS FOR BIBLICAL SOLUTIONS for the Church. He valiantly took the
issues back to Scripture for scrutiny... he publicly posted and held
the Church of that time to standards found in the Word, that which they
claimed to teach from. In his
righteous "freaking out" on the leadership of the church as he did,
Luther was eventually moved by the spirt of God to translate the Bible
into 4 or 5 languages so that the common man, not only the "priesthood"
and elect laity, could read the Word of God and could grow in faith and
deeper relationship with Christ. How many of us will be willing to read
the Word, become convicted of wrong-doing within our own lives, our
church bodies & denominations, and then "righteously freak out" in
love and humility, on those in leadership to address the problems. I feel that we should be blaming ourselves, not Bishop Hanson, because
we as Followers of Christ have not been not fighting the cultural tide;
fighting the tide with righteousness, hope, love, purity,
humility, convictions, honesty, & fervor... these are the things
change the world. We should blame ourselves for not getting involved in
the workings of the Church worldwide (regardless of the
denomination) and how it interacts with the rest of the world way
sooner. By only speaking up now,
we've allowed others over the last decade plus to "elect into office"
leadership people who we sometimes obviously don't agree with on social
and theological issues... and we should blame ourselves
for not knowing the Bible better and for not discerning these cultural
issues and these elected leaders' views, when they began over 15 plus
years ago. Sadly, I see church split coming to many of
the mainline denominations over the next decade. The winnowing fork is
here, Christ will seperate the Wheat from the Chaff. We
should also blame ourselves for us not lovingly educating others within
our church bodies & assemblies to not "vote-in" those individuals
who we don't see living Biblical lives and whose own "worldviews",
social, moral, spiritual, or otherwise, don't align with our own. In
short, one is only repsonsible for ones own actions or inaction. I
personally feel called by God to be teaching "Conservative Theology"
and "Authenticity". I feel that I am to be very transparent with my
Youth, and that I am called to be teaching Youth and parents to be the
same people inside and outside of the church building, because
ultimately you can't hide anything from God, and that willful hypocrisy
degrades character. In this crazy, messed-up world character,
integrity, and who(se) you are when you stand before God is really all
you've got. My wife and I are not
perfect, we sin, we mess up (big time)... but we also feel by
God called to live in such a way that we are "SOLD OUT" only to God the
Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, the three-in-one; not to the
culture, not to the ideologies of the social elite, nor to the church's
politics. I find myself to be a
"Charismatic, Interdenominational, Holy-Spirit filled, Fundamentalist,
Bible-Believing, Follower of Jesus Christ" (like Luther would have
been, after all, he didn't want denominations, sin, or politics in the
church at all). These titles get me into trouble. I don't care. I
still love philosophy, sociology, anthropology, history, the sciences,
the arts, music & expression, people, and cultures. I am still
open-minded and loving towards people, yet close-minded toward bad
ideas and sin... just like I see Jesus was, according to Scripture. I
am called by God, as of this time, to work within the ELCA and raise up
a new generation, one that loves Jesus and is more "LUTHER"
(questioning the church leadership on moral and biblical issues, and
encouraging BIBLE-based theology and Spirit-filled living over
authoritarianism, politics, and perversion) and less "Lutheran" (spineless, massively politically correct, diversity & tradition-led, and grossly tolerant of sin). I
intend to follow my calling from God and by His lead, one church body,
one Youth Group at a time. It may get me fired. I don't know. And
honestly, if I lose my Youth ministry for righteosly attempting to do
the work that God has laid before me, so be it. Lets focus on how we as individuals
can follow our Lord Jesus Christ, showing, living, & learning sound
theology and love, and unity for those who truly follow Christ, within
the BIBLICAL VIEWS of SIN, and of RIGHTEOUSNESS, and what a follower of
God lives like, rather than what our weakening mainline churches
sometimes teach, which is often politically correct, tolerance-driven
dribble. Intense LOVE instead of
weak "tolerance". CONVICTIONS instead of "moral ambiguity" & "moral
tolerance". PASSION FOR FOLLOWING GOD first and foremost. PEACE &
UNITY within the Body of those who truly believe in & follow Jesus,
bearing one another's burdens. COMPASSION for a world of those
individuals and families who are hurting. COMPASSION for those who are
dealing with addiction, temptation, sexual sin, and other sin issues.
COMPASSION toward those who don't understand what following God is
about. Yet JUDGEMENT against sin & sin lifestyles, not people, not
"sinners", of which I am one. Luther once said: "Sola Scriptura. Sola Cristo. Sola Gratia." roughly translated: "ONLY SCRIPTURE, ONLY CHRIST, ONLY GRACE." Only through Scripture can we see God. Only by Christ are we redeemed. Only through Grace are we saved. AMEN to that.
Feel free to think, get angry, comment, dissect, argue, laugh, point, quibble, deduce, disagree with, and label me now. GO! |
