Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod leader troubled over recent ELCA resolution on gay ministers
Jeff Robinson
August 16, 2007
On Aug. 11, the final day of its 2007 Churchwide Assembly in Chicago, the ELCA passed a resolution which “prays, urges, and encourages synods, synodical bishops, and the presiding bishop to refrain from or demonstrate restraint in disciplining those rostered leaders in a mutual, chaste, and faithful committed same-gender relationship who have been called and rostered in this church.” (See related article.)
Kieschnick says the action by the ELCA is clearly inconsistent with historic Lutheran doctrine and, more critically, flies the face of the teaching of Scripture.
“News of this action troubles me greatly and is causing serious concern and consternation among the members and leaders of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS),” Kieschnick said.
“We in the LCMS hold firmly to the conviction that, according to the Holy Bible, homosexual behavior is “intrinsically sinful.” We are deeply disappointed that the ELCA, by its decision, has failed to act in keeping with the historic and universal understanding of the Christian church regarding what Holy Scripture teaches about homosexual behavior as contrary to God's will and about the biblical qualifications for holding the pastoral office.”
While conservative Lutherans believe that homosexuality is a sin according to the Sciptures, Kieschnick said those enslaved by this sin are by no means beyond the redeeming grace of Christ.
“The LCMS firmly believes that the sin of homosexual behavior, like every sin that fallen human beings commit, has been paid for in full by the life, suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” he said.
“The LCMS also believes that we must continue to reach out in love to all people on the basis of what God's Word alone teaches about human sinfulness, God's grace in Christ, and the new life empowered by God's Holy Spirit.”
In a resolution it adopted at its 2001 convention, the LCMS acknowledged that the ELCA still includes many genuine believers who remain faithful to the Gospel and resolved “to reach out to them in love and support.” In his Aug. 13 statement, Kieschnick further encouraged Christians to pray that the ELCA will continue to study the matter and that God will grant them grace to bring their views in line with the Bible’s teaching.”
“As President of the LCMS, it is my ongoing hope and fervent prayer—as stated in my remarks to the 2003 ELCA Assembly—that the ELCA's continuing study and deliberation of this matter will be made in the light of the biblical understanding of human sexuality and the qualifications for the pastoral office,” he said.
“I also pray that God the Holy Spirit will lead and guide all Christians and Christian denominations everywhere to seek wisdom and truth from God's inspired, inerrant, infallible Word on this and other critical issues in our contemporary church and culture.”
Read Kieschnick’s full statement.
Lutheran denomination urges bishops to allow gay clergy to remain in service
Associated Press
August 15, 2007
A national assembly of the ELCA urged its bishops Saturday to refrain from defrocking gay and lesbian ministers who violate a celibacy rule, but rejected measures that would have permitted ordaining gays churchwide.
Still, advocates for full inclusion of gays were encouraged, calling the resolution a powerful statement in support of clergy with same-gender partners. The conservative group Lutheran CORE, however, said bishops will now feel more secure in ignoring denomination policy.
The 538-431 vote came on the final day of a weeklong meeting in Chicago — and after emotional debate over how the denomination should interpret what the Bible says about homosexuality.
Like other mainline Protestant groups, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has been struggling for decades to reconcile differences on the issue. An ELCA task force is near the end of an eight-year study on human sexuality, which is expected to culminate in the 2009 release of a social statement that will heavily influence church policy.
The assembly voted to refer proposals on ordaining gays and blessing same-sex couples to the task force so the panel can make policy recommendations part of its report.
The current clergy standards require ministers to "abstain from homosexual sexual relationships." Earlier this year, Bradley Schmeling, an ELCA pastor in Atlanta, was removed from the clergy roster after he told his bishop that he was in a relationship with a man. However, even before Saturday's vote, liberal-leaning bishops had refused to enforce the rule.
In the adopted resolution, the assembly "urges and encourages" bishops to either refrain from or "demonstrate restraint in disciplining" ministers who are in a "mutual, chaste and faithful committed same-gender relationship."
Jaynan Clark Egland, president of the conservative WordAlone Network, said the resolution "leaves the ELCA with inconsistent patterns of discipline and standards."
Conservatives believe the Bible bars gay relationships. "To refrain from discipline in the home is bad parenting, but we're about to do so in Christ's Church," Egland said.
Lutheran CORE scheduled a September meeting to plan its next step. But the Rev. Mark Chavez of WordAlone says conservatives aren't planning a split from the denomination.
Membership in the 4.8 million-member ELCA, like other mainline churches, has declined over the last two decades; only 30 percent of Evangelical Lutherans attend worship weekly.
The 2.5 million-member Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, based in St. Louis, believes the Bible is literally true and does not ordain gays.
“Doing Things Right” articulates radically countercultural view of pursuing marriage
Jeff Robinson
August 8, 2007
In the early pages of his new book, John Ensor admits that he is pursuing a radical agenda.
In "Doing Things Right In Matters of the Heart" (Crossway), Ensor sets forth a view of manhood and womanhood that those who subscribe to the prevailing cultural norms will indeed find radical.
But for those seeking biblical wisdom on finding a spouse and arranging the home God’s way, it is a work full of Christ-exalting light.
"The objective of this book is to provide a winsomely radical alternative to the prevailing ideas, almost absolute doctrines, that guide our current thinking about manhood and womanhood and define our actions and expectations when pursing matters of the heart," Ensor writes.
"It is not my aim to be radical for radical’s sake. Paradoxically, it is radical only in that postmodernity has radically gone and changed all the rules and definitions, and I say with Shakespeare, ‘I am not so nice, to change true rules for odd inventions.’"
Ensor serves as director of urban initiatives for Heartbeat International, an organization for establishing pregnancy help centers worldwide. He is presently working with Christian leaders to open five pregnancy help centers in the neediest neighborhoods of Miami. He is formerly president of A Women’s Concern.
Quoting a diversity of personages ranging from Zsa Zsa Gabor to Shakespeare, Joe Cocker to Percy Sledge, Ensor examines popular cultural attitudes toward relationships and demonstrates the bankruptcy of the wisdom of the postmodern age which views dating and marriage as mere exercises in self-fulfillment.
He spends much of the book establishing the biblical demands for marriage and the home, and in so doing, Ensor articulates the complementary roles God has uniquely designed men and women. These are the primary factors men and women should consider when thinking about getting married, he argues.
God has created men to be self-sacrificing husbands and godly fathers and He has created women to be graciously submitting wives and nurturing mothers, he writes.
"Men show themselves to be oriented toward and to have a primary interest in the mastery of the external world," he writes. "Women tend to be oriented toward and to show a primary interest in the mastery of relationships. This is a blessing from God.
"Our primary interests correspond in complementary ways to the two spheres that God ordained for purposeful and satisfying labor—filling the earth and subduing it. We are equally commissioned to be fruitful in our labor at home and in the world around us. But we complement one another in the proportion of interest and satisfaction we gain from laboring in the two spheres."
In a culture of serial hooking up, shacking up and breaking up, Doing Things Right calls single men and women to pursue a marriage that paints a clear picture of the Bible’s beatific vision of complementary manhood and womanhood.
Women in combat inconsistent with divinely appointed gender roles, CBMW leader says
Jeff Robinson
July 30, 2007
The major Democrat presidential candidates believe women should register for the United States military’s selective service, but the notion of women in combat is a confusion of the roles which God has created men and women to fulfill, said David Kotter, executive director of The Council on Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
Candidates Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards recently said they would favor having women register for selective service when they turn 18. Only young men currently have to register. A failure to register for the service disqualifies them for federal student aid and federal employment and could lead to imprisonment.
Some Democrat candidates would like to see females placed under the same compulsion; Clinton said it is "fair to call upon every American" to serve in the military. In a Baptist Press story, Obama said having females register for service would "send a message to my daughters that they’ve got obligations to this great country as well as boys do." Obama said females might register for service while not necessarily filling combat roles.
Kotter says such a push for what is perceived as unilateral "fairness" risks sending women into combat, a reality that would overturn divinely-ordained gender differences between men and women.
"In one respect, this call for ‘fairness’ is consistent with Romans 13:1,6that girls and boys, men and women, are equally obligated to pay appropriate taxes to God-appointed governments and be subject to godly laws," he said.
"Nonetheless, I am concerned that this ‘fairness’ will be pressed to the point that it squashes divinely-designed differences by calling both men and women to serve in military combat. "Protecting vital national interests such as the security of families forms the moral justification for the deadly harm and destruction of combat. For this reason, military combat cannot be separated from the divinely-assigned role and responsibility of self-sacrificial male headship of the family (Eph. 5:23-24)."
During the presidential administration of Bill Clinton, CBMW adopted a resolution that opposed women in combat and called on the federal government to reverse the new policy. President Clinton and Congress abandoned the nation’s traditional stance of limiting combat to males. (View resolution.)
The resolution points to biblical examples of women in combat which the Scriptures present as contrary to proper and normal gender-based distinctions between men and women. That men only should be involved in combat is commensurate with the father’s role to lead and protect his family as head of the home, the statement argues further.
Said Kotter, "In the past, CBMW has called on all government and military leaders to reverse the present policy and to reinstate the historic limitation of military combat service to males only.
"In light of the blurring of combat and non-combat roles experienced in war in Iraq, our leaders should reconsider how women are deployed in the armed forces. Unfortunately, in modern warfare against insurgents, there are few assignments that are not exposed to combat."
Kotter points out that fathers, and not the government, should be teaching their children about their duties toward God and the state. "Rather than relying on Selective Service registration to send a message to children," he said, "I would encourage fathers to directly teach these specific and wonderful biblical truths to their families."
View the Baptist Press article on the push by Democrat candidates to have women register for service.
NEA pushing homosexual agenda in public schools
Erin Roach
July 26, 2007
At their annual meeting in Philadelphia in early July, the NEA's Executive Committee adopted three recommendations from the organization's committee on sexual orientation and gender identification, but the move went largely unnoticed by the 9,000 delegates present at the Representative Assembly.
The approved recommendations, which were delivered briefly in an Executive Committee report and did not require a vote of the assembly, call for the NEA to lobby for hate crimes legislation, boost the NEA website to "include all resources" devoted to homosexual causes, and push for sexual orientation training to be a requirement for earning a teaching credential.
Andy Linebaugh, director of public relations for the NEA, told Baptist Press July 20 that he was unaware of the three recommendations on homosexuality adopted by the Executive Committee and offered no comments on the matter.
Jeralee Smith, a California teacher and founder of the NEA Ex-Gay Educators Caucus, told Baptist Press the latest developments remind her of the way leaders pushed their agenda through a few years ago, despite opposition.
"This is kind of the same thing that happened in 2001 when Dr. Dobson called for a protest rally in front of the NEA convention in Los Angeles," Smith said. "When somebody tried to propose NEA policy on the Representative Assembly floor that would basically promote gay-lesbian curriculum, there were a whole bunch of states that were against it," Smith recounted.
"... What happened then was they referred everything to committee, and the next year in the registration packet of the delegates was a 60-page sexual orientation document that was adopted by the Executive Committee. The Representative Assembly had nothing to say about it."
The NEA's committee on sexual orientation and gender identification was created in 2002, and it "monitors NEA implementation of policies related to full inclusion and safety of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered members and students," according to the NEA website.
The first recommendation, as adopted by the Executive Committee this year, urges the NEA to "develop public and member support" for the "creation, amendment and/or passage of federal hate crimes legislation" that the recommendation says "protects members and students from harassment or discrimination based on sexual orientation."
Committee members acknowledged a "continuing lack of empirical or even anecdotal data on the experiences and the rate of harassment," but they attributed the deficiency to "the extreme homophobia that makes many schools inhospitable places for personnel to be openly GLBT, rather than the absence of negative experiences among GLBT school personnel."
Foes of hate crimes legislation say the law could be used to restrict religious speech and would grant protection based on lifestyle.
The second recommendation included a directive for the NEA to "expand the GLBT web page on the NEA website to include all resources devoted to GLBT issues, including but not limited to training, strategies for collective bargaining, legislation and policy, and the legal rights of education employees and students." Another portion of the recommendation asked that "NEA develop training standards for the appropriate inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity/expression issues in NEA trainings."
The third recommendation called for the NEA to "advocate for more fully incorporating sexual orientation and gender identity/expression within National Council for the Accreditation of Teacher Education standards and principles."
The committee set its sights on the standards set by NCATE in hopes of someday requiring teacher candidates to undergo diversity training related to sexual orientation.
"The committee believes that NCATE standards that more fully address and incorporate sexual orientation and gender identity/expression issues may serve as a model for other standards and guidelines affecting education," the report said.
In addition to the recommendations, Smith said, the standing committee reported that during the past year the NEA contributed $5,000 to the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) and made "significant contributions" to other organizations like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
"NEA is exploring ways to support Parents and Friends of Lesbians ... and is also working with groups like the Human Rights Campaign," the report said.
Smith told Baptist Press the NEA's recent actions should concern all citizens.
"Even if the average American may not be Christian, our personal freedoms are violated when our money is spent on things with which we disagree," Smith said, referring to hundreds of dollars in union dues that teachers are required to pay. "When the NEA picks an agenda that a good share of the members have issue with, they find ways to advance it no matter what the members think. And they really don't put forth a lot of effort to solicit member input or respect it when they do have it."
What most people don't understand, Smith said, is that the teachers' union is a "well-oiled political machine" that enjoys significant influence from local school board elections all the way up to national elections, and their army of lobbyists at every level of government aggressively promotes NEA policies.
"Personally, I have seen legislation coming through the California state legislature that was almost word-for-word NEA policy," Smith said.
Teachers, she said, need to be informed that "they have a right to get active in the union and have a voice, or they have a right to get out of the union no matter what state they live in."
"I would refer them to Christian Educators Association and the Association of American Educators," Smith said. "Those are the two nationwide organizations that offer professional liability insurance and various kinds of support and information."
In June, an Ohio federal court gave a teacher in that state with pro-life convictions the right to give money to a charity rather than to the NEA, which is on record as supporting the Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide.
Candi Cushman, an education analyst for Focus on the Family, said in an editorial July 18 that the silver lining in the NEA's cloud of deception is that the organization's weak spot is money: disgruntled teachers diverting their dues because they suddenly realized the wool was being pulled over their eyes.
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