Gays and the Lutheran Church

Western culture marches on! It is now the largest denomination of Lutherans in the United States, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) that has taken a bite out of the Modernist Apple, passing by the smallest possible margins a Theological Statement that opens the door to official blessings of same-sex marriages under Church auspices, and to full acceptance of the Gay life-style in the Church. This breaking story can be found here in The Washington Times.

Wait! you exclaim. The new Theological Statement does no such thing. It recognizes that there are fundamentally different views about homosexuality within the Church body, and only permits "same-gender relationships [that] are lived out in lifelong and monogamous commitment." As Emily Eastwood, the Executive Director of Lutherans Concerned, a Gay advocacy group, put it, "The social statement is tolerant of our differences both in scriptural interpretation and practice. The social statement supports our unity without requiring uniformity."

Ms. Eastwood's devotion to tolerance, differences and unity without uniformity would be quite moving, if not for her next sentence, which resolutely declares that her work is not yet done.

Continue .....
"There is still much work to do, but the door to full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered members and their families is now most definitely open." Since her previous statement about "differences" in "scriptural interpretation" referred to the belief of some that the Gay life-style goes against Christan teachings on sex and morality, her goal of "full inclusion" can only mean that she desires a time when all differing views will be "fully excluded" within the Lutheran Church. So much for tolerance of differences and unity without requiring uniformity.

And therein lies the problem for the Lutheran Church. In the name of tolerance, openness and inclusiveness, with this Theological Statement it has gotten into bed (so to speak) with people who are intolerant of those that disagree with them, closed to any who don't share their agenda, and who are more than willing to exclude any deviants from the new Orthodoxy.

These people are militants and they will not stop until they remake the entire Lutheran Church in their own image. They talk the talk of tolerance in order to quiet dissent today, but once they have the levers of power they will walk the walk of intolerance later for any who disagree.

Think I am overstating the problem? I am not a Lutheran and therefore have no institutional dog in this fight. But I am a cultural observer, and I ask you to consider this: despite all the rhetoric, Gays have always been accepted in ELCA, in the exact same way as everyone else is accepted into a Christian Church. Bankers, lawyers, doctors, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers, good people and bad, solid citizens and criminals, all come to Christ through giving up their self-centered agendas and earnestly seeking a new life in Christ and Christian service. That is, Christian equality has always been based on the fact that all are sinners and fall short of the Glory of God, and it is the acceptance of this fundamental truth that is a major defining mark of a Christian.

The Gay agenda turns this fundamental truth on its head. The Christian bona fides of the Church is not evidenced by the forgiveness and redemption it offers to all, but by how explicitly it caters to the self-esteem needs of the Gay community as defined by the Gay community. As such, Gays do not humbly join the Body of Christ, but rather demand the Body of Christ adopt them and their agenda. Continuing the Universal Mission of the Church? Feed the hungry? Comfort the poor and afflicted? Not today; today we must all worry about the Gay agenda, and we must continue to worry about it until it is accomplished in full. They will accept nothing less.

There is no reconciliation between Christian equality based on Original Sin and a group who insists on their own privileged agenda. One or the other has to give, and I am afraid it is ELCA that has done the giving. ELCA now stands on a slippery slope of it's own making, and the Gay activists are behind it pushing hard. And they will not give up - ego-centric people like this never give up - until ELCA has slid right down to the very bottom. Meanwhile, local parish after local parish will peal off from the main body, and the grand ecumenical movement of the last 50 years to unite the different Lutheran churches will end in a whimper.

It appears that the Gay community will eventually inherit the ruins of ELCA. When they do, it will be no small irony that after all the years of devotion to their narrow partisan cause, ELCA will no longer be Lutheran or Christian in any definable sense.