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| The new Presiding Bishop of ELCA, Elizabeth Eaton, hugged the man she replaced, Mark Hanson. |
Charles_Austin
- ALPB Contribution Leader
- Posts: 10451
My glasses are clear.
No one, repeat no one at the Assembly made any angry noises about the decisions of 2009. Bishop-elect Erwin was present. And Presiding Bishop Hanson's leadership was continually and frequently applauded.
Mr. Erdner needs to be reminded that absolutely nothing said or done during the Assembly in Pittsburgh changes any of the things that he has been howling about here for years, unless his real animus is some hatred of Presiding Bishop Hanson as a person.
We remain a denomination in which partnered gay and lesbian people can be pastors and bishop. We remain a denomination that is socially on the moderate to liberal side of issues. We remain a denomination where there is an assumed (and constitutionally mandated) connection between congregation, synod and national church. We remain a congregation where a moderate to liberal interpretation of scripture prevails over a conservative to fundamentalist interpretation. Although we have some newly-elected bishops, the majority of our bishops are those who have led their synods for the past four years or more.
So unless Mr. Erdner just abhors a man named Mark Hanson, everything he says he dislikes about the ELCA remains in place.
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mdmenacher
- ALPB Forum Member
- Posts: 49
Actually there are some in the "anti-CCM" crowd, as you put it, who would find it only interesting. If memory serves Dr Mark Menacher is married to an Episcopal Priest (or at least an Episcopalian). Dr Menacher is about as rabid "anti-CCM" as one can get.
Lou
For clarification, Mrs. Menacher is trained as a solicitor, which is the counterpart to barristers in the English legal system. Her church of origin is the Church in Wales, which is Anglican. Mrs. Menacher is a member of St. Luke's Lutheran Church in La Mesa, CA. Whereas I have significant theological and ethical concerns about the grand deception perpetrated in Called to Common Mission (CCM), which are well documented, if I had some irrational aversion to "Anglicans," then I would be sleeping with the enemy, as it were.
That Elizabeth Eaton considers her election to be a call may not be all too questionable. When she, however, assumes her place in the ELCA's ill-gotten "hysteric episcopate," she will boldly confess her allegiance to an ecclesial corporation which brings disgrace to Luther and to the Reformation wrought by his efforts.
As a reminder, Philip Melanchthon in 1539 wrote,
“This testimony is cited by one, so that it will be thought firstly what the church might be, and the spirit is separated from the carnal opinions, which imagine the church to be a state of bishops and bind it to the orderly succession of bishops, as the empires consist of the orderly succession of princes. But the church maintains itself differently. Actually, it is a union not bound to the orderly succession but to the Word of God.”(1)
Similarly, in 1541 Luther himself stated,
“In the church, the succession of bishops does not make a bishop, but the Lord alone is our bishop” (WA 53: 74).(2)
Perhaps all that "laying-on-of-hands" with the Episcopal Church helped lead the ELCA to the decisions made at its 2009 Corporationwide Assembly when the ELCA's institutional narcissism conformed itself to individual, sexual narcissism.
At any rate, Ms. Eaton has been elected or called by the same mechanism which has boldly disavowed the ELCA's adherence to Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. Unfortunately, the ELCA's abandonment of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions starkly represents just another woeful manifestation of the bondage of the will, which may be the ELCA's only honest affiliation with Luther and Lutheran theology.
Mark Menacher
1. Melanchthons Werke in Auswahl, ed. Robert Stupperich (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1951), 1: 330, 16-23
2. WA = D. Martin Luthers Werke, Weimarer Ausgabe (WA), (Weimar: Herman Böhlaus Nachfolger) [WA = Weimar Edition of Dr. Martin Luther’s Works].
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GJ - I enjoy the myth-making at church conventions. They explain why so many bad things happen. The new ELCA myth is that Eaton was completely shocked that she became the new head of ELCA, replacing a man with two terms. Thus, "the Holy Spirit made this decision for us."
WELS plays this game, too, pretending not to be intensely political. However, one insider told me that when Mark Schroeder was first elected, "Mark had all the votes before it started." By the way - everyone kept me in the dark, lest my opinions would spoil their chances. As it turns out, Schroeder has done everything Wayne Mueller would have ordered, if not more.
Eaton did not become bishop accidentally. There are unwritten rules in the ELCA too. Some things must be done. Others must be avoided at all costs.
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| Nine women bishops of ELCA. |
All nine women bishops are pro-abortion feminists who support gay ordination/marriage as "a matter of justice." Did the male bishops pose together for a solidarity photo? No, but the female bishops did.
The ordination of women and the quota system have served as powerful tools to give the extreme Left exactly what they wanted in ELCA.
No one dares question the Leftward lurches in ELCA, just as no one questions the relentless WELS-LCMS quest to emulate ELCA.
