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| ELDONA started as the Lutheran Confessional Synod, which was initially led by Bishop Randy DeJaynes, former ELCA pastor who went to prison for a time. ELS pastors Jay Webber and Kincaid Smith convened with Heiser to have WELS-ELS and LCS in fellowship. They were allowed to pray together. Heiser wanted to keep the Gerhard press, naming it Repristination Press, a bow to CFW Walther and Objective Justification. |
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| Pre-Bishop: Heiser and early proselytes. Pastor Eric Stefanski is on the far right and below. |
One Version - Lutheran Confessional Synod -
The Lutheran Confessional Synod (LCS) was a Confessional Lutheran church, characterized by a strict interpretation of the Lutheran Confessions and a historical liturgy. Organized in 1994, when Christ Lutheran Church in Decatur, Illinois, broke away from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, it initially declared doctrinal agreement with the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Synod,[1][2][3] but broke fellowship with those two synods on June 14, 1997, because of differences in the doctrine of the ministry and the Lord's Supper.[1][4] The LCS organized the Johann Gerhard Institute (a denominational publishing house) and St. Anselm Theological Seminary in 1996.[1]
The LCS' first bishop was the Rev. Randy L. DeJaynes, consecrated to that position on October 7, 1994.[3][5] As of 2009, stating a "desire to return to the Apostolic faith," some former LCS clergy were chrismated in the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America, while others entered the Roman Catholic Church.[citation needed] At least one is now a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America. By 2012, it was reported that the church body had disbanded.[6]
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The Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America (ELDoNA) is a confessional Lutheran church body in the United States. There are twenty-eight pastors in the diocese, serving congregations in Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin plus Colombia and the Philippines.[1][2]
The ELDoNA was founded June 6, 2006 at a meeting held at Salem Lutheran Church, Malone, Texas. A second diocesan synod was held August 28 and 29, 2007.[3] The third diocesan synod was held at Christ Lutheran Church in Richmond, Missouri on May 22, 2008,[4] and the fourth in the same location, May 14–15, 2009.[5] For the fifth Colloquium and Synod, the diocese returned to Malone, Texas, May 12–15, 2010,[6] and met there again for the sixth Colloquium and Synod May 11–13, 2011. The sixth Colloquium and Synod was the first in which all but one of the pastors of the diocese and the entire clergy of the Association of Confessional Lutheran Churches (ACLC) were in attendance. Among the significant decisions of the 2011 synod was the resolution to open a diocesan seminary in September 2012; the 2012 synod chose to delay that planned opening to 2014. The 2012 synod took place at Salem Lutheran Church in Malone, Texas the week of April 23–27, 2012, and the 2013 synod took place April 29–May 3, 2013.
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Lawson - ACLC - strictly Objective Faithless Justification. |
Above - The angel pose and the Almy costumes were apparently not mandated at this time.
In August 2013 the ACLC broke fellowship with the ELDoNA due to the latter's stand on the doctrine of Objective Justification.[7]
In 2006, James Heiser was called to serve as the diocesan bishop. Heiser has published a volume of essays on the doctrine of the holy ministry entitled Stewards of the Mysteries of God.[8] He is also the author of a study of the neo-Platonic revival which took place during the Italian Renaissance, entitled Prisci Theologi and the Hermetic Reformation in the Fifteenth Century.[9]
In 2013, Repristination Press published a volume of essays by Pastor John Rutowicz which sets forth the diocesan understanding of the episcopal office: Holding Fast the Faithful Word: Episcopacy and the Office of the Holy Ministry in the Evangelical Lutheran Diocese of North America.[10]
The diocese produces The Lutheran Herald, a monthly devotional journal that also includes diocesan news.[11]
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| "Ask the Pastor" Sullivan obsesses about the Apocrypha. He, Rydecki, and Carver left ELDONA at the same time. |
