Yes, Students Believe in Creation

 

Dr. Jackson, thank you so much for responding! John 1:3 is one of my favorite scriptures. It implies the difference between what begins to exist versus the One who has always existed. In essence, there is one thing that did not come into being or just begin to exist. That is God! 

ELCA Leadership Still Sounds Like the General Motors Company in Executive Session

 

Inside the commission that could restructure the ELCA

When the 2022 Churchwide Assembly voted last summer to form the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church (CRLC), which will recommend how to restructure the ELCA’s governing process, it reached back four decades for a name. The original Commission for a New Lutheran Church, which met between 1982 and ’87, was a mammoth research project that held forums across the country, reviewed over 12,000 letters from Lutheran faithful, and processed responses from the synod, district and national conventions of three Lutheran denominations hoping to merge. Its work led directly to the creation of the ELCA, so the branding of this new commission feels nothing less than epochal.

The new group of 35 rostered ministers and laypeople from across the church will conduct a more condensed version of the original group’s investigation, examining “statements of purpose” and “principles of organization” for all three expressions and conducting nationwide research and listening forums. Ten synods sent memorials to the 2022 Churchwide Assembly requesting the commission. “The governing documents, constitutions, bylaws, and continuing resolutions of the ELCA do not allow [congregations, synods and the churchwide organization] to reorganize quickly to meet the changing realities for effective mission in today’s world,” wrote the Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Synod in language that was echoed by the other nine.

When the next churchwide assembly convenes, in summer 2025, the CRLC will present its findings and recommend whether the church should then mount a special reconstituting convention without delay.

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“Church itself has changed. The people coming to church have changed, and the systems necessary to support the work the church is doing have changed”

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Appointed in April, the commission met in person for the first time in mid-July, convening for three days at the Lutheran Center in Chicago. Not long after that, its co-chairs, Carla Christopher and Leon Schwartz, sat down for a Zoom meeting with Living Lutheran to discuss the commission’s work. Both expressed excitement at the first gathering of the commission and stressed the urgency of their task.

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GJ - The LCA pastors said their merger in 1962 was modeled after the General Motors corporate structure. The 1987 ELCA merger was more like the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, because the Seminex faction was given leverage for all the big decisions. They were the smallest in size and got the greatest proportion of everything. They were the radicals' radicals, who came close to removing the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit from ELCA constitution. The Holy Trinity won the title, but only by a small margin of votes. 

Notice the ELCA box with the three-fold Change motif. That reminded me of the WELS' Church and Change stealth operation, where the WELS Church Growth stars predicted the utter doom of their abusive sect until and unless everything changed. They even sold trinkets and promoted their underground Church and Change movement on the WELS website.

Although WELS and LCMS have done everything right, according the genius con artists of Fuller Seminary, their church bodies have plummeted in numbers, no matter what they claim. How could all of them lose so many members at the same time. They had the doctorates (sic) in Church Growth from Pasadena, Ft. Wayne, and St. Louis. Yes, even Robert Preus endorsed the Ft. Wayne version of Fuller, although he said WELS was even worse than LCMS in Fuller intoxication. 

Barna had Lutheran pastors giving this disgusting book to members. The clear message of Church Growth - "We will wreck the Gospel of faith in Jesus Christ by slowly increasing the heat until the old fuddie-duddies are boiled alive." Where were the animal rights people? I wondered.

I had a lot of fun tracking down the main culprits: their conferences, their funds, their publications, and their flame-outs. Pasadena veterans did not appreciate being described with so much attention and so many curated quotations. 

Notice the parallel wisdom, ELCA versus LCMS and WELS - to wit 

When the next churchwide assembly convenes, in summer 2025, the CRLC (Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church) will present its findings and recommend whether the church should then mount a special reconstituting convention without delay.

This sold well - WELS published it. Sadly, the Church and Changers did not approve and wanted it squashed. They were getting Catholic, Lutheran, Protestant ready to print when they suddenly changed their minds. 

 From The Lutheran Core

Deluded? I was absolutely astounded when I read ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton’s response to the recent action taken by the United Methodist Church to affirm the historic Christian view of marriage and human sexuality. Speaking of the very different vote that the ELCA took nearly ten years ago, she said, “Yet, though a controversial decision at the time, our 2009 action has brought strength and blessings for our life and mission beyond what we could have imagined a decade ago.” [emphasis added] How in the world could she make a statement like that when she wrote the following in the February 2019 issue of “Living Lutheran”? “Our congregations are growing older and smaller. At least 40 percent of our congregations have an average weekly worship attendance of 50 or less. ELCA membership decreases by 70,000 people a year, or roughly the loss of a synod per year. Clergy retirements outnumber new candidates for ministry. Financial pressures and building maintenance create stress. There is a dearth of people in their 20s and 30s in our pews.”

Daily Luther Sermon Quote - Rogate 1 - "Now, because he saw their thoughts — that they wished to question him — they confessed that he comes from God and knows all things, so that we need not to ask him, for he himself sees very well where the trouble is."

 

Complete sermon ->Luther's Sermons - John 16:23-30.

First Sermon - Rogate. Fifth Sunday after Easter

18. And here we also see that to “believe in Christ” does not mean to believe that Christ is a person who is both God and man; that does not help any one. But that this same person is the Christ; that is, that he went forth from the Father and came into the world, and again leaves the world and goes to the Father. The words mean no less than that this is Christ, that he became man and died for us, rose again and ascended to heaven. Because of this office of his, he is called Jesus Christ, and to believe this concerning him, that: it is true, means to be and to abide in his name. There follows further in this Gospel: “His disciples say, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no dark sayings.”

19. Here you see that to speak “plainly” (“frei heraus”), or to speak in clear terms, means to speak without parables, or without dark and covered words. And the good disciples think they understand very well what he tells them, that Christ comes from the Father and goes to the Father; but they do this as good, pious children of Christ. They are easily able to understand it, and in love they tell him so. In ordinary conversation, people sometimes say to one another Yes or No, or give assent, saying, It is so, and in a sense one understands, even though he is still far from the meaning of another’s words. In such case the conversation is without hypocrisy and in true simplicity. The Evangelist hereby shows what a beautiful, plain, friendly and loving life Christ led with his disciples, since they were so very able to understand him. Then the disciples say further: “Now know we that thou knowest all things, and needest not that any man should ask thee.”

20. That is, you anticipate and explain yourself and speak no more in parables, concerning which we must question you; for you know in advance where we are lacking in understanding. All this reverts to the fact that they wished to ask what the “little while” meant, and he noticed it and explains by saying that he must go to the Father; which they still did not understand, and yet it was clearer than his words: “A little while and ye will not see me.” Now, because he saw their thoughts — that they wished to question him — they confessed that he comes from God and knows all things, so that we need not to ask him, for he himself sees very well where the trouble is.