United Methodists on gay marriage

From the Documents of United Methodist Church, I see no wiggle room for two men or two women, or one man and two women, or any other configuration.

We affirm the family and work to strengthen its relationships. We affirm the sanctity of marriage and shared fidelity between a man and a woman. We recognize divorce as regrettable and intend to minister to the members of divorced families. We affirm the integrity of single persons. We recognize that sexuality is a good gift of God and that sex between a man and woman is only to be clearly affirmed in the marriage bond. We recognize the tragic conflicts of life with life that may justify abortion and urge prayerful consideration

Church and society

Support Lutheran CORE

Lutheran CORE is a coalition of individuals, congregations and reform movements in the ELCA. Lutheran CORE seeks to be a voice for the solid, faithful core that is the majority of ELCA members, pastors, and congregations.

You may give online at www.lutherancore.org or send gifts to:

Lutheran CORE
c/o WordAlone Network
2299 Palmer Drive, Suite 220
New Brighton, MN 55112-2202

Please make checks payable to the WordAlone Network and indicate that your gift is for Lutheran CORE on the memo line.

"Over the past three years Lutheran CORE has worked for the reform of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Our chief goal has been to serve as a voice for the Word of God within the ELCA. We have sought to maintain the Christian doctrine of marriage and the normative use of the Biblical names for the persons of the Holy Trinity — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Within the ELCA we have sought to uphold both Biblical authority and Lutheran identity. To effect these reforms, we have used the constitutional structures of the ELCA — synod assemblies, churchwide assemblies, and the election processes for synodical and churchwide leaders. . .

The commitment of the ELCA to its Trinitarian heritage continues to weaken, as evinced by the increasing avoidance of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in our church’s liturgical and educational publications. The ongoing debate over marriage and sexuality seems never-ending. We see indications of a weakening Lutheran identity within our church." Additional information at the April 2009 Newsletter.

You may be yawning at this point if you are not a Lutheran, however, the same issues are happening in your denomination whether Methodist, Presbyterian, Baptist, or Congregational. In fact, your church has possibly already been sunk by the world, the flesh and the devil working in concert (it takes three) with tiny committees who have usurped your authority and taken the people in the pews hostage.

I've blogged before about the bizarre twisting of language and theology in the ELCA Social Statement on Human Sexuality. Be sure to read the article on p. 10 of the above newsletter by Paul Hinlicky: "I Think I Want A Divorce from ELCA." There are some marriages that cannot be fixed, and the ELCA has been flagrantly unfaithful to her bridgegroom Jesus Christ, afraid to even mention his name, and is out and about on the streets whoring. She needs to be cut off from her source of funding to end the prostitution.

It's time for UALC to leave ELCA

They just don't get it--either what the Bible says, or what the people are saying. The excuses just keep coming. If we're "clearning the rolls," then why aren't we bringing in new members? If there is an economic slump, what about all the good years we've had this decade? The homosexuality position is totally unbiblical but it is built on many other unbiblical beliefs that have come out of the seminaries in the last 50 years. Rev. C.J. Conner at The Christian Post.

"Since 2001, the ELCA reports a loss of 400,078 members. In 2007, on any given Sunday, only 28.9% of ELCA’s 4,709,956 members attend services. This is a steady annual drop in Church attendance, and leads many to theorize that the trends suggest the loss is far higher than the ELCA is able to quantify.

John Brooks, ELCA communications director says that all of these things have nothing to do with the protracted debate in the ELCA on homosexuality. He points to the economic recession that engulfs all of America right now. He also maintains that the loss of membership recorded for the last 7 years is due to congregations “clearing their rolls of inactive members” and is relatively equivalent to membership losses experienced across the mainline churches.

Brooks echoes the sentiments represented in a recent Public Religion Research survey of Mainline Pastors, including ELCA pastors. 46% of those surveyed do not believe that the mainline churches are declining because they are becoming theologically liberal. In fact, 47% thinks that the decline has been caused by a loss of courage among the churches to take prophetic stands for justice.

Mark Hanson, presiding Bishop of the ELCA, has consistently and strongly urged his clergy to take prophetic stands on social justice issues. At the same time, he has asked his members not to let the ELCA’s position on homosexuality to detract from all the good work the denomination does. “The issue of homosexuality in this Church is not all that we are,” he says.

But to many in his flock it seems the conflict has consumed the church, has depleted valuable resources, tarnished the ELCA name, and has overtaken the Christian priority of bringing people to Christ. For them, the ELCA has indeed become too liberal. Many of the polite and gracious people of the ELCA, primarily of quiet and reserved Scandinavian background, are more apt to vote with their feet and pocketbooks than to engage a fight with denominational polity."