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In early September, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) affirmed major policy recommendations to allow for the blessing of same-sex unions and the rostering of gay and lesbian pastors in partnered relationships. The ELCA also passed by one vote a Social Statement on Sexuality that offered no compelling biblical or theological reasons for its actions on homosexuality. The ELCA has now joined the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church in sanctioning to one degree or another homosexual practice in the church. Robert Benne, a voting member of the ELCA and Director of the Roanoke Center for Religion, has written of his church: “No one can dislodge the ELCA’s commitment to purge all masculine language about God from its speech and worship, to demur on the biblically normative status of the nuclear family, to refuse to put limits on abortion in its internal policies or to advocate publicly for pro-life policies, to press for left-wing public domestic and foreign policy, to replace evangelism abroad with dialog, to commit ‘full inclusion’ of gays and lesbians at the expense of church unity, and to buy in fully to the movement against global warming.”
What has occurred within the ELCA is the loss of an authentic and historic principle so central to the Lutheran tradition—the full and final authority of the Bible. In the 1920s, a Presbyterian theologian and exegete named J. Gresham Machen wrote an important book entitled Christianity and Liberalism. The central thesis of that book was that liberalism had abandoned the authority of Scripture and had no right to be called “Christian.” I believe that same argument should be applied to the ELCA today. It long ago gave up the commitment to the full authority of the Bible. Sola Scriptura, the battle cry of Martin Luther and the other reformers, is no longer relevant. A tectonic shift is occurring within mainline denominations such as the ELCA; it is a shift away from the historic and biblical commitment to Christianity. In its place is a social relativism that has no anchor, no foundation and is firmly planted in mid-air.
For that reason the ELCA no longer deserves to be called “Christian.” It has abandoned the Scriptures as the final authority for all matters of faith and of practice. Its highly selective quotation of some Scripture to the total exclusion of all others is an abuse of God’s Word. Martin Luther led a movement that restored the Bible to the church; the pulpit replaced the altar. Today moral ditties have replaced the teachings of Jesus Christ. Human opinions carry more weight in the ELCA than does the Word of God. When David lamented the death of Saul and Jonathan, he said, “How the mighty are fallen.” That same lament applies to the ELCA today. It is a tragic story of the loss of a denomination that was once worthy in the eyes of God. That is no longer true!
See Robert Benne, “How the ELCA Left the Great Tradition. . .” ChristianityToday.com (2 September 2009). |
