Male and female he made them

In yesterday’s seminar on bioethics at Lakeside we heard about CRISPR and growing human ears on the flesh of lab animals, and the trans-human era so we can become the lie the serpent told Adam and Eve.  But the speaker (reformed tradition) also referred to “the church.” Just what is that, I wondered? How did we get here with dozens of Bible studies, feel good self esteem sermons, pot luck dinners and loud rock music, the only “church” people under 50—or maybe under 90—know. Before creating life in the laboratory, let’s look at it the old fashioned way—God’s way.  Male and female.

The so-called Christian church has no one to blame but itself for society’s capitulation to the LBGTQ anti-God, anti-history, anti-tradition agenda.  How did we get from sperm and egg to a personal choice based on feelings or mental illness?

Beginning in 1930, one by one the major Protestant denominations began to accept barrier, chemical and surgical solutions for limiting children, who are blessings from God.  The scariest “climate change” horror stories the Left can throw at us can’t compare to what Christians have accepted as “faith” or “mission” where family planning or women’s health are concerned. Eventually most Christian denominations also accepted abortion. Read your church head quarter’s documents—ELCA (Lutheran) accepts abortion for any reason, even sex selection. Some Protestant denominations use the loophole of disability, incest or rape, as though those little ones are expendable and deserve death because of their parents’ mistakes. Unborn children can distinguish between English and Japanese, but their own parents can’t figure out whether they are human?

Other churches just ignore the problem and stick to safe,  feel good, come to Jesus sermons and adding another "how to" Bible study.  In fact, I’ve been a member of 3 different denominations (Brethren, UCC and Lutheran) and I’ve never known Christianity in any form other than anti-life, anti-family, and anti-reproductive sex.  Not only have I never heard a sermon on the sin of abortion, I’ve never heard a sermon on the joys of marriage (except at the church wedding). Only the Roman Catholic church and perhaps Orthodox, but I haven’t researched that, elevates the role of male and female, marriage and family; and even some liberal European priests and bishops are getting squishy and caving to society’s desire to destroy God’s plan for creation. Most practicing Catholics I know, and their political leaders like Pelosi, Biden and Kerry, support abortion and contraception and ignore their church’s teaching.

https://www.ncbcenter.org/files/8214/6902/2602/MSOB124_The_Mystery_of_Male-Female_Complementarity.pdf

http://steadfastlutherans.org/2015/09/god-made-them-male-and-female/

http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/more-than-50-united-methodist-clergy-show-support-of-marriage-of-gay-couple

https://issues.cune.edu/the-lgbt-disputes-teaching-and-practice-in-the-church-2/the-reformation-and-the-reform-of-marriage-historical-views-and-background-for-todays-disputes/

http://www.ppl.org/index.php/educational-resources/pcusa-members/87-a-short-history-of-the-presbyterian-church-on-abortion-part-I

http://www.ucc.org/clergy_network_facilitated_safe_abortions_years_before_roe_v_wade_05222017

Weiner's wife and marriage

It's been a surprise to me that the slogan of the day (the last 2 days) for Associated Press (distributed to multiple syndicates) has been that the "Weiners have a strong marriage." Look, she was out of the country when the scandal broke, he was using her absenses which are frequent since she's Hillary's aide to sext his on-line buddies, and they've both been using the Clintons as mentors. I supposed that's a fool's idea of a strong marriage, but if she hangs in there with him, she's just another abused Muslim wife married to a despot. It's in her tradition.

How great a lover and husband can he be? In order to achieve those erection photos, he needed to be masturbating while excitedly anticipating others seeing it. Who really gets that overwrought by the sight of the erect male member other than other males? Who buys all those male porn magazines--other men. There will probably be more to come out of the closet for this guy. There are some secular Jews who don't like Israel although they may see themselves as Jews (Weiner actually is pro-Israel except for his party choice), and some married men who don't really like or respect women, may love their own wife (again, Weiner has a strange way of showing devotion and loyalty). I'm just saying. . .

UALC has final vote today

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which claims a membership of 10,400 congregations and 4.6 million baptized members, accepted a task force on sexuality recommendation to remove the celebacy restriction for its gay and lesbian pastors in August 2009. This was not a vote to have gay pastors marry each other or to marry congregants--this was a vote to remove the celebacy requirement for openly gay and lesbian pastors. The old "committeed, loving relationship" routine.

This caused splits in many congregations, and not a blip in other. Under the ELCA’s rules, congregations that wish to disaffiliate themselves must take two votes passing by a two-thirds majority, with a 90-day consultation period with the local bishop scheduled between the votes. The congregation officially cuts off ties with the denomination upon passage of the second vote.

According to an Illinois paper by the end of June, 462 congregations had cast their first votes to leave the ELCA, with 312 adopting the resolution. Of these, 196 congregations have taken their second vote, with only 11 congregations opting not to leave the ELCA. Our church voted almost 92% to leave on the first vote and 95% on the second. The crowds were the largest I've ever seen in our church, outside a special musical concert.

I know members of other Lutheran congregations who will never have the opportunity to discuss it, or to vote on leaving, because either the church board or pastor won't allow it to even come up. You can have all the constitutional documents you want, you can all use the same Bible, but if no one is reading either one, it doesn't make a lot of difference.

In the ELCA homosexuals are invited to be full members, to share in the sacraments, and to be treated in all ways as heterosexuals. But let's remember the gold standard in virtually all churches is chastity and celebacy outside of marriage.

I was going through Google to see when ELCA (created in 1988) began accepting openly gay pastors, and it appears the local congregations never had a say in that. Some pastors finishing seminary simply announced shortly before ordination that they were gay, so they were told in order to have the church's blessings they'd need to be celebate. That may have been the early 90s. Maybe they (I think they were all women) didn't exactly lie when entering seminary, but they surely had their fingers crossed when the discussion of sex outside of marriage came up.

If a heterosexual, married pastor declared love for a non-spousal other, saying they have a "loving committed relationship" about which they need to be open in order to be culturally relevant for our times, and that Jesus didn't address a ménage à trois as a sin, not many congregations would swallow that line of reasoning, no matter how "normal" the sex drive is of the pastor. But give ELCA a few years, and it will be up for a vote.

Let's not get theological . . .

A lesbian Lutheran pastor is proud of her role in "ending discrimination" against non-celibate homosexual pastors in her church.

See my church blog.

UALC first vote to leave ELCA

At the special congregational meeting on Sunday, June 13, the resolution to leave the ELCA was passed with a 91.8% majority, 538 to 48.

This begins a 90 day consultation period, ending in a second vote in the fall. For more background on the ELCA decision, visit the ELCA Decision page by clicking here (numerous documents, both from UALC and ELCA).

There were many well considered and thoughtful comments during the time of public discussion of the motion. After discussion we moved to the sanctuary for prayer, singing and the vote.

Update: If you stumbled in here and are confused by the acronyms, this is a discussion about Lutherans. UALC is Upper Arlington Lutheran Church, founded in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington, Ohio about 55 years ago. It has 3 campuses and 9 Sunday services. Although it started in Upper Arlington, it now also has a campus in Hilliard, Ohio, and Columbus, Ohio. The church was planted, I think, by members of Holy Trinity Lutheran in Upper Arlington, and why they couldn't think of a pretty name like theirs, I don't know. ELCA is the name of the synod, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America created in 1988 by the merger of The American Lutheran Church (ALC of which UALC was a member), The Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches, and The Lutheran Church in America (LCA). There are even more acronyms ahead, as we move toward new relationships with other Lutheran groups, like CORE and NALC.

Update: I had the history of the congregation wrong. Here's the story. "As I understand the story there was a group from St. John's [Grove City] who settled in the newly-developing area of Upper Arlington. The ALC thought it would be a good mission, (I guess Trinity was LCA) so they called a pastor, started meeting in a basement, moved to Hastings Jr. High auditorium, bought land at the corner of Lane & McCoy - I think - somewhere around there. There was a moratorium on churches in UA, but when that was lifted, a bigger plot of land became available where the pastor's house was, a farm house on Middlesex. We sold the smaller plot on the main street and bought Lytham, then in 1956 built the first building."