Words, words, words.

Words have always been political. No language has more words than English/American. But with today's deconstruction and destabilization of the 19th century Marxist thinkers, you particularly have to be careful about words. Take no words home to meet your parents until you know what they mean to your grandchildren (my proverb I just made up).

"Gender affirming care" is actually legalized child abuse which includes toxic hormones for children, and amputation of body parts. Pay no attention to those "medical" associations that approve it. There are virtually zero/zip clinical or long term studies, only hunches and hopes, what these zombized lab specimens will be when they are 80.

"Respect for marriage act" is exactly the opposite. It intends to enshrine same sex or any sex or any number of genders or any species into formal, cultural recognition of a relationship which will criminalize you if you don't agree. The most primitive of societies in the most far reaching regions and religions always had a way to formalize a marriage between men and women. They weren't confused. They knew concubines, mistresses, male temple prostitutes and adolescent boys who were sex toys of older men were not marriage partners. They were sex objects. Marriage was for the creation of a family, for procreation, even if that culture had no knowledge of Christ, Moses or Mohammed or a named Hindu God or gods. There are some things pre-history people knew that we're trying to legislate away today in order to destabilize society.

"Inflation Reduction Act" is exactly the opposite. Only governments create inflation, and only governments increase inflation by expanding the supply of money. Both the Trump and Biden administrations threw unreasonable amounts of money at the pandemic on the advice of people who claimed to know how to stop a virus. They then burdened the people who make the money and give it to the government in taxes with lockdowns. Even churches took money to stay closed--the very people we trusted with our souls and our first amendment.

"Climate change" is one of those, of course it does, phrases. But the political meaning is very different than the words. It actually means there is a huge cloud of power hungry bureaucrats who have enlisted science, entertainment, information giants and massive corporations to convince you the tax payer to believe puny, insignificant people, can control the universe. These are the same people who can't define a woman or properly fund the police or can use an attack on Paul Pelosi while police were in house to accuse Trump supporters.

So that's my word story for today. Now a few words from a career librarian: to the victor belong the archives. If you have to go to the victor (Biden administration, Bush, Obama, Clinton, JFK, LBJ, FDR, etc.) to get your information (data, knowledge, news reports, archives), you better have your eye on a deeper understanding of TRUTH before you start your journey.

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"Gender affirming care" is probably the biggest lie, biggest inversion of language I can imagine. It's as fake as the penis that is inverted to create a vulva and then call the male victim an actual girl. You don't need a class or lecture in medical ethics to know that the doctors, nurses, and "counselors" are creating, not treating, Frankensteins. To call this abuse "bottom surgery" is absurd. If they actually told the truth of what they are doing, eyes would pop. And if you say "follow the money" and it enriches a huge chain of medical and support staff and leads back to the pharmaceutical companies who will then have a patient--or thousands of patients--for life with bad bones, bad kidneys, bad hearts from hormone blockers--the perps will pull out all those obfuscating terms for compassion and kindness and accuse you of being hateful, of being "transphobic." Would a ethical doctor amputate a leg if a patient demanded it? Why are they amputating breasts of young, under age girls?

And btw, why do lesbians and homosexuals want these goons and abusers in their camp? Haven't they spent decades claiming they are not pedophiles, and now they take the T and the Q into their acronym?

The strength and power of the Catholic Bishops

The Catholic Bishops apparently don't have the power or desire to stop Uncle Joe from embarrassing the Church or receiving communion--they aren't as powerful as the CEOs of Twitter and Facebook who had no trouble shutting down a sitting U.S. President while spreading lies about him.

 
Out of the $1.9 trillion stimulus (which we don't need) Uncle Joe is sending $467.8 billion off to help kill the unborn. And he is propped up by the party that denies Church teaching on marriage, religious freedom, sexuality and gender ideology. That's a lot more serious than mean tweets, don't you think?

 Even if you're pro-choice, you must see the duplicity of a guy who left his pro-life values behind so he could be Obama's vice president in 2009. Then in 2020 he ran as a moderate with strong Catholic values (or so his campaign ads said on Catholic radio) and is now lurching left of Bernie Sanders who never kept his motives or ideology a secret from the voters. And what an insult to Mary, the mother of God, when he flashed the rosary beads of his deceased son during a virtual visit with Mexico's president. It's embarrassing for our nation--not to have a Catholic president--but to have such a big phony. And the media who raged that President Trump dared to carry a Bible while investigating a fire in a DC church, just shrug at his hypocrisy.

OK for Buckeyes to date Wolverines

All Ohio State students, faculty, staff and student employees are required to pass ANNUAL re-education courses in sexual matters. It's probably the same at your alma mater or institution of interest. I recall when this type of required re-education back in the 1990s was small group workshops from time to time, then they grew to a cottage industry for social workers and psychologists, now they are a national industry with thousands and thousands of employees and enforcers. The big catch all loophole which could get you denied a merit-based salary increase or public shaming is the term "gender-based." https://titleix.osu.edu/navigation/prevention/training.html

I read through the 17 pages of the university's sexual misconduct policy, only one brief paragraph of which was about protection of the accused (not innocent obviously)--and the policy is labeled, "interim," which means it could change at any moment.

It appears that the only safe relationship for a Buckeye is to date or become involved with someone from University of Michigan!

Catering to the confused

Air Canada announced that it no longer will use the phrase “ladies and gentlemen” on board its flights, as part of a “commitment to respect sexual identity, diversity, and inclusion.”

What's the fun in that? What are the guys going to transition to if airlines (tech firms, big pharma, academe, etc.) wipe out all the differences? How will they join the women’s track competition if there are no women?  It might be PC, but it's not respect.

The transgender scam

"In 2002, 61 percent of Fortune 500 companies included sexual orientation in their nondiscrimination policies, and just 3 percent included gender identity within those policies. By 2014 those number had risen to 91 percent and 61 percent, respectively." (International Business Times, Dec. 9, 2014.)

So 61% of Fortune 500 companies have bought into the myth that sex is not biological but a decision, fantasy, identity or dream, something we put on or take off. What a sorry mess this agenda has brought down on us, encouraged by our federal government, academic institutions and some churches. And it is women who will be hurt the most as men who have stalled in the career track become transwomen, a woman by choice/decision, or men begin to compete in sports against women previously protected by Title VII and Title IX, specifically written with the word "sex" and reinterpreted by faceless bureaucracy. To be transman or transwoman does not require shots, surgery or counseling, as we've seen from recent bathroom edicts, but only "identifying." But even with genital, chest and facial surgery, even with mascara and designer dresses, he's still a guy in every cell and body part..

 

So that would make "conversion" therapy OK because homosexuality is a decision or mental disorder and can be reversed?

Who is anti-women?

If you look deeply, everything the Left/socialists/Democrats offer/demand is anti-family, anti-fertility and therefore, anti-woman. Whether it is

•  free contraception,
• abortion on demand,
• suing nuns and colleges that won't comply,
• offering sewage for entertainment which exploits our minds and bodies,
• same sex marriage,
• the lie of sex reassignment/third gender,
• the military draft of women,
• the siren call of a career during our best years,
• the importation of brown women to bump up the country's fertility rate (now below replacement) while cleaning our offices and houses,
• heavy college debt borrowed from the government that demands years of labor from us during our fertile years, or
• creating both an unnatural, hyper-vigilant child centered society or an anti-child atmosphere when we women can finally focus on our first calling.

The ultimate goal is to destroy the nation by weakening its strongest building block.Women.

How first century Christians faced pagan Roman sexual practices

The Didache, or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, written in A.D. 80, begins with a frank assessment of the culture and the Christian Faith. “There are two ways, one of life and one of death: and great is the difference between the two ways.” The text then discusses the way of life which combines the Ten Commandments and the teachings of Christ. An important part of the way of life is morality, and the particulars of moral living involve marriage and the conjugal act:
“You shall not commit adultery.
You shall not seduce boys.
You shall not commit fornication.
You shall not steal.
You shall not practice magic.
You shall not use potions.
You shall not procure abortion, nor destroy a newborn child.”
The Didache urged Christians to avoid these practices and choose the way of life in imitation of Christ the Lord.
(Steve Weidenkopf, Of Human Life course material, Ch. 1)

After the Ball, the PR agenda for normalizing homosexuality

 It wasn't just the book "After the Ball" which normalized homosexuality in our culture. It was the other 99%.

"It should be obvious to anyone who has been paying attention over the course of the past 25 years that the strategies proposed by Kirk and Madsen have been all too successful at normalizing homosexuality—or, at least, the idea that a homosexual “orientation” is perfectly natural.  (Homosexual practice, on the other hand, has been kept discreetly under wraps.)  But as successful as this marketing of the gay brand has been, it could not have made much headway if Americans had not already been predisposed to it by the long development of what sociologist Philip Rieff called the “therapeutic culture,” a culture rooted in affluence, consumerism, and perpetual rebellion against the old communal culture and its system of moral demands.  In the therapeutic culture each individual is liberated to pursue his own desires, convinced that he is the self-created agent of those desires, or, as Stephen L. Gardner has so aptly put it, the “demi-god of his eros and ambitions.”  Within such a culture, sexual desire has gradually become detached from its place in the natural order, and sexual “identity” elevated to an almost sacramental status.  Facebook, surely a bellwether of our free fall into mass narcissism and incoherence, now offers some 56 gender alternatives to traditional male/female sex identities, and each of these implies one or more modes of sexual satisfaction.  Of course, most Americans are boorishly indifferent to this bewildering array of options.  Nonetheless, the unending Sexual Revolution has made deep inroads in Middle America.  Consider the sex-toy industry.  David Rosen at alternet.org estimates that global profits in sex accessories now approach $15 billion annually, much of which is generated by U.S. sales.  Who is buying all those naughty products?  Well, it seems that a whopping number of them are purchased by middle-class American women."

Jack Trotter, Conservatives and the Gay Agenda

Media bias and the Washington Post

I don't know how much of the Washington Post I see in the on-line version, but this morning it was one police-black victim article, two pro-climate change articles, two same-sex marriage articles, three transgender articles, one anti-Scott Walker article, one Hillary scandal opinion piece (so gentle it was funny), and two Apple stories. Now there were other topics too, like Comcast/FCC, a female comedian, an introduction to left of Hillary candidate, O'Malley, but the bias is stifling. Americans who use only the New York Times or Washington Post and their siblings in the TV news, are really suffering from lack of information they need to make responsible, informed decisions.

There’s more to it than surgery and hormones

It would appear there’s much more going on in being male or female than surgically changing the genitals or adding hormones. I guess scientists are bigots.

“Differences in male and female rodent sexual behaviors are programmed during brain development, but how exactly this occurs is not clear. In the preoptic area (POA) of the brain—a region necessary for male sex behavior—the female phenotype results from repression of male-linked genes by DNA methylation, according to a study published today (March 30) in Nature Neuroscience.

There is very little known about how the brain is masculinized—and even less about how it is feminized—even though the question has been studied for more than 50 years, said Bridget Nugent, study author and now a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania.

These sex differences in the brain are programmed toward the end of fetal development, through to one week after birth in rodents. In males, testicular hormones drive masculinization of the brain; this was thought to occur by direct induction of gene expression by hormone-associated transcription factors. Because a feminized brain occurred in the absence of ovarian hormone signals, most researchers assumed that the female brain and behavior was a sort of default state, programmed during development when no male hormones are present. But the downstream mechanisms of how hormones can modify gene expression were not previously known.”

http://www.the-scientist.com//?articles.view/articleNo/42555/title/Female-Brain-Maintained-by-Methylation/

http://waltheyer.typepad.com/blog/2012/08/data-shows-male-to-female-transgender-brains-are-not-feminized.html

http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nn.3988.html

The marriage agenda

Two men or two women together is, in truth, nothing like a man and a woman creating a life and a family together. Same-sex relationships are certainly very legitimate, rewarding pursuits, leading to happiness for many, but they are wholly different in experience and nature.

Gay and lesbian activists, and more importantly, the progressives urging them on, seek to redefine marriage in order to achieve an ideological agenda that ultimately seeks to undefine families as nothing more than one of an array of equally desirable “social units,” and thus open the door to the increase of government’s role in our lives.

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2013/03/9432/  I am gay and I oppose same sex marriage

How sensitive do doctors need to be to the needs of transgendered?

According to the Williams Institute review conducted in April 2011, approximately 3.80 % of American adults identify themselves being in the LGBT community; wherein, (1.70%) identify as lesbian or gay, (1.80%) bisexual, and (0.30%) transgender, which corresponds to approximately 9 million adult^[1] Americans as of the 2010 census. (Wikipedia)

If our future doctors know more about the emotional needs and problems of the transgendered than how to help patients cope with depression, dementia or terminal diseases, here's an example from a med school ethics class. Also a good look at the discrimination and bullying of Christians in medical school. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/transgender-christian-doctor/

“This week in my medical school we began the ethics portion of my medical school’s curriculum.  This week, the main learning points were on Human Sexuality, Emotional Intelligence (Empathy), and Memory and Learning (How to deal with patients with dementia, learning disabilities, autism etc.). You might be interested to know that the only required classes were on Human Sexuality, with one of them being a Transgender panel. All the other classes were optional attendance; they covered topics such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and how to empathize with your patients. CBT is a very common helpful tool that can be used to treat everything from depression and anxiety to bipolar disorder. However, despite the importance of emotional intelligence and memory and learning, over half of the material was about human sexuality — and over half of the human sexuality content was about how to treat LGBT patients.”

God created male and female for a reason

". . . and God saw that it was good" is a familiar phrase in the first Chapter of Genesis--light, water, vegetation, stars, swarms of living creatures in the water and the heavens, beasts and cattle and creeping things. All are pronounced “good” working up to his best creation. And finally "God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it. . ." Then in the second chapter of Genesis we get more detail on what is good--instead of recording, "it was good" after God created Adam, he said, “It is NOT GOOD for the man to be alone; I will make him a helper suitable for him.”

There are virtually no differences between an Asian man and an African man--some skin cells and maybe hair texture. Nothing of importance. But between an Asian man and an Asian woman there are thousands of differences in brains, blood cells, skeletal systems, endocrine system and hormones, cardiovascular system, sexual organs, muscles and cells. Every cell has a sex. The blood of women has more water. Even our fingers are shaped differently. Women's hearts beat more rapidly. We respond differently to stress, as seen in MRIs. Women are better suited for life from their beginning--more than 140 male babies are conceived for every 100 females; by the time birth occurs, the ratio is 105 to 100, with the rest of the males dying in spontaneous abortions. That's because God wanted the human race to continue, and a new life needs both a mother and father--each new life getting something from each parent. You can redefine marriage if you wish, but not the plan.

Three important terms in today’s political climate

Don’t confuse these terms:  same sex attraction, homosexual acts, and gay.  They are not the same.  The first is a feeling or emotion that does not involve choice; the second is sodomy an act or behavior not compatible with Scripture or church teaching; and the third is a political movement.  The culture teaches that our sexuality is just biological.  But God says otherwise.  This is not about civil rights, but God’s truth and creation.

“God created us as male and female. Host Gloria Purvis along with Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers and Damon Owens discuss complementarity between men and women, and why homosexual acts and redefining marriage are not compatible with authentic freedom. They also explain the difference between accepting homosexual behavior and a person with same sex attraction.”

Episode 5, http://www.ewtn.com/series/shows/authentically-free-at-last/episodes.asp

Leaving the church because of sex

A blogger I’ve  known only through our shared cyber-space as librarians on discussion lists and as bloggers mentioned at his blog that he has moved over to an Anglican church from the Catholic church due to the Roman Catholic’s position on women clergy, on marriage of gays, and the sexual abuse scandals.

That’s putting a lot of stock into current cultural beliefs in the face of 2,000 years of church history and teaching, plus all the Hebrew/Jewish traditions that came before that.  In fact, it flies in the face of the history of the human race and all religions, not just Catholicism.  There’s virtually no mention of homosexuality in the Old Testament except in veiled references to temple practices of other religions which the Jews were supposed to avoid at all costs.  But dalliances with young men and male temple prostitutes were certainly well known and even accepted in Greek and Roman cultures.  Gracious!  Have you seen some of those murals in collapsing ancient buildings? The Greeks and Romans lived in sex saturated times, male, female, animal, child, multiples—made no difference (if we can believe their art and literature, and why shouldn’t we?). They probably inherited profligate and perverted sex from the civilizations who came before them.  God chose the Jews for a reason—they were the only ones, even in sin who seemed to really get the story of creation. 

That said, even with trips to the temple for sex with young, beautiful temple prostitutes, male and female, when it came to building blocks for the society, it was marriage between a male and female.  Yes, some engaged in polygamy, or polyandry, some had mistresses and concubines and some men may have preferred a male concubine, but the state/monarchy/emperor or tribal elder recognized the marriage.  There was a distant memory and command in the mind of all cultures.

As for women priests, show me a church that is growing under female leadership.  Sure, maybe you support it, but have you joined one?  Have you encouraged your call committee in that direction?  Even men who claim to be “feminists” don’t like sitting under the authority of a woman, often not at work, but certainly not at the church.  They’ll never admit it, but quietly, the numbers begin to drop.

Child abuse?  The Roman Catholic church is a huge target; and it’s rich.  Why sue a school system where the abusers, at least until recently, are just passed from school to school, protected by their unions?  We’re just beginning to hear how many female teachers are predators as the stories are leaked to the papers.  How many Protestant clergy have been caught with their hand in the . . . well, and just quietly moved on to the next small church thinking the problem will go away if we just warn him.  Although many young girls have certainly been molested at the hands of clergy, teachers, babysitters, etc., the number of boys and gay men involved is way out of their proportion (1.5%) in the general population.

But this particular librarian who has left the church, who became a convert to Catholicism and took all the instruction in 1992, now thinks that the profound spiritual wisdom of the 20th and 21st centuries exceeds that of the church he committed himself to just 20 years ago and in which he agreed to raise his children and be faithful to his wife (who has remained Catholic).

Imagine all the stuff a Protestant is exposed to in RCIA which must completely have baffled him—like 7 sacraments, or the teaching about the perpetual virginity of Mary, or all the stages to go through to become a saint, or all the special holidays, seasons and observances he’d never heard of.  Think about undoing all the teaching Christians hear in Baptist or Lutheran or Nazarene churches about evil, unscriptural Catholicism.  That’s a huge leap for gay marriage and the ordination of women priests!

And  he threw it all over for a fad, fable and fantasy.  I’m not a Catholic, but it appears he wasn’t either.

How to understand what's happening

to the Christians in the United States. Lutherans are in grief and shock--well, maybe not those who think only the local congregation matters. But the August "Church Wide Assembly" which approved gay pastors and marriage after 20 years of nibbling around the edges, for some reason, surprised some (not me). Here's one of the best explanations I've read by David Housholder to catch you up, just in case you're not a Christian, or you only show up for weddings, funerals and Christmas Eve.
Full document here.

"There are two emerging Christianities.

1) One is a postwar liberal movement with roots in the 19th century social gospel, liberal German theology from that same era, and flavored with a shot of very resilient Marxism. This faction has firm control over most mainline Protestant North American denominations, colleges, and seminaries. Their preaching is cool and reflective and nuanced.

"Let us then go forth brothers and sisters to renew our efforts to establish justice and peace throughout God's creation. For the sake of the greater Gospel and the Christ who was crucified."

2) The other was born around campfires on the mission field and the songs of slavery. Its piety is "warm to hot," expressive, potent, and unpredictable. There is a supernatural vibe to the body language and speech. It is a high-touch world of prayer and laying on of hands. It can be found in storefront churches full of immigrants in any major world city."

These two, writes Housholder repel each of like two poles of a magnet--in some ways they gain identitiy by NOT being like the other and each sees their group as an upgrade over and against the other. They are mutually patronizing. When I (Norma) used to be on Usenet (all text) for a writers group, the Christian groups were the most vicious and snarly so I never joined any of those groups. Liberationist or charismatic or dispensationalist, it made no difference.

The fault line is not whether gays are saved by the work of Jesus Christ (Christians can't work their way to salvation), but whether they can be pastors in committed relationships or can be married in the church. In the good old days of theological splits and snipes, writes Housholder, traditional family morality was upheld by both groups (even as our divorce rates soared). Now that is gone. The Protestant denominations are unraveling. Yours too, in case you aren't there yet, there is a study group or task force planning to take you for a free and painful ride until the crash at the end.

All the king's horses and all the king's men will not be able to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. A community cannot be held together with two sets of rules on the big-ticket issues. There may be more understanding and consensus on the abortion issue than this one which goes to the heart of biblical revelation from Genesis to Revelation.

The grand coalition of North American Protestantism has unraveled, he says. Liberals will retain control of the mainline denominations, Housholder predicts, and the conservatives will either 1) stay and keep quiet, 2) leave the mainline world and join a non-denominational group, or 3) be visionary and creative.

ELCA sexuality report on page 1 of New York Times

Tamar Lewin wrote the article, "Lutherans to decide whether to sanction homosexual unions" which appeared on page A1 and and A13 of the New York Times, a newspaper not known for its religious articles. Of course, that was October 1993; Ms. Lewin reported that the group had been studying the problem for four years, which would take it back to, let's see, 20 years ago, 1989. If you've been following the painful story, where the majority of the members of ELCA was nibbled and sniggled to death by a tiny minority who volunteer for these long battles, you know that the final decision was made this past August.

She also said "The draft statement does not specifically recommend that the church allow homosexual marriage. Instead, it asks the 5.6 million Lutherans, who will be deciding the church's position over the next two years, to consider whether the church should recommend lifelong abstinence for homosexuals, tolerate homosexuality or affirmatively bless unions between people of the same sex . . ." but that it didn't recommend the first choice because that might harm gay and lesbian people and their families. She also said the draft affirmed traditional marriage, which I don't think the later drafts did--not sure they even mentioned male and female, husband and wife.

Lutheran congregations are pulling out and reforming in a variety of organizations--
Word Alone, Lutheran Core and Lutheran Churches in Mission for Christ. Some Lutheran pastors and laypeople caught on very early creating these groups back in the early 90s. Some ALC congregations never joined ELCA back in 1988 merger with LCA and formed a small nationwide synod, and their numbers continue to grow and grow.

So if your church/denomination is going down this road, just get out now. Twenty years of talking, negotiating, compromising, and scripture twisting will get you where ELCA is now, divided and divorcing. The leadership of UALC (Upper Arlington Lutheran Church) has promised we will be leaving ELCA--but, as you can see, these things do take time.

Link to digitized article.

Report on Health care, 1993 edition

The apple cake tasted a bit dry, so I decided to go through my files to see if I could find the source sent to me in 1993 (3 different relatives). Didn't find it. But I did find a letter I'd written in 1993, when I was still a Democrat (but obviously catching on) to "The Lutheran" magazine about health care. It had a special report on Universal Coverage in the December 1993 issue which included 15 ethical values and principles. It reminds me of something I heard this summer from the Catholic priest who lectured at Lakeside on religion and the civil war. He said the churches had split up long before the regions went to war. In my letter I addressed the draft on sexuality (homosexual marriage and gay pastors), so you can see how long that's been dragging on. The ELCA hierarchy split from the people in the pew years ago.

First, I don't have the entire report--I apparently photocopied just enough to attach to my copy of the letter. But here's the gist--the classic leftist, cop-out. . . "Others are dying because we have too much." The specific phrase on p. 32 was, "When we see our brothers and sisters dying on Chicago's South Side due to the lack of prenatal care there's something wrong--because too many of us have too much."

Many Americans, including some minorities, immigrants and native Americans, have cradle to the grave government health care, food stamps, housing allowances and/or public housing and still, nothing is healthier for a baby or assures a climb out of poverty like having a married mother and father. (And first they have to make it through the birth canal, something the liberals don't necessarily support if it's an inconvenient truth.) Married parents--you would think that would be a natural for a church magazine to point out--it's a big deal in both the Old and New Testaments. Its imagery is the foundation of God's relationship with Israel, and Christ's relationship with the church. But no. More government reassignment of wealth is their plan. "The resources are available here--they just have to be redistributed. And we have to distribute them justly. . . Justice in the deepest most fundamental biblical sense refers to balanced relationships. Relationships between individuals, between individuals and community, between individuals an communities and their God. That's what I see in health-care reform. It's an attempt to do justice, to balance the relationships."

Now, I have no idea who Laurence O'Connell is (or was), but he was obviously reading Saul Alinsky, not the Bible, because there's nothing in the Bible about the government taking from one and giving to another and renaming it justice. Here's my letter, November 28, 1993.

With the coverage given the disastrous sexuality draft in the December 1993 issue, it would be easy to overlook an equally suspect document--the Health Care 15 values and principles published on p. 31-34. Instead of placing personal responsibility for good health as the first principle, the task force put it as number 13. We would not have a need for such a document or billions spent on health care if it were not for abuse of alcohol, cigarettes, food and sexual behavior. Once those health problems, all of which are personally manageable, are set aside, we can afford the rest with pocket change.

How can Laurence O'Connell decide it is ethical for me to pay the social and economic costs of someone else's abortion, drunk driving, obesity, STDs, or even failure to floss? Where are the Judeo-Christian values and traditions to back up rights with no responsibilities? He needs to study American religious history and see that it was the strength of the moral values of the Methodists, Baptists, Pentecostals and Presbyterians that pulled people out of poverty and degradation and cleaned them up, educated and sanitized them and pushed them into the middle-class (where they have forgotten that it wasn't government programs that got them there).

Where is the justice in "redistributing" our resources? Hasn't socialism, which is what "redistribution" and "communal sharing of risks" means, shown itself to be a complete failure in Eastern Europe and the USSR in the past 80 years? Would O'Connell ever want to have a blood transfusion in a Russian hospital? O'Connell claims the 15 principles "resonate" with the Christian message (p. 32) I didn't hear a single jingle, clink or tone that sounded like the Gospel."

Note, the reason I didn't include Lutherans in my list of which religious groups pushed people into the middle class is that I was referring to the various "great awakenings" or revivals that swept the United States in the 18th and 19th centuries. For the most part, Lutherans stayed within their ethnic communities and just helped each other. I'm not a cradle Lutheran, but I don't recall them being a part of those revivals.

Hispanic Pastors respond to ELCA Sexuality statement

"We have received with profound sadness the ELCA Churchwide Assembly decision of passing a Social Statement on Human Sexuality which significantly changes the historical teaching and practice of the Church on Sexuality. We have also read with great disappointment and grave concern the changing of our ministry standards, allowing non-celibate homosexual pastors, associates in ministry, diaconal ministers, and deaconesses to serve as rostered leaders in the ELCA.

We, Hispanic ELCA rostered leaders of the Florida-Bahamas Synod, REPUDIATE these new policies, declaring them to be incompatible with Christian teaching, the tradition of the Christian Church, and our consciences. As Martin Luther did in his own day, we reject the idea that ANY human being, prelate, council, or Assembly, can rightfully vote to invalidate the teachings of Holy Scripture.

It is clear to us that the ELCA has decided to stop recognizing the Authority of the Bible, presenting a different and diluted Gospel not in accordance with the teaching of the Scriptures (Galatians 1:6-10). Therefore, we RENOUNCE the decision of the Churchwide Assembly and will continue to uphold the clear Biblical standards for marriage, family, and sexuality."

From the CORE website

If you haven't been following this painful, long drawn out battle, read "How the ELCA Left the Great Tradition for Liberal Protestantism" at Christianity Today.

Right before the vote on the Social Statement a totally unexpected tornado hit the Minneapolis Conference Center where we were meeting as well as the huge Central Lutheran Church next door, knocking the cross off one of its towers. Orthodox voting members saw the work of God in the tornado's cross-toppling effects and in the vote that passed with a .666 majority. Revisionists noted that the sun came out after the vote. In response the orthodox quipped that the sun comes out almost every day, but rogue tornados are pretty rare!

UALC: it’s time to go

For years our huge, evangelical congregation in suburban Columbus with 3 locations and 9 services on Sunday and many ministries has been told we would leave if this happened. Let’s see if promises are kept. In April 2008 I wrote about the "Social Statement on Human Sexuality" at Digging for the Pony.

This ELCA draft does violence to our English language--verbal abuse, noun abuse, adverb abuse and adjective abuse, to say nothing of abusing our Christian faith. It is Scripture twisting and gymnastics! This draft criticizes "Lutheran historical teachings concerning homosexuality" with no footnotes (Book of Concord? Luther? Lutheran Brethren? Missouri-Synod Lutheran? Wisconsin Synod? the old ALC?). It does not analyze or reference any teaching, research or biblical criticism by known Christian homosexuals, theologians or Lutheran pastors who promote ordination and marriage for gays. It does find space to comment on and condemn children's clothing, playground bullying, consumerism, date rape, dangers of the internet, early sex education, grandparents raising grandchildren and inappropriate touching of female pastors. If you throw in the kitchen sink maybe no one will notice there is no Biblical foundation?

I checked the website today, and found out the temperature in Columbus is 63, but didn't see anything about this issue. Nor did I really expect to. ELCA (our synod) has been spiritually wandering in the wilderness and losing members ever since it was created in 1988 out of a liberal and a moderate synod whose ethnic differences had blurred over the years.

From Episcopal Life online: The 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) on August 21 approved opening the ministry of the church to pastors and other professional workers living in committed same-gender relationships.

The resolution passed by a vote of 559 to 451 and overturns previous church policy that prohibited participation of gays and lesbians in church ministries unless they were celibate.

Discussions about human sexuality have dominated the August 17-23 assembly in Minneapolis, the chief legislative authority of the 4.6 million-member denomination. More than half, or about 1,045, of the 2,000 participants are voting members at the gathering, themed "God's work. Our hands."

The assembly also approved a resolution committing the church to find ways for congregations that choose to do so to "recognize, support and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships." It did not use the word "marriage." It also approved, by a vote of 771-230, a resolution committing the church to respect the differences of opinions on the matter and honor the "bound consciences" of those who disagree.

In 2008 I concluded with, "I don't know what our congregation (UALC) is waiting for--it took this sexuality task force seven years to write a mish-mash and hodge podge and submit it to the people of God as a serious work. Every paragraph looks like the sentences were drawn from a hat of former reports and pasted to a page. It is an insult to our common sense and a travesty of our faith. It's time to go. It really is. These people will not back down; they'll just wear us out."