Tuesday, August 25, 2009

ELCA Abandons Biblical Teaching on Homosexuality

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R-71 UPDATE: 100,000 Milestone

The Referendum 71 signature verification process has reached a milestone: Signature checkers have surpassed the 100,000 signature mark .

The cumulative total is now nearly 104,000 checked signatures and just over 12,000 rejected for one reason or another. The overall error rate is 11.72 percent. In order to make the November statewide ballot, the referendum’s overall rejection rate must not go over 12.4 percent.

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ELCA Abandons Biblical Teaching on Homosexuality

The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America has made the decision to lift the ban on sexually active, monogamous homosexuals and lesbians as clergy.

Many Lutheran pastors are expressing shock that their church has made a decision in direct contradiction of biblical teaching.

Rev. Richard Mahan, pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Charleston W. Va., told the Associated Press, "I can't believe the church I loved and served for 40 years can condone what God condemns."

The pastor said, "No where in Scripture does it say homosexuality and same-sex marriage is acceptable to God. Instead, it says it is immoral and perverted."

Clearly there will be a split in the ELCA denomination just as we are seeing in the Episcopal church.

This is the most divisive moral issue of our time.

It is not only tearing apart churches like the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, it is in different and even more divisive ways beginning to tear at the fabric of traditional evangelical churches who once took an active public stand against homosexual legislation.

Voices that once stood for family and marriage and even life itself in the public arena, are now semi-silenced.

I have some deep concerns.

Rather than silencing the lambs, some of the shepherds have been silenced---for a number of reasons.

Clearly there are those who are turning away and denying biblical truth. There are also those who believe that the church should not be involved in the arena of political influence---should not speak to the culture.

And there are those who have concluded that the issues have been lost and we should not waste our resources and energy on them. "The truth is we are dead and a referendum will not accomplish a resurrection," they have said, thus providing a logic not to stand against homosexual marriage.

These are defining days. The enemy is at every hand. We need to hear the leading of God in these matters.

This is a time to pray, asking God to lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.

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Gary Randall
President
Faith & Freedom

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