Why I'm moving to Missouri

ELCA Receives 3 Lesbian Ministers

All my life I've been a Lutheran. I'm the granddaughter of a Lutheran pastor. Grandpa was ordained in the Augustana synod. When he retired he was with the ALC. (For you non-Lutheran's out there, I won't try to explain all the different synods and their histories. It's a bit confusing for me too. My home congregation was LCA. When I was in college there was a merger of 3 synods, the LCA, the ALC, and one other that I had never heard of at the time and still can't remember. If anyone reading this is a former member of this synod, mea culpa.

When Grandpa passed away, he was serving an LCMS congregation in a small town not too far from here. That's is very unusual. The LCMS is very particular with whom it will have table fellowship. Even though I'm a Lutheran and agree with the doctrine surrounding Communion, I can not take Communion in the church we're attending. But this little church was too small to afford a full-time pastor but too stubborn to give up trying to get one. The pastors in the circuit had known my grandfather for many, many years and knew him well enough to know that this little congregation would be in good hands.

I love being a Lutheran.

But I can no longer be a member of the ELCA. It no longer holds to the Truth. It picks and chooses which parts of Scripture are to be trusted and which ones weren't really intended for this day and age. How arrogant! Do you really want to be the one to decide which parts of God's Word are intended for us and which aren't? Do you really want to be the one who has to stand before God someday and account for this extreme arrogance? I certainly do not.

The Scripture is very clear on the qualifications for leaders in the church. Due to the choices made by people living the homosexual lifestyle, they can not meet those qualifications. There are many heterosexuals who also fail to meet those qualifications, so there is NO discrimination against homosexuals.

In the day of discrimination lawsuits and quotas, it's often too easy to forget that the job of pastor isn't one that you can choose for yourself. You do not look at the list of jobs out there and decide that you want to apply for that one. It's not even a matter of completing the coursework for graduation. As far as I know just about anyone can take the courses required, calling or not. However, you must be called into this job. I don't just mean the congregation issuing a call for a pastor...GOD must call you. If He doesn't, then it doesn't matter what minority you belong to or if you're the biggest contributor the ACLU has ever seen. You're not qualified to be a pastor.

In my pre-marriage and pre-children days I was on a change team for racism. I learned a lot and I formed lots of opinions. Most of them are unchanged. I absolutely believe that in the world, everyone has the right to train and apply for any job they want. Gender, color, religion, sexual orientation don't matter. I personally don't care if there are gays and lesbians in the military or not. As long as everyone is held to the same standard of performance and behavior as everyone else, they should be able to have whatever job they want. Just as it is wrong to withhold a job from someone for any of the above reasons, it's just as wrong to give someone a job for the same reasons.

But in the church there's a higher standard involved than some equal rights amendment. The amendment does NOT apply here. Gay and lesbian rights do not apply here. Women's rights do not apply here. No one's rights apply here. God is the only One who is Right. Get it?