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It’s sad news from our friends over in the ELCA. You know what I’m talking about, the ELCA’s vote last Friday to include practicing homosexuals on their roster of pastors. The ELCA has officially gone on the record as saying that while adultery and fornication are against God’s laws, homosexual activity is good and right and should be encouraged, even though the Bible prohibits it and calls it an abomination.

They have put their human laws over God’s laws.

I have been reading today the reactions from quite a number of Lutherans in the ELCA. Those who are for the change are rejoicing, of course. Those who want to remain faithful the God and His Word are mourning the church they love, knowing that it is no more. What is more, the mourning is happening in the other faithful churches as well. Christians all over the US and around the world are saddened and in mourning because the ELCA has decided to turn its back on God and go their own way, the way which seems right to some people, but which in the end will only bring them destruction.

While the liberals who support the decision are begging their fellow Lutherans to stay and continue the “dialog”, what I have seen is that a great many of them have decided this is the last straw, and they will be leaving the ELCA. It will be almost impossible for the liberals to staunch the bleeding from the great wound they have opened up in their church. The Lutherans are no strangers to church splits, and I expect that this is going to look like the Episcopal Church fiasco in very short order; that is, if the Lutherans believe what they had is still worth fighting for.

But many ELCA Lutherans are from here in fly-over country. Many are Norwegians, Swedes, and Germans from right around here. It wouldn’t surprise me in the least if they just get up out of their pews and quietly leave the denomination.

Either way, the ELCA of the future is going to be very different from the way it appeared in recent years, I think. It will be smaller because great hunks of the church will split from it and either join other synods or form their own synod; or it will be smaller because great numbers of its members will quietly leave for other, more faithful churches.

Either way, it will be smaller. And the liberal leadership will soon be trying to figure out what to do with all those empty churches.

(Oh, one final note: all you faithful Lutherans who are looking for a home, we could surely use your faithfulness in the UMC! We’re a bit different from you theologically, but we would welcome you as brothers and sisters in Christ, and stand together with you against those who would liberalize the Church.)