Monday, September 23, 2024
Saturday, September 21, 2024
Monday, December 18, 2023
Two Practices - one Church, Bishop Juhana Pohjola Speaks in Australia
This is an interview Pastor David Wear and Pastor Heath Pukallus recorded with Reverend Doctor Juhana Pohjola, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Mission Diocese of Finland, and the chair of the International Lutheran Council (ILC) at The Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Hamilton, Victoria, on December 1 2023.
Friday, June 23, 2023
“Queerness as the redemptive message of Christianity”
Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ.
I have received Gene Veith’s permission to forward to the
Parish an article from his blog. See below.
Gene is a convert to the Lutheran Church, who is a retired
English Professor. His daughter is married to Pastor Adam Hensley, one of
the Seminary Lecturers in Australia who had his call terminated and offered a
half call, without any consultation with the Seminary board. He has since
moved to the USA and taken up a teaching role in a Lutheran Church Missouri
Synod (LCMS) seminary.
What is reported below is a picture of what happens when
one no longer sits under the word of God but sits in authority over the word of
God. Where feelings and ideas of humanity are the lens through which
God’s word is examined. This is not new. In the Garden of Eden, the
devil worked on the emotions of humanity asking, “did God really say?”
Ever since then the rights and glory of God has been
usurped by man. Today in the church the sacredness of God is being
replace with the sacredness of the self, which is finding expression in
rejection of authority, put in place by God for good order.
Nevertheless, this authority has been found lacking in the
past, due to sin! But now the pendulum has swung to the polar extreme as
all authority is rejected, God, family (community), and the human body’s own
ordered code.
What has this to do with the Warrnambool Lutheran Parish,
you and me?
Already in the LCANZ anti biblical variety is being
celebrated in its auxiliaries. Same sex relationships and gender
diversity are being publicly supported more and more by our schools and welfare
sectors. As Christians we are called to forgive and care for them, but at
the same time we do not support them as being normal or okay in the eyes of
God.
It may surprise you to know that this is not in the fringes
of the LCANZ, but many you know in the mainstream of the church are openly
supporting these movements.
Some congregations of the LCA are beginning services with a
welcome to country ceremony, encouraging racial sanctification and denying that
creation is God’s gift for all people to care for and share.
Climate change is the new law preached by politicians and
is being welcomed in our denomination.
God tells us in his word that the world will die and
end. Climate change is happening! But its reality is occurring
because of human greed and selfishness. God calls all people to a climate
change of the heart, and not to wantonly pillage creation for profit, nor fix
what he is allowing to perish by forcing others to pay.
We are all students of the age. Individualism leads
us to point the finger at others while permitting ourselves to do the very
thing we are calling others to stop.
In the church the word of God is being used to bash others
over the head and at the same time used to allow us to enforce our own freedoms
and righteousness.
This is what happens when we sit in authority over the word
of God.
But when we sit under the word of God it calls every one of
us to repentance.
Feeling and ideas don’t interpret the word of God, but the
hearts and thoughts of people are interpreted by the word of God.
I can no longer say evil is over there, or if we do the
right thing evil will not exist. But rather, I am capable of evil, it
lives within and therefore I flee to the cross and live under the
forgiveness of God.
Therefore, we need to qualify the direction of love,
“Is God’s love coming to life in the LCANZ, or is my love coming to life
in the LCANZ?”
Or to put it another way, see which way the glory is going,
“Are we glorifying God, or is it coming to us, or someone/thing else?”
Suspicions dealing in the LCANZ, put the church in a
position of being drawn into a situation where our biblical submission will be
undermined and diluted. God calls us not to capitulate to these anti
biblical human ways, nor does he call us to be marauding zealots.
He calls you and me to “stand” on the authority of his
word, and faithfully confess his word as unhidden truth.
Pastor Heath
23/06/2023
Note: Underlined text have links one can click on to see more information.
“Queerness as the redemptive message of Christianity”
June 21 2023 by Gene Veith
We often assume that if we give in just a little, the other side will be satisfied. But it never is, pushing for more and more and more, going to ever greater extremes.
The issue in progressive churches is no longer gay rights, or accepting LGBTQ+ members and pastors, or performing same-sex weddings, or being inclusive of transgendered individuals. Rather, all of this is only preparatory to Queer Theology, according to which Christianity itself is all about homosexuality and transgenderism.
In order to know what is happening in mainline churches and liberal seminaries, you must read Queering Jesus: How It’s Going Mainstream at Progressive Churches and Top Divinity Schools. The article, by John Murawski of RealClearInvestigations, shows just how pervasive “queer theology” has become in these ostensibly Christian circles. Here is an excerpt, with my bolds: