Rick Steves and his new bishop girlfriend are emblematic of what's gone wrong with Tim Walz' Lutheran denomination and with politics in the Pacific Northwest

 Rick is a board member on the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

NORML, get it?

He identifies with liberalism and progressivism.

His Wikipedia entry says he divorced his wife in 2010 and is a fan of liberation theology lol, a 1971 invention of the recently deceased Gustavo Gutiérrez, a Peruvian Catholic Theologian.

LINO. Lutheran in name only.

This is most certainly true about the tattoo

 

Minnesota Lutherans are a forgiving lot

But in 2006, his campaign repeatedly told the press that he had not been drinking that night, claiming that his failed field sobriety test was due to a misunderstanding related to hearing loss from his time in the National Guard. The campaign also claimed that Walz was allowed to drive himself to jail that night. 

-- https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/15/politics/tim-walz-2006-campaign-falsely-described-dwi-kfile/index.html

Walz repeatedly saying that he retired with a rank he achieved but did not retire with ...

Walz nodded in agreement at that statement -- despite the fact that, according to military records and his own admission, he had never served in Afghanistan. ...

Walz appears to have been aware prior to his retirement that his unit was under consideration for deployment. ...

However Walz did not remain in the role long enough to keep the title in retirement. Still, Walz repeatedly referred to himself as a "retired command sergeant major" for years.

 

-- https://abcnews.go.com/US/walz-previously-faced-criticism-characterized-military-service-records/story?id=112833386 

Lefty ELCA Lutheran Tim Walz in 2018 promised a moderate "One Minnesota" governorship, instead gave them a culture war good and hard

 

 Walz won the governor’s mansion in 2018. But rather than sticking to the moderate “One Minnesota” approach that he promised on the campaign trail and that characterized his time in the House of Representatives, Walz’s priority has been “more of a war on our culture,” Johnson said.

Johnson, an advocate for a Christian nonprofit, pointed to a host of progressive policies his administration enacted: signing a law that makes abortion a right in the state at any point in a pregnancy, legalizing marijuana, giving driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, and making the state a “refuge” for those seeking gender transitions.

His COVID-19 era policies also earned chagrin from conservatives as he restricted church gatherings and set up a hotline for people to report those who breached social distancing policies. ...

While the denomination is progressive, the politics in the pews of ECLA churches present a more mixed picture. In 2020, a slight majority of ECLA Lutherans voted for Trump, noted researcher Ryan Burge.

Among the ECLA, around 43 percent identified as or leaned Republican, and 47 percent identified as or leaned Democrat, Pew found. Around 24 percent identified as liberal, 41 percent as moderate, and 32 percent as conservative. 

The LCMS, meanwhile, identified as or leaned Republican by nearly 60 percent, with 27 percent identifying as or leaning Democrat. A much higher percentage (52%) identified as conservative, compared to only 33 percent as moderate and 10 percent as liberal. ...

“The whole way he’s being presented to us is that he’s just a moderate country boy from Minnesota,” Seltz said. “He’s a very, very progressive, very, very left-wing governor.”

-- From Christianity Today, "Walz’s Brand Is More Left than Lutheran Among Minnesota Evangelicals"

I didn't leave Lutheranism, Lutheranism left me

 

Queer Jesus has gone "mainstream" because 13.7 million sane people have already left the formerly mainstream churches

Queer Jesus Goes Mainstream at Churches, Divinity Schools

John Murawski, RCI

 

United Church of Christ membership is down 64% to 0.8 million from 2.2 million. The queer-affirming church performs nuptials for polyamorists where multiple partners marry each other.

United Methodist Church membership is down 47% to 5.7 million from 10.7 million. The church aims to be the first to ordain a drag queen.

Presbyterian Church USA membership is down 74% to 1.1 million from 4.25 million. In Iowa they worship the god of trans being, the great they/them.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America membership is down 42% to 3 million from 5.2 million. It elected a transgender bishop two years ago.

The Episcopal Church in the United States is down 53% to 1.7 million from 3.6 million. It has a priest who maintains that promiscuous people are simply being hospitable. The real sinner at Sodom was Lot, who refused the hospitality of the rapists trying to break down his door.

There's nothing mainstream about the 12 million still left in these churches.

Millions of Americans have fled into non-denominational Protestantism. And there are at least 30 million Baptists of one kind or another, while Roman Catholics number 70 million.

The USA has 210 million nominally Christian people. But Africa has 685 million. Latin America about 601 million. Europe 571 million.

America is fast on the road to becoming a Christian backwater. The main show is elsewhere.

No one blamed Dylann Roof's race-war shooting on the "moderate" Christianity of ELCA-style Lutheranism?

So says an ELCA vicar from New York here:

Not pretending also means being honest about what is happening inside our churches. When Dylann Roof, a member of an ELCA congregation, murdered nine people at a historically black church last year, there were no talking heads asking moderate Christians to condemn the shooting, no protestors denouncing Christianity as anti-American. Not pretending means more than speaking out against the unfair treatment of others. It means holding ourselves to account, even when no one else will. It means not just speaking out against injustice in the world but also being honest about the racism and xenophobia in our own congregations. It means acknowledging that the brokenness of the world includes the church.

---------------------------------

How can anyone expect ELCA Lutherans to be honest about racism in their congregations when they can't even be honest about what kind of Christians they are?

Moderates?

They are liberals, and have been forever.

Why is it that liberals can't call themselves what they are?

The honesty ought to start there . . . good luck with that.

ELCA: Not Evangelical, Not Lutheran, Not A Church

Just "in America".

So says Southern Baptist Al Mohler, noted here 6 June 2013:

Southern Baptist Theological Seminary President Albert Mohler says the nation’s largest Lutheran body is “not a church.” He says the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America only lives up to a quarter of its name, citing the Southwest California Synod’s election of the first openly gay bishop in the denomination. “It is by this act and by many prior acts distancing itself by light years from the actual faith and conviction of Martin Luther,” Mohler said in a Monday podcast. It has “demonstrated itself to be neither Evangelical nor Lutheran and, as G.K. Chesterton might say, not a church either. That just leaves them in America.”

Mohler contrasted the ELCA with the nation’s second largest Lutheran body, the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod, and citing its strict enforcement of historic confessional statements.

Based on the politics of many in the membership, however, even the "in America" is in doubt.

(this post has been updated, repairing a dead link)

ELCA Lutherans Lose Nearly 500K Members After Allowing Faggots In Pulpits

The story is summarized here, which points out the data is post-2009 but does not yet include statistics for 2012:

In 2009, the ELCA lost 90,850 members (14,781 more than the year previous). Keep in mind that Churchwide Assembly [allowing ordination of homosexuals and lesbians] happened late in 2009. By 2010, the membership losses were more dramatic, with the ELCA losing 270,349 people that year (5.9% of the entire church at that time). In 2011, they lost another 212,903 (4.98% of the entire church at that time). Statistics on 2012 are not yet reported online.

--------------------------

And the LORD spake unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, "Separate yourselves from among this congregation, that I may consume them in a moment."

-- Numbers 16:20f.

5 Million Ethiopian Lutherans Split From ELCA Over Faggotry

The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Makane Yesus has split from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and from the Church of Sweden because the latter two perform gay "marriages" and allow openly gay people to serve as pastors.

From the EECMY website:

It is recalled, earlier in 2006, two of the major partners of the EECMY, namely the Church of Sweden and later, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, passed decisions that favor Homosexual practices and blessing of same sex marriage. The EECMY noted this as a surprise and immediately reacted against and earnestly requested for reconsideration of their decisions. To the contrary, these two Churches, going further, resolved to legalize same sex marriage and calling of gay persons into ordained ministry.

Read all about it, here, where you will note the move prohibits reception of Holy Communion from ELCA/Church of Sweden altars and distribution of Holy Communion to ELCA/Church of Sweden members at EECMY altars:

Even more painfully: members of the church “will not receive Holy Communion from the leadership and pastors of the (ELCA and the Church of Sweden). The Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus will not distribute communion to these churches.”

The move makes the Ethiopians a larger denomination than the ELCA.

Who knew the Ethiopians were from Missouri?

The Cost Of Discipleship Is The Same For Rich And Poor Alike

Everything.

It is a conceit of the poor that the rich have too much and will incur God's judgment for it when the little they themselves have also stands between them and the Kingdom of God.

"So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple."

-- Luke 14:33

Your Pastor Could Be a Fudgepacker if . . .

. . . "he" is from the Presbyterian Church USA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the United Church of Christ, or the Episcopal Church.

Of course, she could be a rugmuncher, on the other hand.

The PCUSA voted Tuesday to allow gay ordinations, according to the story (here) from Reuters, which states that in the last five years about only 100 congregations have separated from the 11,000 strong denomination over the issue.

The only upside is it's getting easier and easier to eliminate the choices from the Sunday menu.

"Getting saved" is quickly being re-defined as escaping from liberal Protestantism.

Barely 3.2% of ELCA Congregations Vote to Separate Over Gay Clergy

Roughly 335 out of over 10,000 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America congregations are prepared to leave the denomination over the church's decision to allow practicing homosexuals to serve as pastors, according to this story.

Which tells you that the largest Lutheran body in America today doesn't really believe in one of its signature issues: sola scriptura.

Cold comfort to those who have rightly maintained that this Lutheran church left them long ago.