Fundie Lutheran Pastors (Again)

[DonnaSmith]

The fundy lutherans pastors I linked to a few weeks ago are in the national news. The pastors at that site are the ones that first raised the issue with Pastor Morse in Newtown, CT attending an interfaith event because there would be non-Lutherans there. http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/newt ... l-18430729

 

The pastors site (The Brothers of St John the Steadfast) has a hard-on about all the attn they are getting and have become even bolder. On the site now are a few icky discussions. One is urging congregations to pass a statement saying that women in combat is anti-Biblical. Another is (another) case against birth control. http://steadfastlutherans.org/?p=26743 I particularly like how they ask that nobody mention the 'extreme' cases in comments, because those are distractions.

 

I know Lutherans are typically seen as more liberal- but these dudes aren't part of the majority of Lutherans. About 3/4 of all Lutherans in the US are part of a group/synod called the ELCA. The others are part of two very conservative groups. The larger of those is the LCMS. The LCMS is antigay, anti-choice, will not ordain women, and is generally into 1950s style gender and social roles. In the last 5 years or so there has been a superconservative surge in this already conservative synod. Because of theological differences with fundamentalists, these superconservatives call them self "Confessionals." They go by a different name, but they are as fundy as some of the other ppl we watch. For instance, the quiverful movement has been gaining considerable traction with this group, as evidenced by the Confessional wives' blog http://concordiansisters.blogspot.com/

 

I grew up with these people. Their name makes them look mainstream, but this little subsect is anything but.

 

Donna

[anniebgood]

I was disgusted by the fact that the Lutheran minister (LCMS) had to apologize for giving the benediction at the Newtown memorial. He was called out by the head of the LCMS, who said that it gave the appearance of worshiping with others that do not hold the same beliefs as they do.

I am so glad I am a member of the ELCA. When we went to visit my brother and sister in law we had to get permission from their pastor to go to communion. Funny I never read anything like that in the Small Catechism before I got confirmed.

The other ultra conservative Lutheran synod is the Wisconsin synod. No ordination of women, no women in lay positions such as readers or communion servers. Barefoot and pregnant.

There are more groups out there, but the big 3 are those above. :evil:

[CelticGoddess]

After 9-11, when a lot of Mosques were being vandalized, the LCMS president (at the time) spoke out against the ELCA, and the various Pastors and congregations who reached out to the Muslim's in the community who were affected by the whole thing. My church was one of the targeted churches, because we provided our fellowship hall so that the Muslims in our community had a safe place to pray(the Mosque had been fire bombed). It was at that time that I was told I wasn't a "real Lutheran".

At the time, I thought that they were the "fringe" of the LCMS, or cast offs from WELS. Then I moved to Charleston SC (no longer live there) where there are about 30 ELCA churches, 2 LCMS churches and 1 WELS church in the whole tri-county area. And I found out that No, these people are some serious crazy! The pastor of one of the LCMS churches told my Pastor (a woman) that they could have nothing to do with us because we have sinned most grievously against God by allowing a woman to lead. And of course, the fact that we have full communion agreements with several churches (Episcopal, PC USA, UCC, et al) just makes it ever worse. I mean, unity in Christ's Church, the horror!

Yep, those people are nuts! And judgemental, and hateful and ready to point fingers and unwilling to help when others are in need unless they have the "right" belief. I realize there are nice LCMS members out there (my auntie comes to mind) who don't believe the way the LCMS does, but for the most part, they are getting strange. And more vocal. I have seen it building since 2001.

[meep]

Huh. LCMS is pretty conservative but I don't see the "'50s style gender roles" thing - there are plenty of feminists in it. LCMS is usually middle of the road, politically. WELS is the crazy sect of Lutheranism - they see feminism as a "threat" and against Scripture - and are strictly conservative.

[Sumeri]

Huh. LCMS is pretty conservative but I don't see the "'50s style gender roles" thing - there are plenty of feminists in it. LCMS is usually middle of the road, politically. WELS is the crazy sect of Lutheranism - they see feminism as a "threat" and against Scripture - and are strictly conservative.

Not here. I am ELCA, and have a LCMS church down the street - three houses away from me. For convenience I was thinking of sending my daughter to preschool there when we first moved in and thought, "Ah, it can't be so bad, right?" WRONG. The pastor called me into his office, told me what they believe in regards to women's roles (basically, stay at home, keep sweet), divorce (Our blended family was straight on the path to hell because we were committing adultery), homosexuality (let's see. AIDS! Roving bands of gay men trying to groom my sons for a life of leather bars and rainbow flags!! - my son's godfather is gay, btw, which is how that subject came up. I thought this guy was going to fall over dead from rage).

Also, the earth is 5-6,000 years old and God created the Grand Canyon by taking wee bits of rock out piece by piece and transferring them to the beaches of San Diego. I shit you not.

So yeah, that's my experience with the LCMS. Granted, our town's pastor is cray-cray, totally on par with the above referenced guys, but as a whole I get that vibe from the entire crew.

Interestingly, our church had a split last year due to the ELCA's view on homosexuality, and the half of the congregation that left started their own church because even they couldn't bear to be associated with the LCMS.

[jenny_islander]

I only knew two things about LCMS while growing up in my ELCA congregation in a town with no LCMS church. The first was that my mother had left that denomination as a young woman and had zero contact with the family members still in it. The second was that the leader of our youth group, who happened to be the pastor as well because this was a small congregation, counseled us to treat any LCMS members we might happen to meet as "the weaker brother."

These were just random factoids when I was growing up. I have the context for them now. Jesus wept, do I ever.

[DifferentGurl]

Huh. LCMS is pretty conservative but I don't see the "'50s style gender roles" thing - there are plenty of feminists in it. LCMS is usually middle of the road, politically. WELS is the crazy sect of Lutheranism - they see feminism as a "threat" and against Scripture - and are strictly conservative.

Believe me, I know this personally. For four years, my family and I went to a WELS church. My parents even had the vows renewed there.

We mainly went there because of the grade school. The public school system in my town was quite hesitant to let me be included in the regular classroom full time. I have autism and when I was in the public school system, I would spend part time in the special needs class and part time in the regular classroom. I was shown that I was capable of learning at the same level as my peers, but the public school still wanted me to be in the special needs classroom. The grade school at the WELS church, on the other hand, was willing to let me be included in the regular classroom. In fact, in the WELS magazine even did an article in their magazine about inclusion in the WELS church system.

Then the fourth grade happened and my parents saw the dark side of the church. The most of the good teachers and pasters had left and the bad ones stayed. When I told my mom about what my fourth grade teacher was like in the classroom ( to put it politely, she was mean ), she spoke up and tried to get the church to do something about the teacher. The church didn't listen. In fact they wanted to to kick my family out because of how outspoken she was being. When the churchmembers came into the parking lot to pray for my mom ( by pray, I mean they prayed that the church council members would listen to my mom. They didn't pray that my mom would become a subservant woman and stop speaking out ), the pastor was angry at them for being there and praying for my mom. Naturally, my family left the church.

As for the feminism and "conservative" thing, some were more fundie than others. My sister knows of this one girl who goes to the public highschool ( not the private high school connected to the church...which was expensive and far away from town ) who is described by my sister as being a "whore". Several of my classmates went to the town's public highschool and led "normal lives". After my mom spoke out, a few of the families left the church.

But the church council members did not allow women to be on the council ( even though the school's teachers were mostly women! ). My friend's father once told her that she was allowed to only be three things: a teacher, a nurse, or a homemaker. My mom heard one of the two pastor say ( no, order ) to his wife "Sit!". So yea, I agree that they think feminism is "evil".

Then there was the usual church abuse stuff. Mean pastor that tried to "help" an ADHD boy by having him kneel in front of him and apologize for being ADHD ( or something like that ). A teacher with anger issues ( he's still around by the way ). My mean fourth grade teacher ( had the police called to the school several times because of her ) . My sister's mean kindergarden teacher. A school council member that came to my mom's meeting drunk ( he was so lucky that my grandpa - who was there to support my mom - didn't strange him ).

So, that's my two cents....How about them Packers? :whistle:

[darareaksmey]

I can remember a woman ELCA pastor we had years ago, talking wistfully about how one of her prayers was that LCMS and WELC women who, like herself, felt a calling to preach, could someday be ordained.

[twin2]

Huh. LCMS is pretty conservative but I don't see the "'50s style gender roles" thing - there are plenty of feminists in it. LCMS is usually middle of the road, politically. WELS is the crazy sect of Lutheranism - they see feminism as a "threat" and against Scripture - and are strictly conservative.

Yep WELS is way out there. There were a lot of them where I grew up. My friend belonged to a WELS church. When her father died, in lieu of flowers they took up a memorial for the church. However, women folk are not allowed to speak a church meetings, so her and her mother, who were both members of the church were unable to go in front of the church board and tell them what they wanted the memorial to go to. Instead, her older brother, who wasn't even a member of that church, had to go to the meeting instead.

I also knew of people who got kicked out of their church for co-habitation in the absence of a marriage licenses. In both cases they were actually ratted out to the pastor by members of their church.

[MamaJunebug]

I'm nominally a member of an LCMS-member congregation, though I consider myself a Luutheran -- Unitarian-Universalist core still grateful for the Lutheran values of scholarship and respect, Gospel and Law, a God of love, with which I was raised.

That explained, I can't hate on the LCMS for their response to the pastor. It's their policy, he knew that, he knew he'd get called out for participating at Newown, he did it anyway.

It's kind of like if I were to make a sock puppet account on FJ in violation of what I know is an FJ rule, then if Curious were to ban me and if I were to complain that I'd been banned because I violated a rule that plainly stated that sock puppet creators would be banned.

FWIW, I don't believe it's wrong to pray with others, as the LCMS doctrine states. But if the pastor wants to remain a Lutheran pastor unbothered by TPTB of LCMS, either he needs to change his membership to ELCA or he needs to follow LCMS practice.

[E Street Fan]

The CLC Lutherans can make the Missouri Synods look almost mainstream. There is a CLC Lutheran on another message board I read, and she's quite frightening.

My grandparents were devout ELCAs. Most of the ELCAs I've met were fairly open-minded; not so for Missouri Synods, although there is a MS church near me that has an amazing outreach program. I used to arrange donations to them (goods, not cash) when I worked for the Big Blue Box. I've never met any Wisconsin Synods.

ETA: My grandparents' last church had a divorced woman pastor. Some of their MS relatives weren't happy about that.

[NurseNell]

I was disgusted by the fact that the Lutheran minister (LCMS) had to apologize for giving the benediction at the Newtown memorial. He was called out by the head of the LCMS, who said that it gave the appearance of worshiping with others that do not hold the same beliefs as they do.

I am so glad I am a member of the ELCA. When we went to visit my brother and sister in law we had to get permission from their pastor to go to communion. Funny I never read anything like that in the Small Catechism before I got confirmed.

The other ultra conservative Lutheran synod is the Wisconsin synod. No ordination of women, no women in lay positions such as readers or communion servers. Barefoot and pregnant.

There are more groups out there, but the big 3 are those above. :evil:

In my small WI town there are 3 Lutheran churches: ELCA, LSMS, and the WI Synod. There is one large Catholic church, a Methodist church, a very small Baptist church, a tiny Episcopal church, and one river of life or some such new Protestant church.The hospital and medical clinic are Catholic. But primarily you are Lutheran or Catholic. Almost every family has both Lutherans and Catholics in it, including my own. The WI synod pastor is married to a Catholic. My Catholic granddaughter goes to WI Synod Bible School, at the end of which is a musical church service we all attend, held outside along the river. My son-in-law is a MO Synod Lutheran, my daughter Catholic. My Catholic son's godfather is a MO Synod pastor. The Catholic church is larger than the other churches so whenever there is a need for a community wide memorial it is held at the Catholic Church, and presided over by all the pastors. If a Lutheran funeral is real large the after service meal is often at the Catholic hall. All the pastors get along with each other as do the parishioners. I wonder why it can't be that way everywhere?

[anniebgood]

Nell, because in Wisconsin, especially that area, people have learned to get along. In Weston, outside of Wausau there is a new MoSynod church that has over 3000 members and a lot of them are ex ELCA. If they can work alongside other churches and keep the Synod out of it, they can succeed.

I can only imagine what people must think of a church that penalized a pastor, whose parishioner was one of the murdered children, for mourning alongside others.

[Eoywin]

I grew up in a LCMS church and I've seen some LCMS that lean towards the middle and others that are more conservative.

But I'm currently (and forever) ELCA because when I was younger, I considered becoming a pastor. And I honestly might follow that calling at some point in the future. But only in ELCA can women be pastors, for Lutherans anyway.

I also want my daughter to see that women can be church leaders as well. A woman baptized her and we currently have a female vicar. It's funny, years ago when I was still LCMS there was a pastor shortage. I wondered why they wouldn't ordain females because that would help clear up the shortage.

[Shaz]

I have to delurk for this conversation. I attended an LCMS college on a scholarship that included a morals clause. I was in a same-sex relationship for my last seven semesters. It was a hard four years.

The baseball team would get an old car every year before the first game, spray paint it with their first opponent of the season's colors, and then beat the car to death with baseball bats. It was a terrifying tradition and I preferred to stay in my dorm room with the doors locked that night. Lots of my classmates were nice, but I really do agree with the 1950s throwback comments.

[Savoring Samsara]

I have to delurk for this conversation. I attended an LCMS college on a scholarship that included a morals clause. I was in a same-sex relationship for my last seven semesters. It was a hard four years.

I suspect you and I have a connection to the same institution, broadly speaking. I resigned from a teaching job I loved at an LCMS college because I just couldn't stomach this sort of stuff anymore. The last straw was the firing of an employee of 10+ years for the sin of being openly gay. So, yeah, they are certainly not as conservative as WELS, but they are far from progressive.