An Interesting Exchange

I had an interesting exchange this week with a Lutheran pastor friend regarding faith. I asked my friend about a Lutheran Church which is clearly out of the mainstream. The church is Ebenezer Lutheran Church in San Francisco. www.herchurch.org. This church is heavily influenced by feminist theology as well as alternate lifestyles. The church talks about God/dess and uses a goddess rosary. The goddess rosary has a silver goddess icon in place of the traditional cross . I stumbled on the website as I was reading other blogs.

I shouldn't be wasting time and energy on this church, but what was distressing to me was the response from my Lutheran pastor friend. His initial response was that there is room for all kinds of Christians in the Lutheran Church. I am in agreement on that. However, it took several emails before he admitted he was not very comfortable with the church and that the Lutheran Church which I am a member 0f (Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod) is 'judgmental with their orthodox theology' which excludes women from full participation in the church. By that I think he means that the LCMS doesn't ordain women. If you are familiar with the Lutheran Church than you'll guess that my friend is a pastor at an ELCA church.

Depending on how you handle the authority of Scripture you can come to different conclusions. So I am happy to be a member of a Lutheran church which follows orthodox theology. It's very plain for me: The Bible IS the Word of God and God didn't make mistakes. For my pastor friend, the Bible CONTAINS the Word of God which then puts him in the position of having to decide what part did God write and what is a mistake -- what is believable and what is impossible. Did God create the universe or did man come from apes or was Noah just a great story or was Mary really a virgin or did Jesus really rise from dead? How do you choose?

Stop and consider what it means to question the Bible!