Jane : I think it’s hilarious and awesome! . . . I’m a member of the ELCA and fully support practicing gay clergy- and I believe that whether parody was written with a mean spirit or not it was done well, and that deserves credit. Also- it (in a catchy way) presented your valid concerns about our church’s beliefs. Even though I disagree with you on those points, you deserve credit for actually providing reasoning with your argument. . . . I think your feelings are quite obvious without actually having to spell them out in essay form. . . . So while I do not agree with your position, I have to give you credit for creating an amazing parody with as much substance as a full length article! Jane

Thank you, Jane! Yours is the most perceptive comment I’ve seen yet on understanding the purpose of a parody–and it comes from someone who disagrees with my views! But you really “get it” as far as how satire works.

Jane

Kiki, regarding contradictions, consider the following from C.F.W. Walther’s Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel. This is a great treasure we Lutheran-Christians (no, all Christians) have. Before reading and understanding this, in my teenage and early college years, I often wrestled with ‘seeming contradictions’. No longer, or, not as much. Thanks Walther.

Walther writes:
“Comparing Holy Scriptures with other writings, we observe that no book is apparently so full of contradictions as the Bible, and that, not only in minor points, but in the principal matter, in the doctrine how we may come to God and be saved. In one place the Bible offers forgiveness to all sinners; in another place forgiveness of sins is withheld from all sinners. In one passage a free offer of life everlasting is made to all men; in another, men are directed to do something themselves towards being saved. This riddle is solved when we reflect that there are two entirely different doctrines, the doctrine of the Law and the doctrine of the Gospel.”

Regarding your comments about ‘Love’ and ‘Love wins’. It is love and it is loving to show a sinner his sin, so that the law might work, before the gospel and forgiveness is offered. It is not love, and not loving, to comfort and make secure a sinner, in his sin by white-washing the sin by saying that ‘love’ overrules rules, as you say. Where does that end? Why only apply this to the sexual sins? Isn’t it also unloving to tell me that I am sinning in other ways too? In all the various ways that I break the commandments. I’m sure one could white-wash many other sins in this way, too, ‘in the name of Love’.

That is true. And all of Scripture teaches justification by faith. There is no promise of salvation apart from faith in Christ.

To err in favor of love over rules is what Jesus did.

What Jesus did is to teach that men should repent, believe in him, and be saved–as he does in the very passage you quoted:

“These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

To come to Jesus–i.e., faith–is to have life. To refuse to come to Jesus–i.e., unbelief–is to not have life.

Yea, my question exactly. If all of Scripture is inerrant and holds the same weight, then you have a problem, because it contradicts itself. That’s why it is necessary to interpret all of scripture in light of all of scripture…and that is why I say that in the end, Love wins.
To err in favor of love over rules is what Jesus did. And what the ELCA is doing as well.

But then that’s what you go ahead and do. You can’t have it both ways, Kiki.

Also, “prooftexting,” in a pejorative sense, means taking a brief snippet out of context to prove a point. That is not what I have done. The several passages I have quoted have included some extended ones, they are cited according to context, they all say the same thing, and the necessity of faith for salvation is abundantly clear. Really, you could read the entire New Testament and find the same message on every page. Far from “prooftexting.”

We are to worship the One to whom the Bible testifies.

How do you know that? I thought the Bible was just a book, and an unreliable one at that.

“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you posses eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life” John 5: 39-40

This passage you quote actually works against you, Kiki, since in it our Lord teaches the necessity of faith for salvation.

If all scipture is equally inspired and authorative. . . .

So how do you determine which parts, if any, are inspired and authoritative, and which parts aren’t?

I think when it comes down to it. . . .

There is your–and the ELCA’s–problem in a nutshell: Personal opinion over God’s Word.

There are contradictions in the Bible. It is not a rule book to figure out the formula and then package it and keep it unchangeable within a particular church. Christ is the living Word, the One who interacts with us and loves us.

If all scipture is equally inspired and authorative, God is as likely to drown us in a flood as He is to forgive our sins.
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself” Matt 22: 37-39 All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments” Matt 22: 40 That’s powrful language from Jesus. It is all about Love…not rules, not who can be ordained and who isn’t good enough. None of us are. I think when it comes down to it, Love wins. Period.

I don’t know whom you are addressing with that question, Kiki, but in any case it is beside the point. What matters is what God’s Word says, not our own personal opinions about what we think ought to be.

So how do you handle the countless New Testament passages that explicitly teach salvation through faith, a few of which I have cited in comment #70? How do you explain those particular passages?