I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that Christians are under attack in the United States. If we just look at the issue of homosexuality, we see wayward denominations, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, attempting to force their members to participate in defying God over the issue of homosexuality. Politically, Christians in the United States are constantly being faced with pressure to approve of homosexuality and homosexual marriage. How should we respond to these attacks?

Well-known pastor, John Piper, had this to say to the Christian community:

“. . . it would contradict love and contradict the gospel of Jesus to approve homosexual practice, whether by silence, or by endorsing so-called same-sex marriage, or by affirming the Christian ordination of practicing homosexuals.”

Pastor Piper continues, “We must not be intimidated here. The world is going to say the opposite of what is true here. They are going to say that warning people who practice homosexuality about final judgment is hateful. It is not hateful. Hate does not want people to be saved. Hate does not want people to join the family. Hate wants to destroy. And sin does destroy. If homosexual practice (and greed and idolatry and reviling and drunkenness) leads to exclusion from the kingdom of God — as the word of God says it does — then love warns. Love pleads. Love comes alongside and does all it can to help a person live — forever.” (read here)

Love calls people to turn from sin. Hate encourages people to indulge in sin. We, as God-fearing followers of Christ, must stand up for Truth despite attacks. Scripture warns us:

When I say to a wicked man, ’You will surely die,’ and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.

But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.

“Again, when a righteous man turns from his righteousness and does evil, and I put a stumbling block before him, he will die. Since you did not warn him, he will die for his sin. The righteous things he did will not be remembered, and I will hold you accountable for his blood.

But if you do warn the righteous man not to sin and he does not sin, he will surely live because he took warning, and you will have saved yourself.” Ezekiel 3:18-21

Church leaders, and specifically the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s leadership, are in danger. They are not warning people to turn from wickedness;, in fact, they are encouraging people to continue in it.

We, as followers of Christ, need to warn people of their wickedness so they may live. And we need to warn the ELCA’s leadership that they are risking the salvation of many who need to know the saving grace of Jesus by preventing people from knowing the reality of the consequence of our sin.

Exposing the ELCA, I pray, is doing this, just as many of you are.

So let’s be faithful to God no matter what opposition we run into. Help pull people from the fire of hell and bring them to eternal salvation through a saving relationship with Jesus. If you have left the ELCA because of their departure from Scripture, continue seeking to help those that are still in the ELCA realize what is going on. Our fight is not over.

Your brother In Christ,

Dan Skogen