Why Was The LCMS Unprepared For Election of A Gay Episcopal Bishop?

By: Rev. Jack Cascione
Instead of "How Great Thou Art," the Episcopal Church is now singing, "How
Gay We Are."  Their lay people are proud to be Americans but ashamed to be
Episcopalians.

The Missouri Synod President and District Presidents have known for many
years that the leaders of the Episcopal Church and Evangelical Lutheran
Church are sexual deviates and/or openly promote sexual promiscuity and
homosexuality.

Where is the article in just one issue of the Lutheran Witness or Reporter
that warns anyone in the LCMS about these facts?  Now, after the entire
country has been made aware of this reality by the public press, LCMS
President Kieschnick writes as follows on August 7, 2003:

"As President of The Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod, I am profoundly
saddened and deeply disturbed by the decision of the Episcopal Church U.S.A.
to give its approval to the election of an openly homosexual bishop."

The ELCA is in communion fellowship with the Episcopal Church and is
preparing to vote on the acceptance of homosexual pastors.

The following statement was issued from a gathering of 40,000 ELCA Youth in
Atlanta on July 28, 2003: "Delegates also adopted a resolution supporting
the blessing of 'same-sex unions' and the ordination of 'non-celibate
individuals' of 'all sexual orientations' in 'committed relationships.'"

Many LCMS District Presidents advocate that LCMS congregations serve
communion to members of the ELCA and help congregations remove pastors who
will not serve communion to members of the ELCA.

At the 1998 LCMS Convention, I watched the Florida Georgia District
President make three attempts to convince the Floor Committee why his
district should take communion with other Lutherans.  He had broad support
from clergy in California, Washington, New York, Minnesota, and Michigan,
and many other District Presidents.  Make no mistake, the LCMS Council of
District Presidents is very much aware of the ELCA's and the Episcopal
Church's affinity for sexual promiscuity and homosexuality.

It is time for LCMS laity to face some hard realities.  It is not possible
for members of the LCMS COP to promote open communion with those who
advocate homosexuality without themselves being advocates of sexual
promiscuity and or homosexuality.  They may be in the closet now, but when
the opportunity presents itself, they will come out.

The liberal movement, led by Dr. John Tietjen in 1969-74, attempted to
 "free" the LCMS from the supposed legalism of Biblical inerrancy and a
literal interpretation of the Lutheran Confessions.

The liberals' questions about the historicity of Adam and Eve, Jonah, the
virgin birth, the resurrection, etc., were pointless unless their goal was
the acceptance of sexual promiscuity and homosexuality.

In 1974, Dr. John Tietjen led 450 St. Louis Seminarians, 45 professors, and
300 LCMS congregations from the LCMS to what is now the ELCA and the
"blessing of 'same-sex unions' and the ordination of 'non-celibate
individuals' of 'all sexual orientations' in 'committed relationships.'"

We should not be surprised that whose who reject God's word will inevitably
promote sexual freedom.  Every time in the Old Testament the children of
Israel rejected God's word, they joined their neighbors in sex-based
worship.  People have not change.  Moses went up the mountain and the
Children of Israel had an orgy.

Conservatives are not immune to sexual sin, but they don't teach it is a
"blessing," no more than David was proud of his adultery.

Total usurpation of all church power by Episcopal Bishops has resulted in
the abandonment of God's word and the love for sodomy.  The Bible tells us:
"Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their
own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Romans 1:24"

Pastor Elder McCants has pointed out that President Kieschnick didn't quote
one Bible passage to support his comments about the Episcopal Church in his
August 7, 2003 news release.

During his stormy two years as LCMS President, Kieschnick has made every
effort to change the "culture" in the LCMS, attack LCMS conservatives, and
prevent an "over purification of doctrine" in the LCMS, in the cause of
evangelism.  Is the LCMS supposed to grow like the ELCA?

In nearly every other church body except the LCMS, the proponents of clergy
hierarchy are liberal and gay.

The odd politics of the Missouri Synod find a division between conservative
minded hyper-Euro Lutherans and liberals.  Just the opposite is true in the
in the ELCA and the Episcopal Churches where those who promote the sacrament
of ordination and the is-there-really-a-God liberals are united.

Liberal theology, Episcopal hierarchy, and the Contemporary/Church Growth
Movement all place man at the center of worship and inevitably lead to the
advancement of sexual freedom and homosexuality.

This is President Kieschnick's dilemma at the 2004 LCMS Convention.  He is
caught between warming up to the ELCA who loves Episcopal hierarchy and the
sacrament of ordination, while battling those who love the same practice in
the LCMS.

How did LCMS political wires get crossed?  The LCMS pits lovers of Baptist
style, contemporary worship and corporate hierarchy against those who
believe the pastor becomes a living communion wafer through the sacrament of
ordination and rules the congregation like the Pope.  The history of this
strange political division would take pages of explanation.  Yet, that's how
it is in the LCMS.

But this is merely a transitional phase.  All man centered worship, whether
sacerdotal (the pastor is a priest between God and the congregation),
contemporary, or liberal, must lead to sexual promiscuity and homosexuality.
The LCMS sacerdotalists, liberals, and Christian rockers will eventually
discover they have more fellowship under the sheets than at the communion
rail.

The following quote was printed in the lead article of the August 5, 2003
New York Times, "'It's a great day for the church,' the Rev. Sandye Wilson
of the Minnesota Diocese said. 'This is a church which has finally
understood that men and women created in the vision of God can be the
guardians of the faith - and be gay or lesbian.'"

The ultimate choice is not conservative or liberal but conservative or gay.
Christ says at the end of the world it will like the days of Noah and Sodom.

August 8 , 2003