{"id":75891,"date":"2024-08-13T06:00:35","date_gmt":"2024-08-13T10:00:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=75891"},"modified":"2024-08-09T18:04:04","modified_gmt":"2024-08-09T22:04:04","slug":"a-lutheran-vice-president","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2024\/08\/a-lutheran-vice-president\/","title":{"rendered":"A Lutheran Vice-President?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Kamala Harris\u2019s vice presidential running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, is a Lutheran<\/a>.\u00a0 If he is elected, he would be either the first or second Lutheran to hold that high office.\u00a0 Fellow Minnesotan Hubert Humphrey, the vice president under Lyndon Johnson, had been Lutheran, but then joined a Methodist church after his family moved to a community without a Lutheran congregation.<\/p>\n

Walz is quite open about his church affiliation, often describing himself as a \u201cMinnesota Lutheran.\u201d\u00a0 This will doubtless attract attention to the rest of us Lutherans, but those of us with a confessional theology will need to get used to explaining that we are not that<\/em> kind of Lutheran.<\/p>\n

\n

Walz is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), which is a mainline liberal Protestant denomination, much like all the others.\u00a0 \u201cBut his church has \u2018evangelical\u2019 in its name, so doesn\u2019t that mean he is evangelical?\u201d\u00a0 No, \u201cevangelical\u201d is another name for \u201cLutheran,\u201d just as \u201cReformed\u201d is another name for \u201cCalvinist.\u201d\u00a0 In this context, \u201cevangelical\u201d has no connection with American evangelicalism.<\/p>\n

Walz belongs to\u00a0Pilgrim Lutheran Church<\/a>, an ELCA congregation in St. Paul.\u00a0 Some ELCA congregations are more conservative than others, but Pilgrim is as radical as they come.<\/p>\n

According to an article<\/a> in the Daily Caller<\/em> on the subject by Robert Schmad, \u201cMaterials published by Pilgrim Lutheran Church instruct parishioners not to refer to God using male pronouns, push congregants to support reparation funds, encourage them to celebrate Ramadan and include a modified gender-neutral version of the Lord\u2019s Prayer.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pilgrim Lutheran Church also takes a liberal stance on issues of sexuality and gender by sending its members to\u00a0march<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0gay pride parades<\/a>, working to\u00a0amplify<\/a>\u00a0the \u201cvoices of women and nonbinary\/gender non-conforming individuals,\u201d having\u00a0gender-neutral restrooms<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0celebrating<\/a>\u00a0\u201ccoming out day,\u201d among other initiatives.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Saying that the \u201ca patriarchal culture gave birth to the writing of scripture and the selection of the canon,\u201d Pilgrim issued guidelines for\u00a0gender-inclusive language for God<\/a>.\u00a0 Their version<\/a> of the Lord\u2019s Prayer begins like this:\u00a0 \u201c\u201cOur Guardian, Our Mother, Our Father in heaven.\u201d<\/p>\n

I\u2019m glad that the Daily Caller article distinguished between the ELCA and the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod by quoting Jonah Wendt, a policy advisor for former Vice President Mike Pence and a member of the LCMS.\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe ELCA is, broadly speaking, a liberal American mainline Protestant denomination,\u201d he said.\u00a0 \u201cThey reject the inerrancy of scripture, ordain women to the pastoral office [and] hold what many would believe to be unbiblical views on abortion and homosexual behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

And yet, according to the congregation\u2019s website<\/a>, Pilgrim used to be LCMS<\/em>!\u00a0 But they left the synod with the Seminex walkout<\/a> of 1974, a schism whose 50th anniversary we mark this year.\u00a0 The congregations like Pilgrim that left, mainly over the issue of Biblical inerrancy,\u00a0 formed the American Evangelical Lutheran Church (AELC), which in turn became a catalyst for a union of the other liberal Lutheran synods into the ELCA.<\/p>\n

Tim Walz has another connection with the LCMS.\u00a0 Governor Walz, a zealous COVID shutdown enforcer, issued a decree forbidding churches from holding worship services.\u00a0 But the Minnesota district of the LCMS joined forces with the Minnesota Catholic Conference to defy t<\/a>he governor\u2019s order.\u00a0 Two days after the confessional Lutherans and the Catholics issued a statement to that effect, Gov. Walz backed down and rescinded his order.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0 Tim Walz, Office of Governor Tim Walz & Lt. Governor Peggy Flanagan, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kamala Harris’s vice presidential running mate, Minnesota governor Tim Walz, is a Lutheran.\u00a0This will doubtless attract attention to the rest of us Lutherans, but those of us with a confessional theology will need to get used to explaining that we are not THAT kind of Lutheran.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":75921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19,20,27,36,47],"tags":[785,15051,1340,8736,15054,15039],"class_list":["post-75891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-church","category-government","category-history","category-life-issues","category-politics","category-theology","tag-evangelical-lutheran-church-in-america","tag-hubert-humphrey","tag-lutheran-church-missouri-synod","tag-mainline-liberal-protestantism","tag-progressive-theology","tag-tim-walz"],"yoast_head":"\nA Lutheran 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