ELCA Pastor Response

This ELCA pastor has overdosed on the Koolaid. 

Unwitting Pawns was also published as a Guest Opinion piece in the West Bend Daily News on February 11th, 2023. Pastor Schoob's critique of the article says it all. The ELCA is awash in heresy and cares little about preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the world in order to bring the lost to Him. Please pray for Schoob and especially for his congregation. If his sermons mirror his stated beliefs, his flock is not being fed the bread of life.

GUEST OPINION

Tolerance more than just a phrase

Can’t paint Christians with wide brush

By David Schoob

I am responding to Don Kriefall’s article “Unwitting Pawns,” printed in your paper. To paraphrase words from Luke Skywalker in a recent “Star Wars” film, “Almost every word in that article is wrong.” The only sentiment of his that I can agree with is that we should have a more tolerant society. Yet the article itself seems to be the poster child for intolerance and misinformation.

Where is it wrong?

The idea of accepted social norms varies depending on perspective. I and many others find the author’s idea of social norms narrow, abusive, and founded on a desire to keep the white, heterosexual male as the ideal.

He is wrong that there is a common understanding among Christians of what constitutes sexual deviance. My church is open and receiving of those in the LGBTQIA+ communities.

He is wrong that all Christians hold a common understanding of biblical material. There are many passages that Christians understand in different ways. Many Christians understand certain passages as being grounded in a different culture and time period. New understandings of our humanity lead us to examine passages in a different light of those understandings. You cannot use one interpretive approach as normative and call it “Christian.”

Most of the society does not hold that people must be defined by the binary male and female. Most also are open to recognition of gay and lesbian committed relationships. A majority of Americans embrace an idea of acceptance toward the LGBTQIA+ community. Almost all the experts on human behavior recognize a fluidity to gender identity.

LGBTQIA+ identity is not in any way connected with the lack of a mother or father.

LGBTQIA+ identities are not developed because of a secret plot by educators. Educators instead teach information to help young people understand themselves and others.

The understanding of systemic racism does not arise from a left-wing plot. The understanding of systemic racism arises out of a careful study of history and a sensitivity to the cries of communities of color. Parents are always free to remove a student from a history class if they do not accept the information and move their child to another school that is less rigorous in its analysis.

In the same vein, Black Lives Matter does not stand in opposition to the idea of All Lives Matter. Black Lives Matter affirms that all lives matter, but is honest about the mistreatment of blacks and speaks for those whose voices are not heard. The members of Black Lives Matter remind us all that black lives do matter as much as white lives. If we are all of one race as asserted in the article then there should be justice offered equally to all. Race is a social construct, (another correct assertion in the article) and continues to be used to promote injustice by a white-dominated society each and every day. The idea of Christian nationalism that the article espouses is not consistent with the constitutional understanding of the nation or the understanding of Jesus. Jesus refused a crown and called his followers to the law of love before any law or nation.

Finally, the article says that the left is always using the tactics of bullying, manipulation, and misinformation to try to drive people to their point of view. I would ask the author to follow his own advice: “We need to look at ourselves in the mirror and recognize who we really are.”

(David Schoob is pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church. He lives in West Bend.)