Biblical Theology - God’s Good Creation

August 5, 2025October 9, 2025

A Theological Rebuttal to the ELCA’s Reconsideration of Human Sexuality

The Quiet Revolution in Phoenix

The 2025 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), held in Phoenix, Arizona, has now officially adopted what it describes as “editorial” changes to its 2009 social statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust. But contrary to this official framing, these changes are not minor word swaps or clarifications. They are, in substance and effect, a comprehensive revision of the Church’s understanding of marriage, family, and human embodiment—one that capitulates to the spirit of the age and redefines long-standing Christian doctrine in light of evolving civil law and cultural norms.

What follows is a rebuttal—not only to the changes themselves but to the misleading narrative that they are somehow neutral or non-theological. They are a redefinition of the Church’s public witness on marriage, sexuality, and the nature of family.

From 2009 to 2025: A Timeline of Theological Drift

2009: Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust is adopted, controversially, by a narrow two-thirds majority—the minimum required for passage. While it affirms marriage as between a man and a woman, it also introduces the concept of “bound conscience,” allowing for differing positions on same-sex relationships within the ELCA. This marked a historic shift in Lutheran teaching and ignited deep theological conflict. A substantial percentage of members and pastors maintained that same-sex sexual relationships were incompatible with Scripture and the Church’s long-standing moral tradition. Many saw the decision as a departure from biblical authority and confessional integrity. The controversy led to widespread disillusionment, the formation of breakaway associations, and the departure of hundreds of congregations in the years that followed.
2022: The Churchwide Assembly passes Memorial C3 and Motion K, authorizing two reconsiderations:
- Reconsideration #1: Language changes in light of civil law, church policy, and public acceptance.
- Reconsideration #2: A future substantive review of the “bound conscience” framework (scheduled for 2028).
2025: The ELCA adopts the “editorial” changes recommended by its task force—changes which redefine terms, introduce new theological categories, and shift the center of moral authority from Scripture and Church Tradition to civil law and cultural sentiment.

Changing Words, Changing Doctrine

Let’s consider several before-and-after comparisons to highlight the depth of these so-called “editorial” revisions:

2009 Original: “Marriage is a covenant of mutual promises, commitment, and hope authorized legally by the state and blessed by God. The historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions have recognized marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman…”

2025 Revision: “In the United States, individual states determine the legal status and definition of marriage… Within Christianity, marriage is often understood as a covenant of mutual promises, commitment, and hope between two individuals...”

The theological center of gravity has shifted. The 2009 statement rooted marriage in Christian tradition and Scripture (Mark 10:6–9)¹. The 2025 edit centers marriage in state law and replaces sexed-specificity with generalized individualism.

Another:

2009 Original: “Lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”

2025 Revision: “Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Marriage.”

The 2009 phrasing, while itself a significant departure from previous Lutheran and ecumenical consensus, at least retained a specific and limited scope. It acknowledged that the matter was controversial and that such relationships were considered by some within the ELCA to be acceptable only under certain conditions. The new framing—“Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Marriage”—broadens the subject dramatically. It signals a shift from constrained moral categories to an expansive and ideologically freighted framework that no longer clearly defines the theological boundaries of Christian sexual ethics.

And finally:

2009 Original: “We in the ELCA recognize that many of our sisters and brothers in same-gender relationships…”

2025 Revision: “We in the ELCA recognize that many of our siblings of diverse sexual orientations in relationships…”

The use of “siblings” is not just inclusive. It is ideologically loaded—an erasure of the creational significance of male and female as part of our shared human identity.

The Collapse of a Compromise: What Was Warned in 2009 Is Unfolding Now

The 2009 social statement affirmed “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same sex relationships”—a compromise that was hotly contested at the time and viewed by many as the beginning of a theological rupture. While presented as a way to honor differing convictions through the concept of “bound conscience,” the move was seen by a significant portion of the ELCA as a departure from Scripture and a rejection of the Church’s historic teaching. The new 2025 wording expands this compromise dramatically, now referring to “life-long, monogamous relationships between individuals of diverse sexes, genders, or sexualities.” A footnote defines “gender diverse” as encompassing “a wide diversity of identities and expressions in relationships between individuals, including gender non-conforming, non-binary, genderqueer, and transgender persons.”

This shift is more than semantic; it signals a full theological reorientation. It also confirms the trajectory long anticipated by those who opposed the 2009 compromise—namely, that the so-called bound conscience framework would prove to be a temporary measure, soon to be dismantled entirely in the 2028 Reconsideration #2 process.

What was once a disputed accommodation has become a blanket affirmation, and the Church’s distinctive voice is being absorbed into the ambient culture. Looking ahead, the evolving definition of “diverse family configurations” will almost certainly include not only same-sex couples but also throuples, polyamorous networks, and other arrangements increasingly recognized by secular norms. For instance, the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, in 2020 officially recognized polyamorous domestic partnerships in its municipal policy—an indication of how quickly the definition of family is expanding in civic life. Similarly, legal scholars and advocacy groups are increasingly calling for recognition of non-traditional relationship structures, framing them as a matter of equity and inclusion.

This trajectory reveals a breach—not only of doctrinal continuity but of the trust once promised to those who were told their traditional convictions would remain respected under the so-called bound conscience framework. It is also likely to accelerate membership and parish decline. As the Church’s moral vision becomes indistinguishable from the secular world, those seeking clarity, conviction, and creedal faith will continue to look elsewhere. The ELCA’s compromise has not preserved unity—it has diluted witness and driven away both confessional Lutherans and seekers alike.

A Mirror of the Nationalism You Decry

Here lies one of the greatest ironies of this shift. The ELCA frequently denounces what it calls Christian Nationalism—typically defined as the fusion of Christian identity with American political and cultural power, especially on the right. But this very reconsideration is itself a form of Christian Nationalism as well:

It aligns the Church’s moral witness not with the Kingdom of God but with the legal and cultural standards of the United States.
It canonizes Supreme Court decisions as theological turning points.
It treats public opinion and civil law not as areas to be evangelized or critiqued, but as authorities to be mirrored.

In short, this is a progressive version of what the ELCA claims to oppose: a Church conformed to the image of the nation. While the ELCA regularly challenges the political establishment on economic and immigration policies—often casting itself in a prophetic role—it nevertheless conforms to cultural consensus on matters of sexuality and identity. This inconsistency reveals a troubling pattern: resistance to the state when convenient, but capitulation when the culture demands it most. When the Church speaks boldly to Caesar in matters of justice but passively follows him in matters of sexual ethics, it reveals not prophetic courage, but selective conformity.

Public Sentiment as Theological Standard

The Executive Summary and Task Force materials confirm the real authority behind these changes:

“The edits… respond to the assembly’s authorization to update or clarify wording from the original social statement in light of: (1) the import that marriage legally is now a covenant between two individuals, (2) public acceptance of marriage of same-gender and gender non-conforming couples, and (3) the diversity of family configurations.”

There is no appeal to:

Biblical anthropology
Natural law
The history of Christian moral reflection
The creational structure of male and female as image-bearers

Instead, the guiding lights are public acceptance, legal precedent, and evolving definitions.

This is not Christian discernment. It is theological surrender.

A Bleak Forecast for Christian Witness

The consequences are plain:

The ELCA’s public witness will become indistinguishable from progressive secularism.
- It will no longer have the credibility to speak prophetically to the culture.
The 2009-bound conscience framework will be dismantled in 2028.
- Already, 37% of survey respondents said the section on differing views should be scrapped entirely. The direction is clear.
Those holding to traditional Christian views will find themselves further marginalized within the ELCA.
- I predict that powerful and preferred voices will not stop until they succeed in eliminating all dissent.
The ELCA will accelerate its numerical and spiritual decline.
- Churches that abandon creedal identity and biblical authority become indistinct, confused, and ultimately irrelevant.

Conclusion: Return to the Word, Not the World

The Church does not bear witness to the gospel by conforming itself to the laws of the land or the moods of the culture. It does so by proclaiming Christ crucified, risen, and reigning—not just in liturgy, but in moral teaching, in embodied discipleship, and in familial vocation.

The changes just approved in Phoenix are not cosmetic. They are catechetical. They re-educate the Church away from Scripture and toward the world.

Those who care about the integrity of the gospel and the created goodness of the body must say so clearly: these revisions are not simply editorial. They are ecclesial apostasy dressed in the language of inclusion.

Let the ELCA return to the Word—not to the world—for its hope, its witness, and its standard.

ELCA Sources:

Sexual Orientation of Survey Participants

Heterosexual/straight – 61/1%
No answer – 7.5 %
Gay – 7.1 %
Queer – 6.3%
Bisexual – 5.0%
Lesbian – 4.2%
Other – 4.2%
Asexual – 3.3%
Pansexual – 1.3%

Companion Post

Polyamory & Adoption in Canada

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Grace & Truth

July 30, 2025February 23, 2026

Borders and Brotherhood: A Catholic Look at Immigration and the Ordo Amoris

In our polarized moment, immigration policy is one of those topics that easily divides sincere believers. Some Christians—often from a more progressive persuasion—emphasize our Gospel duty to welcome the stranger. Others, more traditionally minded, stress the importance of preserving cultural integrity, the rule of law, and the common good of the political community. Both instincts, in truth, have a place within the Christian moral tradition.

But how do we hold them together?

Few writers today handle this balance better than Edward Feser, a philosophy professor and traditional Catholic thinker whose work I’ve followed and appreciated for years. In two recent articles —“A Catholic Defense of Enforcing Immigration Laws” and his follow-up, “Catholicism and Immigration: A Rejoinder to Cory and Sweeney”— Feser offers a deeply rooted, humane, and intellectually serious summary of the Catholic Church’s teaching on immigration. It’s a perspective worth hearing, especially for those who may assume that any restriction on immigration is incompatible with Christian love.

Order in Love: Why Family and Nation Matter

Feser’s starting point is an ancient and biblical idea: the ordo amoris, or the “order of love.” This principle, affirmed by St. Augustine and systematized by St. Thomas Aquinas, holds that while we are called to love all people, we are especially obligated to care first for those closest to us—our family, our neighbors, our nation.

As Aquinas puts it, “other things being equal, one ought to succor those rather who are most closely connected with us.” (Summa II-II.31.3)

This isn’t nationalism run amok—it’s common sense grounded in the reality of our created nature. We are not abstract global citizens first and foremost. We are embodied creatures born into specific families, places, and cultures. As Pope John Paul II argued, both family and nation are “natural societies” that shape and nurture us in essential ways. Patriotism—rightly ordered—isn’t idolatry. It’s a virtue connected to the Fourth Commandment: honoring your father and mother.

Welcoming the Stranger: A Real but Qualified Duty

Now, the Church is equally clear that we do have duties to the foreigner in need. The Catechism (2241) affirms that “the more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of security and livelihood.”

But—and this is the part often overlooked—that obligation is not absolute. The same paragraph goes on to say that political authorities may “make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions,” especially with respect to the immigrant’s duty to obey the laws and respect the heritage of the host country.

Popes Benedict XVI and John Paul II both affirmed this prudential balance. The Church does not endorse “open borders.” Rather, it entrusts governments with the responsibility of weighing many legitimate concerns: economic stability, public safety, cultural cohesion, and social peace.

To quote Pope John Paul II: “Even highly developed countries are not always able to assimilate all those who emigrate….certainly, the exercise of such a right (to emigrate) is to be regulated, because practicing it indiscriminately may do harm and be detrimental to the common good of the community that receives the migrant.”

Prudence Is Not Relativism

Feser is careful to point out that recognizing a range of morally licit policy options is not relativism. Rather, it’s an application of the virtue of prudence—something Aquinas sees as essential to moral reasoning in complex situations. Christians of good will can, and often do, come to different conclusions about immigration policy while still honoring the same moral principles.

But what we can’t do is selectively quote the Church to support one side of the argument while ignoring the rest. Feser’s articles are a call to integrity—a plea to read the Church’s teaching in full, not just the parts that support our preferred politics.

The Forgotten Vice: Oikophobia

Feser also makes an important cultural observation. While Scripture rightly emphasizes love for the stranger—precisely because the default human temptation is tribal exclusion—our modern Western problem often cuts the other way. Many today (especially in elite circles) seem embarrassed by patriotism and suspicious of national loyalty. Philosopher Roger Scruton called this “oikophobia”—a fear or hatred of home. In our desire to care for others, we risk forgetting that we also have duties to our own.

This is not just a political point. It’s a theological one. Love must be ordered. We are to care for the poor and the outsider—but not in ways that undermine the health of the family, or the peace and stability of the nation. The ordo amoris demands both compassion and clarity.

A Word to My Progressive Friends

If you lean progressive and are reading this, I want to thank you for caring about the dignity of immigrants. That concern is a beautiful reflection of God’s heart. But I also want to invite you to consider Feser’s argument—not as a reactionary screed, but as a thoughtful, deeply Catholic appeal to moral coherence.

You may not agree with every policy endorsed by conservatives. I don’t either. But don’t let personality or partisanship keep you from considering the moral seriousness behind traditional immigration arguments.

I’m including links to both of Feser’s articles. I hope you’ll read them—not necessarily to be convinced, but at least to be more fully informed.

“The entirety of Church teaching—not only what it says about welcoming the stranger, but also what it says about the limitations on that obligation—must inform our judgments.”

— Edward Feser

LINKS TO READ:

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July 26, 2025August 9, 2025

Why “Separation of Church and State” Was Never the American Way

In 1947, the U.S. Supreme Court decided a case that most Christians have never heard of—Everson v. Board of Education. Yet that ruling, more than any other, reshaped the place of Christianity in American public life. In fact, the very idea that our Constitution demands a strict “separation of church and state” was essentially invented by that decision. But what if this idea wasn’t true to America’s founding? And what if it ran counter to the biblical role of government itself?

A recent Harvard Law Journal article by Timon Cline, Josh Hammer, and Yoram Hazony—three voices from both Christian and Jewish traditions—argues that the time has come to overturn Everson and restore the original vision of the First Amendment. Christians seeking to understand the world through a biblical lens, should pay close attention.

Government’s Biblical Responsibility: Promoting the Public Good

Romans 13 tells us that civil authorities are ordained by God to uphold justice and punish evil. First Peter 2 commands rulers to “praise those who do good.” This biblical principle was historically recognized by Christian thinkers and undergirded America’s early political structure. The Founders never imagined a government stripped of moral and religious foundations. Instead, they understood—as Proverbs 14:34 puts it—that “righteousness exalts a nation.”

The Harvard Law Journal scholars point out that America’s original constitutional design reflected this reality: under the First Amendment, the federal government was prohibited from establishing a national church or interfering with religious establishments at the state level. In other words, individual states were expected to shape public morality—including support for Christianity—as they saw fit.

The Great Distortion: How Everson Rewrote the First Amendment

How, then, did “separation of church and state” become national dogma?

In Everson v. Board of Education (1947), Justice Hugo Black reinterpreted the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment using Thomas Jefferson’s offhand metaphor of a “wall of separation.” But Jefferson’s phrase came from a personal letter written 14 years after the Bill of Rights was ratified—and Jefferson wasn’t even in the country when the First Amendment was drafted.

This metaphor, the authors argue, was never meant to create a religiously neutral state. Yet Justice Black’s ruling applied this separationist vision to the states, effectively barring them from supporting religion in any public form. Ironically, the First Amendment’s clear limitation on federal power was transformed into a federal prohibition against state-level religious expression.

From a biblical worldview, this distortion matters deeply. Scripture never envisions the civil order as “neutral” toward the things of God. Rather, rulers are called to “kiss the Son” (Psalm 2:12)—to govern with justice that acknowledges God’s authority.

The Fruits of Everson: A Secular Public Square

What followed Everson is all too familiar. Prayer and Bible reading were banned from schools. Christian moral teachings were sidelined. Secularism—the active removal of religion from public life—became the assumed posture of government. As the legal scholars argue, this didn’t create neutrality; it created a functional state-sponsored religion of secularism.

Romans 1 describes what happens when a society “suppresses the truth” about God: moral confusion and cultural decay. We’ve witnessed this firsthand as public life—once broadly shaped by biblical norms—has become a vacuum filled by alternative ideologies.

A Forgotten American Principle: Local Freedom to Support Religion

One of the most insightful arguments from Cline, Hammer, and Hazony is that American federalism originally allowed each state to shape its religious character. States like Massachusetts, Connecticut, and New Hampshire maintained various forms of Christian establishment well into the 19th century. This wasn’t forced religion. Alongside these establishments, states protected freedom of conscience.

The genius of this system was local accountability. Each state, as a community, had the freedom to uphold religious practices appropriate to its people. This echoes the biblical principle of local leadership seen in Exodus 18, where Moses is told to appoint “capable men from all the people…to serve as officials” over groups at different levels.

What Christians Should Hope For

The Harvard Law Journal article calls for overturning Everson and returning decisions about public religion to the states. From a Christian worldview, this proposal aligns with key scriptural principles:

Civil rulers should promote the public good, including moral and religious formation.
Religious instruction should not be coerced but encouraged.
Parents and local communities should shape children’s moral education (Deuteronomy 6:6–7)¹.

Imagine a future where states once again have the freedom to support prayer in schools, Bible instruction, and moral formation—not by force, but by communal choice. Such a restoration would acknowledge the biblical truth that faith in God strengthens public virtue.

Caution: Supporting Truth Without Coercion

While we should hope for a return to public religion, Christians must remember that authentic faith cannot be imposed (2 Corinthians 4:2)². Government should create conditions favorable to righteousness, but not attempt to compel belief. This balance—supporting religion while protecting conscience—was wisely preserved in many early American states. It’s a biblical balance worth recovering.

Conclusion: A Time for Restoration

In their closing words, Cline, Hammer, and Hazony argue that Everson has become “the principal obstacle to the restoration of a genuinely conservative public life.” From a biblical worldview, they’re right. Removing Everson would not guarantee national renewal, but it would remove a legal barrier that suppresses the public expression of biblical faith.

In the end, Scripture calls both individuals and nations to acknowledge the Lord. As Psalm 33:12 declares, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”

We now live in a society where public policy denies basic realities:

That God created humans male and female (Genesis 1:27).³
That marriage is designed to unite one man and one woman (Genesis 2:24).⁴
That children are a gift to be welcomed, not commodities to be engineered (Psalm 127:3).⁵
That human life, from conception to natural death, bears the image of God (Genesis 1:26).⁶

When a society suppresses these truths, it suppresses the very foundation of human dignity and moral order. Christians should not respond with apathy or with abstract appeals to “religious freedom” alone. We should desire what these scholars recommend: a restoration of public religion—not to coerce belief, but to witness to truth.

It is time for our laws, schools, and public institutions to once again affirm what creation itself teaches. This does not mean a return to coercive state churches. It means restoring the freedom of communities to encourage what is true, good, and life-giving—and removing federal barriers that prevent states from doing so.

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