{"id":1257,"date":"2010-12-17T15:00:42","date_gmt":"2010-12-17T22:00:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/?p=1257"},"modified":"2010-12-17T15:00:42","modified_gmt":"2010-12-17T22:00:42","slug":"lcms-president-sends-appeal-to-members-about-dont-ask-dont-tell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/?p=1257","title":{"rendered":"LCMS president sends appeal to members about \u201cDon\u2019t Ask, Don\u2019t Tell\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Says repeal will inhibit military chaplains<\/em><\/p>\n

ST. LOUIS, December 17, 2010\u2014Rev. Matthew C. Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church\u2014Missouri Synod (LCMS), sent the following e-mail message to LCMS pastors and commissioned ministers today in response to the U.S. Senate’s pending vote on the \u201cDon’t Ask, Don’t Tell\u201d policy:<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a surprising turn of events in the waning days of the current Congress, the effort to repeal the U.S. military’s ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy has gained new momentum with the announcement today of support from Republican senators Scott Brown (Mass.), Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), and Olympia Snowe (Maine).\u00a0 The repeal may be voted on in the Senate as early as tomorrow.\u00a0 For a number of reasons, we encourage you to let your elected leaders know that The Lutheran Church\u2014Missouri Synod has a clear biblical position on this important issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn terms of our spirituality, we are all alike sinners (Rom. 3:9ff.) in need of repentance and forgiveness.\u00a0 For 2,000 years the church has welcomed sinners, but refused to affirm sin.\u00a0 The saving grace of Jesus Christ and His Gospel are for all people (2 Cor. 5:19), and the only thing that separates us from this forgiveness is a lack of repentance or sorrow over our sin. We believe the repeal of the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy will sorely inhibit our military chaplains’ ability to call all sinners to repentance.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the government normalizes homosexual behavior in our military branches\u2014a behavior that we believe God’s Word identifies as intrinsically sinful (Rom. 1:26ff)\u2014the implications are profound.\u00a0 Military chaplains striving to carry out their responsibilities for preaching, counseling, and consoling will find themselves under the strain of having to question whether to obey God or men (Acts 5:29).<\/p>\n

\u201cLastly, we express our concern as citizens that a move by the government to essentially affirm homosexual behavior within the armed forces will endanger the morale or esprit de corps<\/em>\u2014the unit cohesion and the primary mission of the military, namely, to prosecute and win the war\u2014of the men and women who serve and willingly place themselves in harm’s way on our behalf.<\/p>\n

\u201cDear brothers and sisters in Christ, we urge you to share this message today with your colleagues, congregational members, and any others whom you believe would benefit from it and be moved to contact their government representatives.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may find the contacts for your senators and representatives here:\u00a0 http:\/\/www.senate.gov\/<\/a> and http:\/\/www.house.gov\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cFor more information on this issue, see The Lutheran Study Bible<\/em>, Page 1911, on Romans 1.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod bless you.
\n\u201cRev. Matthew C. Harrison, President
\nThe Lutheran Church\u2014Missouri Synod<\/p>\n

\u201cDr. Mark J. Schreiber,
\nCAPT, CHC, USN, (Ret.)
\nDirector, LCMS World Mission’s Ministry to the Armed Forces\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Says repeal will inhibit military chaplains ST. LOUIS, December 17, 2010\u2014Rev. Matthew C. Harrison, president of The Lutheran Church\u2014Missouri Synod (LCMS), sent the following e-mail message to LCMS pastors and commissioned ministers today in response to the U.S. Senate’s pending vote on the \u201cDon’t Ask, Don’t Tell\u201d policy: \u201cIn a surprising turn of events in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[182,201427,145868],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1257","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-lcms","category-lutheran"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1257"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1257\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1257"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1257"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/revtucher.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1257"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}