"7.47.01. No person who belongs to any organization other than the Church which
claims to possess in its teachings and ceremonies that which the Lord has
given solely to the Church shall be ordained or otherwise received into the
ministry of this church, nor shall any person so ordained or otherwise
received by this church be retained in its ministry who subsequently joins
such an organization. Violation of this rule shall make such minister
subject to discipline."
So I'm reading through the ELCA's Constitution and ran across the above. Initially I said to myself, "yup, can't be a Mason." Then I re-read the thing a couple of times and got to thinking how widely this could be interpreted. Can I be part of a feed the children campaign? After all according to 4.02 the church was created to "Serve in response to God’s love to meet human needs, caring for the sick and the aged, advocating dignity and justice for all people, working for peace and reconciliation among the nations, and standing with the poor and powerless and committing itself to
their needs."
Okay, I'm being a little absurd, but I guess what I'm really asking is what aspects of Church are for the Church only?
No comments:
Post a Comment