Tornado Hits Near ELCA Assembly Hall During Vote

At approximately 2 pm yesterday, a tornado touched down in downtown Minneapolis. It was the first tornado to hit this area in nearly 90 years. Even more profound is that the agenda for the churchwide assembly stated that discussion surrounding the proposed human sexuality statement would begin at, you guessed it, 2 pm.

I’m not saying that this tornado was sent by God as a warning of the “wrath to come.” But I’m also not prepared to rule it out. Either position–assurance or dismissal–is grounded in pride and arrogance. One has to at least entertain the fact that this is a profound coincidence. Either way, it cannot be ignored.

A Minneapolis pastor, not Lutheran, phrased it like this on his blog:

On a day when no severe weather was predicted or expected…a tornado forms, baffling the weather experts—most saying they’ve never seen anything like it. It happens right in the city. The city: Minneapolis.

The tornado happens on a Wednesday…during the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America’s national convention in the Minneapolis Convention Center. The convention is using Central Lutheran across the street as its church. The church has set up tents around it’s building for this purpose.

Here are some pictures from the tornado damage at Central Lutheran. This ELCA church was serving as a “home base” for the attendees of the assembly. The assembly hall where the ELCA is meeting is across the street.

The first picture is the steeple of Central Lutheran. The second picture is the courtyard area of the church. You can see the damaged steeple at the top of the picture. The white tents on the ground were to house a “pub” for the assembly attenders, amongst other things.

Central_MPLS_081809_02

Severe Weather

Another interesting observation is that the vote on the sexuality statement passed by exactly two-thirds percent, or 66.6%. Traditionally that number, thee sixes in a row, doesn’t have a great track record. Again, I’m not suggesting we look deeper into this than need be. But I’m also not dismissing it outright.

These are extraordinary times in the ELCA; the Church at large really. I think it’s safe to say that something happened yesterday. Discerning what that something is is a matter of prayer, reflection and time.

You can check out the webcast of the ELCA churchwide assembly here and read our other posts on the assembly here.

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Contributor: Justin Wise

I am a religious deviant who enjoys coffee, collared shirts, spending time with my wife and son, learning about quantum physics and creatively exploring the riches of the Spirit of Christ. Find more here: JustinWise.me
  • Jonwards
    Google "God to Same-Sexers: Hurry Up" for some interesting comments.
  • This is just amazing!
  • TruthSeeker
    Romans 1:18-32 (continued) 28Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. 29They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
  • TruthSeeker
    Romans 1:18-32 (continued) 24Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen. 26Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. 27In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.
  • TruthSeeker
    The answer is simply in God's Holy Word - Read it, Live It, Speak It - How can you ignore it?
    Romans 1:18-32
    18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.
    21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.
  • Darthmeister
    BTW, Jesus Christ didn't die for some emerging left-wing form of Churchianity or to perpetuate New Age liberal religion, He died to reconcile individual penitent sinners to a Holy and Just God. Having said that it's been my experience that the most self-righteous, arrogant, prideful, and unrepentant people I know are liberal humanist wolves in sheep's clothing posing as "Christians." They've not only re-interpeted the Bible in their own image but you also see their deceitful re-intepretation of other important historical documents like the U.S. Constitution. In essence they are nanny fascists, projecting the imagine of civility and "peace" while destroying the very fabric and traditions of civil society with their counter-cultural propaganda.

    When Jesus was asked why certain people died because of a natural disaster (read about the collapsing of the Wall of Silome in the Gospel accounts) He said it was a sign to those still living to REPENT! I believe the arrogant Lutheran leadership involved in such pro-homosexual abominations are in need of some real and efficacious REPENTANCE so that the scales of counter-cultural dogma will fall from their eyes.Enough said.
  • Darthmeister
    No such thing as "coincidence". I'm generally not someone who believes in supernatural events but when a once-in-a-century tornado hits near an assembly of "Christians" who are thumbing their noses at four thousand years of Holy Writ ... see, you intuitively make the connection right?

    Now I do believe in serendipity, that is the timing of some things occur without a rational explanation to the benefit of those involved. Liberal religionists need to RE-THINK their proposition that they know better than God and the Bible about what should and shouldn't be happening in the name of the Church of Jesus Christ, but somehow I think their liberal humanist arrogance will continue leading them down the road to spiritual ruin. Won't they be surprised when believing they are exercising such "spiritual enlightenment" that one day they may find before the Judgement Seat itself that they believed in the Great Lie and the anti-Christ. These kind of people are cattle, not the sheep who follow the Good Shepherd despite the hoity-toity vain reasonings of cosmopolitan humanity.
  • David
    Come out of her my people!!! It is time to get out of organized religion of all denominations. The hierarchy is more interested in material things, and are decieved. They don't know right from wrong anymore.
    Come out of her my people, lest you partake of her iniquities!!!

    From a 70 year old preachers kid: My Dad left the church after preaching for 60 years when the old ALC changed to the ELCA. He saw the future and opted to get out while the getting was good.
  • Julie
    If you think natural disasters don't occur based on unGodly decisions, read the book Israel: Blessing or Curse.
  • Very interesting article. I am an Orthodox Christian and last night a woman who is ELCA came to our parish for All-Night Vigil and was telling me about this story. She is very distraught and sees this as the final mark of the Lutherans' apostasy (her words). Didn't something similar happen to the Episcopalians/Anglicans when there was a vote on the issue? A fire perhaps?
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