In an article, “Avoid broad road of doctrinal tolerance”, appearing (page 2) in the January-February 2006 issue of Network News, the Word Alone Network’s newsletter, Pastor Dan Delzell (Trinity Lutheran Church, Papillon, Nebraska) notes the emergence of support for universalism within the ELCA. According to the doctrine of universalism, “Rather than only believers being saved by grace through faith in Christ,…all human beings would receive mercy after their deaths because of Christ’s resurrection”, thus removing the need for repentance and saving faith. In the same issue (pages 6-7) renewal leaders in various North American Protestant denominations, in an open letter, issue a warning about a new “strategy to win the church’s affirmation of homosexual acts”, the offering of a false “compromise” (remember the usage of such language to promote the local option motion put forward to the 2005 ELCIC National Convention) or “third way”. According to the authors of the open letter, “The essence of the new strategy is this: to leave in church law books the orthodox standards calling Christians to fidelity in marriage and sexual abstinence in singleness, while inventing procedural devices permitting church bodies and officials to disregard the standards at will”.
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