The Minneapolis Tornado: Accident or Admonition?


Was it a coincidence or was the Lord trying to get someone’s attention?

Powerful winds gusted through Minneapolis yesterday, and a tornado touched down on the city’s Convention Center where leaders of America’s largest Lutheran denomination began debating whether to ordain gay men and lesbians.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) is moving to permit noncelibate (sexually active) gay men and women to serve as pastors.  The tornado hit the building on the same afternoon (yesterday) that a vote was scheduled to relax the rules on gay couples in the church.

“I’m sick to my stomach,” said a Lutheran pastor from Charleston, West Virginia, who opposes the policy change.  “I do not believe that our church can condone what God has condemned.”

John Piper, who pastors a church in Minneapolis, called the tornado a “gentle but firm warning to the ELCA and all of us:  Turn from the approval of sin.  Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction.  Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture.”

The ancient patriarch Job listened attentively to the voice that spoke from the whirlwind in Job 38, but many in the ELCA seems to think their tornado was only so much wind.

This story is all over the wire, but you can read a concise account here.