The Antithesis of Christian Hospitality

This is St. Paul's First Lutheran Church in North Hollywood, CA. This is deeply disturbing and contrary to Lutheran values and basic human decency. Please call or write and express your disappointment. (818) 763-2892 https://t.co/AgNRSKOSVf pic.twitter.com/zYf00ui3cq

— blacklivesmatters.carrd.co (@ernes_totes) July 8, 2020

The highest good in the earliest stories of Genesis are about hospitality.  When God comes to Abram at Mamre and tells him Sarai will have a son, it is Abram's hospitality that is the true center of the story.  He entertains God, but knows only that he is being hospitable to strangers.

"Hospitality is not about guests; it’s about strangers. That’s the first lesson."

Been down this road once or twice before.  I'lll leave this here, not to sit in judgment on this church and its members, but to use them to bring up this topic again.

I really should go back to work on that.

Adding:  (really wishing I could just comment.  Ah, well...)

Part of the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, so very conservative (no women pastors, opposes all homosexual relations, won't be in communion with any denomination that theologically differs, etc.) I can't say I am shocked.

This (literally) explains everything.  I had a church in Bensenville (Chicago suburb; literally at the end of the O'Hare runway.  Don't get me started.  Local UCC church (not mine) had been there forever, Mayor Daley moved 'em out to build his airport.  They had a graveyard, which had to be left behind, and the City said they'd never disturb it.  I understand they later moved all the graves and paved over it; another runway.  Like I said...).  Anyway, my church was right next door to a MO Synod Lutheran church.  I understood the pastor there didn't want to have anything to do with the rest of us in town (pastors are pretty chummy, as a rule).  No one from there ever so much as crossed the lawn to visit me.  Granted, I was too busy to notice, and there less than a year (my pastoral career was not one to brag about).  Still, I soon came to understand WI Synod thought MO Synod was soft and heretical and far too worldly.  Given the friendliness of Lutherans I have known, this always struck me as bizarre.

But that this church is WI Synod explains everything.  We can still talk about hospitality, but now more than ever I won't sit in judgment of this church.  They're doing enough of that for all of us, IMHO.