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| Q: | I am going to be baptizing my new born child. I would like to have godparents who are members of ELCA and LCMS. I was told that only members of WELS may be God parents. I don't agree with this doctrine, as I am choosing God-fearing Lutheran people to be my child's Godparents. If all Lutheran religions are based on the same teachings of Martin Luther. This doctrine was not explained to my satisfaction. | ||||||
| A: | Anyone can serve as a witness to the baptism. Sponsors in the strict sense are asked to make a promise that they will do everything they can so that the child will be raised in the teachings of the Bible as confessed by our church. Since the ELCA and LCMS are not in doctrinal agreement with us, we cannot ask someone who is a member of those churches to make a promise to help raise the child according to our beliefs. Someone who does not belong to a church in fellowship with us can serve as a witness who accompanies the child to its baptism, but they would not be asked to make the promise of a sponsor. Although individual members of the LCMS or even the ELCA may hold beliefs that are much the same as ours, the doctrinal positions of some other Lutheran bodies, such as the ELCA, are very far from ours and from the teachings of Luther. All Lutheran churches are not the same. | ||||||
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