Thrivent employees not required to be Christian, Thrivent misrepresentation, Martin Luther: justified by faith we are sent by God into our vocations to love and serve our neighbors
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”…Matthew 6:24
“Am I now seeking the approval of men, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”…Galatians 1:10
“You don’t need to be Christian to join our team. You do need the passion to guide our members on their Wise With Money Journey”…Thrivent claims operations manager employment ad
From a recent Thrivent employment ad for a Claims Operations Manager:
“You don’t need to be Christian to join our team. You do need the passion to guide our members on their Wise With Money Journey”
THAT EXPLAINS MUCH.
Thrivent portrays their commitment to “core Christian values.” in the following ways:
“CEO Brad Hewitt told the 1,600 members at the regional meeting at the Henry Ford Museum that while Thrivent traces its corporate roots to the turn of the 20th century, its history goes back to the 16th century and the founder of Protestant Christianity, Martin Luther.
Luther drafted a document in 1523 called the “Fraternal Agreement on the Common Chest of the Entire Assembly at Leisnig,” which established rules about pooling resources to help people in need.
“The phrase he used consistently was, ‘This is done for the honor of God and the love of fellow Christians,’” Hewitt said, adding that Thrivent was formed by Lutheran immigrants for the same basic purpose.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/thrivent-financial-is-no-longer-for-lutherans-only/2014/03/28/2b47102e-b6ae-11e3-9eb3-c254bdb4414d_story.html?utm_term=.d47f5d3f293c
Thrivent’s Christian Calling
“Thrivent’s Lutheran heritage of answering God’s call has led to a strong membership-owned organization that now welcomes Christians seeking to live out their faith.
Fraternal benefit societies have a common bond among members. Thrivent’s common bond is Christianity. We embrace the core Christian beliefs as articulated in the Apostles’ Creed”
https://www.thrivent.com/about-us/files/28023.pdf
Code of Conduct.
“Our organization was founded to help Lutherans care for and support one another in time of need, guided by the principles of the Christian faith.”
https://www.thrivent.com/files/24097.pdf
From Thrivent vs Acosta, US DOL November 3, 3017.
“Thrivent contends that its commitment to individual arbitration is “important to the membership because it reflects Thrivent’s Christian Common Bond, helps preserve members’ fraternal relationships, and avoids protracted and adversarial litigation that could undermine Thrivent’s core mission.””
It is impossible for non Christians to treat others with values and actions that can only emanate from someone who is a Christian.
Therefore, Thrivent has misrepresented their positions.
Martin Luther rejected the working (or buying) your way into heaven and grace through one’s works and efforts that had evolved in the Roman Catholic Church.
Instead, he explained that good works and love for one’s neighbor are a natural product of one’s faith and love for and obedience to God.
Martin Luther on Christian life and vocations.
From “Working for Our Neighbor”:
“For Martin Luther, vocation is nothing less than the locus of the Christian life. God works in and through vocation, but he does so by calling human beings to work in their vocations. In Jesus Christ, who bore our sins and gives us new life in his resurrection, God saves us for eternal life. But in the meantime he places us in our temporal life where we grow in faith and holiness. In our various callings—as spouse, parent, church member, citizen, and worker—we are to live out our faith.”
“Loving and Serving Our Neighbors
God does not need our good works, Luther said, but our neighbor does (Wingren, Luther on Vocation, 10). Our relationship with God is based completely on his work for us in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Justification by faith completely excludes any kind of dependence on our good works for our salvation. We come before God clothed not in our own works or merits, but solely in the works and merits of Christ, which are imputed to us. But having been justified by faith, we are sent by God back into the world, into our vocations, to love and serve our neighbors.”
“The economic vocations give us many neighbors whom we are to love and serve: customers, to be sure”
“Vocation Counters Our Materialism
Vocation counters the materialism and self-centeredness of economic pursuits by giving them a new meaning and a new orientation. Similarly, vocation also transforms other social relationships, such as the nature of authority.”
http://www.letterstotheexiles.com/working-neighbor-martin-luther-purpose-vocation/
Martin Luther on Vocations and ethics.
” Luther’s view of justification turned this ethical system on its head and placed Christian ethics into two realms of life in God’s world. In the divine realm, or right-hand rule of God, Christian righteousness is something that proceeds from faith alone and is therefore impossible apart from faith. No matter how good a person is in terms of ethical behavior (what the Lutheran reformers call human righteousness), such a person has no Christian righteousness without faith in Christ, from which Christian righteousness blooms as fruit from a good tree.”
http://eachstorytold.com/2019/02/11/martin-luther-on-vocations-god-created-3-orders-ecclesiastical-civil-economic-all-christians-have-a-vocation-to-serve-god-in-their-household-and-economic-sphere/
Martin Luther Christ centric approach to ethics:
““Gifted by him, Christ’s holy people live their lives enveloped in Christ’s gifts and forgiveness, serving their neighbor in word and deed. Yet there are always temptations in the world that seek to diminish Jesus. Luther warns, “Therefore Satan continually mounts a new battle against us” (WA 40 I: 318, 12; AE 26: 193).23 The devil “often suggests a false Christ to me” (WA 40 I: 321, 32-33; AE 26: 196).24 Since Christians are powerless before Satan, their daily life of vocation is a daily return to baptism.
Luther presents the life of Christians in their daily callings as a life that is lived within the forgiveness of sins. Ethics may not be detached from the body and blood of Jesus that the baptized receive. This is where the forgiveness is bestowed (WA 18: 203, 39-204, 9; AE 40: 214). Bodied together and blooded together, the communicants are enlivened to serve one another in word and deed, not only in the church but in the world.””
http://eachstorytold.com/2019/02/11/martin-luther-christ-centric-approach-to-ethics-ethics-as-the-gift-of-the-lord-ethics-in-each-christians-callings-is-where-the-lord-has-his-way-in-the-world/
From Martin Luther’s Large Catechism:
“If, then, it be asked: How do you understand the Second Commandment, or what is meant by taking in vain, or misusing God’s name? answer briefly thus: It is misusing God’s name when we call upon the Lord God no matter in what way, for purposes of falsehood or wrong of any kind. Therefore this commandment enjoins this much, that God’s name must not be appealed to falsely, or taken upon the lips while the heart knows well enough, or should know, differently; as among those who take oaths in court, where one side lies against the other. For God’s name cannot be misused worse than for the support of falsehood and deceit.”
“Therefore let every one know that it is his duty, at the risk of God’s
displeasure, not only to do no injury to his neighbor, nor to deprive
him of gain, nor to perpetrate any act of unfaithfulness or malice in
any bargain or trade, but faithfully to preserve his property for him,
to secure and promote his advantage, especially when one accepts money, wages, and one’s livelihood for such service.”
“And yet we pretend to be godly, know how to adorn ourselves most finely and conceal our rascality, resort to and invent adroit devices and deceitful artifices (such as now are daily most ingeniously contrived) as though they were derived from the law codes; yea, we even dare impertinently to refer to it, and boast of it, and will not have it called rascality, but shrewdness and caution. In this lawyers and jurists assist, who twist and stretch the law to suit it to their cause, stress words and use them for a subterfuge, irrespective of equity or their neighbor’s necessity. And, in short, whoever is the most expert and cunning in these affairs finds most help in law, as they themselves say: Vigilantibus iura subveniunt [that is, The laws favor the watchful].”
More here:
https://citizenwells.com/
http://eachstorytold.com/
