Church told Grandmother she couldn't be buried by husband

[47of74]

The family obviously wasn't happy;

A Minnesota family is outraged after they say their 84-year-old relative was kicked out of a Lutheran Church and is no longer allowed to be buried next to her late husband.

Darleen Pawelk had reportedly been a member of St. Mark's Lutheran Church in New Germany for more than 50 years but hadn't frequently attended services at the church over the past year. As KMSP reports, that's what led to a letter being sent to her home.

The letter, which her grandson posted on Facebook, reads, in part, "In 2014, the voters of St. Mark adopted a self-exclusion policy. In summary, the policy states that members who have not gathered together with us in worship to receive the Lord's Supper at least four times in one calendar year will have excluded themselves from fellowship with us."

As a result, the letter said, Pawelk can't be buried at St. Mark or St. John's Crow River cemeteries.

And after a considerable amount of blowback the church has reversed course and is now saying they'll let her be buried there. If it was my family I would have been demanding they pay to have Grandpa moved to a different cemetery.

[Freddie]

1. Missouri Synod Lutherans

Thought so. We ELCA folks would never do something like this. They are a very "closed" church with no tolerance for viewpoints other than their own. Very socially conservative (quite the opposite of the ELCA), anti-gay, no women pastors.
And what they really can't tolerate is other Lutherans! Went into the LCMS website once where I learned that we don't believe in the Bible and are "not Christian."

[47of74]

2. Yeah I noticed that too.

I know the ELCA folks would never behave like that, that when they said Lutheran I was pretty sure they meant Missouri Synod even without looking at the picture of the letter.

[Andy823]

3. Do they think

Jesus would approve of their "exclusion" policy? I hate it when religion goes to far and they decide things like this, when Jesus would never have approved of such a thing.

[Marc2010]

4. Not amazed, I'm afraid

This is what happens when organized religion is more concerned with their own internal laws and doctrines VS. doing as Jesus commanded