A Lutheran church in Minnesota was severely criticised after it told an 84-year-old woman who had been a member of the church for five decades that she could no longer be buried in the church cemetery together with her husband because of her disagreement with the congregation.
Darleen Pawelk, 84, received a letter from St. Mark's Lutheran Church in New Germany, Minnesota, saying she's no longer welcome in the congregation and will no longer be able to be buried next to her husband, who passed away last summer, even though she had already paid for her own burial plot on church grounds, Fox 9 reported.
Pawelk recently stopped attending church service because she has developed disagreements with the congregation, according to the local news source.
"Since you have ignored our efforts to reach you, and have failed to return to your Lord Jesus in the Divine Service to receive from Him the gifts of His Word, and Holy Supper given from God to us that we may have forgiveness and life, you have self-excluded," the letter reads.
"Scripture is clear about those who remain in unrepentance. Your soul is in mortal danger," the letter warned ominously.
The letter shocked the old woman and her grandson, Joshua Mason, who was so upset that he posted the letter sent by the church to social media.
"The Lutheran Church wants to call themselves Christians? My Grandma is 84 effing years old. Her soul is in danger? She can't be buried in a plot she already payed for? Scum bags," Mason wrote.
Realising its mistake, the church eventually recanted its statement and said Pawelk can have her wish of getting buried next to her husband.
Church leaders admitted that sending Pawelk the letter was a mistake. "It was a mistake and we've been deeply apologetic and reached out to the family and we hope even today they will sit down with us," Pastor LeRoy LePlant told Fox9.
He said church leaders were actually trying to send Pawelk a letter telling her she had been peacefully released from the church after she told the pastor she didn't want to be a member anymore.
But Pawelk's family said the church's admission of its mistake was not enough, adding that they demand a formal apology.
"It's their church and there's no verse in the Bible that says you must have communion four times a year or you are not going to go to heaven," daughter Brenda Mason told the station.
Mason was referring to the church's self-exclusion policy which took effect in 2014 following a vote by the congregation. The policy states that members who have not attended worship at least four times in one calendar year "will have excluded themselves from fellowship with us..."
