Angry Lutheran Deaconess Flames Her Church In Her Parting Sermon, Throwing Them Under The Bus

Staff Writer

Sister Dottie Almoney is the new Directing Deaconess of the Deaconess Community of the ELCA. Before this, however, she spent more than two decades on staff at St. Peter’s Lutheran Church, working in various capacities and, most recently as the Director of Education & Outreach.

Preaching her final sermon at St. Peters, she took her church to task for their wayward ways, blasting them for being a bunch of backstabbing gossipers who were seemingly complaining about her progressive theology.

Notably, she tells congregants that if they are so uncomfortable with the ELCA and their views on social policies, it is likely time to consider leaving:

Unfortunately, many of the barriers I had to cross between church and its ministry to the world was experienced here at St. Peter’s. During my ministry, I’ve been accused of many things, being more interested in saving the world instead of saving souls, spewing leftist dogma, being a detriment to the church, liberalizing the youth, and indoctrinating the youth to liberal causes, and going as far as saying that I teach the kids during Sunday school how to be trans, and I am furthering sinful behavior by advocating for those in the LGBTQ community.

And probably the most puzzling one for me is that evidently I hate white men and I don’t welcome them into the church, which is funny because I’m married to one.

So why am I telling you all of this? Well, I did think long and hard about including this in my sermon, and I prayed about it for a few hours. But I wanted to be transparent about my experience here, especially since our congregation is in the middle of many transitions. And I wanna let you know the impact felt by this behavior.

…What was really the most hurtful to me was not the names that I was called, but the people who have been saying these unkind words, people who are part of my church family…