Lutheran Ping!
Posted on 10/06/2007 12:45:59 PM PDT by lightman
Lindenhurst Meeting Report Oct. 5, 2007
When 250 people gather from around the country, mostly at their own expense, to consider a topic such as "'This Church' and God's Church," one might assume that they see a difference between those two. Hence, participants at Lutheran CORE's national gathering at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Lindenhurst, Ill., on Sept. 28, reflected on ways they believe the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is not being faithful as God's Church, and how they can testify about God's call to the ELCA to practice obedient discipleship.
Meet the Leaders
Pastor Erma Wolf, vice-chair of Lutheran CORE, the coalition for reform, began her role as leader of the sessions by asking, "What are we here to do?" She noted that participants had come to meet the leaders of the reform effort and then said, "Turn to the person next to you and introduce yourself. You're it! You're the leaders! The Spirit is working in you and has raised you up."
Bible Study
James Nestingen, professor emeritus from Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minn., led a Bible study on 1 Corinthians 4:1-2, 7-8 on being Christ's servants, stewards of divine mysteries and worthy of his trust, while not boasting but remembering that everything was given to them. He noted that there are two possible errors in church institutions, legalism and enthusiasm.
"Legalism is not our problem in the ELCA," he noted. Nestingen continued, "Grace is not tolerance [of all behavior]. God has called us to this ministry; God who speaks by His Word has said, 'I want you to stand up.'" He added, "Ninety-eight percent of the world's Christians hear the same Word you do."
A ministry is different from a lobby he reminded the group and explained that Lutheran CORE's call is a ministry to the ELCA, not a political movement. He said, "We are not gathered here to triumph over anybody. We hear God's voice speaking clearly to us on these issues."
"The Word always engenders attacks," Nestingen said. "If you are called to this ministry, you will look a little like Jesus." He said that Christian ministry always takes the shape of the cross.
What Happened in Chicago?
Rev. Paull Spring, chair of Lutheran CORE, reflected on the recent churchwide assembly in Chicago. He said, "Chicago did not resolve most of the issues facing our church." He said that he saw both positive indications and troubling results.
The first positive was that many synodical bishops participated in the debate unlike the 2005 assembly when most did not speak. He said he was pleased with the competence and commitment of Lutheran CORE supporters and noted, "People we didn't even know spoke on our side." There is hidden support for us if we remain churchly, moderate and focused on the issues, he told the crowd.
Other positives were the resolution asking for a definition of the accountability of bishops to ELCA official policies, and the adoption of a motion referring all synodical memorials on sexuality to the ELCA sexuality task force, which is to prepare a social statement for the 2009 churchwide assembly. Spring called the task force referral a "tactical victory -- we bought time."
He saw as troubling the defeat of an amendment regarding the study of the Bible, so that the adopted resolution speaks of Lutheran "approaches" to the Bible instead of "approach" as the amendment proposed. Spring called that a "weakening of biblical authority and our confessional witness."
Also troubling, Spring said, were more supportive members to Lutheran CORE's goals were not elected to the ELCA Church Council and the adoption of a resolution calling for "restraint" on discipline of pastors in same-sex relationships. The latter, he reminded people, did not change the policies of the church and "may be a much-needed wake up call."
Spring outlined what Lutheran CORE will do in preparation for the churchwide assembly in 2009. The participation of bishops will be solicited, particularly since the issues coming up need to be addressed theologically and biblically, instead of merely dealing with process and order, he said. Specifically, Lutheran CORE will zero in on the social statement on sexuality and on elections to the churchwide assembly and church council.
Lutheran CORE will be more than merely a presence at Minneapolis; it will be organized with a clear plan, said Spring. He told the gathering that the steering committee of Lutheran CORE would be meeting after the event and that he expected a series of proposed actions to be adopted to further these ends.
Spring emphasized that during 2008 Lutheran CORE's action will center on synods and synod assemblies, especially as voting members are chosen for the 2009 churchwide assembly. He said in 2009 Lutheran CORE will be drawing up memorials. Effective synod coordinators will be recruited for these tasks. He said that the steering committee hopes to recruit a team of a pastor and a layperson in each synod.
Spring reported that a lay voting member called him after the assembly in Chicago to remind him of the power of prayer in the face of spiritual warfare such as occurred at the assembly. He concluded, "The last, first and most important thing is to undergird our efforts in prayer."
Other Comments on Strategy
Pastor Paul Ulring, a member of the Lutheran CORE steering committee, noted, "this is an unusual group gathered here. We don't agree on lots of stuff, but we agree about what is important." Particularly, Ulring said that he has been convicted about the lack of prayer.
Rev. George Mocko noted that a restraint on discipline "is one of the things that got us in so much trouble in Texas [a reference to the lawsuit against the ELCA and a Texas synod a few years ago involving an ELCA pastor convicted of sexual misconduct]." He said he feared that restraint in discipline would open the way to more such problems.
Spring wondered what would happen to "restraint" if the 2009 churchwide assembly were not able to adopt a social statement on sexuality, in which case restraint could continue indefinitely or be rescinded. He also said he was unhappy when he learned at the Church Council meeting in April that the task force is already drafting the statement before hearing from the church.
Benne: The Real Problem
Robert Benne, director of the Center for Religion and Society at Roanoke College, began by noting the "marginalization of dissent" in the ELCA. "Almost all of us are on the outside looking in," he said.
Benne mentioned 18th century English poet Alexander Pope's insight that "when we see an abhorrent vice too much, we first endure it, then tolerate it and finally embrace it." Benne expressed that in our society the process is "pretty well complete," and "the change has been breathtakingly swift. Homosexual conduct has been embraced."
Benne also cited former ELCA pastor Richard John Neuhaus' law: "Where orthodoxy is optional, orthodoxy will sooner or later be proscribed." Benne said that already is pretty much the case in the ELCA and its institutions: "People pay dearly if they publicly affirm orthodoxy on these matters in elite circles."
Then Benne declared, "It is a great shame that the struggle over the soul of the church has had to focus on homosexuality issues, because they are not the essence of the problem, but rather a glaring symptom." The real problem, he said, is "the movement of the ELCA toward the liberal Protestant temptation to substitute a debatable social gospel for the Gospel itself. The liberal Protestant temptation is to be unexcited, lethargic, unclear and squishy about the core claims of the Gospel (taken as the whole Trinitarian faith), while zealous, dogmatic and utterly confident about the social and political ethics that presumably follow from those core claims."
He said: "One can detect these firm commitments by how non-negotiable they are. Is there any chance of a snowball in hell that the ELCA will give up quotas, the guarantee of access to abortion whatever the reason, the relentless drive to prune all male references to God from our worship and literature, the persisting self-hatred that we are basically white people of Northern European heritage coupled with a forced posturing about our diversity, liberal politics in our advocacy centers and 'anti-imperialist' agitation with regard to Israel and Iraq?"
As a prescription for our response, Benne said that we probably must focus on sexuality issues for the next two to four years, "hoping that will awaken clergy and lay people to the transition to liberal Protestantism that is going on."
So we need to concentrate on getting orthodox people to synod assemblies and educating them about what is at stake Benne told the gathering. Then we need to concentrate on electing "with-it" orthodox people to the churchwide assembly of 2009. He urged responses to the sexuality studies and proposed social statement, which if carefully critiqued will awaken many orthodox people to what may be happening. Enough such responses may inhibit the leadership from pushing to change our teachings.
"But more than 'winning' what will be a prolonged struggle, at best, I would hope that we would be able to get the ELCA to come clean on its public teachings. I want to head off more fudging and obfuscation, more phony 'journeying together faithfully.' I want to see a clear line drawn soon so that people know where we are going," said Benne. Expressing some envy for the Episcopalians on this because of the clear lines drawn [alluding to the confirmation of the election of a practicing homosexual as bishop in 2003], he said, "If we don't get some lines drawn soon, we will lose by default."
Benne said that even more important is nurturing, strengthening and starting more regional and local groups "intent on focusing on the main thing and who wish to de-sacralize the sacred social ethics -- the non-negotiables -- of the ELCA." He said, "In 10 or 20 years we may find that the associations will become more important than the ELCA. But we can't predict that now. We can only build for the future as we see best, and pray that the Spirit bless our efforts."
Planning for Action
Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, offered a general outline of plans to organize in synods. Participants divided into three working groups, depending on whether they perceived their synods as being strongly orthodox, moderate (inconsistent in positions and practice) or strongly revisionist.
Ryan Schwarz, a layperson from the Metro Washington, D.C., synod and a member of the Lutheran CORE steering committee, asked the participants this question: "If this isn't the time God is calling you to take a stand, what would that time look like?"
For more information
Three DVD's are available, which include all the main presentations and the "moderate" working session, for $10 each from the Lutheran CORE office, administered by the WordAlone Network. MasterCard and VISA are accepted. To order, please call 888-551-7254 or 651-633-6004, or email wa.mnoffice@popp.net
Also, please contact Mark Chavez at wordalone@popp.net if you are willing to help with efforts in your synod.
We are most thankful for your prayers and welcome your financial contributions. We are grateful that the WordAlone Network, a member group of Lutheran CORE, provides administrative support. Tax-deductible donations may be sent to
Lutheran CORE, c/o WordAlone Network, 2299 Palmer Drive, Suite 220, New Brighton, MN 55112.
Please make checks payable to WordAlone Network, and write "Lutheran CORE" on the memo line.
Pastor W. Stevens Shipman, Lutheran CORE steering committee and communications committee prsteveshipman@gmail.com
19th Century Lutheran Theologial Charle Porterfield Krauth expanded the thought thus:
When error is admitted into the Church, it will be found that the stages of its progress are always three. It begins by asking toleration. Its friends say to the majority: You need not be afraid of us; we are few and weak; only let us alone; we shall not disturb the faith of others. The Church has her standards of doctrine; of course we shall never interfere with them; we only ask for ourselves to be spared interference with our private opinions. Indulged in this for a time, error goes on to assert equal rights. Truth and error are two balancing forces. The Church shall do nothing which looks like deciding between them; that would be partiality. It is bigotry to assert any superior right for the truth. We are to agree to differ and any favoring of the truth, because it is truth, is partisanship. What the friends of truth and error hold in common is fundamental. Anything on which they differ is “ipso facto” non-essential. Anybody who makes account of such a thing is a disturber of the peace of the church. Truth and error are two co-ordinate powers, and the great secret of church-statesmanship is to preserve the balance between them. From this point error soon goes on to its natural end, which is to assert supremacy. Truth started with tolerating; it comes to be merely tolerated and that only for a time. Error claims a preference for its judgments on all disputed points. It puts men into position, not as at first in spite of their departure from the Church’s faith, but in consequence of it. Their recommendation is that they repudiate that faith, and position is given them to teach others to repudiate it, and make them skillful in combating it." (pp. 195-196)
From: “THE CONSERVATIVE REFORMATION AND ITS THEOLOGY as represented in the Augsburg Confession and in the history and literature of the Evangelical Lutheran Church” by Charles P. Krauth, D.D. (1871). [Note date]
Hard to get past that.
This describes all liberalism.
Another perfect example. Thirty years ago, a woman in the ministry would have been unthinkable.
Hard to get past that.
That is precisely why this group is determined to stay within the ELCA at this time. For persons such as Pr. Wolf the LC-MS, Roman Catholocism, or Orthodoxy are not options unless they were to be laicized.
Ha! You have no idea how glad I am to be out of that Synod. BTW, our interim pastor (who many hope will become permanent) also recently became LCMS from the ELCA. He was our ELCA pastor when we first returned from Utah.
I had lunch with him Wednesday. He expressed as much relief as I feel at being away.
Oh, and continued thanks for the weekly sermons. You have no idea how much they're appreciated.
Go with God!
Jim
Makes sense. They can tolerate homosexual ministers but aren’t willing to follow scripture regarding women in the ministry. They’re really screwed up.
My knowledge of current events and problems within Lutheranism increases through your posts.
For all those who choose to stay in the ELCA to fight on, I wish you luck. I regret it, but I don't share your optimism. You will be talked to death in the coming years, and the apostates will not budge. They tolerated error and now have embraced it.
Sometimes it's best to know when to cut and run to the LCMS and use all your dedication and energy to strengthen this synod. Sooner or later the disenchanted will flock to where YOU went.
If there is a scripturally-proper place to go, why not go?????
(I'm using "you" here in the general sense, not directing my remarks to any one in particular).
Leni
“For persons such as Pr. Wolf the LC-MS, Roman Catholocism, or Orthodoxy are not options unless they were to be laicized.”
Indeed they are positively not, and yet there have been a number of women who once were Episcopal priests or deaconesses who are now living the fullness of Christianity as Orthodox lay women, two of whom actually are here on FR.
All of us have a role and place within The Church. We worship together in a sort of synergistic fashion and thus the hierarchy cannot do without the lower clergy, the monastics or the people of God, nor can the lower clergy do without the hierarchy, the monastics or the people and so on. The same applies with men and women in The Church. We all have our roles and I will tell you this, I think it far more likely that the holy women and nuns I know both here and down in the old country are far more likely to become like God than any hierarch, priest, monk or layman I know. In the end, that’s what matters, not the self-centered pride which compels us to roles and situations not proper or spiritually profitable to us.
You know what my wife did today? She prayed and made Prosophora for the Divine Liturgy tomorrow. I played on the computer....
One point often made in those discussions--and this is not intended to deflect or discount the serious questions regarding the Ordination of women that you have raised--is that the beginning of the slimy slope of this present madness began even a few decades earlier when remarriage after divorce was deemed acceptable, first for laity, then for clergy. Indeed, in some ELCA Synods it is considered so acceptable that the surest ticket to larger calls, elections, etc, is to be divorced and remarried. That's right; the faithfully monagamus are seen as odd or less experienced.
“One point often made in those discussions—and this is not intended to deflect or discount the serious questions regarding the Ordination of women that you have raised—is that the beginning of the slimy slope of this present madness began even a few decades earlier when remarriage after divorce was deemed acceptable, first for laity, then for clergy.”
Interesting observation; Orthodoxy started down that slimy slope in the 7th-8th century and we still don’t have married bishops or women priests.
It’s where I stopped reading and started skimming.
Then came the name “Nestingen”. I moved on...
Now I'm intrigued...I've known of Jim Nestigen being disliked from the left, but how so from the right?
I posted this before, but it bears repeating here:
There are also ELCA women pastors who have been received into the Orthodox Church, and have given up their ordination.
A prominent ELCA Lutheran evanglical catholic clergywoman, Sharon Zanter Ross,became Orthodox way back in 1997, when things were nowhere as bad in the ELCA as they are now:
http://www.leaderu.com/ftissues/ft9701/public.html
....Several months ago was the news that the first woman ordained to the priesthood in the Church of England had been received into the Roman Catholic Church. Now Pastor Sharon Zanter Ross, a prominent figure among “evangelical catholics” in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), has been received into the Orthodox Church in America (OCA).
She writes to friends in the ELCA: “In the past, I encouraged you to stay and resist the various idolatries that have plagued us. Naively, I believed that the evangelical catholic vision would, because it should, win the hearts of all Lutherans. Without a right appraisal of the complexity of the problems as well as the depth of the deterioration of our church (and indeed, of all Western Protestantism), I could continue to hope that even a small group could rescue it from its worst tendencies. But over the last six years I have been made to face, with great anguish and many tears, the truth about the future and come to some difficult decisions.”
She writes that it might have been possible to stay in the ELCA were it not for her children. “Since 1990, as my understanding of motherhood and the responsibilities of the spiritual guidance of children has grown, I have come to see that it would not be fair to the little flock entrusted to my care to stay.” She wrestled with the fact that, as a member of the Orthodox Church, she would be giving up her ordained status, but concluded, “After all, what good is my ordination in a church body which witnesses less and less the faith of the apostles and fathers which is the essential core without which the reformers would have nothing to confess?”
“Sharon’s decision,” says an ELCA theologian who is remaining, “puts further pressure on all of us as to what we will do, since we cannot disagree with her description of what has happened in the ELCA.”....
I used to support women’s ordination, but no longer do so. Once the Lutheran churches that became the ELCA began to ordain women, the demand for “inclusive language” liturgies and lectionaries, and for the exclusive use of “inclusive language” in seminaries and in books published by Lutheran publishing houses, soon followed. Then came the demand for ordination of gaysbians. The same thing happened in the Episcopal church, and in every other church that ordained women.
The experience of the Orthodox Church, which has long allowed divorce and remarriage of the laity (but not the clergy) shows that that is not the reason for the slide into feminist heresy. The blame rests on women’s ordination. We erred when we considered ordination as a civil right, rather than a gift from God.
However, I have known—or known of—several faithful ELCA women pastors, in a sea of generally feminazi, revisionist, and “gay”-enabling ones. One of them was the motherly interim pastor of my ELCA congregation, who unfortunately passed away at age 59 of ovarian cancer. May her memory be eternal!
This shows that there is definitely a place for women in leadership in the church, but not as ordained deacons, priests or bishops. There are a few women theolgians in the Orthodox Church, as well as many readers, choir directors, teachers, etc. Women have served admirably as lay presidents of my Serbian Orthodox Church—one of them in particular, also happens to strongly believe that women’s ordination in the ELCA, and especially women bishops, is a travesty. In the ancient Church, there was an order of deaconesses, which was different from the (ordained) office of Deacon.
Speaking of the ancient Church, Kolo, I believe that orginally there were married bishops. And there were married bishops in Orthodox England and Ireland until the 11th century, until the Norman Conquest ended Orthodoxy in those countries. Is this not true?
Thanks for posting this report, which I only learned about earlier the same day you posted it.
I see that although “the other shoe dropped” on the ECUSA/TEC mis-leaders as the result of a meeting of traditionalists at the end of September, no such shoe dropped on the ELCA mis-leaders as the result of Lindenhurst. So the ELCA is “free” to muddle along in its mush, and slowly decline into nothingness.
I also see that a CD of the “moderate working session” will be available from Lutheran CORE. People in ultra-revisionist synods such as mine need the proceedings of the ultra-revisionist working session!! It is orthodox and muddled/unknowing Christians—lay and ordained—in those synods who are in the greatest danger, and it is those synods that are leading the way to the ultimate downfall of the entire ELCA. An in at least some of those synods—including my own—it may already be too late for mere “reform”.
“Speaking of the ancient Church, Kolo, I believe that orginally there were married bishops. And there were married bishops in Orthodox England and Ireland until the 11th century, until the Norman Conquest ended Orthodoxy in those countries. Is this not true?”
The celibacy of hierarchs is really more tradition than anything else. I don’t believe there are any ecumenical/dogmatic canons which prohibit married bishops. As you know, the father of +Gregory the Theologian was a married bishop. Married clergy in Irekand persisted into the 11th century. Married hierarchs lasted at least until the Conquest in Ireland. I don’t know about England.
The Serbian Orthodox church belongs to the extremely liberal National Council of Churches.
But the Serbian Orthodox Church is an extremely conservative church!
Here’s what’s going on with the SOC and the very liberal World Council of Churches—this parallels the situation with the NCC. since the subject is “the SOC and ecumenism”,which affects both the WCC and the NCC:
http://www.orthodoxinfo.com/ecumenism/artemije_thess.aspx
The NCC and WCC are pure evil and I wouldn't drop one cent in a Serbian Orthodox Church because of it.
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