I have a confession. I was brainwashed. Though I have been a persistent critic of the Lutheran CORE and a skeptic regarding their grandiose claim to “reconfigure North American Lutheranism”, I confess that I bought into their hyperbole, or at least, I failed to question the implication that CORE would become the focal point and landing spot for Lutheran congregations that choose to depart the ELCA.
CORE’s lengthy statement released a week ago, called A Vision and Plan for the North American Lutheran Church, (NALC for short) stated in its introduction:
we are now also proposing the formation of a new denominational body for confessing Lutherans: the North American Lutheran Church (NALC).
Does this not imply that CORE expects to become the home of those departing congregations who vote themselves out of the ELCA? Is this not the implication of CORE’s visible presence at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly (CWA09), their much ballyhooed Convocation in September, their frequent press releases and blog postings, their slate of rabble rousing appearances at ELCA gatherings around the country, and in their professed commonality with the dissident Lutheran organizations that have been around for a decade?
Oops. Wait a minute. There’s a hint of trouble. More than a hint, actually. Right here in River City. Trouble with a capital “T”. And that rhymes with “LCMC” and that stands for Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ! (My apologies to the Music Man).
I caught the hint in a comment to my Saturday posting about the Anatomy of Lutheran CORE. An anonymous commenter, calling himself LCMCer, said:
Core has no official relationship with LCMC. There is an agreement to work together in the future and look for ways to support each other. But LCMC has been around for almost 10 years, and is its own organization …
I responded,
it sounds like [CORE and NALC] expect the LCMC congregations to be integral parts of their network–almost as if LCMC is a temporary landing spot until NALC gets organized.
And, LCMCer replied:
In my interactions with many LCMC folks, I have yet to talk to anyone that sees LCMC as a “temporary landing spot”.
I dug deeper into the potential conflict or competition between CORE/NALC versus LCMC, and I found a Google discussion group called “Friends of LCMC”. Whew. There’s a lively discussion going on there in response to CORE’s announcement of the formation of NALC.
On February 19th, LCMC pastor Bradley Jensen of Duluth posted his open letter to CORE (NALC):
Most of what the NALC is proposing already exists in LCMC.
Many congregations who (a) are seeking dual affiliation with confessional
Lutherans while remaining in the ELCA or (b) are seeking to leave the ELCA
will have already done so by joining LCMC long before the NALC’s August 2010
constituting convention. Furthermore, LCMC has proved itself as a viable
on-going entity whereas NALC has not. In light of these issues, I have two
questions at this time:1) What, specifically, does the NALC offer that LCMC DOES not or CANNOT
offer?2) Given that many, if not most, traditional ELCA Lutheran congregations
will have affiliated with LCMC long before 08/2010, what will NALC do if
there are, say, less than 100 congregations who formally affiliate with
NALC? In other words, what will you do if the NALC fails to become an
established, on-going entity?
The next day, he posted the following:
I’m giving these reflections a title: “NALC: Lutherans ‘Waiting for
Godot'” In Samuel Beckett’s play, two characters wait for the arrival of
Godot—who never arrives. I’m arguing that the NALC is will host its
constituting convention and then wait for in influx of congregations who,
like Godot, won’t arrive. The number won’t be a bleak as “zero,” but I
don’t believe that very many congregations will either (a) establish dual
affiliation with NALC or (b) actually leave the ELCA for single affiliation
with NALC. Here is why: I think that traditional Lutherans are too
optimistic about how many congregations will leave the ELCA (it won’t be
that many) … Thus, LCMC and NALC will be splitting a small pie. LCMC
is up, running viable for the long haul, and receiving new congregations
every week. NALC is not. … I think that the energy for dual affiliation/leaving the
ELCA is rapidly dissipating. Most of the action will happen prior to this
summer … NALC will have its constituting convention in August.Too late. I expect that the NALC will be “waiting for Godot.”
Indeed. Stay tuned.
Hey Obie,
Perhaps I should blog about this, but here are my thoughts regarding all of this, as an outside observer based on what I have been reading coming out of the CORE camp and Word Alone camp.
This new group the NALC is a group whose main partners are LCMC, Word Alone, and CORE according to CORE’s press release. It will become a new denomination, but you aren’t required to be part of it unless you want to be, this was found in the press releases as well when it referred to CORE not being NALC. So, it is a subdivision of a subdivision, again looking at it from the outside, but it will have an elected Bishop and an annual convention. My question is, does this mean people will be tri-rostered?
The thing is that LCMC is a group of individual congregations who don’t want any national church. There will be some that stay there, since there were some that were there before all of this.
CORE churches who want a national church, but don’t want to be in the ELCA will probably join the NALC. I am sure some will leave the LCMC and the ELCA and will join up with this new group. But, then again, some will remain in the ELCA, be a part of CORE, and will be able to participate in the NALC stuff as well, I am guessing.
Word Alone will essentially dissolve. I personally (and I will claim it as personal) have not seen a purpose for Word Alone anymore. They were opposed to Call to Common Mission, got a few on board, but then essentially disappeared until this came up. There are churches in Word Alone, who are also in the ELCA, and who are also in CORE. I am guess therefore that since most of Word Alone’s leadership went into CORE, Word Alone will become part of the leadership of the NALC and ultimately dissolve.
This is just a guess based on what I have read.
Ok Obie, you did inspire me.
As a new person in the blogosphere I will admit there is much of this I am not familiar with, primarily because I just don’t care. I was turned off by the anger of Word Alone way back during the CCM days, I just can’t stay that grumpy all of the time. I went to one LCMC meeting and found the same grumpy people, and then when they showed up and tried to get one of my former congregations to leave the ELCA I found their dishonesty and, once again fear mongering, a turn off. Thankfully the people in the pews saw through the anger and misinformation and decided to remain in the ELCA.
Watching what is going on in CORE/NALC community begs the question, “who has the most to gain by a new denomination”? If NALC will have more structure than LCMC then who will be the leader, I am pretty sure they will not be called Bishop. Is the reason CORE is not joining LCMC because the leadership posts are already taken? It is said that every US Senator begins the day by looking in the mirror and saying, “Good morning Mr. President” are the current leaders of CORE getting up every morning and looking in the mirror and saying “Good morning Presiding Bishop/President/Buddha”?
Well, I will hang around for a while until I once again get bored with it all, or baseball season starts, which ever comes first.
It seems to me that the not-quite resolved issue of women in ministry might have a role to play in this question.
Explain?
This whole thing reminds me of a story, which I first heard a while ago(with apologies to Max Lucado):
Two Lutherans met on the mid-section of the San Francisco Bridge. They soon found they were both Lutheran, and then the questions started… “Organ, or piano?” “Organ.” “Hymns or praise-music?” “Hymns.” “Green Book, or Red Book?” “We use the Green, but miss the Red.” “Women pastors?” “We can, but we don’t.” The first Lutheran smiles, and says, “Brother…” The two men embrace, smiling. The first Lutheran then pauses, and asks, “Just wondering…wafers for communion, or real bread?” “OH…real bread, always.” The first Lutheran growls, “Heretic!” and throws the second man off the bridge.
It’s vaguely funny, but also tragically familiar.
The very fact that we have the ELCA, the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods, splinter congregations who think the LC-MS and LC-WS are backsliders, plus WordAlone, LCMC, CORE and now their NALC, proves that Lutherans have never learned how to play well with other children.
I’m with Ray. Although I’m not much of a baseball fan, I’d much rather go to a game than argue with Lutherans. In fact, I’d rather hit myself in the head with a stiff oak plank than argue with a bunch of Lutherans.
Just to add another perspective, and some food for thought…
There is a great book called “The Churching of America: 1776-1990” by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark, which we had to read in seminary. It effectively makes the case that denominations who concentrate on merging into bigger and bigger organizations consistently lose members, as their doctrine is watered down. Whereas denominations who fracture or stay in smaller groups, and resist mergers grow much more consistently. One case study is the Baptists and Methodists. Both were initially the fastest growing denominational groups in America (Methodists were THE fastest growing by 1776). When the Methodists began to merge together and lose their evangelical flair, they lost their rapid growth…and it has never returned. Baptists (of which there are umpteen different splinter groups) have always remained the fastest growing Protestant group (until the rise of Pentecostalism)…and have generally resisted trying to merge into one big group. See this graph: http://tinyurl.com/yzh837v
For further info, read Fink and Starke’s chapter entitled, “Why Unification Efforts Fail”.
This same reality has been true for the ELCA, which has been in steady decline ever since the merger of the ALC, LCA, and AELC: http://tinyurl.com/yfazdxs
With now only 4.5 million members or so, and with the ELCA typically worshiping at a 20% average. This is the first time in history that less than 1 million mainline Lutherans are in worship on any given weekend. This is a very sad reality. There are severe financial troubles now…but if this pattern continues…it will be unsustainable for such a top heavy organization.