We moved last week, just down the block, but packing, transporting, and unpacking a household is an onerous task regardless of the distance.  Still walking around boxes and nursing a stiff old body that will turn social-security-eligible next week.  In the middle of it all, I had a book signing on Saturday, and Sunday marked the third installment of a four part series I am teaching at my congregation about the canonization of the New Testament—the centuries long process of determining which writings would become the sacred books of Christianity.  A story of conflict and controversy and erecting boundaries to define the outsider.  I offer these personal notes as explanation for the dearth of posts on this blog recently.  But today I’ll offer my thoughts on a subject that has been festering for awhile.

Pastor Cary and Pastor Jeff are commenters to this blog with a different point of view than my own.  I’m decidedly pro-revised-ministry-policies, and they’re both opposed.  Pastor Jeff suggests that his Arizona congregation has or will soon leave the ELCA and Pastor Carey is a leader of a SE Minnesota group called “Faithfulness Gathering” whose vision is To create a home for faithful Lutherans in southern Minnesota and northern Iowa.  The clear implication is that those of us who support the ECLA policies aren’t numbered among the faithful.

Pastor Jeff has twice invited me, via a comment on my blog, to write a post about an ELCA synod that has significant financial difficulties.  Pastor Cary writes that the ELCA is a “sinking ship” and the only question posed on his blog is whether to join CORE or LCMC.  Why do these two and many others keep pointing to negative ELCA statistics and anecdotal evidence of pain in the parishes?  That several hundred ELCA congregations have or will sever their ties with the ELCA is undisputed as is the knowledge that thousands of individuals will also move elsewhere.  No doubt about it, these departures and the residual anguish in many congregations are immensely painful for the ELCA. 

But why chirp about it?

Some would suggest that it is mean-spirited reveling in the struggles of the ELCA, pleasure in the pain of one’s opponents, but I’ll give them more credit than that.  Instead, I think they seek to prove a point, and they cite the pain of the ELCA as proof—of what?  That the decisions of CWA09 were wrong?  To create a collective “buyer’s remorse” regarding the decisions of CWA09?  There’s a certain “you were warned” tone to the comments.  The admonition “if the ELCA adopts pro-gay ministry policies, then there will be mass defections” has come true.  That’s why it’s also necessary to overstate and hype the defections.  Why, some suggest that the ELCA itself is damaged beyond repair (a sentiment Pastor Cary may share).  But fear not, Lutheran CORE will leap into the breach with their proposal for a “reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism.”  Drum roll, please.

If maintaining unity in the ELCA is a greater priority than enacting justice, then I see their point.  Steady as she goes.  Don’t make waves.  Avoid controversy.  Refrain from challenging the folks in the pews with enlightened notions of human sexuality; after all, the gays left their church a long time ago.  Don’t talk about sex at all.

Change can be painful.  Don’t free the slaves, Mr. Lincoln, or we’ll secede from the union.  And when we do, it’s really you who leave us.  Must our kids remind us that doing the right thing is not always popular?  So, the next time someone flaunts the latest congregation to vote itself out of the ELCA, I ask what does that prove other than that the ELCA was willing to risk, to take a stand, to do the right thing despite the self-fulfilling threats of the secessionists?

BTW, I’ll ask my canonization class on Sunday if we’re unbiblical.

From the moment they called the question and the resolution passed by a 55-45% majority at last August’s ELCA churchwide assembly, Lutherans knew that partnered gay clergy would soon become rostered on the list of ELCA ordained clergy. 

Today is the day.

A visible sign of the wondrous changes in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is the reinstatement of Pastor Bradley Schmeling and Pastor Darin Easler to the roster of ministers of the ELCA. Both had been removed from that roster for being in a committed, same-gender relationship.

The leading Minnesota newspaper, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, reported on the local angle, noting that Darin Easler had earlier served in the SE Mn synod (now my home) and also mentioned Anita Hill whose own celebrated case in St Paul was an important waypoint on the journey toward full inclusion.

Because they both had been rostered before, the process was different than for them than, say, the Rev. Anita Hill, who has been pastoring St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul since 2001 without being on the ELCA roster. She said that she’s going to apply for rostering but is waiting so that the distinction of being first goes to a California minister who was the first lesbian to challenge the old ELCA policy.

And, speaking of the 20 year old California extraordinary ordinations of gay and lesbian pastors, here is a video that retells and celebrates the story of Jeff Johnson, Phyllis Zillhart, and Ruth Frost.  The video was released on the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM) blog.  Susan Hogan at Pretty Good Lutheran’s blog has more background information, and I also cite my own past post.

When teaching about sex replaces teaching about salvation as a defining mark of the church, something has clearly gone severely awry.

Nearly ten years ago, I taught an adult forum at my church about the Biblical treatment of homosexuality.  One of the participants raised the familiar notion that the progressive view abandoned the Bible in favor of popular culture.  It struck me that she was right but she had the roles reversed.  That is, it seemed that the conservative religious view was based on cultural homophobic impulses instead of Biblical hospitality and inclusivity teachings or on the logical implications of Jesus’ two commands.  The Biblical “clobber passages” served as convenient proof texts for a fearful and misinformed popular culture notwithstanding solid Biblical scholarship that rejected the implications of the passages for a modern day.

A fresh scholarly article that is lighting up the Lutheran blogosphere makes this point explicitly and eloquently.  Thus, I’m jumping on the bandwagon and joining many blog friends who are promoting the article by theologian Jon Pahl who is Professor of the History of Christianity at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia, and a Fellow in the Center for the Study of Religion at Princeton University.

Professor Pahl is no Casper milk toast.  Here is a sampling of his smack-down commentary:

All in all, the core of Lutheran CORE is rotten. One can get more than a whiff of Docetism, Donatism, and Pelagianism — heresies all — in the doctrinal formulations of the various groups represented in the coalition. Lutheran CORE represents, in its demographic and historical contours, a largely white, heterosexual, male backlash against the supposedly evil changes in gender roles, sexual mores, and participatory democracy that marked the 1960s.

Read and enjoy his full article here.

The primary legislative body of the ELCA is the assembly of voting members.  Nationally, there are church wide assemblies every two years, but in each of the 65 regional synods, there are annual, springtime assemblies.  The season of synod assemblies has begun, and the first reports are trickling in.  I encourage folks of various synods who follow this blog to provide your own reports of your assemblies.

Synod assemblies often consider resolutions or memorials urging the church wide assembly to do this or that.  These resolutions are not binding but merely express the mood or prevailing views of the various synods.  According to the Fargo, North Dakota, Forum newspaper, the Eastern North Dakota synod rejected a resolution that would have urged a reversal of the pro-LGBT ministry policy resolutions enacted at the 2009 church wide assembly (CWA09).  The Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast synod also met this past weekend, and there were apparently no resolutions pertaining to the CWA09 decisions.  According to one report, the bishop reported that the sister synods in South America and Africa had not expressed disapproval of the revised ELCA ministry policies, and the bishop suggested immigration reform ought to be the paramount concern of this synod in geographical proximity to Latin America.

This weekend, I will be in attendance at the NE Mn synod assembly (our old synod) where I will have a display promoting my book, but I will certainly pay close attention to the actions of the voting members.  In two weeks, my wife and I will be voting members at our new SE Mn synod’s assembly in Rochester.

Again, I urge readers to provide reports from other synod assemblies.  A full calendar (pdf file) of springtime assemblies is available from the ELCA website.

UPDATE:

The third synod assembly held last weekend was in SW Minnesota.  In a private email from a voting member, I was informed that a resolution to memorialize churchwide to rescind the ministry policy actions of CWA09 was defeated, but not without “nasty and high hatted” debate points offered by the conservative proponents of the failed resolution.

Our Lutheran friends and family north of the border (Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada—ELCIC) are boldly stepping forward with the process of creating a social statement on human sexuality.  Of course, it was the ELCA sexuality statement and related changes to ministry policies enacted at the 2009 churchwide assembly (CWA09) that has roiled the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States.  The Canadian Lutherans are in the process of discernment and discussion with the goal of presenting the finished policy statement to their 2011 national assembly.  For information on the process, check out the ELCIC website.

At this time, the first draft has been created consisting of eleven pages.  Although the document deals with the broad range of human sexuality, certainly the passages relating to gays and lesbians will draw the greatest attention.  Here is what this preliminary document, released April 15th, states:

This church acknowledges diversity of opinion on how to respond to the reality that people of orientations other than heterosexual are members of our neighbourhood and are faithful members of this church. Our church is affected by the biases of our heterosexually-privileged culture, and by our society’s call for more openness. Working from a rich and faithful practice of Word and Sacrament, members of this church have come to very different opinions on these matters.

Opportunities for ministry will be maximized by permitting congregations to engage in practices that more fully enable persons of various sexual orientations to live as members of the body of Christ and as co-workers in ministry. This would empower congregations to support families and the processes of healing, no matter how family is defined, and to help nurture disciples who “are responsible persons made in the image of God.”

This church commits itself to engaging the diverse faces of the world in which we live. This church recognizes that meeting diverse peoples and forming a truly inclusive community will be a journey of discovery that will include moments of discomfort and anxiety. This church celebrates the vital role that congregations play in helping diverse people of faith to meet and to form community.