At the conclusion of the ELCA 2009 churchwide assembly, after the votes were in, voting member and former Minnesota governor Al Quie chided those who he believed were overreacting negatively.  “I’m opposed to this change, too,” he said, “but that’s my problem,” and he urged a cautious response.  It appears his heart has hardened, and he has gone over to the dark side of demagoguery. 

According to Websters, a demagogue is “a person, esp an orator or political leader, who gains power and popularity by arousing the emotions, passions, and prejudices of the people.”  It seems Quie has assumed this mantle by allowing a letter to the editor to circulate in the newspapers of Minnesota citing his name and that of a Bill Lee.  The letter contains a populist appeal that a former Congressman and Governor should understand to be a mischaracterization of the way decisions are made by democratic institutions, whether the Congress of the United States, the State of Minnesota, or the ELCA.  Whether by deliberate misstatements or innuendo, their letter of January 7th contains several blatant falsehoods.

“The leadership of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) turned its back on members of its churches.”  This perpetuates an urban myth that the pro-LGBT assembly decisions were mandated by a powerful church hierarchy, imposed in a top down fashion.  The truth, and Quie knows this, is that the actions of the ELCA assembly were the results of balloting by over a thousand voting members chosen from around the entire ELCA, elected to serve as voting members by ballot at 65 regional synods, comprised of representatives from each and every congregation of the ELCA.

“Most members were caught off-guard”.  LGBT ministry policies have been the subject of resolutions at synod and church wide assemblies for more than a decade.  At the 2001 church wide assembly, a full eight years prior to the most recent assembly, a resolution passed to commence the process of study that would produce a social statement on human sexuality, and that process chugged along slowly with ample opportunity for input, discussion, dialogue, and debate.  Along the way, preliminary materials were offered for congregational study.  For anyone to suggest after the fact, as does Quie the demagogue, that ELCA members didn’t know that LGBT issues were the hot button topic in ELCA politics that would be front and center at the 2009 assembly is either a lie or an acknowledgment that they simply weren’t paying attention.

“[M]embers did not have a voice in this decision.”  Come now, Mr. Governor and Mr. Congressman.  Surely you understand how a representative democracy works.  Voters elected you to Congress.  You served as their representative.  You, and not your constituents, voted on the hundreds of measures that came before the Congress during your term.  Voters elected you to the Governorship.  You signed or vetoed hundreds of bills that came across your desk that had been passed by the bicameral legislature of Minnesota.  You did not sign a single bill that had been enacted directly by the voters of Minnesota.  Please.  Exhibit some integrity and honesty about how the process works in Congress, in the state of Minnesota, and in the representative, democratic polity of the ELCA.  Please don’t offend common sense by suggesting that the 4.5 million member ELCA (which is similar to the population of Minnesota when you served as a Congressman and Governor) functions or ought to function as a direct and not a representative democracy.

You know very well that individual members voted in their local congregations for those who became their congregational representatives as voting members at the synod assemblies; in turn, those voting members at the synod assemblies then elected, through the process of nomination and ballot, those who served as the synodical voting members at the churchwide assembly.  That was how you were elected to serve as a voting member at the 2009 church wide assembly.  How quickly you forget.

“No one represents all the laity.”  What about the mandate of the ELCA constitution that at least 60% of the voting members at both the synod assemblies and the national, church wide assemblies must be lay members and not clergy?

Mr. Governor, you have besmirched your good name and reputation by allowing this rabble rousing letter to go out over your signature.

In a Lutheran CORE article published over the weekend, CORE spokesperson Robert Benne said,

During the preceding six years we had spent huge amounts of time, energy, money, and determination to stop the juggernaut. We didn’t and we won’t.

Earlier, James Nestingen’s WordAlone article in a blatant falsehood claimed,

[T]he hallways and the back of the assembly fill up with gay advocates bussed in to influence the voters using, commonly enough, intimidation up to and including physical threats.

Or, consider the speech of Kenneth Sauer to the Lutheran CORE convocation that referred to “the elites of the ELCA’s membership” and a “powerful political machine” whose “strategy was to do what was necessary to win”.  Benne’s article also refers to the “cultural secular elite”.  In her fiery speech to the Lutheran CORE convocation, Jaynan Clark intimated it was Satan “invisibly in the driver’s seat working his simple agenda”.

What is the face of this juggernaut, physically threatening intimidator, ELCA elite, cultural secular elite, or the devil incarnate?  Check out the video below, which is a PBS documentary that will soon be appearing on a public television station near you.  Her name is Emily Eastwood, and she is the leader of Lutherans Concerned North America, a partner within Goodsoil, the LGBT friendly advocacy group at the 2009 ELCA Church wide Assembly.

Cross posted at the Open Tabernacle.

Dr. Robert Benne of Roanoke College Center for Religion and Spirituality is one of the principal spokespersons for Lutheran CORE, and he serves on the advisory board.  His latest missive, “Why There Must be New Beginnings”, is a lengthy justification for Lutheran CORE as a new Lutheran denomination.

He offers both a three point preface and ten Lutheran CORE goals (stated negatively, as “things that must be left behind”).  One noteworthy aspect of the preface is the acknowledgement that the pro-LGBT actions of the 2009 ELCA church wide assembly are probably irreversible.

During the preceding six years we had spent huge amounts of time, energy, money, and determination to stop the juggernaut. We didn’t and we won’t.

We have been in the loyal opposition for a long time. Our only “victory” is that we have slowed the process down.  But it is now complete at the churchwide level and it is unlikely to be reversed.

While the preface claims a “great upheaval” and that “many churches … are leaving the ELCA”, he also suggests that “we don’t know how many.”  While it is true that this is an ongoing process and the final outcome unknown, one wonders why Dr. Benne doesn’t offer more specific information.

Here’s the reality:  The ELCA consists of over 10,000 congregations.  Yet, current reports put the number of congregations that have voted to depart the ELCA at less than 200.  Again, I don’t want to prematurely judge the final outcome or to minimize the significance of departing congregations, but to suggest a “great upheaval” is self-serving hyperbole, but it fits the rather grandiose goal of Lutheran CORE to accomplish “a reconfiguration of Lutheranism in North America.”

The list of ten things that “must be left behind” contains familiar rants (the ELCA ignores the clear meaning of Scripture and distorts the gospel) but also offers rather startling insight into CORE’s vision for a new Lutheranism: the ELCA from the beginning has been too democratic with too much input from the laity, ELCA seminaries are too alike other Protestant denominations and not Lutheran enough,  the ELCA has been too favorable to feminism and environmentalism and overly concerned with diversity and inclusivity, CORE will turn away from other mainstream Protestant churches (Methodist, Presbyterian, Episcopal, and UCC, etc.) and turn instead toward the Missouri Synod and Roman Catholicism.

If I may be so bold as to summarize and paraphrase, here are the ten goals of Lutheran CORE:

• return to orthodoxy
• strict interpretation of law and gospel
• less democracy and less lay influence
• greater emphasis on converting non-Christians
• seminaries that are distinctively Lutheran
• less feminist, less environmental, less inclusive, less diverse
• greater appreciation of white, middle class, Euro-Americans
• less support for progressive causes
• turn away from Protestant mainstream toward LCMS, Roman Catholicism, & Evangelicals
• a streamlined organizational structure that doesn’t waste time and money on social ministries

I kid you not.  This  is the agenda of Lutheran CORE per Dr. Benne.

UPDATE:

Pastor John Petty, over at Progressive Involvement blog, also critiques the Benne article.  He pulls no punches. 

Although Benne attempts to provide a holistic rationale for a full fledged denomination, Petty suggests he fails to show CORE as anything other than a negative, judgmental, and exclusive organization. 

Petty also points out the contradiction in Benne’s argument that the ELCA churchwide decisions were dictated by a powerful hierarchy but also due to rampant democratic impulses of unqualified voters.

The first thing CORE must do, he says, is leave behind “the heterodox arrogance by which the leadership of the ELCA has ignored the clear meaning of Scripture.”  Notice that it’s the “leadership” which is in the wrong, not those rank-and-file folks who did the actual voting.  When in doubt, take a swipe at the supposed “elites”. 

In truth, the leadership of the ELCA had almost nothing to do with the August vote.  Those who supported change worked through the established processes of the church.  It wasn’t a decision handed down from on high.  It came from the “grass roots.”  To accuse the leadership of “heterodox arrogance” is mere hyperbolic fluff borne of frustration.

But wait.  Wasn’t that vote because of the “heterodox arrogance” of the ELCA leadership?  Now you’re telling us it was because lay people are too ignorant to know what they’re doing, and what they need is the “learned and experienced”–i.e. anyone who agrees with me–to tell them what to do.  Turns out Benne was for the “elites” before he was against them.

Petty openly wonders whether CORE is ultimately destined to be just another fringe Lutheran denomination without great numbers or influence.  He points out that the WELS has 1,000 congregations and that CORE has a long, long way to go to reach that minimal status, much less a “reconfiguration of American Lutheranism.”

Have the LGBT inclusive actions of the ELCA affected you?  Someone close to you?

Project Light 2010 is a new blog that has been created for sharing personal stories.  Check out the experiences of “healing, hope, and transformation” and add your own.

There has been a lot of publicity and conversation around the August 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly vote on human sexuality, and most of it has been negative. I however, am someone who has been deeply affected in a positive way by the August 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly vote.

And I KNOW there are thousand of you, who like me, have been affected in a positive way because of our church’s decision. You have compelling, Spirit-filled stories of hope, healing and transformation in your life and congregations because of our recent ELCA decision to open our minds, hearts and doors to all people. So, LET’S START TALKING ABOUT IT!

This is the intention of PROJECT LIGHT 2010.

PROJECT LIGHT 2010 is a collection of stories of healing, hope and transformation in the lives of individuals and ELCA congregations because of the August 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly vote on human sexuality to include gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people as full partners and participants in ministry.

PROJECT LIGHT 2010 is a movement to shed light on the many ways God is at work for justice and equality in our world.

PROJECT LIGHT 2010 is a response of God’s hope to the ever-present, sometimes dominant human undercurrent of fear and depression in our country and our church.

PROJECT LIGHT 2010 is you and me sharing our story, raising up, shouting to the hills, celebrating, bringing to light God’s promise of love for all people.

PROJECT LIGHT 2010 is positive perspectives. It is not a forum for debate. Please do respect the intention of this project. Thanks!

So…..What is your Light Story? Short and sweet, what is your vignette? Together let’s see how many positive stories we can circulate throughout Epiphany (season of LIGHT) and beyond! Thanks for sharing your COMMENTS!!!

Yesterday, I happened upon the blog of an ELCA pastor who blogs at My Lutheran Roots.  His post indicated that he was disappointed by and disagreed with the ELCA church wide assembly LGBT decisions, but leaving the ELCA is not an option for him, even though he attended the Lutheran Core Convocation in September. 

The subject of his post was a chance meeting with a lesbian couple in a social context.

Imagine my surprise when I realized they were looking for a congregation that would accept them as they are, two attractive young ladies in a loving relationship with one another.  They were not shy about telling me about this as well.

I cannot deny that their feelings for one another at this time are real.  Herein lies the rub.

Although the pastor assumed this relationship was sinful because that was how he interpreted the Bible, something clearly gnawed at him.  He was wrestling.  He concluded, “This, my friends, is a work in progress.”

Coincidentally, Pastor Erma Wolf, one of the activists behind Lutheran CORE, who is part of the team of CORE bloggers, offered a similar blog post that indicated that she was also wrestling with the evidence of committed relationships in conflict with the assumptions of her “confessional” Lutheranism.

I’m not sure that either pastor is nearing a conversion regarding their LGBT attitudes, yet I find their acknowledged wrestling to be interesting, if not healthy.  In any case, I left a lengthy comment on each blog post.  My comment was published on My Lutheran Roots, but Pastor Wolf chose not to publish the comment on her blog, Satis Est.

I reprint my comment below in slightly modified form.

What is at issue is a paradigm and what is required is a paradigm shift in thinking. When one starts with an assumption and that assumption is an unquestioned baseline, even in the face of facts to the contrary, then cognitive dissonance results.

Homosexual behavior is wrong. That is the unquestioned assumption. After all, that’s what Paul said, didn’t he? So, despite the mutually supportive, loving relationship between two women that [the pastor behind My Lutheran Roots] encountered, the assumption prevails in spite of the facts. The lives of these two women, and millions of other gay men and women, are fuller, richer, and more meaningful because they have found someone to share  their life and love with. Should that not be a Christian ideal despite Paul’s culturally conditioned words? Do not Pauline epistles also support slavery? Submissive women?  If we can accept a paradigm shift in thinking about slavery and sexism despite 1st century Pauline writings, why not same-gender relationships?

The issue is deeper than simply suggesting we all sin, which is true, of course, but which sours the discussion because it again postulates the assumption that this loving relationship is sinful. Why should that be so when all the evidence suggests that, on balance, this relationship produces more good than bad?

No, the issue is much deeper. Christian ethics are much deeper–and harder than many would acknowledge. The question is, what is sin in the first place? How do we probe such questions? Agreed, we start with the Bible, but are Paul’s words the end of the discussion? Are there not deeper streams to Holy Scripture found in a gospel message of inclusion? Do not the words of Christ and the two commands offer a balancing test for determining Christian ethics, rather than understanding the Bible to be a mere cookbook of moral recipes? Don’t think, don’t ponder, don’t wonder, don’t wrestle–just look it up.  We do the Bible a disservice by making it less than it is, and then we compound the error by accusing others who dare to probe deeper of being unbiblical.   More nuanced, yes.  Willing to wrestle with the text, yes. Willing to question and apply God’s gift of reason, yes. Unbiblical-–thank you, no.

It’s hard mental gymnastics, but try putting the assumption aside for the moment. Consider the issue of the sinfulness, or lack therof, of the relationship of these two women without allowing a preconceived assumption to control. Don’t use the assumption to prove the assumption.

There is a paradigm shift underway in the ELCA and much of Christendom. Instead of dismissing this seismic sea-change as unthinking, uncritical, unbiblical, and unchristian, consider the possibility that this is a situation analogous to the Copernician revolution, which the church long resisted. Based on the unquestioned assumption that God’s earth must be the center of the universe, despite evidence to the contrary, the church of their day ostracized Copernicus and Galileo. Hopefully, it will not take the church of our day as long to come to the realization that the human condition that is capable of loving another deeply and intimately–mutual support, mutual encouragement, mutual uplifting–is as much a gift from God to our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters as it is to me and my wife of nearly 40 years.

Are we not being selfish by claiming such a heavenly gift to be for straight folks alone? 

Thanks for listening, and I encourage all to listen to the voice of change. Perhaps it is not merely the clamor of popular culture, as some would claim, but the restless and roiling ruah, pneuma, and Espiritu Sanctu of Pentecost.

Let all who have ears to hear, hear.

Last summer I had email correspondence with Pastor Susan Strouse of First United Lutheran Church of San Francisco.  This was one of the congregations expelled from the ELCA in the 90’s for calling a  pastor in defiance of the ELCA policies of the day regarding gay clergy.  My email correspondence with Pastor Susan was for the purpose of obtaining background info on First United and Pastor Jeff Johnson, the gay pastor at the center of the 90’s controversy, which I used for a blog post on August 14th.

Here is a lengthy quote from my earlier blog post:

In 1988, Jeff Johnson received his Master of Divinity degree from Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary.  Following graduation, he worked for Lutheran Social Services of Northern California, dealing with the exploding HIV/AIDS epidemic.  Then, he received a call to the ordained ministry from First United Lutheran Church of San Francisco, but he was ineligible according to the ELCA policy that required a pledge of life-long celibacy from gay and lesbian pastors.

Nevertheless and despite dour warnings from the synod bishop, “Pastor Johnson [along with a lesbian couple, Ruth Frost and Phyllis Zillhart, who were called to St Francis Lutheran of San Francisco] was ordained extra ordinem on January 20, 1990 at a service at historic St. Paulus Lutheran Church in San Francisco that was attended by over 1000 persons, with participation by over 70 clergy members.”  First United Lutheran and St Francis Lutheran were placed on trial and expelled from the ELCA in 1995. 

In 1999, Pastor Johnson accepted a new call as Pastor of University Lutheran Chapel and as Lutheran Campus Pastor of the University of California, Berkeley.  University Lutheran Chapel received a “letter of censure” from the synod bishop at that time, but no further action has been taken by the ELCA or the regional synod.  Pastor Johnson continues to serve in that call.

First United Lutheran Church of San Francisco has thrived in its ministry to the LGBT population in its community, and continues to maintain informal ties with the ELCA.  Pastor Susan Strouse, the present pastor of First United Lutheran, has advised me in private correspondence that the congregation continued to be part of their ELCA conference and Pastor Jeff Johnson actually served as conference Dean for a period!  Pastor Strouse continues to be ELCA rostered clergy although she is technically “on leave from call” (and not accruing pension benefits?).  She is also rostered with Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM).  The current bishop has expressed interest in resolving this festering issue, but “much bridge building and healing would have to take place,” Pastor Strouse says.

I bring this up at this time because of news that Pastor Susan’s status as “on leave from call” with the ELCA has been changed.  The Sierra-Pacific synod now recognizes her call from First United, and she is back on the ELCA roster as “on call”.  We offer our congratulations to Pastor Susan, and our thanks to Bishop Mark Holmerud and Associate Bishop Nancy Feniuk Nelson for righting an earlier wrong.  During the church wide assembly, I had the pleasure of several delightful conversations with Associate Bishop Nancy.

Of course, this resolution follows from the ELCA church wide assembly decisions last summer.

This information comes via a blog post from Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM), which is the organization that stepped in and offered rostering and other support to Pastor Susan and a couple dozen others who were previously non-rostered by the ELCA.

According to the mission statement of ELM posted on their blog:

Our vision is to create, empower, and sustain a growing number of faith communities that are committed to the full participation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities in the life and ministry of the Lutheran church.

American Lutheranism was imported by northern European immigrants, and the ELCA has long been dominated by blonde, blue-eyed folks whose favorite cuss word was “uff da”.  The ELCA has been intentional about expanding that base with inner city and minority outreach programs, but the effort suffered a setback with the departure of the Oromo group of churches, consisting of immigrant and first generation Africans, who share the strong homophobia of that continent (see the Ugandan legislative effort to execute gays).

Yet, there are evidences of the ELCA becoming more diverse. 

The ELCA departures consist primarily of those of northern European stock with a longing for an earlier day (not all—most of us of northern European ancestry don’t pine for the past).  A person commented on an earlier post here that she asked a question at a congregational gathering featuring a dissident speaker (LCMC representative) that received a telling answer. 

“What is an orthodox Lutheran?” she asked. 

The speaker responded, “your grandmother’s church”.

The lady who posed the question is 72 with one grandmother born in Norway in 1864 and the other born in Germany in 1882.   My point is merely that since the departures tend to represent a singular ethnic/cultural background, those who remain will naturally tend to be more diverse.

There is news out of the twin cities of Hmong ELCA ordinations.  A Star Tribune news article reported on the ordination of Minneapolis’ first Hmong pastor (St Paul already had a Lutheran Hmong pastor):

A Lutheran congregation in Minneapolis is celebrating Christmas with its new minister, the city’s first Hmong Lutheran pastor.

Nengyia Her was ordained Sunday as a minister in the Minneapolis Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. He was also installed as pastor of Luther Memorial Lutheran Church in north Minneapolis.

The ELCA will certainly become more gay and less straight.  That may be what has the Lutheran CORE types squirming. 

I was a Goodsoil volunteer at the ELCA church wide assembly last summer promoting marriage equality and gay clergy, and I wore a distinctive prayer shawl.  During lunch one day, a pastor from a rural Pennsylvania congregation sat next to me, and his body language betrayed his unease at sitting next to a person he assumed was gay (I’m not; I happen to be a gay ally, but he didn’t know that).  He was polite but clearly uncomfortable. 

I have a counter story also.  At one of the daily assembly worship services, we blessed each other with the sign of the cross on one another’s forehead.  I happened to be sitting alone, and I shared the blessing with a lady behind me.  Another lady, sitting in my row several empty chairs away, feared that I had not been blessed and also assumed I was gay based on my prayer shawl.  After the service, she pointedly came up to me and offered another blessing even though I assured her I had already been blessed.

This brings up another irony in the whole Lutheran Core, ELCA schism issue.  On the one hand, CORE leaning congregations express frustration at their perception of the heavy- handed control by the ELCA; the reality is that local congregations are entirely free to consider gay ministry candidates–or not–at their congregational discretion.  The ironic falsity is that such local congregations are not really whining about the ELCA controlling them, but that they are upset that they can’t control what other congregations may do with their ministries.  Local control is not the solution; for the CORE congregations it is the problem.  In a metaphorical way, they are uncomfortable with sitting next to certain someones at the lunch table—or the communion rail.

There is anecdotal evidence of families returning to the ELCA who had left because of the treatment of a gay family member.  There is concrete evidence that the ELCA will become more gay in news from St. Francis Lutheran Church of San Francisco.

When St. Francis Lutheran Church called a lesbian couple in 1990 to minister to its members and the Castro community the congregation was put on trial and thrown out of the national body the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) in 1995. The congregation, in a combination of prophetic protest and tongue in cheek, has thereafter celebrated the Feast of the Expulsion on the last Sunday of the year.

But now, the congregation’s leaders have changed the name of the Feast of the Expulsion to the Feast of Hope, reflecting momentous changes in the ELCA this last summer when it finally caught up to the San Francisco congregation. Looking for eventual reconciliation, the congregation is hopeful that the finalized details of that change will not be a hindrance in any way to sexual minority rights -hence the renaming of the feast day.

This is news that will make some folks squirm a bit, I’m sure.  The speaker at the feast, held this past Sunday the 27th, was Pastor Anita Hill of St Paul Reformation church in Minnesota.