Tag Archives: ELCA

More legal advice from #Lutheran Core #ELCA

Last week I blogged about Lutheran Core “Education Director” Steven King offering legal advice to congregations considering a vote to depart the ELCA.  He continued as a “clubhouse lawyer” in his post yesterday.

The term “clubhouse lawyer” is a sports metaphor for an athlete griping, sniping, agitating, whining, and generally disagreeing with management in clubhouse chatter.  The metaphor fits Pr King’s blog post.  In essence, he is suggesting to those congregations that cannot obtain the necessary votes to depart the ELCA, that they nevertheless become a “thorn in the side” of the ELCA, and he offers a legal option to do so–while also resolving to withhold benevolence. 

Seems to be a lot of “whereases” and “therefores” in the ministry of Lutheran Core, but should that be surprising for a movement based on law and not gospel?

#WordAlone legalism: “Tilting at Windmills” #ELCA #Lutheran Core

He had scarcely gone a short league, when Fortune, that was conducting his affairs from good to better, discovered to him the road, where he also espied an Inn. Sancho positively maintained it was an Inn, and his master that it was a castle; and the dispute lasted so long that they arrived there before it was determined.  Miguel Cervantes, Don Quixote

Since WordAlone and Lutheran CORE share headquarters in New Brighton, Minnesota, one wonders if the two are really one, especially since both camps reek of the same anti-ELCA manure.  The separate websites of the two organizations exhibit significant cross-fertilization.

Tell me thy company, and I will tell thee what thou art.

The latest stink comes in a WordAlone blog post from Pastor Steven King who is listed as WordAlone’s Education Director, but his articles also appear on CORE’s website.  In his post, King accuses certain ELCA bishops of “non-constitutional policies”, “heavy-handed attempt”, “misleading congregations”, “misconduct”, and “unconstitutional meetings”.  He urges those who promote congregational ELCA exit votes to prepare for legal proceedings in the event they lose at the ballot box.

Fear has many eyes.

And what is this egregious misconduct of the bishops that warrants harsh condemnation and is grounds for legal action, according to King?  It seems certain busy bishops have the temerity to send a representative (bishops’ assistant?, synod staff?) instead of appearing personally for consultations with congregations in the midst of the process of withdrawal.

Once a literalist, always a literalist.  Once a legalist, always a legalist.

Don Quixote: Dost not see? A monstrous giant of infamous repute whom I intend to encounter.

Sancho Panza: It’s a windmill.

Don Quixote: A giant. Canst thou not see the four great arms whirling at his back?

Sancho Panza: A giant?

Don Quixote: Exactly.

From the Man of La Mancha

An ELCA Lutheran Pastor’s letter to his riled up congregation UPDATED with vote totals

My friend Susan Hogan has quoted a very lengthy letter in her blog, Pretty Good Lutherans.  Go and read it.  It is a pastoral letter from Pastor Eric Lemonholm to his congregation at Grace Lutheran Church of Detroit Lakes, Mn on the eve of its vote to withdraw from the ELCA.

I believe that it would be a serious mistake for Grace to leave the ELCA, and I urge you to prayerfully consider voting “No” on December 20. Let me tell you why.

That sums up his position, and he goes to great lengths to support it. It’s a sound and well reasoned letter and worth ten minutes to read it and much more to reflect on his wisdom.

UPDATE:

Apparently, the pastoral letter helped: the final vote yesterday was 98 to stay ELCA and 42 to leave.  The 40% vote to leave fell far, far short of the 2/3 majority necessary to pass the resolution.

Good luck to Pastor Lemonholm and the congregants of Grace as they now begin the process of healing.

Deja Vu all over again

Pastor Gail Sowell “Deja Vu all over again,” is attributed to Yogi Berra.  Somehow, it fits.

There is a news report about the experiences of a small town Wisconsin congregation of the ELCA that brings back memories.  The experience of St. John Lutheran Church of Edgar, Wisconsin mirrors that of my former church, Gethsemane Lutheran of Upsala, Minnesota, twenty-two years ago.

Late in 1987, the Gethsemane council voted 11-1 that Gethsemane would not join the ELCA on the occasion of the merger that would go into effect on Jan 1, 1988.  My wife was the one dissenter.

Emotions were high, members were polarized and lay leaders in both congregations wanted to vote quickly to leave the ELCA.  St. John congregational council members held a meeting that first week [after the 2009 Church wide assembly] and voted unanimously, with one abstention, to recommend the congregation leave the ELCA.

Several high tension congregational forums were held at Gethsemane.  Opponents of the newly formed ELCA attacked Lutheran Social Services (LSS) as promoting pornography.  The ELCA didn’t take the Bible seriously enough, it was said, since the ELCA used a watered-down word “inspired” instead of “inerrant”.

[St John in Edgar] held two congregational forums, on Oct. 18 and Nov. 1.  The Oct. 18 forum was particularly nasty, with many members reported to be “yelling and screaming” at one another.

At the January 1988 Gethsemane annual congregational meeting, a motion was made to rescind the action of the Council (which was probably unconstitutional anyway), and the vote was approximately 60% to stay ELCA and 40% to leave.  Many of the conservatives quit the council and quit service positions such as Sunday school teachers.

What happened next was a surprise to many.  St. John members voted 106-67 on the proposal to leave the ELCA, but failed to achieve the required two-thirds by four votes.  That night the council and other congregational leaders met and resigned their leadership positions.  The one exception was the deacon who had earlier asked his colleagues to slow down.

New leadership emerged at Gethsemane, and members stepped forward to replace those who had resigned from the council, to teach Sunday school, and to accept other responsibilities.  While the conservatives stopped giving benevolence, others dramatically increased their financial support of the congregation.

[The first Sunday worship after the St John vote] was another surprise: 145 people showed up for worship — the most that had been there since [the assembly].  “We had people come back who had stopped coming at least since the Oct. 18 meeting,” [Pastor Sowell] said. With a shortage of Sunday School teachers, the result of the previous week’s resignations, six people volunteered on the spot to teach, Sowell said.  Since that time, “dozens and dozens” of members have stepped forward to volunteer for various roles at St. John.

A refreshing spirit of hope and “can do” lifted Gethsemane in the next several years despite the departure of most the conservatives who formed their own Free Lutheran congregation.

“The next Sunday I saw such warmth in the people that were left.  We’ve seen a real consensus of people who really wanted to make this work.”

In the 90’s, Gethsemane took on a building project to replace their 100 year old building.  Half the necessary funds were raised during a fund drive, and the balance on the mortgage is now nearly paid off on the brand new church building that went into service in 1997.

  [T]he situation at St. John was “like a death and resurrection experience.”

“I have grown so much because of this,” [Pastor Sowell] said. “I have been carried by the prayers of my former congregation.  People have called me out of the blue to say, ‘I’m praying for you.'”

“I am sure St. John is not only going to survive, it’s going to thrive,” Sowell said.

Based on my own experience at Gethsemane, I’m sure Pastor Sowell is absolutely correct.  Good luck, Pastor Sowell, and the rest of the reinvigorated congregants of St. John’s.  We’ll be praying for you.  Check out Gethsemane’s website and see what’s happening at a congregation that survived and thrives still.

Mostly quiet on the Lutheran Core front

In this season of advent, the ELCA fires of the past view months have cooled.  Perhaps they will blaze again after the holiday season, but except for the occasional news item about this congregation or that one voting to leave the ELCA, the heat has been turned down.

Lutheran Core released its December newsletter, which was little more than a recap of recent events.  The newsletter and the Lutheran CORE blogpost of December 11 did offer a couple of gratuitous digs at the ELCA implying heresy.  Seems Bishop Hanson offered the heretical view that the authors of Biblical books may not have had a twenty-first century understanding of homosexuality.   Seems an ELCA  liturgy celebrates a feminine image of the divine.  Oh, the horror! 

Seems to me that the following verses about Lady Wisdom (Sophia) are doubly meaningful in this context:

Wisdom cries out in the street; in the squares she raises her voice.  At the busiest corner she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks; “How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?  How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge.” Proverbs 1:20-22

The Lutheran CORE newsletter attempted again to justify and encourage the financial boycott of the ELCA.  In his monthly newsletter, my own bishop here in the Southeastern Minnesota synod, Huck Usgaard, suggests three questions that congregations should ask of themselves.

Some have suggested withholding benevolence dollars or redirecting them. You will soon receive a year end report detailing many of the synod ministries from 2009. The simple truth is that these ministries will suffer if money is not forthcoming. If this is under consideration in your congregation, I would encourage you to ask questions like, “What are we trying to say?” “Who do we want to be impacted?” “Will our actions accomplish those goals?”

If the answer is to blackmail and inflict pain, then by all means withhold funds, but don’t expect to win friends and influence people.

The other new item of note in the Lutheran CORE newsletter was its support of the “Manhattan Declaration”—a pro-life and anti-gay document put forward by the “usual suspects” of American culture wars evangelicalism including Chuck Colson, Tony Perkins, Gary Bauer, and James Dobson:

If that sounds like a recipe for disaster, it is. It’s the right-wing’s new call to arms that is not only reviving the buzzword “culture wars,” but is a sign that conservative religious leaders will stoop to the lowest levels imaginable to make sure that LGBT people are pushed back into the closet and that women’s rights are sent back to the days of back alley abortions and “Mad Men” housewives.

What is the Manhattan Declaration? It’s a statement … that says conservative religious folks are called by God to go nuclear in order to prevent abortion, same-sex marriage, stem-cell research and a host of what they call “fundamental truths.”

How far to the right does Lutheran CORE intend to go?

ELCA — Lutheran CORE scorecard OOPS UPDATE

According to a list posted on the Lutheran CORE website, 117 ELCA congregations have joined Lutheran Core to date.  That means over 10,000 ELCA congregations haven’t joined CORE.

Just a bit of perspective.

UPDATE:

Oops.  Turns out I had the number wrong.  Seems that Urland Lutheran Church, of Cannon Falls, which is pretty near my stomping grounds in Northfield, Mn, is one of the 117 congregations listed on the CORE website, but they want off and CORE won’t let them. 

An article in The Minnesota Independent has the story:

A Minnesota pastor says his church is incorrectly listed on the website of a conservative splinter group that’s breaking away from the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA) over the church’s recent votes on homosexuality, but that group is refusing to rectify the error.

Pastor Arthur Sharot of Urland Lutheran Church in Cannon Falls has asked Lutheran CORE to remove his church’s name from the group’s CORE Congregations page — a list of churches that support its “Common Confession” — but Lutheran CORE says Sharot’s congregation must take a vote in order to get its name removed.

CORE’s position is that years ago Urland, before the arrival of pastor Sharot, joined a group called Lutheran Churches of the Common Confession, which later merged into Lutheran CORE, unbeknownst to Urland.  Even a call from the Congregational Council chairman couldn’t convince CORE to remove Urland from its list.  The news article contained the following:

Lutheran CORE’s own founding and connections show that it is more controversial than first appearances reveal. In 2008, Chavez became the director of Lutheran CORE and before that he was director of WordAlone, a group that spawned CORE. WordAlone believes the ELCA is losing its “Christ-centered focus,” in part because of “the push for approval of sexual relationships outside of marriage.” Chavez is currently the vice president of WordAlone, which shares an office with Lutheran CORE in New Brighton.

“WordAlone holds some controversial views about homosexuality,” says the news article, which then lists a number of the controversial views of WordAlone gleaned from the WordAlone website, including:

  • Reparative therapy works
  • Homosexuals are inherently promiscuous
  • Homosexuals actively recruit
  • Children of same-sex couples are more likely to be gay
  • A personal relationship with Jesus will help break demonic strongholds

Flat earth society, where are you?

NJ Poll reports religious attitudes toward marriage equality

Four decades ago, the gay rights movement burst onto the scene in the Stonewall riots of Greenwich Village.  As we near year’s end in 2009, we close the fourth decade of gay rights activism and the first decade of the twenty-first century.  You’ve come a long way, baby.

A handful of states now offer marriage equality, either through court decree or legislative fiat.  A handful more allow civil unions.  The Matthew Shepherd bill extended hate crimes protection to sexual orientation.  “Don’t ask, don’t tell,” in the military is likely to be phased out soon.

Several branches of Judaism and several of Christianity allow gay clergy and blessings of same-gender unions.  This summer, the Episcopal church opened the episcopate to gays, and a lesbian bishop was elected in California just a week ago.  The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) became the largest religious denomination anywhere in the world to allow gay clergy in committed relationships and to allow blessing of same-gender unions.  Their Swedish counterpart, the Lutheran Church of Sweden, also elected a lesbian bishop this year.

But the battles rage on.  The worldwide Anglican communion and its leader, the Archbishop of Canterbury, are harshly critical of their American communion partner, the Episcopal church.  A dissident group of Lutherans called Lutheran Core is making a lot of noise and siphoning off members, congregations and especially funds from the ELCA.  Gay rights is both a secular and a religious issue, and religious organizations have played major roles in the outcomes of public ballot initiatives in California in 2008 (Mormon) and Maine in 2009 (Catholic), which narrowly rejected marriage equality.

As the year comes to a close, the focus shifts to New Jersey where a marriage equality bill is moving through the legislature.  A new public opinion poll in that state offers fascinating insight into the overlap of the religious and the secular (hat tip to Irish blogger Terence Weldon for first posting about this poll overnight).  The poll was conducted by Rutgers University, and is posted on the University’s media relations site.

Despite opposition from the Catholic Church, New Jersey Catholics generally support legalizing gay marriage, according to a Rutgers-Eagleton Poll released today. Among Catholics, 48 percent support gay marriage, while 40 percent oppose and 12 percent are undecided. Protestants hold the opposite view, with only 34 percent supporting and 55 percent opposing gay marriage; 11 percent are undecided. Jewish respondents support gay marriage, 56 percent to 40 percent, with 4 percent undecided, while those with no religion preference are the most supportive, at 85 percent to only 10 percent opposed (5 percent undecided).

The Protestant numbers are skewed a bit by lumping evangelicals and non-evangelicals together.  The evangelicals are strongly negative, but the main line Protestant numbers approximate the favorable figures for both Catholics and Jews (47% favorable, 37% unfavorable).  Equally interesting is the finding that none of the religious groups, including the evangelicals, consider this issue to be of major importance.

“While the issue matters to a very small but passionate group on both sides, by far, most New Jerseyans of all stripes think there are more critical issues that need to be addressed,” Redlawsk said. “This suggests that regardless how a legislator votes, at the next election, this vote will be far less important to potential re-election than most other issues the Legislature will deal with.

ELCA Bishop Hanson hosts town hall meeting

Bishop Hanson Late Sunday afternoon, Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson hosted an online town hall meeting.  The ELCA news service reported that 3,148 computers logged in to follow the proceedings, which were held in the old bookstore of the ELCA offices in Chicago.  Participants who were present and who asked questions reported that their questions were not pre-screened.

Key points made by the Bishop included:

  • Plans are underway to plant thirteen new congregations in multi-ethnic communities.
  • “Global mission has been part of the foundational identity of Lutherans since they came to this country.”
  • The effect of the financial boycott pushed by Lutheran CORE is that, “mission and ministry is diminished throughout the world and throughout this church.”
  • The church wrestles with social statements but when ratified can and should be used by congregations as teaching and discussion tools.
  • “Youth ministry is alive and well in this church.”
  • “Advent a time a prayer, for me,” Bishop Hanson said.

One pastor reported that the Facebook chat that accompanied the town hall  meeting was hijacked by ugly comments from persons refusing to listen to the discussion.

The town meeting will be available again for download or on demand viewing as a webcast on the ELCA website by 4:30 this afternoon.

Bishop AndersonChilstrom as BishopBishop Hanson is the third presiding Bishop since the formation of the ELCA over twenty years ago.  The first two, Herbert Chilstrom and H. George Anderson, recently issued a joint statement that included the following comments:

In recent months, our society and this church have been sailing through rough waters. Personal income is down for many; some are unemployed. We recognize that some sisters and brothers in Christ were disappointed in the decisions regarding human sexuality at the churchwide assembly, although we believe they were the right decisions. As a result, some have withdrawn or reduced support for our mission. The consequences of these events are painful. This church’s mission and ministry have been diminished.

Our troubled world needs the Good News of the Gospel and all that flows from it. Our differences must not divide us at a time like this. We are absolutely certain that we can continue to live together and serve as one family in the ELCA.

This is why we are calling on you, our brothers and sisters in the faith, to pray daily for the unity of this church and its mission.

Meanwhile, Pastor Donna Simon of Kansas City offers the following commentary on her blog, under the title “Would Jesus withhold mission support?:

Some of those who stand in great certitude about what Jesus would do are withholding their money from their ELCA congregations. Whole congregations are withholding mission support from the ELCA churchwide organization.

Forty-five people lost their jobs at churchwide, in part as a result of this withheld support. Budget cuts are more complex, of course–it’s a bad economy and we continue to decline overall.

But a whole bunch of those people lost their jobs because of financial blackmail. Maybe that’s harsh, but I don’t think so, and if it is, then it is deservedly harsh. Our congregation disagreed with decisions made by churchwide for years, and never once voted to withhold funds. We would have considered it unjust. I would have considered it immoral. A good portion of the money that goes to churchwide funds disaster response, water programs in the 2/3 world, the ELCA World Hunger Appeal.

Should gays be executed? Uganda thinks so. So does the Bible. UPDATED X 2

The equatorial African nation, the Republic of Uganda, has pending legislation that mandates execution of HIV positive gay persons.  According to San Francisco reporter and columnist Ralph Stone,

Uganda already punishes gay intimacy with life in prison. The “Anti-Homosexuality Bill 2009” would penalize anyone who “attempts to commit the offence” with up to seven years in jail. Additionally, a person charged will be forced to undergo an invasive medical examination to determine their HIV status. If the detainees are found to be HIV+, they may be executed.

The religion of Uganda is reported to be 85% Christian consisting primarily of Roman Catholic (42%) and Anglican (36%) adherents.  Is execution of gays the appropriate Christian response to the HIV epidemic?

“If a man lies with a male as with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination; they shall be put to death; their blood is upon them.”  Leviticus 20:13 (NRSV)

What say you, literal and inerrant interpreters of Holy Writ?

What say you, Rick Warren–mega-church pastor, best-selling author, and Prop 8 cheerleader–at your recent prayer breakfast sermon to the political leaders of Rwanda, the nation that shares a border with Uganda?  When asked about the proposed Ugandan legislation, Warren reportedly responded,

“The fundamental dignity of every person, our right to be free, and the freedom to make moral choices are gifts endowed by God, our creator. However, it is not my personal calling as a pastor in America to comment or interfere in the political process of other nations.”

What say you, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury (leader of the worldwide Anglican communion) at your speech to the Gregorian Pontifical University on November 19th?  As the Anglican leader speaking to Roman Catholic leaders, the two major religious denominations of Uganda, certainly you railed against this draconian legislation.  Not so, according to the blog, Episcopal Cafe:

What is not easy, and where the silence has been deafening, has been to find anything said about Uganda and its proposed laws singling out one group of people for harsh and repressive treatment. We also have an Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, a Ugandan himself, who doesn’t mind a bit of publicity now and again, in jumping out of aeroplanes and refusing to wear his white collar until Robert Mugabe leaves office – but when it comes to Uganda and gay people, and that Anglican Church’s intense homophobia, he suddenly has his mouth all zipped up. So it is easy [for the ABC] to talk shop, easy to talk about general situations, and yet when it comes to the minority sheep in the flock in your own back pen, silence is the order of the day.

What say you, the leaders of the ELCA?  I see nothing in your press releases at ELCA.org.  With a noteworthy history of advocacy for peace and justice issues, the Lutheran World Federation includes most international Lutheran bodies, including the ELCA, and the LWF presidency is currently filled by the ELCA’s own presiding Bishop, Mark Hanson.  Commendably, the LWF promotes a sensitive and supportive attitude toward those afflicted with HIV / AIDS, most of whom are in sub-Saharan Africa.  Would it be too much to expect a word about Uganda’s proposed legislation?   Is the ELCA still stinging from the Lutheran CORE criticisms at 2009 Churchwide assembly microphones that the pro-LGBT resolutions might offend the less enlightened sensitivities of African Lutherans?

UPDATE 1:  Another Episcopal voice, past president Susan Russell of Integrity USA, offered the following brief post on her blog, An Inch At a Time:

The Ugandan legislation, if in effect here, would have imprisoned every member in attendance at our church last Sunday for the crime of knowing of the existence of a gay or lesbian person and failing to give their names to the police within 24 hours.
Also affected would be anyone who ever watched American Idol.

UPDATE 2: Lutheran CORE is beating its chest this morning with the announcement that a group of African-American churches known as Oromo Lutherans has joined CORE.

Lutheran CORE is honored to have these faithful Christians standing with us. We are humbled by their faithful witness both during the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly and since then. These faithful Christians faced persecution in their homeland of Ethiopia. They know what it means to stand firm in faith even in the face of intense opposition. Their witness is a source of encouragement to all who bear the name of Christ and to all who stand on the witness of Scripture and thus in opposition to the ELCA sexuality decisions.

The statement from these recent African immigrants starts with the following note of indebtedness to the ELCA:

The people and the Government of the United States have accepted us with extended hands to become part of the nation. We appreciate the hospitality we received and experienced in this country by church and people. We are also grateful to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for standing with us in the process of organizing our Oromo congregations in several States of the United States. We are indebted to the bishops and Mission Directors of our respective synods, which have helped us in so many ways. We love our fellow brothers and sisters in Jesus Christ with all our hearts. We have been through many things together with churches that hosted us and pastors and leaders of congregations who shared the warmth of their hearts with us.

but, their statement then offers strong criticism of the ELCA pro-LGBT policies.  It is sad that these well-meaning African Americans are critical of the ELCA, which has nurtured their congregations into existence, but it is also the case that their unenlightened view of homosexuality unfortunately reflects the rampant homophobia that exists in Africa, and the proposed legislation in Uganda is merely the most extreme example.

Spirit of a Liberal new blogroll

I’ve been working on a revised blogroll, which is not on my main page but is a separate page accessed under the pages menu.  I have reordered the categories, deleted some blogs that no longer seemed appropriate, and added many new ones.  I’m sure I missed some, so send me a comment with suggestions.

Books and Writing

ELCA (Lutheran)

GLBT friendly

Northfield, MN

Other denominations

Spirituality