Lutheran_church
As the national convention of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted yesterday in Minneapolis to accept a social statement on human sexuality, tornado-like winds shook the downtown and ripped up the steeple at the ELCA’s Central Lutheran Church next door to the convention center. No one was injured. The statement, adopted by one vote more than the necessary two-thirds, paves the way for implementing resolutions on Friday that will permit ordination of gay pastors in same-sex relationships and the eventual recognition of same-sex marriage.
Last year the ELCA reported a loss 76,000 members and 52 congregations. Earlier this year church officials eliminated thirty-five staff positions at the denomination’s Chicago headquarters, and were forced to cut $2.4 million from the budget. Informed observers—uh, that would be me—foresee a possible loss of 300 to 500 congregations over the next three to five years as a result of the convention action.
August 20th, 2009 | 3:17 pm
Lutherans and R. Catholics have had their differences, to be sure. And I am not one to pretend they are superficial enough for me to jump the fence. But surely there are swaths of Lutheran Christians within the ELCA like me who now feel caught in an ugly situation. The 3 Lutheran bodies that made up the current conglomerate were nowhere near the same theology as I’m seeing unfold this week. Despite this feeble attempt to keep everyone in the same boat the word on the street is soon enough we’ll be splitting. As one lay member emailed me this morning, “the Missouri Synod is too far one way and the ELCA is now too far the other”.
As I read about the tornados & wind damage to the steeple, I couldn’t help but think how most people would have reacted in Luther’s time.
August 20th, 2009 | 3:29 pm
I for one do not see the “mighty wind” as a coincidence, unless perhaps, if we remember the old say, “Coincidence is simply God’s way of remaining anonymous.” Another has refuted such thinking by quoting the scripture, “…the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike…” to which I would respond, “Precisely!!” No coincidence here and God was not acting anonymously. The Lord is p….ed!
August 20th, 2009 | 4:47 pm
The ELCA has brought shame and will suffer punishment upon the Lutheran Church.
August 20th, 2009 | 4:54 pm
Every time the Lutherans or Episcopalians do something like this, I imagine some middle-aged clergyman at one of their synods winning the debate by banging their fist on the table and demanding their church become even less relevant than it already is.
August 20th, 2009 | 9:56 pm
If a violent rainstorm had not brought Luther to his knees, there may not have been the Reformation.
GOD in action is now seen as a ‘natural’ weather occurance. We pray that the Holy Spirit will “blow as She wills”, and when and as She does, we are surpised or ignore it. I “thought” I was settled on “the” issue, I find myslf ‘unsettled”. Long before the tornado, I may add.
August 21st, 2009 | 5:33 am
Bob,
Are you invoking “She” as the ELCA’s term in mockery or do you yourself refer to HS as “She”? I guess I’m not picking up on your meaning very well.
Fascinating tidbit about Luther, by the way!
August 21st, 2009 | 7:03 am
At its Churchwide Assembly, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America adopted a “social statement” on human sexuality that includes an endorsement of same-sex relationships that are “chaste, monogamous and lifelong.” This is, of course, contrary to Holy Scripture which teaches us that God, in His creation, created man and woman to live together as man and wife in a chaste, monogamous and lifelong relationship. This is the natural order of things which is inherent in God’s good creation itself. Deviation from this natural order, and natural law, are a consequence of the fall into sin. There is no middle ground on this issue. The ELCA has, again, demonstrated that it is outside the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church to the extent that it has embraced this false teaching.
What then are we Lutherans to do who do not share this view? While much could be, and needs to be written, on the enormous implications of this action for a whole host of issues and relationships we have with the ELCA, for now it is important for our pastors and all the faithful to do the following:
Be clear about what we stand for as Lutherans who do not share the ELCA’s opinions on this issue. To do this, it is good once more to familiarize ourselves with the basic truths of God’s Word regarding homosexuality. The pamphlet What About Homosexuality offers an excellent brief overview. Here is a link to this pamphlet on The LCMS web site: http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/LCMS/wa_homosexuality.pdf
We also need to make it clear that we, in no way, are “excluding” homosexuals from the Church. We exclude nobody, but welcome all to join us as repentant sinners before the throne of a loving and merciful God. We reach out with God’s word of Law and God’s Gospel. The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod produced a very helpful Plan for Ministry to Homosexuals and Their Families, which you may download here: http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CIC/minhomfam.pdf
We must remember that even as much as we deeply disagree with this action on the part of the ELCA, and while it causes us great grief, anguish and, yes, even anger, we must be careful to remember that this is an opportunity to demonstrate loving care and concern for those caught up in this error and for those who are striving to resist this false teaching. Let us make our witness constructive and take care that in our zeal to condemn error we not bruise the bent reed and snuff out the flickering flame. We witness to the truth, speaking that truth in love.
The truth is that this action, while dramatic and a “flash point” for man, is simply a very visible symbol of the profoundly deep theological error that has the ELCA in what can only be described as a death-grip. What has happened is very much akin to seeing a large, old, beautiful tree suddenly break and fall, and upon examination, we see that inside, at its core, there set in years ago a rot that could not be overcome.
In a gentle, caring and loving manner, we can use this situation to lead people to recognize that this is by no means something that is really shocking or surprising. The ELCA was formed by three liberal Lutheran church bodies that had already long before walked away from a faithful Lutheran doctrinal position on the authority of the Bible. The many “full communion” agreements over the years have signaled, time and time again, that the ELCA has lost sight of what it is to be a faithful, Biblical Lutheran church body.
We should use this situation to help people understand how things reached this point. We must do so humbly and without any hint of triumphalism or “good thing we are not like *those* Lutherans.” We are all sinners before our God and we must now bear one another’s burdens, in love, truthfully and faithfully.
August 21st, 2009 | 7:27 am
WWLD? Luther was pleased (or at least willing) to break from authority and go his own way. The different groups are simply following their leader’s lead.
If the LCMS is too far one way and the ELCA to far another (and Wisconsin is off the map!) perhaps a fourth group will help. Then a fifth. When we reach 1000 different Lutheran groups in the USA, will there be enough to satisfy all?
Or might it be more to the point to ask where the truth lies?
August 21st, 2009 | 10:20 am
Pastor McCain: perhaps the Tiber beckons? May God bless you in your ministry.
August 21st, 2009 | 11:44 am
In May 2005, after attending an ELCA synod assembly as a voting member, it became painfully clear to me that the Church I happened to be baptized in and that I remained in for 40 years was clearly going to a place that was unsupportable by scripture and the overwhelming witness of Christian tradition through time. The evening I returned from that assembly, with huge questions in mind and uncertainties about my faith, I saw an interview on C-SPAN with our beloved late Fr. Neuhaus, a man whose name I had never heard before that day. I cannot explain to you the transformation from despair to great hope I experienced in one half hour of listening to the words of this beautiful faithful man. My family and I attended the local Catholic Church, entered RCIA in 2006, and we entered into full communion at the Easter Vigil in 2007. I earnestly pray that all who are in a similar process of discernment would read ‘Catholic Matters’ by Father Neuhaus, and also his following article on ‘Healing the Reformation Breach” which he wrote in 1980: http://theologytoday.ptsem.edu/oct1980/v37-3-article1.htm. This article of course was written long before he became Catholic, a decision he explains in his own words here: http://sfbayc.org/magazine/neuhaus1.htm.
And finally I pray that all would thoughtfully consider the words of Pope Benedict when he spoke at the ecumenical meeting during his Apostolic Visit to the United States:
“Too often those who are not Christians, as they observe the splintering of Christian communities, are understandably confused about the Gospel message itself. Fundamental Christian beliefs and practices are sometimes changed within communities by so-called “prophetic actions” that are based on a hermeneutic not always consonant with the datum of Scripture and Tradition. Communities consequently give up the attempt to act as a unified body, choosing instead to function according to the idea of “local options”. Somewhere in this process the need for diachronic koinonia — communion with the Church in every age — is lost, just at the time when the world is losing its bearings and needs a persuasive common witness to the saving power of the Gospel (cf. Rom 1:18-23).”
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2008/april/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20080418_incontro-ecumenico_en.html
August 21st, 2009 | 1:25 pm
Dear Lutherans,
it is way past time for you to return to that wonderful road that leads to Rome!
August 21st, 2009 | 6:28 pm
“WWLD?” One thing is for sure, this non-scriptural foolishness of the ELCA’s “social statement” and vote would not have stood well with Good Dr. Luther.
August 21st, 2009 | 9:55 pm
[...] est ironically refers to of all things the Catholic Blog first thoughts for commentary: Last year the ELCA reported a loss 76,000 members and 52 congregations. Earlier this year church [...]
August 22nd, 2009 | 8:31 am
No, the Gospel beckons.
Oh, how easy it would be for us who disagree so strongly with the ELCA to be so filled with upset and anger that we allow ourselves to miss an opportunity the Lord is providing to us for introspection and then for bold confession and reaching out with the truth, speaking it clearly, forthrightly and unashamedly, yet speaking it in love, humbly and gently, with the aim of winning over our erring brothers and sisters, and reaching out in love to those whose hearts are now shattered and broken by their church’s actions.
And let us not deceive ourselves into thinking that these things can not happen to us. No, in fact, now is the very time for us to think long and hard about whether, and to what extent, we have become weak and weary of maintaining doctrinal vigilance. How and to what extent have we been tempted to set the solid confession of the Book of Concord on a shelf and instead spend more of our time dabbling with non-Lutheran theologies, doctrines and practices? We must be on our guard and not miss the opportunity the Holy Spirit offers us now also to repent. Repent of laziness, indifference, unfaithfulness, pride, anger, arrogance. Repentance must be our chief reaction to the dreadful decisions that have now been made by the ELCA.
We who choose to be, and remain, confessing Lutheran Christians need to do some intense soul-searching and introspection, in light of the ELCA’s stupdendously disastrous decisions this week. Why? If we do not and if we instead focus only on pointing out the errors in the ELCA, without fully understanding how these errors developed and took place, we doom ourselves to head down the same road.
How is it that the ELCA reached the point where it abandoned its doctrinal commitments, walked away from the Lutheran Confessions since its inception through all its various “full communion” arrangements with: The Episcopalian Church USA, the United Church of Christ, the Reformed Church in America, The Presbyterian Church USA, the Moravian Church, and now the United Methodist Church? These decisions are the even greater tragedy that has fallen on the ELCA. The decisions about homosexuality however grab people’s attention, and because they do, we can use this as an opportunity for soul searching and root-cause analysis.
What caused these decisions? How were they possible? Here are some important thoughts and comments, from a good friend of mine who wisely observed:
As Sasse once said at Lausanne (1927), “our witness was too weak.” As the events unfolded this week in Minneapolis, I could only think of a few paragraphs written by Herman Sasse on the lies in the church.
“Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God,
“when I will send a famine on the land—
not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the Lord. Amos 8:11
.
The Lie in the Church
The Lie is the death of man, his temporal and his eternal death. The lie kills nations. Through their lies, the most powerful empires of the world were laid waste. History knows of no more unsettling spectacle than the judgment, which comes to pass when men of an advanced culture have rejected the truth and are now swallowed up in a sea of lies. As was the case with fading pagan antiquity, where this happened, religion and law, poetry and philosophy, life in marriage and family, in the state and society, in short, one sphere of life after another, fell sacrifice to the power and curse of the lie. Where man can no longer bear the truth, he cannot live without the lie. Where man, even when dying, lies to him and others, the terrible dissolution of his culture is held up as a glorious ascent, and decline is viewed as an advance, the like of which has never been experienced.
If, according to the irrefutable testimony of history, this is the judgment of God on the lie, should God then not also punish the lie in His church? Truly He who is the Judge of all the world will do this! For the power of the lie extend even into the church. Since the days of the apostles there has been lying in the church as in the rest of the world. For people in the church too are and remain poor sinners until their death.
Lies have been told in the church because of cowardice and weakness, vanity and avarice. But beyond all these there is in the church one particularly sweet piece of fruit on the broad canopy of the tree of lies. This is the pious lie. It is the hypocrisy by which a man lies to others, and the intellectual self-deception by which he lies to himself that he believes. “In our time too the proclamation of the Word in assumed orthodoxy is unfortunately not an infrequent occurrence of this lie.” Thus the greatest ethicist of our church once spoke, warning theologians of his and our time about the most grievous sin, the lie to God.
The most fearful thing about the pious lie is that it will lie not only to men, but also to God in prayer, in confession, in the Holy Supper, in the sermon, and in theology. The pious lie always has the propensity to become the edifying lie. It was once expelled from the church when it existed in the form of the legends of saints and the fraud of relics. Then in full view of pious eyes, it returned in a new form, such as in the Luther legends, or in pietistic times in the form of almanacs and tracts containing the accounts of miraculous responses to prayer and equally miraculous conversions, which either never happened, or in which the kernel of historical truth was no longer discernible. This “edifying” lie even forces it way into the sphere of the church, which teaches revealed truths of revelation. After sufficient preparation it can obtain the status of “doctrinal maturity.” Thus it becomes the dogmatic lie.
We ask our Roman Catholic fellow Christians to believe that it is very difficult for us to use the word “lie” here, and we do not do so to offend them. We know that they affirm a dogma such as the Immaculate Conception of Mary out of deep conviction of faith, and they will accept the yet-awaited extension of Marian dogma from the hand of the ecclesiastical teaching office with the same sincerity. But this changes nothing of the fact that in these dogmas false doctrines are established, and the Roman Church thus finds itself in a guilt-laden error.
This is the biblical, theological expression of the lie; though guilty of falsehood, it belies the truth and proclaims that which is not truth, hiding this guilt before God behind human bona fides. Here the theological expression of the lie is distinguished from that of philosophical ethics. Theology knows that the most dangerous lies are those, which are proclaimed with what the world calls a “good conscience.”
When we speak of the dogmatic lie, we do not, however, have in mind only the celebrated dogmas pronounced by the Catholic Church, though which theories are elevated to the level of ecclesiastical dogma, and have no basis in Holy Scripture, and are not true. We include here also precisely the dogmas with which modern Protestantism has been at pains to correct, to complete, or to replace the doctrine of the evangelical church, such as the false doctrine of Pietism concerning the church, or of rationalism concerning the person of Jesus Christ.
What a fearful thought it is indeed that things are taught in the church which are not true, under the guise of the eternal truth entrusted to her. No atheism, no Bolshevism can do as much damage and destruction as the pious lie, the lie in the church. In this lie the power of one is made evident whom Christ Himself calls a liar and the father of lies (John 8:44). And indeed, this is no longer surprising. How can he who in his very essence is a liar passively look upon the fact that in this world of untruthfulness and error, upon the vacillating core of a world of relativity, there could be the “household of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and bulwark of the truth” (I Tim. 3:15). But since he cannot storm this bulwark in open battle, which God Himself has founded as the columnar et fermamentum veritatis, he slinks in under the mask of piety and occupies a position from which to make his conquest. And he attempts to topple the pillar of truth through the power of the pious lie.
But does anyone think that Christ who is the Truth personified would allow the lie to come into his church with impunity? No, the judgment which He who is Holy and True will render upon all lies of the world begins, as with every judgment, in the house of God.
Among the lies which destroy the church there is one we have not yet mentioned. Alongside the pious and dogmatic lies, there stands an especially dangerous form of lie which can be called the institutional lie. By this we mean a lie which works itself out in the institutions of the church, in her government and her organization. It is so dangerous because it legalizes the other lies in the church and makes them impossible to remove. Such a lie exists, for instance, where the governance of the church grants to those who confess and those who deny the Trinity and the two natures in Christ the same rights in the Church; where the preaching of the Gospel according to the understanding of the Reformation enjoys the same right as the proclamation of a dogma-less Enlightenment religion, so long as the latter appeals only to the Bible…
In place of the objective message of that which God has done in Christ, subjective religious feelings and convictions soon form the essential content of the sermon. Thus the church sinks to the level of an institution for the satisfaction of the manifold religious needs of men and ceases to be the church of Christ, the pillar and foundation of the truth.
It is self-evident that this falling away of the church from the Gospel can also happen where its organization still appears to be in order… But the moment the falling away of the church from the Gospel finds its expression also in church law, and thus is legitimized, the entire awfulness of what we have called the institutional lie appears. For this lie makes the return to the truth as good as impossible.
August 23rd, 2009 | 9:47 am
How do you explain then the great river of Truth that flows from the same mouth that teaches such “lies”, Pastor McC? By their fruits you shall know them, and all that…
August 26th, 2009 | 5:39 am
>>the Missouri Synod is too far one way and the ELCA is now too far the other
Considering what the ELCA just adopted, is there anything close to rational symmetry in this assertion?
The majority of members in our LCMS mission congregation do not have a Lutheran background, but of those who do most are from the ELCA–joining mainly because we are the only Lutheran congregation in the community–and they feel completely at home in the LCMS.
It is time to get over the biases and rivals of the 70′s. They are dwarfed by this current action. For laymen, I would suggest actually visiting an LCMS congregation, talking with an LCMS pastor. For clergy, I would suggest visiting with the LCMS district president in your area.
We have several clergy in this area who have recently switched to the LCMS, from ELCA, PCUSA, etc., and they are thrilled to have found peace in the LCMS. I know that to many “peace in the LCMS” sounds like an oxymoron, but that is a caricature of the past, overwhelmed by the present reality being faced by those trying to remain faithful in the ELCA.
August 29th, 2009 | 5:55 pm
“Oh, how easy it would be for us who disagree so strongly with the ELCA to be so filled with upset and anger that we allow ourselves to miss an opportunity the Lord is providing to us for introspection and then for bold confession and reaching out with the truth, speaking it clearly, forthrightly and unashamedly, yet speaking it in love, humbly and gently, with the aim of winning over our erring brothers and sisters, and reaching out in love to those whose hearts are now shattered and broken by their church’s actions.”
Pr. McCain, I think we all are in agreement on this part of your statement. I continue to pray that the pain many are now experiencing will truly become the opportunity for honest discernment that you speak of, as it was for me. I hope and pray that the thoughts and words of our beloved late Fr. Neuhaus will enter into that discernment process for all who are now struggling and who honestly seek Him with a pure heart. I pray also that one day you too may come to see that Luther — a wonderful Catholic for much of his life, who loved the Church, and served Her passionately as a monk, priest, and theologian — ultimately let his anger, frustration, and pride overcome him so that he became one of “our erring brothers” whom you speak of. God rest his soul and have mercy on him. I do not believe God was revealing anything new to mankind in the Lutheran confessions, even if many of the reformers meant well and correctly saw the errors of their time in the Church. The solution was not to set up “altar against altar” as the Theologian Karl Adam puts it in the freely available book, “Roots of the Reformation” (http://www.ewtn.com/library/chistory/rtref.txt) which talks about the Reformation (and counter reformation) from a Catholic perspective. You will undoubtedly disagree with some of what Fr. Adams says in this book, but it might help you to see the Reformation from the Catholic perspective, and I believe Fr. Adams is very charitable towards Luther.
“But–and here lies the tragedy of the Reformation and of German Christianity–he [Luther] let the warring spirits drive him to overthrow not merely the abuses in the Church, but the Church Herself, founded upon Peter, bearing through the centuries the successio apostolica; he let them drive him to commit what St. Augustine calls the greatest sin with which a Christian can burden himself: he set up altar against altar and tore in pieces the one Body of Christ.”
— Fr. Karl Adam, “Roots of the Reformation”
Links
Blogs
Find Us
Contact