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Reflections from an Ecumenist, a Charismatic, and a Philosopher
Michael Root, recently retired dean of Southern Seminary and long-time ecumenist, has started a blog on the state of the ELCA after the Churchwide Assembly that is well worth the reading. Larry Christenson, retired ELCA pastor and contributor to the current issue of Lutheran Forum, recently shared his thoughts on the aftermath of the CWA...
Michael Root, recently retired dean of Southern Seminary and long-time ecumenist, has started a blog on the state of the ELCA after the Churchwide Assembly that is well worth the reading.
Larry Christenson, retired ELCA pastor and contributor to the current issue of Lutheran Forum, recently shared his thoughts on the aftermath of the CWA.
“In the late 1970s my wife and I met with a group of faculty members at one of our ELCA seminaries. In the course of our conversation they asked us to share any personal concerns we might have about our ELCA seminaries. I answered, ‘One of the things that concerns us is the growing tendency to adjust our theology to the latest social fad.’ I went on to say, ‘If homosexuality were to become a fashionable social issue, would the church go along with that also?’ The very idea was literally hooted down. ‘Ridiculous! Impossible! Would never happen! Scripture! The Lutheran Confessions!’
“And now it has happened. With exegetical and theological justification for which I would have been flunked when I was a student at Luther Theological Seminary.
“In our morning prayers following the ELCA convention my wife and I felt a sense of shame and grief. What should we do? No blaze of revelation came, but a quiet thought that we should attend church on Sunday dressed in black, with ashes on our foreheads, as a sign of sorrow for the ELCA. We love our worship and spiritual life at our parish. And we do not think the vote of a few hundred delegates at a carefully engineered Churchwide Assembly represents or speaks for the church we grew up in, love, and belong to.”
And finally, a thought from Soren Kierkegaard:
"The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any word in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?"
(Cited from Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, ed. Charles E. Moore [Farmington, PA: Plough, 2002], 201.)
If taken to it's logical conclusion...
After reading David Yeago: In the Aftermath, and reflecting on it a bit, I'm struck by the idea that if we take that line of argument to it's logical conclusion, then all of the ELCA members should be asking if they would be "Permitted" to continue to preach and teach if they were in the Roman Catholic Church, and if it passed that same test as this article asks about staying in the ELCA, "Permitted" not made harder, would they be "permitted" to stay in the RC and teach the true gospel? I think for most of us the answer would be in the affirmative, and if so, then the exercise would say that we can't be Lutherans at all anymore but must join the RC Church?
And as such a conclusion as that is reached for the vast majority of us, I have to disagree with the premise entirely. The results of using this ends up with an erroneous answer, if it were a mathematical formula, we would have to question how the formula is broken and flawed before we use it. How, for example, does it account for 1 Corinthians 5:11: "But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of...."