The articles by Archbishop Williams and Bishop Wright remind me of the Battle of Gettysburg, which is near and dear to us Lutherans, because it was fought in our front yard.

If General Lee had been told after three days of carnage that he could "re-fight" the battle and reclaim 54,000 lives on both sides, with the added advantage of knowing where all the Union troops were located and what their strategies were, AND he chose to follow the same tactics as in the first battle, what would we say about him? Would his troops have continued to think highly of him, especially if he had ordered them, once again, to march across a large open field to their certain death? Would we praise or condemn his leadership?

The Anglican battle is showing us all the tactics of the opponents on both sides of our battle. Furthemore, they are showing us sadly the outcome. This raises the question, how should we evaluate our generals?

I wasn't an officer when I was in the USAF, much less a general, but I know a little about military tactics.

It's not our "generals" that are really fighting this "battle." It is insurgent groups like Lutherans Concerned and Lutheran CORE.

Thus far, I think LC is doing better on the "hearts and minds" front, as well as prolonging the battle so long that many are giving up (attrition).

However, Lutheran CORE and WordAlone are more like a description I once read of British infantrymen: "they rarely surrender if they can still get up and fight."

If any of you have read Sun Tzu's "The Art Of War" you'll know what I mean.

It is indeed interesting to think about the "tension between local and global decision-making in a worldwide communion," and perhaps to think about how that has gotten played out in different ecclesiastical models. The Anglicans we are watching now, as a "communion" made up of more or less independent churches is cracking up. The United Methodists offer an interesting contrast; there we find an organic relationship between the church in the U.S. and the church in the global South, so that the decision making body (the General Conference) actually represents both the U. S. and the United Methodists in much of the rest of the world. This means that the votes about homosexuality in the General Conference actually become more conservative over time, because the growth is in the overseas conferences. It also means that some good American liberals are looking for a way to divorce the US church from its organic relationship to Methodists in Africa, Asia and South America.

The Lutherans pose yet a different model with a "world federation" which is not even a "communion" in the sense of the Anglican communion. There is thus less accountability among the various churches, though some of the global south churches have made very clear that even the "federation" relationship is in some jeopardy if the ELCA goes off the rails.

The LWF is much more of a loose confederation than the Anglican Communion, or how you described the various Methodist ecclesiastical arrangements.

But it is instructive that various member churches of LWF are raising a stink over what the ELCA is doing.

That doesn't even begin to touch on our ecumenical relationships with non-Lutheran bodies, like the Presbyterians. It may cause the Methodists to want to not open full communion with us; I don't know.

It's important to know that the idea of global interconnectedness is fairly new to Lutherans. It began as a result of refugee aid after WW2 and grew from there. In the 1990s the LWF declared itself a "communion." There is officially full transferability of clergy and laity among LWF member churches. In other words, Lutherans have steadily grown into the global awareness over the past half century, repairing a long-standing whole in our ecclesiology. What a dumb way to throw it all away now.

Sarah, I see what you're getting at. But LC/NA and Goodsoil choose not to see the wider, long-range implications of what they're pushing for. I honestly believe, based on the comments of people like Peter, that they really don't CARE how many people/congregations the ELCA loses, or how our relationships with other churches are affected, JUST AS LONG AS THEY GET WHAT THEY WANT.

It's like demanding that the interior decor of a house be changed, while the structure of the house around them is burning.