In anticipation of the CORE meeting at Lindenhurst I wrote a little essay to help me sort out my thoughts on the future of traditionalists in the ELCA. I then sent it to my friend and colleague, Ken Kimball. The exchange can serve as a jumping off place for a discussion as these are two of the three determiniations people are making. The third, of course, is leaving. Neither Ken or I think that way, but I present the position that perhaps the most prudent thing is not to put all one's extra energy into reform. Ken represents what may be the smartest strategy, reform rather than build.
Both are a lot of work.
So What Are You Doing with the Rest of Your Life? by Pastor Eric Swensson
More and more, issues are argued from liberal and conservative positions. Lutheran ethicist Robert Benne wrote about this brilliantly in an essay, "Replacing the Center with the Periphery." Benne's statement that the ELCA, like the other liberal protestant denominations is more interested in social justice than the salvation of souls is borne out in the summaries of what was accomplished at the August, 2007 biennial Chicago Assembly. One journalist's summary said, "The more than 1,000 people in Chicago voiced strong enthusiasm for the work of the ELCA, re-elected Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson by a large majority, approved a sweeping statement on the church's role in education, endorsed a new initiative for Bible study and opposed expansion of the war in Iraq. We want to increase our program combating world hunger from $20 million annually to $25 million each year." Since when did telling Congress how to prosecute a war become the church's business? Sure we should be interested in health, education and welfare, but since the government can not preach the gospel, aren't our priorities out of line?
It's all symptomatic of our increasing transformation from a Confessional church to another liberal protestant denomination. In the opinion of this writer and many others, the ELCA was a premature merger of three denominations in the mid 1980's. There were many laudable reasons motivating it, however one motivation was the desire to help out 200 congregations who departed from the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod over the use of the historical-critical method of interpreting Scripture. The last is a ventured guess to be sure, but there would seem to be little doubt that the ELCA is the only "liberal" Lutheran denomination in the USA and that the liberals have been in charge since its inception.
The Lutheran Coalition for Reform (CORE) has called a meeting to debrief the Chicago Assembly and to plan a strategy for the one in 2009. I expect it will be attended by leaders who are concerned that their denomination is close to entering a crisis. They need to realize that for congregations on both Coasts, the synods that have "Metro" in their name and the New England Synod as well, Confessionalists are already in a pickle. In some ways the vote to "show restraint" could not have been worse. The acceptance of "partnered" homosexual pastors and performing the ceremony of a "same sex union" is now entrenched and there will be no going back. Let that be absolutely, definitively clear there can be no going back. Can you imagine any Assembly voting for anything that could be interpreted as being unkind? That fact alone guarantees that the ELCA task force on sexuality will at least feel the pressure to say that sexuality is "adiaphora."
On top of all this, it is noteworthy that the activists have abandoned trying to make a case from Scripture. So what is behind the five year strategy "Lutherans Read the Bible"? All along we've said the issue is not homosexuality but the authority of Scripture. Now that sexuality is nearly a foregone conclusion, the next thing to do is to normalize the "contextual theology" hermeneutic exemplified by Craig Nessan were each generation must decide what the Bible says. Who's going to fight that out in five years after the conservatives leave?
Some feel called to that. Many don't, including myself. There are plenty of people who will never make the move to the new denomination and they give that witness. I do not feel called to give a witness to the ELCA forever. That is not the way I want to spend the rest of my life, and I do not look at it as a cross that I have to carry forever. We have some choice as to where we give witness, don't we?
This is just an analogy, but I did a research paper four years ago on "What Happened to the Lutheran Charismatic Movement?" I interviewed the half dozen main leaders from the beginning of the movement. I decided to interview a fellow who was younger than the others and was the only one who left the Lutheran church. He said that the movement had such great leaders that if they had decided to form a denomination after they had been rejected they would have easily been able to form a denomination of a similar size (ALC, LCA and LC-MS had about 3,000,000 members at the time). He said, "But all the leaders said no--they loved their church too much to step out". From my research I would guess that there were a million people involved in the Lutheran Charismatic Movement. Where are they now? Scattered to the four winds of American denominations. Some are in Vineyard churches, some in Assemblies, and a few are part of ARC, but many are losing clear Lutheran identity and are even split on when children should be baptized.
I hope it is clear that I am not saying we need to become Pentecostal. I also want to be careful not to give the impression that there is a need to form a new denomination right now. What we should be saying to others in the ELCA is "Are you concerned? We are too. Infact we decided to do something Nov 2005." We formed these two groups, one for political reform, one as a network for Evangelical Lutheran congregations who are going to remain Confessional and take clear stands.
I've been part of this since 2005 with an understanding from the beginning that what was in the back of our minds was what Dr. Benne said, 'So that we have a place to go if things go bad.' I have tried to say here clearly that we have to approach this situation with real humility and so we do not know how things are going to go, but we would be fools to not be getting ready for a split.
To me it's pretty simple. As CORE leadership is saying, we need to organize the solid people in the ELCA, reach them, get them go to their synod assemblies and send solid people to the 2009 assembly. However, we need to see this as a process in which what well may be more important than getting candidates elected. The process is the key. What we may well be doing is calling together the future denomination. We need to be prayerful, therefore we need to be humble, and in all humility we cannot say what is going to happen to the ELCA. Only God knows that. However, what we must also see ourselves as is stewards, and what kind of stewardship would it be to put all our work into reforming a denomination that clearly does not want to be reformed along our model? The ELCA is a denomination that wants to conform, not reform.
It may well be that we know when the time to leave because we are told to do just that. Therefore we do the reform work as part of a two prong strategy. The second part is to try and gather enough congregations that the future of a new Evangelical Lutheran Church which will fall in the middle between the ELCA and the LC-MS. In actuality it is where the laity of both denominations is. And I don't think I need to convince others to join me in this as much as convince you that this is already happening.
Is it necessary? I think so. Is it inevitable? I think so. Will it take the rest of our lives? I think so, but what else do you have to do with yours? As Bonhoeffer said, "When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die."
Eric,
Thank you for a cogent reflection on where orthodox-traditional Lutherans in the ELCA find themselves in the autumn of 2007.

In response, I would first argue that the "restraint" resolution can be undone, at least as a CWA action. That may not change the juice in the pickle jars of the coastal and Metro synods where orthodox-traditional Lutherans find themselves a beleaguered and increasingly ill-tolerated minority by revisionist dominated synod structures. However, the defeat of the “restraint” substitution at the CWA (which was my hope) would also likely not have changed the pickle juice. As became apparent by their very public admission in course of the latest CWA’s debate, many revisionist bishops and other synodical and congregational leaders of those synods have been defiant and noncompliant for years in regard to the ELCA’s standards and policies. That was not likely to change even if the Chicago CWA had refused to endorse “restraint.”

I strongly dispute the claim made by progressive-revisionists (and echoed by fatigued and despairing orthodox-traditionalists) that the pro-glbt conquest of the ELCA in particular and the Church in general is inevitable and irreversible. Tain't so. Only Christ's victory over sin, death, and the devil is irreversible and inevitable. Remember the Arian predominance of the 4th century or Schmucker as the wave of the North American Lutheran future in the 19th or even the decay-corruption of the medieval church, supposedly irreformable, irreversible, inevitable...then came Luther. Sure, humility requires that we recognize that we may not prevail but not to accept defeat from the outset.

Lutheran CORE is not about planning an exit strategy (though we are accused of that). Pr. Vic Langford, a very wise man and a member of the Lutheran CORE Steering Committee, said last spring, "When it's time to leave, we'll know. But right now we're in a plane that's on fire. Our first response is to try to put out the fire. If that doesn't work we can get the parachutes." Humility also means being open to the possibility that reform may work.

The unhappy truth is that historically in North America, splits have rarely worked out (have to go back to the General Synod). Most conservative splits are just splinters that splinter again (a departing CORE group could very well split along the ecclesiology lines--EC's and confessing evangelicals or evangelical Lutherans).

If we're really going to enter into the fight for the ELCA we have to do so without fingering our parachutes. We also have to look at fighting past 2009. Why is it that the revisionists can take the long view and persist and persevere but the orthodox-traditionalists can only talk about leaving? Do the revisionists have greater intestinal fortitude? They like our dead-lines and leaving. It strengthens their hand. They only have to win or tie at another CWA.

We don't need another Lutheran denomination and I think it premature to talk about that as if that is all that CORE is really after. Sure, it may come to that in the aftermath of a complete and overwhelming revisionist victory (a self-fulfilling prophecy for those orthodox-traditionalists who give in to despair and fatigue and leave the field to the revisionists and abandon those allies still on the field of battle). I hope not and I'm going to work and fight like heck to keep defeat and retreat from becoming our only recourse.

A better strategy is to fight like hell--ecclesiastical guerilla warfare if necessary—to paraphrase Churchill “We’ll confess and bear witness on the floors of Churchwide and Synod Assemblies, online and in print, and from the pulpits and pews of our congregations …we will never surrender.” I think we can muster and maintain an aroused orthodox-traditionalist majority of laity, congregations, and synods. The more that churchwide and synodical leadership proceeds down the path of revisionism, the more irrelevant that leadership will become to the ELCA’s orthodox-traditional majority. Unlike the TEC, the ELCA is extremely dependent on congregational financial support (hence the Blue Ribbon Commission); the more that the progressive-revisionist elite disconnect themselves from the orthodox-traditional majority, the weaker the churchwide structure and the structures of revisionist synods become. Then, rather than a departing denomination or splintering splinter group, the increasingly organized and connected traditional-orthodox become the confessing church within the ELCA--not a loyal or beleaguered opposition, but a growing entity. As Bob Benne called for in his presentation at Lindenhurst, we will grow and support and link together national and regional associations of orthodox-traditionalists—individuals, congregations, and even whole synods. We will raise up determined and persevering leaders, many of them young—writers, theologians, bloggers, and even bishops—together with faithful congregations and pastors carrying out effective ministry and mission, locally, nationally, and abroad. You need to come out to Northeast Iowa and breathe orthodox-traditional majority air.

Pr. Ken Kimball, STS
Lutheran CORE
Call to Faithfulness (Northeast Iowa)

Network, network, network

One of the many great features of he Lindenhurst event is that it deliberately allowed time for confessional Lutherans to network with one another. During the event, I exchanged business cards and e-mails with others and I noticed numerous other people doing the same thing. While it may seem in some areas that there is a real lack of confessional presence, networking allows us to identify confessional folks whom we may not personally know but whom others are aware of. I know that when I and two others started Lutherans Reform! about 5 years ago, I was relatively new to the Synod and had few connections outside of my own geographical area, but through the contacts the other two pastors had, I was able to invite a number of confessional folks I did not know personally to our first meeting. here's an easy first step-who is the best confessional schmoozer in your synod, you know the person who seems to know everyone, chances they will have a strong idea of who could come to your next meeting, that is just one phone call!