Reflections on the ELCA

Just a few somewhat random thoughts concerning the recent high-profile actions by the assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).

One of the issues is the problem that this body uses the name "Lutheran" - which has the tendency to tar-brush the rest of us. In other words, when we read articles in the newspapers like "Lutherans Endorse Homosexuality," this gives the impression that all Lutherans have done this, that the ELCA represents "Evangelical Lutheranism" in America. It's especially confusing for congregations like mine which is called "Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church" and yet is not a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

So, this confusion requires us to constantly point out that the ELCA is one specific denomination that claims the label " Lutheran." The church body that my congregation belongs to is the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod (LCMS). We are not the same, nor do we share communion, churches, or ministers with the ELCA. We are different in a similar way that Mexico and New Mexico are two entirely different jurisdictions, even though they have some common shared history and even some overlapping linguistic and cultural heritage. They are simply two different entities that make use of the same name - though they are far from being the same.

There is a pastoral concern here. In spite of many years of solid pastoral teaching by my predecessors in this congregation, and an emphasis on catechesis and orthodoxy in doctrine, I have had several of my own parishioners recently either visit and in some cases commune in ELCA congregations. Others have moved away and considered joining ELCA congregations - owing to the name "Lutheran" on the door. I had one parishioner who had moved away send a request to me for a "transfer" to an ELCA congregation, unaware that our two congregations have no relationship or fellowship.

Sometimes, a family will face a choice between an established ELCA congregation that is enjoying worldly success with a beautiful facility and a large Sunday School and youth group, versus a small, struggling, or even a mission congregation of the LCMS that has no youth group or Sunday School to speak of, a humble building, but with a solid pastor. Situations like this make us really check our priorities. Would we rather our children be members of the ELCA and have a "vibrant" youth group, or would we rather them have solid teaching in the faith and fidelity to Scripture? And if no-one is willing to be the "pioneer" so to speak, and help the struggling or mission congregation grow and have children in the parish, how are they ever to have a "vibrant" youth group or Sunday School?

And what about five years from now, if the local ELCA congregation that is today "conservative" decides that their next pastor will be a lesbian? Or what about a hundred years from now when the decision to shun the LCMS congregation means that a good number of one's great grandchildren are now established in the ELCA congregation - while the LCMS congregation closed decades ago?

These are things that need to be considered now.

As far as the recent decisions to bless same-sex unions and allow open and unrepentant homosexuals to be rostered as church workers and pastors, this was inevitable. This decision was a foregone conclusion when the ELCA began accepting methods of biblical interpretation that expressed a belief that error could be found in the Scriptures, which encouraged the Bible to be read critically, if not dubiously - to the point where one could read a passage and draw a diametrically-opposite conclusion than the clear reading of the text. And this owes to a human desire not to submit to Scripture as God's Word, but rather use it as a tool to advance a certain political and social agenda. It is a case where preconceived conclusions and purpose-driven goals are allowed to replace Truth as the ultimate end of our study and theology.

The advance of the homosexual agenda was only the next logical step after the shattering of the barrier between the sexes when the ELCA began to "ordain" women. At that time, many predicted that the inevitable conclusion would be an endorsement of homosexuality. Those concerns were met with scoffing, dismissed as hysteria, by many in the movement to ordain women. The more conservative element within the ELCA is no longer scoffing, but are now shell-shocked and wondering where to go from here. There have been some who repented of women's ordination when they finally did accept the fact that they deviated from the path of Truth and this deviant path was leading to further deviation from Truth.

The other big news from Minnesota was that the ELCA was entering altar-and-pulpit fellowship with the United Methodist Church. Again, this was hardly a shock. The two denominations had already been sharing churches and ministers before the agreement. For many years, the ELCA had already been in communion with church bodies that denied the physical presence of Christ in Holy Communion, asserting only a spiritual presence. Entering into a communion arrangement with the Methodists takes things a step further, as the Methodists, unlike the Presbyterians (with whom the ELCA already shared fellowship and who believe in a spiritual presence) completely deny the presence of Christ in the bread and wine, relegating the elements of Holy Communion to mere symbols. Accoding to the Formula of Concord, church bodies that deny the real presence have no presence at all, and have no valid Eucharist (FC SD VII:32). The ELCA is thus condemned by the books it claims to confess.

None of this matters to the ELCA, in which unity trumps truth. It is more important to share communion than it is to agree what that communion is. It would be like the United States and Russia declaring that we are one country, while each operates under contradictory constitutions.

Again, the development of the of the ELCA entering communion with the Methodists is hardly a shock. Once they mounted the slippery slope of open communion, even allowing communion fellowship to go beyond what Lutherans believe about the Sacrament, it quickly degenerates and becomes a situation of "anything goes."

At this point, what is to hold the ELCA back from sharing communion and ministers with, say, Unitarians and various Pentecostal groups that deny the Trinity? What, ultimately, is to prevent communion with Wiccans and Hindus? What seemed impossible and scoff-worthy 30 years ago is today reality. Once the restraints of submission to Scripture have been torn asunder, what can be considered a boundary at all? There have already been Episcopal clergy who claim to be both Muslim and Christian or Muslim and Buddhist at the same time. The ELCA is in full communion with the Episcopal Church. The sky is the limit as to how this "unity" will play itself out.

Practically speaking, I can only hope that the shock value of the homosexual agenda will finally translate into a withdrawal of LCMS involvement with the ELCA. There is simply no reason for us to be involved in joint missionary work, joint chaplaincies, and joint school and university projects. There is no reason why any LCMS rostered (or unrostered) church workers should be sent to churches with ELCA pastors and workers, or to foreign seminaries that train female "pastors."

It is time for us to move on and recognize that the "division" has become a "chasm," to borrow President Kieschnick's terms, and did so decades ago. The chasm has, in fact, become a Rubicon that is now a permanent border of separation between us. As the office of the holy ministry is a mark of the church, and as God's Word makes it abundantly clear that women are not ontologically equipped to be pastors, how can one even recognize the ELCA in an ecclesiological way at all - even without the added anti-Scriptural sexual conclusions they have drawn?

I believe we need to consider the ELCA in its official, national, and organizational sense to be outside of the Church, no different than the Watchtower Society. In destroying the office of the ministry in their own parishes, they have made their exit from Church, ministry, and sacraments. This is not to say that there are not churches and faithful Christians located under the umbrella of the ELCA. But it is simply a fact that LCMS churches will increasingly be presented with the situation of bringing in members who were allegedly baptized by women "pastors" outside of any emergency baptism situation, and that some of those (questionable, to say the least) baptisms will have been done using euphemistic language, avoiding the Trinitarian formula decreed by Scripture.

We need to develop a clear vocabulary as to what constitutes heterodox baptisms and ordinations that we will accept (though being schismatic or laden in error), vs. what makes for baptisms and ordinations that are heretical or apostate, liturgical actions that we will not accept. I believe we need to be clear that not every error is "heresy" and not every errorist is a "heretic." We need to also find a way to teach everyone in our churches that formal communion fellowship is important. The name "Lutheran" does not mean the same thing everywhere, and just because "Lutheran" congregations outside of the LCMS will allow you to commune with them does not mean that you should, nor is it a guarantee that there really is communion going on in that place at all. It is entirely possible as of now to walk into a "Lutheran" (ELCA) church and have a Methodist minister blessing and distributing elements to Methodists, ELCA Lutherans, Episcopalians, and Presbyterians all at the same time. What is actually being given and received there? The answer, according to FC SD VII:32 is "only bread and wine."

And as refugees may come from the ELCA clergy roster seeking status as LCMS pastors, are we going to make distinctions between those who have been "ordained" by women ministers of ordination/bishops vs. those who have been ordained by legitimate pastors? Some in the LCMS would undoubtedly argue that a woman "pastor" can indeed officiate at an ordination, or that the congregational "call" is all that suffices, or that ordination is only an optional ceremony anyway. Lack of clarity in our confession and consensus on these issues will come back to bite us, unless we figure these things out now.

We need to be clear about what is heretical vs. what is merely heterodox. It does not help our situation be be triumphalistic and be eager to operate under the self-aggrandizing notion that all things LCMS constitutes orthodoxy, and all that happens outside of our communion fellowship is heresy. We must recognize "the distinction between errors that threaten the foundation of the church and going astray in less weighty matters, in general the distinction between false teaching and mistaken belief, between heresy and erroneous opinion" (We Condemn, Hans-Werner Gensichen, 1967 edition, CPH, p. 7) - especially as people cross denominational lines for many reasons.

In spite of the name "Lutheran," I believe it would be better for a Lutheran with absolutely no alternatives but a conservative Baptist church and an ELCA congregation led by a woman to choose to attend the former rather than the latter (though a better alternative might be to stay home and pray the traditional offices of the Church together until a local congregation can be established). Similarly, I believe a local congregation has more claim on being a real church if their pastor is an unrepentant homosexual than a "conservative" woman claiming to hold the office. In other words, I believe the female "ordination" to be a far bigger scandal than having an unrepentant gay man as a pastor. We live in confusing and convoluted times.

Again, this confusion we are now experiencing is the inevitable result of dabbling in "open communion" and seeking to make the Scriptures submit to reason rather than vice versa. Once a church body starts down that road, they all end up in the same place. We have been warned by history playing out before our eyes.

Though it draws us further at odds with the majority of those who use the name "Lutheran" in our country and around the globe, and though it exposes us to further ridicule and alienation from the world and our culture (including the American religious scene), we need to cling to Scripture and the confessions. We need to continue to hold a clear and unambiguous understanding of church fellowship and altar-and-pulpit relationships. We need to draw very clear lines about what constitutes the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, and what makes for valid ordination and baptism. And we have to do it in a way that seeks glory only for God, not to ourselves, in a way that is humble rather than self-congratulatory and prideful. For we are saved by grace. Correct doctrine is given and believed by grace rather than the other way around, lest any of us should boast.

And like any time of schism, heresy, doctrinal confusion, and upheaval in the Christian world, this is our opportunity to be very clear in our confession for the sake of Christ and His Church, not just for ourselves, but for our brethren around the world and for generations yet unborn.