• About Us
  • Media
  • News
  • Our Code
  • Reviews

Juicy Ecumenism – The Institute on Religion & Democracy's Blog

Juicy Ecumenism – The Institute on Religion & Democracy's Blog

Tag Archives: Lutheran

IRD Exclusive: Bishop Sutton on the ACNA and Lutheranism

09 Tuesday Jul 2013

Posted by Bart Gingerich in Uncategorized

≈ Comments Off on IRD Exclusive: Bishop Sutton on the ACNA and Lutheranism

Tags

ACNA, Anglican, Barton Gingerich, Bishop Ray Sutton, Ecumenical, ecumenism, interview, Lutheran, prayer book, women's ordination

Bishop Sutton (right) at the IRD office during the 2013 March for Life, alongside Archbishop Robert Duncan (left) and IRD Presiden Mark Tooley (center).

Bishop Sutton (right) at the IRD office during the 2013 March for Life, alongside Archbishop Robert Duncan (left) and IRD President Mark Tooley (center).

by Barton Gingerich (@bjgingerich)

During the Anglican Way Institute, IRD’s Barton Gingerich had the opportunity to sit down with the Rt. Rev. Ray Sutton, bishop coadjutor in the Diocese in Mid-America of the Reformed Episcopal Church (REC) and Ecumenical Officer for the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). This is Part 2 of a four part series. Part 1 can be accessed by clicking here.

Bart Gingerich: Let’s talk about the ACNA, because you’re not only the bishop coadjutor for the diocese but you’re also the ecumenical officer for the ACNA. How’s the communion going? Some are worried about the disagreements over women’s ordination and the shape of the prayerbook. What have you seen and hope to see in the coming months and years?

Bishop Ray Sutton: The Anglican Church in North America was of course totally unexpected. No one foresaw that there would even be this possibility. The Reformed Episcopal Church realistically had no way to even begin to approach the Anglican Communion prior to ACNA. We were always told that it was through the Episcopal Church, as the way back to Canterbury. But as the Episcopal Church became more and more apostate through the late 20th century we realized that we simply couldn’t go that route. No doubt the Episcopal Church wanted us to. In an extraordinary turn of events, our conservative commitments would have made them look better to the larger Anglican world at a time when their true, revisionist colors were being exposed. So the way back to the larger Anglican family was closed until the Anglican Church in North America began to bring together pieces of Anglicanism, pieces strewn along the last 140 years. By the way, it’s been a big challenge to bring these pieces together.

I do think that there is an important difference in what’s happening in North America at this moment in Anglican history. The North American Anglican Christians coming together are truly Biblically committed Anglicans. This has been born out time and again, but especially recently in a willingness to begin a Biblical and theological study on women’s ordination. Episcopalians in the 1970s never conducted a proper study. For that matter, the initial reasons were social and political. To the credit of all in ACNA we recognize we have to come together and ask what do the scriptures say about how the text is to be handled, the doctrine of the Church, the question of Holy Orders itself – what do other Christians in Christendom have to say to us about this? I think with this willingness to search the Scriptures, the future, although challenging, looks good for ACNA. But we’re at the very beginning, and it’s like bringing back together a bunch of lost family members and saying we’ve got to function as a family again; this is not easy. But as I say there is a will to do this. Most of all we recognize it’s God’s will to come together. The Jesus prayer in John 17 compels us. And since He commands and prays for this unity, we believe He’ll give us the grace to do it.

BG: Well, you’ve certainly seen some success in robust ecumenical dialogue. For example, the ACNA just signed on to a joint statement with American and Canadian Lutheran leaders regarding marriage. You all also gathered in a joint evening prayer. Speaking from my own experience at least, that cooperation and co-belligerence can be a bit of a rarity among orthodox Lutherans in the North American continent. What are your reflections on this recent development, and do you have any hopes or expectations for where this might all lead?

BRS: I am very encouraged by our Lutheran brothers and sisters in two different jurisdictions who’ve become very, very strong Christian friends with the Anglican Church in North America and the Reformed Episcopal Church. We have experienced nothing but true Christian charity and real cooperation around the essentials of the faith. The Lutheran Church Missouri Synod has been so kind. I’ve been time and again moved by how they have been willing to talk with Biblical Anglicans. They’ve not been known in the past for a lot of ecumenical activity, and mainly worked within some fairly narrow constraints of Lutheranism, but we have seen proper Biblical breadth in their dealings with us. They, along with all of us, recognize that at this point in history, the Christians that believe in the Bible and the historic catholic creeds, and in their case are coheirs of the Reformation, need to stand together as much as we can.

I guess I would say that the ecumenism going on among conservatives is not the same as what happened among the liberals throughout the 1900s. The ecumenism of liberalism became what I call the quest to create a kind of Huxley-ian, “Brave New Church,” a one-world liberal church supporting some kind of one-world geo-political ideology. And for that reason a lot of conservatives have been reluctant to talk about ecumenical efforts. I understand this. But it’s a new day for ecumenism among conservatives.  We’ve seen conservative breakaway groups among Lutherans, Presbyterians, and now Anglicans. Similar though not as developed efforts have even occurred among the Baptists, and the Methodists. Now all of these restored Biblical and conservative Christians in various branches of the Lord’s Church are starting to talk to each other. Their desire is not geo-political but Gospel. In this they seek to have the greatest expression of unity possible, in Christ, based on God’s Word. Yes, we have differences about polity and certain aspects of the faith, but there’s no question that we agree on the Gospel and the Catholic creeds. Importantly, I think what’s developing is a confessional movement. And when I say confession, it’s a movement based in the ancient creeds of the faith. In these commitments, Christians can come together for the spread of the Gospel.

Boy Scouts Forced to Choose Sides in the Culture War

22 Wednesday May 2013

Posted by Institute on Religion and Democracy in News

≈ 22 Comments

Tags

Albert Mohler, Baptist, Boy Scouts of America, evangelical, Luder Whitlock, Lutheran, Mark Tooley, Presbyterian, Richard Land, same-sex, Thomas Oden

Boy Scouts of America

(Photo credit: First Things)

By Mark Tooley (@MarkDTooley)

A group of mostly Protestant and evangelical church leaders, representing churches with over 20 million members, are asking the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) National Council meeting this week to retain the current BSA stance on sexuality. The May 22-24 meeting will consider a proposal to prohibit “discrimination” based on “sexual orientation or preference,” while leaving in place the current prohibition on openly homosexual Scout leaders.

Signers of the appeal to BSA include Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Convention, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod President Matthew Harrison, Assemblies of God General Superintendent George Wood, Church of God General (Cleveland, TN) Overseer Mark Williams, and Archbishop Robert Duncan of the Anglican Church in North America, as well as theologians like Southern Baptist Albert Mohler, United Methodist Thomas Oden, and Presbyterian Luder Whitlock.

Here is their statement, which attracted about fifty prominent signers:

“We strongly support the Boy Scouts of America current prohibition on open homosexuality and retaining it without revision. Nearly 70 percent of BSA troops are hosted by churches and religious institutions. Upholding traditional morality is vital for sustaining this partnership, for protecting Scout members, and for ensuring BSA has a strong future. A proposal from the BSA board to prohibit “discrimination” based on “sexual orientation or preference” for BSA members potentially would open the Scouts to a wide range of open sexual expressions. In our current culture, it is more important than ever for our churches to protect and provide moral nurture for young people and for the Scouts. We implore members of the upcoming BSA Council to affirm the BSA’s present policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed, and which has served BSA well.”

In his own preamble to the statement, Rev. Harrison of the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod warned the “proposed change will highlight sexuality, which has not been and should not be a matter of focus for Scouts.” And he suspects “it will make it more challenging to care for young people struggling with same-sex attraction and perhaps open our churches to legal action.” He also said the policy would supersede pastoral authority in churches with Scout units and could cause a “crisis of conscience for our church leaders, pastors, parents and congregations.” Harrison noted that “for more than a century, scouting has sought to uphold moral values at a level greater than that of general society,” and the “capitulation now to societal pressures would mar the long and honorable history of the Boy Scouts to honor the natural law of God, which at least for now, is still reflected in the current scouting membership policy.”

Richard Land, in his own separate May 15 letter to the Boy Scout leadership, warned that the proposed new policy would “cause many Southern Baptist churches, as well as many churches from other denominations, to withdraw their sponsorship rather than compromise their convictions.” He also said he was “perplexed” that the BSA “would abandon a century-old membership policy” less than a year after a 2 year study reaffirmed that policy “remains in the best interest of Scouting.”

In their own statement, the National Catholic Committee on Scouting cited Roman Catholicism’s teaching on chastity, and said the Church “reserves the right to seek to place those who live by its teachings in leadership positions that serve our youth, as well as the right to continue to call our young people to live by the teachings of our faith and by moral truth which can be known by all.”

Catholics are the third largest religious group involved in Scouting. Mormons are the most numerous, and their church effectively abstained from a public stance on the proposed new policy. United Methodists are the second most numerous, and their leaders in February asked BSA to defer any shift in policy until participating churches could review in a “thoughtful and prayerful manner.”

If the BSA National Council changes the membership policy, it will almost certainly create tensions between BSA and many of its participating religious congregations. Some may withdraw from BSA altogether and support religiously-based alternatives to Scouting. Meanwhile, many critics will not relent until BSA altogether abandons any restrictions on open sexual expression for members and leaders. The days of BSA as a culturally unifying icon are over, and BSA sadly will have to choose sides in the culture wars.

This blog post originally appeared on the First Things website as an article.

Statement of Religious Leaders on Boy Scout Policy this Week

21 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by Institute on Religion and Democracy in News

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

American Anglican Council, Anglican Church of North America, Baptist, Boy Scouts of America, Episcopal, evangelical, Lutheran, Mark Tooley, Methodist, pentecostals, Presbyterian

(Photo Credit: Fox News)

(Photo Credit: Fox News)

The following letter was released earlier today and signed by IRD President Mark Tooley, which reads:

We strongly support the Boy Scouts of America current prohibition on open homosexuality and retaining it without revision. Nearly 70 percent of BSA troops are hosted by churches and religious institutions. Upholding traditional morality is vital for sustaining this partnership, for protecting Scout members, and for ensuring BSA has a strong future. A proposal from the BSA board to prohibit “discrimination” based on “sexual orientation or preference” for BSA members potentially would open the Scouts to a wide range of open sexual expressions. In our current culture, it is more important than ever for our churches to protect and provide moral nurture for young people and for the Scouts. We implore members of the upcoming BSA Council to affirm the BSA’s present policy, which the U.S. Supreme Court has affirmed, and which has served BSA well.

(Titles are for identification only.)

Randy Alcorn

Director of Eternal Perspective Ministries

Bishop David C. Anderson, Sr.

President, American Anglican Council

Sara L. Anderson

Executive Vice President

Bristol House, Ltd. (United Methodist)

The Rev. Canon Phil Ashey

Chief Operating & Development Officer

American Anglican Council

Doug Beacham

Presiding Bishop, Int’l Pentecostal Holiness Church

Dr. Robert D. Benne (Lutheran)

Jordan Trexler Professor Emeritus

and Research Associate

Religion and Philosophy, Roanoke College

David K. Bernard

General Superintendent

United Pentecostal Church International

Dr. Robert H. Blackburn

Past Chairman, National Association of Covenanting Congregations

The Rev. John Bradosky, Bishop

The North American Lutheran Church

Rev. Dr. Gemechis Desta Buba

Assistant to the Bishop for Missions,

North American Lutheran Church

Pastor Mark C. Chavez

General Secretary, North American Lutheran Church

Nancy Clark

Director of Mutual Faith Ministries

The Rev. Sue Cyre

Executive Director of Presbyterians for Faith, Family and Ministry (PFFM)

The Most Reverend Robert Duncan

Archbishop, The Anglican Church in North America

Dr. Anthony Esolen

Professor, Providence College

Dr. Jim Garlow

Senior Pastor; Chairman, Renewing American Leadership

Dr. Daniel N. Harmelink

Chair of the Board of Trustees

The Lutheran Bible Institute in California

Pastor Matthew Harrison

President, The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod

Doug Harvey

Executive Director, Disciple Heritage Fellowship

Rev. Charles Huckaby

Dean, Western Classis of the Calvin Synod Conference United Church of Christ Term 2010 – 2013

Clyde M. Hughes

Bishop/General Overseer, International Pentecostal Church of Christ

Bishop Harry R. Jackson

Presiding of the International Communion of Evangelical Churches.

Dr. Jeffrey Jeremiah

Stated Clerk, Evangelical Presbyterian Church

Bishop David Kendall, Bishop Matthew Thomas, Bishop David Roller

The Board of Bishops, The Free Methodist Church – USA

James M. Kushiner

Executive Director, The Fellowship of St. James

Dr. Richard Land

President

Southern Baptist Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission

John Lomperis

Director, United Methodist Action

Alex McFarland

Director for Christian Worldview and Apologetics

Senator Patricia Miller

Executive Director, Confessing Movement (United Methodist)

R. Albert Mohler, Jr.

President, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Bob Morrison

Secretary, REVIVE! (Iowa United Methodist renewal)

Rev. Dr. Mary Holder Naegeli

Minister-at-Large, San Francisco Presbytery; Moderator of the Presbyterian Coalition

Thomas C. Oden

United Methodist theologian

Director, Center for Early African Christianity at Eastern University

Rev. William Owens Sr.

President, Coalition of African American Pastors

Dr. Eric Patterson

Dean, Robertson School of Government

Regent University

Dr. Bob Phillips

Senior Pastor, Encourager Church, Houston

Co-Founder, Kairos Journal

Leon J. Podles

President, Crossland Foundation

Dr. Steve Riggle

Senior Pastor; Grace Church, Houston

President, Grace International

Dr. Mark E. Roberts

Publisher, Word & Spirit Press (Pentecostal/Charismatic)

Rev. Kevin C. Rudolph

National Covenant Association of Churches

Windwood Presbyterian Church

Dr. Rick Scarborough

Founder and President, Vision America Action

The Rev. Dr. Frederick J. Schumacher

Executive Director, American Lutheran Publicity Bureau

Charles G. Scot

General Bishop of the Pentecostal Church of God

The Rev. W. Stevens Shipman

Director, Lutheran Coalition for Renewal

The Rev. Paul Stallsworth

President, Taskforce of United Methodists on Abortion and Sexuality

David M. Stanley

Director, Institute on Religion and Democracy

Chairman, United Methodist Action Steering Committee

Co-Chair, REVIVE! (Iowa United Methodist renewal)

John Stonestreet

Speaker and Author for Breakpoint and Summit Ministries

Bishop Ray Sutton

Ecumenical Officer, Anglican Church in North America

Eric Teetsel

Executive Director, Manhattan Declaration

Mark Tooley

President, Institute on Religion & Democracy

The Rev. Dr. David Wendel

Assistant to the Bishop for Ministry and Ecumenism

The North American Lutheran Church

Dr. Luder Whitlock

Interim President of Knox Theological Seminary.

Mark Williams

General Overseer, Church of God, Cleveland, Tennessee

Bishop Ronald Wilson

General Superintendent, Congregational Holiness Church

Dr. George O. Wood

General Superintendent, General Council of the Assemblies of God

[Update 5/22 at 2:21 pm]: Bishops David Kendall, Bishop Matthew Thomas, and Bishop David Roller have joined the above and Dr. Daniel N. Harmelink in affirming the above Boy Scouts of America’s current leadership policy.

[Update 5/23 at 3:44 pm]: Presiding Bishop Doug Beacham has added his name to the Boy Scouts statement.

Episcopal Bishop: Reflect “Divine Glory in Fully Alive-ness” on Climate Activism

03 Friday May 2013

Posted by jeffreywalton in News

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Anders Werjyd, ELCA, Environment, Episcopal, Episcopal Church, Global Warming, Institute on Religion and Democracy, Jeff Walton, Julio Murray, Katharine Jefferts Schori, Lutheran, Marc Andrus, Mariann Budde, Mary Minette, Richard Cizik, Shannon Johnston, Willis Jenkins

Church of Sweden Archbishop Anders Werjyd and Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori present their signed climate change statement at St. John's Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. on May 1.

Church of Sweden Archbishop Anders Werjyd and Episcopal Church Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori present their signed climate change statement at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C. on May 1. (Photo: Mariann Budde/Episcopal Diocese of Washington)

By Jeff Walton (@JeffreyHWalton)

The Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church encouraged a church climate change gathering to stand firm “in the face of those who would destroy God’s reflection in creation.”

Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori’s words came as Swedish Lutherans and American Episcopalians entered into an agreement on climate change in which the two churches committed to “serve as the hands of God in working to heal the brokenness of our hurting world.”

Release of the joint statement signed by Jefferts Schori and Church of Sweden Archbishop Anders Werjyd came during the event on “Sustaining hope in the face of climate change” held May 1-2 at St. John’s Episcopal Church Lafayette Square in Washington, D.C. The full statement can be viewed here.

The event featured panel discussions on international and local church responses to climate change, as well as a morning of lobbying Congressional and Administration officials on climate policy. The May 2 panels were heard by several Episcopal and Lutheran officials, including Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, Episcopal Bishop of Washington Mariann Budde, Bishop of Virginia Shannon Johnston, Bishop of Maryland Eugene Sutton, Bishop of California Marc Andrus, Anglican Bishop of Panama Julio Murray and New Evangelical Partnership for the Common Good President Richard Cizik, among others.

In a noonday homily at St. John’s, Jefferts Schori recalled St. Athanasius and his opposition to the heresy of Arianism, which espoused a human Jesus fully distinct from God the Father.

“If Jesus were not fully God and fully human it would deny any possibility that beings who inhabit flesh and blood human bodies could have a real relationship with God, whom we call the Holy One,” Jefferts Schori intoned. “It is not only God in human flesh who images the Holy One. All parts of God’s creation must reflect their maker in some way.”

In reference to “the riotous diversity of the flowers of the field,” the creatures of the sea and the sparrows, Jefferts Schori noted that God intends that each should flourish.

“When Jesus says that ‘you will be hated because of what you teach’, well, watch out if you advocate for justice for all the world’s people and all the other parts of creation,” The Episcopal Church official warned. “But don’t be afraid to speak out and tell what you know, for your soul will find life in doing that.”

Quoting Saint Irenaeus, Jefferts Schori remarked “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.”

“Fully alive human beings know themselves made in the image of God. Created as brother to the sun and sister to the moon, friend to the deer and ant and sparrow as well as to the enfolding blanket of atmosphere and ocean we are one family, related through the one who created us to reflect the divine glory in fully alive-ness,” Jefferts Schori declared. “There is no room in that for misusing our brothers and sisters, human or otherwise. There is abundant hope for all given the image we reflect and the ever-creative one in whom we live and move and have our being.”

The Episcopal Church official declared that Athanasius “stood firm in the face of those who would deny God’s presence in human flesh — we must do the same in the face of those who would destroy God’s reflection in creation.”

The midday homily was followed later the same afternoon by a panel on international response to climate change with Murray, scientist Kevin Noone, Professor of Social Ethics Willis Jenkins of Yale Divinity School and Mary Minette, Director of Environmental Education and Advocacy for the ECLA’s Washington Office.

During the panel, Murray advised the church audience to “give the information” that people need to know, rather than answering “wrong questions” reporters may ask. This, he laughed, was risky as “they won’t give the microphone back to you.”

Minette also expressed dissatisfaction with media coverage of climate issues, asserting that reporters cover the issue as an argument, “give voice to dissenters” and elevate a position that she felt was not on equal footing with climate activists.

Asked about mainline Protestant response to climate matters, Minette observed that there was “little interest” in the media among what mainline denominations espoused about the climate, with greater interest directed towards Evangelical Christian responses.

ELCA partnership with United Methodism: “Full Communion” or Denominational Suicide Pact?

03 Friday May 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Bishop Mark Hanson, ecumenism, ELCA, GBCS, heresy, Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis, Kathryn Lohre, LGBT, Lutheran, National Council of Churches, NCC, partisanship, sexuality, United Methodist, United Methodist Connectional Table

Bishop Mark Hanson (right), Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, with Brach Jennings, a member of Proclaim, the self-described "professional community for publicly identified LGBTQ Lutheran rostered leaders and seminarians."  (Photo credit: Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries)

Bishop Mark Hanson (right), Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, with Brach Jennings, a member of Proclaim, the self-described “professional community for publicly identified LGBTQ Lutheran rostered leaders and seminarians.” (Photo credit: Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries)

By John Lomperis (@JohnLomperis)

United Methodists and liberal Lutherans should unite against orthodox Christians!

That was the message conveyed by Mark Hanson, Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), to members of the Connectional Table of the United Methodist Church, who met earlier this week. Bishop Hanson’s opportunity to briefly address the United Methodist Church leaders was extended as a courtesy, since the meeting took place in the ELCA’s Chicago headquarters, where the Connectional Table rents office space. He was joined by Kathryn Lohre, the ELCA’s Director for Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations and current president of the leftist National Council of Churches (NCC).

Hanson and Lohre unsurprisingly celebrated the “full communion” agreement into which the two denominations entered in 2009. Ms. Lohre expressed hope for deeper, more “intensive” partnership between the two denominations, thanked the UMC’s generous financial support of the struggling NCC, cheered the controversial political activism of the NCC and the UMC’s own General Board of Church and Society (GBCS), and announced that her ecumenical council will soon be seeking a new General Secretary. While Bishop Hanson broadly cheered ecumenism and “proclaiming Christ crucified and risen” it was not clear if the ELCA chief actually believes that Jesus Christ literally, physically rose from the dead or if he adheres to the common heresy among his fellow liberal Protestants that uses the language of resurrection as a mere metaphor (given the disbelief of many secularized Protestant thinkers in a God who can or does truly miraculously intervene in human history).

As Bishop Hanson portrayed it, the meat of the value of the UMC-ELCA full-communion partnership is for the two shrinking oldline denominations to form a united front to oppose and counter the voices of more orthodox, biblically faithful American Christians. While lamenting that others have “the dominant Christian voice in this culture,” Hanson uncharitably denounced the current mainstream of American Christianity for being “divisive” and “partisan.”

Hanson’s accusation is rather curious on several fronts.

On the consummately partisan issue of Congressional budget negotiations, this is the same Bishop Mark Hanson who during the Bush II era was rather unrestrained in denouncing the Republican side as “injustice and immorality” while insisting that there could be no room for disagreement among faithful Christians of good will on such prudential public-policy judgments, since “the Biblical standard is irrefutable.” In his recent address to the Connectional Table, he bragged about his own liberal political activism on immigration and Middle East issues.  (Although to be fair, it is worth noting that his position on the latter is more aligned with the left wing of the Democratic Party rather than with the Party’s mainstream.) Under Bishop Hanson’s leadership the ELCA (along with the NCC) routinely sponsors and funds a variety of highly partisan, lefty political activism efforts, such as the recently-concluded Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington, DC. One would be hard-pressed to find a single significant religious organization in America today which is as blatantly politically partisan as the NCC. And contrary to the projective fantasies of ideologically and socially sheltered liberals, at the level of individual pastors, seminarians, congregations, and denominational hierarchies, it is relatively rather rare to find conservative Christians who devote as much of their ministries to political activism, on as broad a range of debatable issues and with as much partisan predictability, as their liberal Protestant counterparts.

It seems that Bishop Hanson would have been more honest if he had just admitted that he wishes the voice of American Christianity would be more politically partisan, only on what he sees as the correct side of the political aisle.

As for the charge of division, this is something with which Bishop Hanson has a good deal of experience. In 2009, the ELCA liberalized its stance on sexual morality to revoke bars on ordaining homosexually active individuals.  (ELCA pastors serving UMC congregations still have to abide by the UMC’s biblical moral standards.) Last year, Bishop Hanson was the keynote speaker for the denomination’s main LGBT caucus. As Hanson himself admitted to the Connectional Table, the sexuality liberalization initially (along with the nation’s economic crisis at the time) caused the denomination to slash its budget by $20 million and lay off 100 staffers.  In addition to the exodus of hundreds of ELCA churches, including some of its most “vital congregations,” and reported “bullying” by the ELCA hierarchy of orthodox ELCA-ers, the ELCA’s rejection of biblical teaching has led to the severing of long-held partnerships with other Lutherans overseas.

And yet according to the ELCA leader’s logic, it somehow makes sense to intentionally divide yourself from the rest of the body of Christ, publicly denounce and proclaim your opposition to these Christians, and then claim that they are the ones being “divisive.” Apparently Bishop Hanson has no more interest in living out John 13:35 than in upholding Scriptural teaching on sexual morality.

Perhaps most theologically troubling is Bishop Hanson’s categorical suggestion that the Christian message to a religiously mixed public should never be “divisive.” One could cite numerous biblical teachings about the inherent, inevitable divisiveness of the person of Jesus Christ (Matthew 1:1 through John 21:25 is a good starting point), or about the seemingly anti-social divisiveness of early Christians’ refusal to participate in communal pagan rituals.

But under Bishop Hanson’s leadership, the ELCA seems to have evolved beyond that past. Having formally rejected Scriptural authority and progressed into something Martin Luther would never recognize, the “Lutheran” denomination in which I spent the bulk of my childhood, and through which my grandparents spent 40 years as missionaries in India, now seems to be irretrievably on the downward trajectory of “Progressive Christianity.” So it makes perfect sense that liberal ELCA leaders would increasingly invite leaders in other denominations to join them in similarly progressing beyond Scripture and their respective theological traditions in hopes of adding numerical and financial support to the promotion of a vision of faith which is increasingly indistinguishable from Unitarian Universalism.

But any United Methodist who cares about the spiritual faithfulness and communal survival of our denominational would do well to reject this invitation.

To put it bluntly, there may not simply be much of anything left of the ELCA after its baby-boomer members die off with no one to replace them.  Is this really the same future we want for the United Methodist Church?

For decades, we United Methodists, at the U.S. national level, have put almost all of our ecumenical eggs in the one basket of the increasingly narrow, shrinking segment of the most secularized wing of American Protestantism, while not pursuing similar dialogues, clergy-exchange agreements, or “intensive partnerships” with more orthodox Protestants. Thus, at our last General Conference, a caucus group promoting “anything goes” sexual morality could expect to be taken seriously when it casually said that the “other denominations most closely related to” the UMC were not evangelical denominations within the Wesleyan theological tradition but rather rapidly shrinking, non-Methodist, liberalized denominations like the notoriously heterodox United Church of Christ (UCC).

As United Methodist denominational officials promote the “rethink church” slogan, this definitely seems like something worth rethinking.

← Older posts

Top Posts & Pages

  • Frank Schaeffer: Obama "One of the Greatest Presidents America Has Ever Had"
  • Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali at Patrick Henry Henry College
  • Peter Storey to Florida Methodists: "No Americanism for You!"
  • Gimme That Ole Time Liberation Theology
  • Hoping Against Hope for Equality in Egypt

Authors

  • Bart Gingerich
    • The Rise of the “Nones” (and How Anglicans Can Respond)
    • The Westboro Baptist Muzzle
  • Faith McDonnell
    • Hoping Against Hope for Equality in Egypt
    • From MCN: Evangelical Synod Calls for Establishing Democratic State in Egypt
  • irdinterns
    • Mary Stachowicz: Martyr for the Faith and Hostis Humani Generis
    • Peter Storey Preaches on Gay Rights, Trayvon Martin “racism”
  • jeffreywalton
    • Disciples of Christ Denomination Affirms Sexual Liberalism, Transgenderism
    • Wild Goose Festival Migrates through Turbulent Issues of Transgenderism, Intersex
  • Kristin Larson
    • Speakers Warn Against “Entrenched” Positions of “Conservative White Men” at Evangelical Conference
    • Joel Hunter: A Political Pastor
  • John Lomperis
    • Liberal United Methodists “Not Optimistic” about Future of Denomination
    • United Methodist Annual Conference Evangelical Groups, Banquets Offer Fellowship, Inspiration
  • marktooley
    • Christian Response To Migrant Syrian
    • Fdf
  • Nathaniel Torrey
    • Working Out with Fear and Trembling
    • The Left, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the Controversy of Religious Liberty
  • rickplasterer
    • When Biblical Morality Is Declared Immoral
    • The Health Care Conscience Rights Act of 2013
  • Luke Moon
    • Ronald Reagan: What the 4th of July Means to Me
    • Superman and the NAE are on a Quest for Peace
  • Institute on Religion and Democracy
    • Institute on Religion & Democracy Live Stream
    • ‘Peace Discernment’ study points toward pacifism

Blog at WordPress.com.

Cancel