Why?
Membership totals in the ELCA were released this week, and I read them with heavy heart. The Church continues to shrink. We are down in every category, but I am most alarmed by the decline in Communing/Contributing members, the category by which we measure those “active” church members. The numbers of C/C members have plummeted by 44, 879, following a loss the previous year of 44,730. There are now only about 2.3 million active ELCA Lutherans in the nation.
I am not a numbers kind of pastor. I am more interested in providing a solid foundation to those I can bring the Gospel to than I am in having a megachurch filled with the Biblically illiterate. And yet I cannot help but think we must be doing something terribly wrong that is leading to the kind of loss we are seeing. This was amplified for me when I received a copy of the ELCA’s evangelism strategy video, which was a whopping 7 minutes long ( and 6 minutes of it was useless)!!!
We seem to talk about everything in the ELCA. We focus time and finances and energy talking about retooling our worship book (aka destroying traditional liturgy), forging ecumenical ties with churches that we STILL disagree with about central issues of sacramental theology, and everything else under the sun, yet we fail to stop and ask simple questions.
With the Churchwide Assembly in a week, and with all the discussion we will be focusing on sexuality and on force feeding the travesity of a worship book, here is a list of questions I want the ELCA to ask of itself:
1. Are we living the missio Dei or are we just trying to get by the best we can?
2. What is the true nature of worship? Is it an evangelism scheme or is it an internal matter of a community of souls seeking to continue their conversion by lauding and worshiping the Most Holy Trinity?
3. Is Jesus Christ the Way, the Truth and the Life, or is he just one way to God among pluriform paths?
4. Is the Nicene Creed a statement of belief which we aspire to truly (though imperfectly) hold, or is it just an optional prelude to the communion service that allows the pastor to catch their breath while the congregation gets to stretch their legs post sermon?
5. Are we just another mainline Protestant denomination, or are we a confessing movement within the Church Catholic?
I think until we answer these questions, then we merely wrestle with questions that are peripheral to our existence.
PLEASE NOTE: Don’t read anything into these questions. I am not making a statement about human sexuality or about the recommendations that are before the Assembly this year. I am sure I will blog about that in the coming days and weeks, but I have to confess my own theological struggle with the issues. Hopefully this will be a forum that will help me clarify my thinking, especially considering the diversity of the people I have been so blessed to encounter here.
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Well…as one of those personally responsible for the shrinking numbers… Yeah, destruction of the liturgy, willful ignorance of the Confessions, and intemprate Unionism pretty much sums it up for me. And I certainly feeling the whole wrestling bit with you. These shouldn’t be easy answers if you respect Scripture, tradition, and moral and intellectual integrity no matter what the shouters on both sides say. I didn’t come to where I am without a lot of thinking and praying.
I appreciate your candor about these issues. I’ve oft thought that we’ve had very similiar experiences, especially with the our forays into Lutheran sems. I was fortunate that at Southern I got to study with Yeago (Theology of Salvation, no less), and I think that Root impacted the overall atmosphere for the better.
With that said, I can say that only a minimal handful of people there had any real grip on the Evangelical-Catholic movement.
There was a candidacy retreat here last year where the litany was from a pagan resource, the Gospels were carried in a case intended for the Koran, and candidates were forced to take part in dance (not the good kind). It was especially bad at synod this year, when I wanted to walk out of the “Festival Eucharist,” which came complete with tom-toms during the Psalm and some strange emasculated psuedo-Trinitarian blessing.
and candidates were forced to take part in dance (not the good kind).
*sigh* no mosh pit this year either? Although when M was up this weekend we went to a club you would have really loved…
I had a disheartening conversation with an Ev-Cath who’s a higher up. I asked what seemed for me to be The Question (and was a major factor in my decision)–why no furor about the ELCA-Reformed but a huge hullabaloo about ELCA-ECUSA? His response was that they thought they had an agreement: don’t cause problems with this an no one would cause a problem with CCM. Now I wonder did they get played, did they get screwed, or was this just the excuse…
The bottom line is that no matter how much I love the Confesions, they don’t protect the liturgy and in this day and age I see that as the key.
The bottom line is that no matter how much I love the Confesions, they don’t protect the liturgy and in this day and age I see that as the key.
lex orandi, lex credendi…or something like that.
Have you seen the proposed new worship materials from the ELCA? Ugh! Though the SBH and LBW hardly represent the height of liturgy, they beat the hell out Renewing Worship. It is as if the whole book were a giant WOV.
Oy. I haven’t seen it. My favorite is still the little black ULCA service book.
Well, I’ll throw in my two cents. I think some of the Renewing Worship materials suck. A few bits here and there are from Eastern liturgies and quite all right, but most of it needs to be retired post haste. DO NOT LET GO OF THE LBW for shoddy substitutes.
No, these all take wrestling, G-d knows I’ve done a lot of that, but Derek, there are more than two sides. I don’t fit either very well, and I’m one of those who ARE the presenting issue of the moment.
And my P is very Confessional to the point I get sick of hearing about Luther at times. Though my slapping up another icon of Mary sends him reeling as well, especially if I go into a hearty Ave Maria.
I wish we could disconnect the implication that one’s understanding and stance on homosexuality is linked to a certain point on the theological spectrum. Many orthodox people and confessional people I know are just as likely to welcome me fully as are liberals, and I’m more of that orthodox persuasion myself.
The Evangelical-Catholics I’ve met, however, I must say, were not people I’ve found terribly kind, and I move on quickly whenever I encounter one. Sorry, LP and Derek if that offends.
*C -
Sadly, I preached a sermon on the need to affirm some doctrinal essentials, and I got more than one comment about how glad people were that I spoke against the upcoming votes on sexuality. I NEVER EVEN MENTIONED IT!!! Again, authorial intent is a bitch…thus my disclaimer.
Re: RW
The Eastern insertions (esp the Trisagion) was nice. Yet it doesn’t make up for the rest of the garbage in there. Let’s shove the altar back against the East Wall, put our vestments back on and chant with a little dignity. And while we are at it, YES we are miserable sinners in need of redemption and NO we are not worthy to come to “this thy table”.
Sorry…it got away from me there for a moment!!!
Christopher,
I suppose my construction can be read as opposing Scripture and Tradition with moral and intellectual integrity but tat’s not my true intent. I certainly realize that there are more than two sides. For my part I want to affirm all four and that’s not easily done. And yes, I’m always annoyed by assumptions about my beliefs or lack thereof based on one piece of theological evidence.
lp,
That’s what I’m talking about. And it pisses me off because I don’t fit (I just posted on this). Dogmatically and doctrinally orthodox does NOT equal being against gay people as most gay people would wish to be treated. Some of the finest inclusive theology is orthodox in my opinion because it affirms our loving from a Trinitarian and Incarnational perspective.
RE: RW
See, but I live with someone that would balk at those suggestions. Though I don’t have much problem with them. “Das ist Katolisch!”, to use his words. We have to find ways to pray together that honor his Protestant conscience and my Catholic conscience. So we compromise, I light the candle to the icon of Mary and he reads us the Scripture and we compromise by praying from the BCP.
I liked the bits from the Armenian liturgy right after fraction. But the entirety is wordy not poetic and could be said better by drawing from the East if we’re not happy with a sin focus. I’ve gotten more comfortable with being a “sinner” myself, because it is actually freeing to acknowledge we fall short/turn away/are alienated/do harm and I don’t mean my in sexuality (though I sin there too just like everyone else–celibate, married, single, whatnot). Oy. Living with a Lutheran has affected/infected my theology.
Oy. Living with a Lutheran has affected/infected my theology.
I feel for you!!!!
As a Lutheran, I guess I see myself as an exiled Catholic, and I am very comfortable in that, though my parishioners often scratch their heads. In other words, when someone says, “that is Catholic”, I merely smile and reply, “Yes. Yes it is.”
Derek,
I know you do…but I’ve come to distrust the “two sides” or “both sides” wording…it covers up that we too have taken sides.
lp, Ahhh…but that’s the difference between an American and German context. Catholic/Lutheran are still more diametrically opposed in other parts of the world.
Exiled Catholic? I think movement within the Church Catholic sounds more Lutheran?
Christopher said, “I wish we could disconnect the implication that one’s understanding and stance on homosexuality is linked to a certain point on the theological spectrum.”
I completely agree. It’s unfortunate that the sexuality controversy has become such a focal point for the declining membership argument because it obscures both issues (membership and sexuality). That was the problem I had with Carl Braaten’s recent open letter to Bishop Hanson.
The complaint Braaten was making is that the ELCA is structured such that lay people can change our doctrine (or liturgy or whatever else they want) based on a simple majority opinion. And I think this has a lot to do with much of the dissatisfaction within the ELCA. How often does the majority really get it?
But then in discussing that letter when I brought up any complaints about the fact that it passive-aggressively attacked those who support the full acceptance of gay and lesbian Christians within our community of faith, I got labelled as yet another liberal protestant (which I really don’t think I am).
One high church Lutheran said this to me in an e-mail: “You are completely in error if you think the issue is whether or not to accept gays and lesbians as members of a congregation. Where have you been? Are you paying atention? Tell me who opposes gays and lesbians as bona fide members of Christian congregations. That is where you say you are making your stand. How courageous. You must think you are Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms.”
Of course this changed the topic from “fully accepting” (perhaps “truly accepting” would be better) to “accepting as members of a congregation” and thus completely missed the point. It’s like saying that no one is in favor of abortion. Yet it happens.
And I think that’s another of our problems with the sexuality issue. People aren’t hearing each other. There’s a conservative force that sees this strictly as an attack on doctrine. There’s probably a liberal force that intends it as an attack on doctrine. But there’s a contingent that gets tossed into the liberal box that just wants to obey the commandment to love one another as Christ loves us. I’m sure there are other voices that I’m not hearing.