The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America had debated lifting its ban on non-celibate gay clergy for years, with tensions flaring at each biennial Churchwide Assembly.
Still, when the ban was finally lifted late Friday (Aug. 21), it came as a surprise””and an unwelcome one at that””to some conservatives in the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination.
“The first reaction is that they are stunned,” said the Rev. Jonathan Jenkins, who addressed the new clergy policy at his Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Lebanon, Pa. “We’ve been talking about this as a possibility for some time, but I think most of our people did not expect this to happen.”
Jenkins said that many, but not all, members of his congregation, where 185 gather for worship each Sunday, were dismayed by the change. Jenkins is one of several pastors who are organizing a meeting in Central Pennsylvania this week to discuss the new policy and whether to stay in the ELCA.
Did you ever find yourself watching a movie and thinking “I’ve seen this plot line before, and I know how it turns out”?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G2eUopy9sd8
LCMC is the no-bishops group formed by Word Alone after the ELCA agreed to accept the historic succession in full communion with the Episcopal Church. The Evangelical Catholics in the ELCA really have no where to go – unless the ELCA will accept their joining the ACNA.
An idea that’s “really out there” might be …. a Lutheran conference or missionary diocese within ACNA or CANA. Perhaps we could fund a Lutheran confessions and systematics chair at the seminary in Pittsburgh… Musings on a Tesday morning.
I think TSM might consider that. TSM has had Lutherans and Presbyterians. We even had a Pentecostal.
Br. Michael,
What is TSM? I don’t always know the acronyms used here.
Thanks.
Trinity School for Ministry
I am curious as someone who grew up in ECUSA, but has been a member of the LCMS for 31 years. Most of us in the LCMS are not really expecting many from the ELCA who decide to leave to choose our denomination, although we are sad about that. What is the problem conservative ELCA members have with the LCMS? I am not looking for an argument – only understanding.
5, it’s in Ambridge just outside of Pittsburgh.
I think that the big three, in no particular order, are:
– A perception of literalist fundamentalism in Biblical interpretation in LCMS (eg 7 24-hour day creation)
– Women’s ordination (lack thereof)
– Close(d) communion based on denomination membership rather than shared agreement on the nature of the sacrament
I say this as someone who spent 8 years as an LCMS member and I WOULD be comfortable going back.
Any thoughts on Wels (Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran I think)
Ryan (#9),
Let’s not forget the ethnic component to this too. The LCMS is very Germanic, or sure seems so to this outsider. Now granted, a good many former LCA congregations had Teutonic roots also, but for the low church pietistic Norwegian Lutherans among whom I was raised in SD (where the ALC was dominant), the LCMS is another and alien social world.
Brian (#3),
You’ve put your finger on a major problem orthodox Lutherans in the ELCA have. As I understand it (and I’d be happy to be proven wrong here), all the ELCA seminaries have capitulated to the cultural Zietgeist here and none are reliably and exclusively orthodox anymore. That poses a tremendous obstacle to any long-term hopes for fighting for the soul of Lutheranism from within ELCA.
We Anglicans are fortunate that TWO of our seminaries have remained safe and not tolerated the “gay is OK” delusion. And in case you haven’t heard of that one either, I’m talking about Nashotah House, near Milwaukee. Trinity in Ambridge/Pittsburgh is a classic evangelical/low church seminary, while Nashotah is an Anglo-Catholic one. “Evangelical Catholics” of the venerable [b]Pro Ecclesia[/b] sort might find Nashotah to be more compatible with their Hoch Kirche style.
Alas, need I say it? Article VII of the Augustana is likely to be a bone of contention. But speaking as someone within the ACNA, I think (although I’m only speaking for myself and have no authority to represent anyone else) that many ELCA congregations could and should find a home within the ACNA. It’s DNA isn’t set in stone yet (yes, I know that’s mixing metaphors, sorry). And I suspect that many ELCA churches would be AT LEAST as compatible with classical Anglicanism as the generally low church and often Puritan or idiosyncratic AMiA is.
And let my many freinds in AMiA take note that I don’t mean that in a hostile sense. What I mean is just that if the ACNA can tolerate a rather creative (deviant) form of Anglicanism such as exists in many places in the AMiA movement, and if the wider FCA movment (that’s the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans for Lutheran newcomers to this debate) can tolerate the ultra-Reformed Sydney, Australia gang or style of Anglicanism (whose Calvinism isn’t thinkly veiled, there is no veil!), then I see no reason why solid creedal Lutherans couldn’t be admitted to the FCA as well.
David Handy+
[blockquote]Trinity in Ambridge/Pittsburgh is a classic evangelical/low church seminary, while Nashotah is an Anglo-Catholic one. “Evangelical Catholics†of the venerable Pro Ecclesia sort might find Nashotah to be more compatible with their Hoch Kirche style.[/blockquote]
Harrumph . . . harrumph. Throat-clearing. While I think Nashotah House self-identifies with the Oxford Movement, and Trinity as Evangelical, I think people might get a mistaken impresssion from your description. I think our faculty would be quite happy with the label “Catholic Evangelical,” or, rather, with the traditional understanding of Anglicanism as Reformed Catholicism. I think “Evangelical Catholics of the Pro Ecclesia” variety would feel quite at home at Trinity, and would certainly be welcome.
After all, we did hold this conference this summer.
NRA-
One of the blessings of the LCMS is that the denomination owns and controls both our seminaries, and they are both orthodox Lutheran. Our church has hosted vicars (one year internship during the 3rd year) from the seminaries since 2002, and I can guarantee that if these 7 young men are representative of their classmates, our church body is in great shape in the long term. They have all been confessional Lutherans with pastors’ hearts and committed to the traditional liturgy.
Hello Lutheran Visitor #9, as a newcomer to LCMS, I have found the approach to Scripture to be very similar as to what I had at Advent in Birmingham, focused on the message of human sin, our inability to fix ourselves, and the grace of God in sending His Son to substitute for us on the Cross, and the gifts of Word and Sacrament to draw us to Him to enjoy the gift of salvation and eternal life. The message is a huge huge comfort to me. I love the emphasis in LCMS that when we attend worship, it is God who is blessing us! Re: close(d) communion, Pastor addressed this just a few weeks ago in the sermon. Church membership has nothing whatsoever to do with taking communion; the sacrament is open to those who acknowledge their sin and inability to fix themselves, acceptance of Christ as Lord and Saviour, and acknowledgement that He is present in the bread and wine. There are some for whom lack of WO is a stumbling block, but the LCMS view on this makes sense. NRA #11, The LCMS is a “melting pot” of all ethnicities. Perhaps a bit German/Scandinavian but the effect is hardly overwhelming, kind of like the English effect on ECUSA. Harry #7, I am with you on this. If folks without access to a Biblically orthodox church would be willing to just walk in the door of their local LCMS parish, I know that they would be richly blessed!
Oh, and Harry #13, I agree completely about the vicars. The young man we just had (the very young man in the eys of this 51 year old!) is a rising giant in the church!
I was a life-long Lutheran in the ELCA, I left in 2005 for the LC-MS and never looked back. We never had sermons in our ELCA church like our LC-MS pastors preach. The ELCA pastors that we had never preached Christ Crucified, they were always fell good sermons.
#13 – you really meant “feel good”, but I think you could have an interesting theological discussion about whether “fell good” is more accurate!
Dr. Witt (#12),
OK, time to eat more humble pie. I admit I overstated the contrast between the two orthodox seminaries in trying to simplify things for Lutheran visitors here. I think BOTH Trinity in Ambridge and Nashotah near Milwaukee could appeal to many “Evangelical Catholics” or “Catholic Evangelicals” now stranded in the ELCA.
After all, (and I could be wrong about this too), my understanding is that your honorable colleague at TSM, Dr. Leander Harding, identifies more with the Catholic than the Evangelical wing of Anglicanism. In any case, as an advocate of “3-D Christianity,” I’ve long insisted that the catholic and evangelical aspects of Anglicanism are complementary dimensions, and not antithetical types of religion.
But having ruffled the feathers of a distinguished faculty member at TSM, let me prove myself to be (as usual) an Equal Opportunity Offender. What I’m about to say will doubtless offend anyone connected with the outstanding REC seminary in Houston, Cranmer House, but it does seem to me that a high church Lutheran would be more comfortable becoming a student (or teacher) at Trinity than at Cranmer House (or the REC seminary in Philadelphia).
Sorry, Bill. I meant no put down of TSM. It’s a wonderful school. I’d love to teach there someday myself.
David Handy+
Harry (#12),
Yes, the LCMS is blessed with two strong seminaries, Concordia in St. Louis and the “lesser” Concordia in Ft. Wayne, IN. I was friends with Jeff Gibbs, a NT prof in St. Louis, when we were doctoral students together in Richmond. He was an outstanding pastor himself for ten years or so before pursuing his Ph.D. And that’s one of the strenghts of the Lutheran training system, especially in the LCMS. Seminary profs are expected to have proven themselves in pastoral ministry before they allowed to train future pastors. Alas, that’s often not the case in TEC.
And yet another strength of the Lutheran seminary system is that, as I understand it, that one year internship you mentioned is obligatory for all seminarians seeking ordination. In TEC it’s optional, and rarely happens. Part-time fieldwork while in seminary just isn’t the same thing at all to a fulltime internship. I did a two-year post-seminary residency myself (my alma mater, Yale Div. School, was far better at the academic stuff than the practical side of parish ministry) under a superbly gifted pastor (Dan Herzog, later Bishop of Albany), and it was marvelous. If I had the power (and it’s probably good I don’t), I’d make an internship mandatory for Anglican ordinands.
Finally, I think there’s something positive to be said that the LCMS seminaries are signficantly larger than the Anglican ones in North America. The LCMS is larger than TEC (with something like 2.4 million members vs. a supposed 2.1 mil for TEC), and yet the LCMS consolidates its training into just two large seminaries, whereas TEC had 11 (eleven) small seminaries (before Seabury-Western in Evanston and Bexley Hall in Rochester closed last year). There are obviously pro’s and con’s to both systems, but there’s no doubt that it’s easier to control the quality of seminary education and build more unity among ordinands when they all attend just two schools, instead of 9 or more. OTOH, the independence of TSM and Nashotah House is precisely what enabled them to avoid “being assimilated” into the relativist heresy that’s taken over TEC.
If there’s a moral to this story I think it’s this: orthodox Anglicans and orthodox Lutherans have much to gain from learning from each other and supporting each other as allies instead of seeing ourselves as rivals. We Anglicans need you Lutherans to help us take doctrine with the seriousness it deserves. And if I may say so, you Lutherans need us to take liturgy and church polity as seriously as they deserve too (i.e., as by no means [i]iadiaphora[/i]).
David Handy+
OK, one more thing, Harry (#12 again).
Pardon me for getting a little snarky here and maybe spoiling the congenial ecumenical atmosphere I’ve been trying to build above. But I can’t help teasing you a little bit. You mentioned at the end of your #12 that the fine young seminarians that you’d been blessed to have at your own parish had pastor’s hearts and a love for [b]”the traditional liturgy.”[/b]
Hmmm. (or maybe “Harumph”) In the LCMS, doesn’t that mean that in your Communion serivice, the celebrant normally avoids a full eucharistic prayer and merely using the Words of Institution to consecrate the bread and wine? Pardon me, but that will never do.
That may be “traditional” for most Lutherans, but it’s certainly NOT traditional, if the criterion is the universal Christian, especially patristic, tradition. I must admit, I like the green LBW of 1978 in that regard much, much better than the blue LCMS equivalent.
I think Martin Luther over-reacted against medieval excesses in gutting the eucharistic prayer to remove all traces of sacrificial language. I think Thomas Cranmer was wiser to retain a full eucharistic prayer, just removing the offensive stuff about the Mass as a sacrifice.
And I guess that teasing comment just illustrates that when all is said and done, Lutherans will probably still be Lutherans, and Anglicans will still be Anglicans, for better or worse. But I still think we can benefit from more fellowship and cooperation.
Cheekily,
David Handy+
Oops, I meant Harry Edmon’s #13 (not 12) both times.
And Dr. Witt (#12), I’m glad you mentioned the brief ecumenical Ancient/Future conference TSM held earlier this summer. Trinity is rightly proud of being Evangelical, but it certainly isn’t so in a narrow sense. I’m glad you set the record straight.
David Handy+