Is the ELCA Church Council Out of Touch with Reality?

written by Dennis Nelson | January 24, 2019

The official report from the November 8-11 meeting of the ELCA Church Council, dated November 19, 2018 said that “the council engaged in discussions around a ‘well-governed, connected and sustainable church.’” I do not see how the Church Council could call the ELCA well-governed, connected, and/or sustainable.

The
Math Doesn’t Add Up

First, sustainable. The predecessor church bodies that merged in 1988 to
form the ELCA achieved their statistical peak in 1968 when they reported a
combined total of 5.9 million members. Fifty years later, in 2018, the ELCA
reports having only about 3.5 million members. That represents a 41% loss in
fifty years. How long can a decline like that be sustainable? The synod in
which I was rostered before I retired balances the budget by spending money
obtained by selling the buildings of closed congregations. These buildings were
built and paid for by faithful followers of Jesus whose view of the Bible,
orthodox theology, priority of evangelism, and views on such things as human
sexuality that synod rejects. How long can a synod continue to exist and how
can it be sustainable if it balances the budget by closing congregations?

Actions
Speak Louder

Second, connected. The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly said that a wide
variety of views on human sexuality, including the traditional view, would be
treated with respect. And yet a keynote speaker at last summer’s youth
gathering (who could very well be the prime spokesperson for the ELCA) led
31,000 young people in rejecting the traditional view as a lie. My letters to
synodical bishops were totally ignored when I wrote to them about the free
reign and amount of power that are being given to the LGBTQIA+ community and
about how the ELCA’s doing so is a blatant betrayal and violation of trust
because of the way in which the LGBTQIA+ agenda goes way beyond what was
approved at the 2009 assembly. How could a church that advocates for justice
but then acts so unjustly, and that claims to be inclusive and yet consistently
excludes, diminishes, and dismisses a significant part of its constituency call
itself connected?

Restore
Sanity

Third, well-governed. In a recent letter to Presiding Bishop Elizabeth
Eaton I challenged her to exercise the authority of her office and hold the
organizers of the youth gathering accountable for their choice of speakers. I
also called upon her to restore sanity to the ELCA’s teachings on human
sexuality by working with the administration and faculty of the Lutheran School
of Theology in Chicago to renounce the “We Are Naked and Unashamed” movement.
That movement rejects marriage by any definition as normative for sexual
activity. It was well-represented among the keynote speakers at last summer’s
ELCA youth gathering. Bishop Eaton gave a very limp reply when she said that
she will be “speaking to the leadership team of the Youth Gathering.” She also
said that she did not want to “give more attention and credence to a movement
that is outside this church’s social teaching by speaking about it publicly.”
As Bishop Eaton refuses to speak publicly about movements within the ELCA that
are out of control, Nadia Bolz-Weber is gaining visibility and notoriety as she
is promoting her new book, Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, and as she
is calling upon women to send in their purity rings so that she can melt them
down and make a statue of a golden vagina. How could a church that refuses
to address actions and behaviors that are in direct violation of what it claims
to be its beliefs and standards call itself well-governed?

Too
Late for Damage Control

Either the leaders of the ELCA are in agreement with Nadia Bolz-Weber or
they are not. If they are in agreement, we have a problem because they are
joining with her in calling the traditional view of human sexuality a lie. If
they are not in agreement, they have a problem because they have allowed her to
become so prominent. They did nothing about her at a time when it would have
been easier to do something about her. How would they be able to stop her now? When
a church body has allowed a situation that is doing great damage to become so
large and out of control, how could it call itself well-governed? The
situation created by Nadia Bolz-Weber is doing great damage because of the
message she is communicating to young people and the turmoil she is creating in
some congregations. 

Repent
and Re-Examine

That same report said that the ELCA Church
Council formed a working group which would develop a document which would
contain “a confession of this church’s bondage to the sins of slavery, racism,
discrimination, white supremacy and quietism, and a commitment to begin the
work of repentance, which this church confesses to be ‘the chief topic of
Christian teaching.’” The ELCA has far more that it needs to confess
besides racism, discrimination, white supremacy, and quietism. It also needs to
repent of its own acts of betrayal of trust, violation of agreements,
and marginalization and even bullying and intimidation of pastors and
congregations who hold to traditional views. It also needs to seriously
re-examine its own theology. How could it call itself confessionally
Lutheran when it says that our need to confess rather than God’s work of
salvation through Jesus Christ is “the chief topic of Christian teaching”?