Editor’s note: The article below by Pastor Brett Jenkins originally appeared in the July 2018 newsletter.

Click here to read this very short and helpful article.

Editor’s Note: The article below by Pastor Dennis D. Nelson originally appeared in the September 2018 Newsletter.

Click here to read the article.

All,

This month David Charlton, an ELCA pastor, wrote to Bp. Eaton about his concerns concerning seminary education of traditional Lutherans seeking ordination in the ELCA. Click here to read his letter which asked some very important questions. Bp. Eaton responded and gave him permission to share; click here to read her response.

September 2018 LCORE Newsletter

Editor’s Note: The article below by Pastor Dennis D. Nelson originally appeared in the Summer 2018 Newsletter.

Click here to read the article.

“PLEASE, LORD, SPARE THE CONGREGATIONS”

That was my prayer as I read a recent announcement from United Lutheran Seminary, the ELCA school of theology that was formed by the merger of two separate educational institutions in Gettysburg and Philadelphia. That announcement, which is dated July 12, 2018 and which can be found under “News and Events” on the seminary’s website, is about the appointment of Dr. Crystal L. Hall to the faculty as assistant professor of biblical studies. It reads, “Dr. Hall’s research and teaching address the call to justice with the human Other alongside the call to justice with Earth as Other.”

When I read that, my first thought was, “What in the world does that mean?” I decided to try to determine its meaning by breaking it down into three phrases – “the call to justice” (which obviously must be very important because it is in there twice), “with the human Other,” and “alongside . . . with Earth as Other.”

I certainly agree that the Biblical authors are concerned for justice. The Old Testament prophet Amos wrote, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everflowing stream.” (5: 24) Another prophet, Micah, added, “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (6: 8) God is not satisfied with my merely being in favor of justice. I need to do justice. So Dr. Hall’s first emphasis – “the call to justice” – I completely agree with.

But what about that second phrase – “with the human Other”? I could not find references to “the human Other” in the writings of other Bible scholars, so I was left to my own devices to try to interpret it and understand it. Since the “O” is capitalized, I assume the human Other is Jesus. But how can we view calling Jesus the human Other as anything other than a lessening of Jesus? Jesus is not just the human Other. He is fully God as well as fully human. As the Gospel writer John tells us, He is the Word that has existed from all eternity who at a certain place and time became flesh and lived among us. As the apostle Paul wrote, “He is the image of the invisible God.” “In Him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily.” (Colossians 1: 15 and 2: 9) Jesus is not just the human Other. He also is fully God.

And then that phrase, “alongside . . . with Earth as Other.” With the word “Earth” being capitalized and with Earth being referred to as “Other” in the same way as Jesus is “Other,” how can we view this as anything other than deifying a part of creation? How can we see it as anything other than placing a part of creation on par with the Creator? The apostle Paul had some very harsh words to say about people who do that. He said that they have “exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creation rather than the Creator.” (Romans 1: 25) What can we call placing a part of creation on par with the Creator as anything other than idolatry?

So as best as I can understand the language of the announcement, the newly appointed professor’s research and teaching emphasize justice (I completely agree with that one), de-emphasize Jesus (I have a major problem with that one), and promote idolatry (I also have a major problem with that one).

If emphasizing justice, de-emphasizing Jesus, and promoting idolatry are not what Dr. Hall’s research and teaching are all about, then I wish the announcement would have been made clearer and would have been worded in a way that even I can understand.

Speaking of being clear, the only part of that sentence that is clear for me are the four words “the call to justice.” And those four words must be the most important words because they are included twice. But is “the call to justice” really what should be the major emphasis of someone who teaches the Bible to future pastors?

Justice, Mercy and Grace

I like the following definitions of justice, mercy, and grace. Justice is I get what I deserve – no more, no less. Mercy is I do not get what I deserve. Grace is I get what I do not deserve. Justice talks about what God requires of me. Justice speaks of what I need to do. Mercy and grace speak of what God gives because of what God has done. Is the Christian faith primarily about what I need to do, or is it primarily about what God has done and about what God has to give?

Future pastors who are being taught to emphasize justice and de-emphasize Jesus and who are being taught that the Christian faith is more about what I need to do than it is about what God has done and therefore what God has to give are not being prepared to be shepherds for God’s flock.

If that is what our future pastors are being taught, my prayer is, “Please, Lord, spare the congregations.”

ELCA’s Next Generation Pastors

I had been concerned enough with the news from a few months ago that the LGBTQIA+ community at United Lutheran Seminary had forced the firing of the school’s president. When it became known that the president – about twenty years ago – not only had held a traditional view on human sexuality but had served as director of an organization that held a traditional view, the LGBTQIA+ community became so wounded, traumatized, hurt, and upset that the seminary leadership had to cater to them and fire the president. At the time I was thinking, if these poor students become so upset just because someone who agrees with them now believed differently twenty years ago, what are they going to do – how are they going to be able to handle it – when they receive their first call and attend their first council meeting – or even worse their first congregational meeting – and find that someone does not agree with them? The ELCA is raising up a generation of pastors who emphasize justice, de-emphasize Jesus, and who do not have the resilience and stamina to survive in the parish.

Excluded and Marginalized

That same announcement from the seminary also says about Dr. Hall, “She works to privilege voices that have historically been excluded from the classroom and the church.” But what actually are the voices that are being excluded from the classroom and the church? The voices that are being excluded are the voices of the historic, orthodox, traditional Christian faith. The voices that are being excluded are the voices that believe that the Bible is true, Jesus is God, the tomb of Jesus really was empty on Easter Sunday morning, and that the prime mission of the church is to proclaim Jesus as Savior and Lord.

That announcement also says, “Dr. Hall works to read the Bible prophetically with communities struggling against the structures that keep them marginalized.” But who are the communities that are struggling against structures that are keeping them marginalized? It is certainly not the LGBTQIA+ community. That community is not marginalized. It has taken over. That community was not only able to force the firing of the president of the seminary where Dr. Hall has been appointed. The agenda of that community was also fully promoted by keynote speakers at the recent ELCA youth gathering. The communities that are struggling against structures that keep them marginalized are the people still within the ELCA who hold to a high view of the authority of the Bible and a traditional view on such things as human sexuality. They are the ones whose communications bishops ignore. They are the ones whose view of human sexuality has been called – at an official gathering of thirty thousand ELCA young people – a lie from Satan that needs to be renounced.

We Are Very Grateful

Speaking of voices that have been excluded and communities that are being marginalized, we are very grateful for all of you. We are very grateful for –

• All who are sharing our letters and newsletters with others. Please continue to do so.
• Pastors who have shared our communications with their church councils and congregations.
• People who are asking to be added to our email or post office (paper) mailing list.
• People who filled out the survey and told us how they feel about the recent ELCA youth gathering.
• All those who have spoken to their pastors and/or written to their bishops with their deep concerns over the recent ELCA youth gathering.
• All who send us an encouraging word, telling of their agreement with our concerns and their support of our work.

Links

If you have not yet read them, here is a link to the letter we have written to Elizabeth Eaton, Presiding Bishop of the ELCA, about the recent youth gathering.

Here is a link to the letter we have sent to all sixty-five synodical bishops of the ELCA.

In the letters to Bishop Eaton and the ELCA synodical bishops we have called upon them to do three things –

• Exercise the authority of their office and hold the organizers of the youth gathering accountable
• Restore sanity to the ELCA’s teaching on human sexuality, beginning with rejecting the “We Are Naked and Unashamed” movement
• Publicly affirm that the traditional view of human sexuality is still an acceptable position within the ELCA rather than what one of the speakers at the youth gathering called it – a lie from Satan that needs to be renounced

Here are links to two sample letters that you might find helpful as you compose your own letter to your bishop. (here and here) It is not too late to write. ELCA leaders need to hear that there is a vast number of people who are horrified over what took place at the recent youth gathering.

Finally, here is a link to the names and mailing addresses of the sixty-five ELCA synodical bishops.

“That’s Just the Way Things Are Now”

One person told of speaking with an assistant to the bishop of one of the ELCA’s synods. That synod staff person rejected this person’s concerns by saying regarding the recent youth gathering, “That’s just the way things are now.”

What kind of a response is that? To be told that even though current ELCA behavior is in direct violation of ELCA agreements and commitments that are less than nine years old, “That’s just the way things are now.”

What if the federal government acted like that? What if ICE and the border patrol, after being told to reunite families, were to keep them separate and say, “That’s just the way things are now”? What if promises made to native Americans were broken with the justification that, “That’s just the way things are now”?

If either were to happen, can you even imagine how many ELCA bishops would write letters and how many ELCA synods would pass resolutions? And yet how does the ELCA seem to be justifying its totally ignoring and even violating the terms of the decisions made at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly? By saying essentially, “That’s just the way things are now.”

Please pray with us that the ELCA bishops actually read our letters to them. And then please pray that they will allow the Holy Spirit to convict them and that then they will make appropriate and needed changes.

Dennis D. Nelson

President of the Board and Director of Lutheran CORE

dennisdnelsonaz@yahoo.com

909-274-8591

Editor’s Note: The article below by Pastor Steven K. Gjerde originally appeared in the Summer 2018 Newsletter.

Click here to read the article.

Lutheran CORE has sent a letter to ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton asking her to take action in light of some of the keynote speakers at the recent youth gathering. Click here to read it.

Click here to access the summer 2018 version of the CORE Voice newsletter.

ELCA LEADERS DO NOT HONOR COMMITMENTS, RESPECT BOUNDARIES, OR RECOGNIZE THEIR OWN INCONSISTENCIES

LETTER FROM THE DIRECTOR – JUNE 2018

Recent events in the ELCA blatantly reveal that ELCA leaders have no intent to honor the commitments that were made and the boundaries that were set as part of the decisions on human sexuality at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly.

The social statement, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” which was approved by that assembly, clearly states that there is not agreement within the ELCA and that there would be a place for a wide variety of views, including the traditional view, within the church. But many who hold to the traditional view feel that all of the actions and positions taken by the ELCA since then have favored those who agree with same sex marriage and even those who are advocating for all sorts of other sexual identities and expressions. Recent events at United Lutheran Seminary, formed by the merger of Philadelphia and Gettysburg Seminaries, show just how much disfavor there is even against someone who held a traditional view twenty years ago.

Members of the LGBTQIA+ community at United Lutheran Seminary have been complaining loudly about how hurt, wounded, traumatized, and unsafe they feel because of the choice that was made for the first president of that institution. Great effort has been expended by ELCA leaders to help them feel safe. A letter written by one ELCA bishop came across to me as groveling in front of that part of the student body. In our view recent events at the seminary should lead anyone who has ever held a traditional view on human sexuality to feel unsafe. I have read various reports on the reasons for the recent firing of the president, Dr. Theresa Latini. For me any of those reasons is problematic.

If Dr. Latini was fired because twenty years ago she held a traditional view, even though she fully embraces the LGBTQIA+ agenda today, that is problematic, because it shows that anyone who has ever held a traditional view is unacceptable and their employment is not safe.

Some of the reports say that she was fired because twenty years ago she was director of an organization that advocates for and practices reparative or conversion therapy. I have spoken with the president of the board of OnebyOne, the organization that she was director of back in the 1990’s. He emphatically stated that that organization has never been an advocate for and has never practiced reparative therapy. Instead they are an educational arm of the church, which speaks to groups about hope and healing in Jesus. So if once being director of an organization that advocates for and practices reparative therapy is the reason she was fired, that reason also is problematic, because it is based upon an untruth.

Some say that Dr. Latini was fired because she did not disclose to the interviewing committee her previous involvement with OnebyOne. If that is the reason, that also is problematic, because, as I understand it, she did disclose her previous involvement to the chairperson of the board, who felt that she did not need to further disclose her previous involvement.

So, if any of those three was the reason for her being fired, they are all problematic, and they definitely show that the person who should feel unsafe in the ELCA is not a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, but instead anyone who now holds or has ever held a traditional view on human sexuality.

The above is just one more example of how the ELCA is not honoring its commitments to provide a place of inclusion, value, safety, respect, and honor for the traditional view on human sexuality. Why would I say that the leaders of the ELCA are not respecting the boundaries that were set by the 2009 Churchwide Assembly?

One needs look no further than the list of keynote speakers for the ELCA’s National Youth Gathering, which will be held at the end of this month in Houston. One of the keynote speakers is a member of the “We Are Naked and Unashamed” movement, which arose out of the student body of the Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago and rejects marriage by any definition (whether same gender or opposite gender) as normative for sexuality activity. Another keynote speaker is a leader in the DeColonize Lutheranism movement, which feels that Lutheranism needs to be delivered from white, male, and northern European dominance and oppression. A third keynote speaker is a mother and her twelve-year-old son, who wants to be a girl, who will be advocating for transgender issues.

The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly addressed a specific and narrowly defined subset of same-sex relationships, namely those that are publicly accountable, lifelong, and monogamous (PALMS). It never addressed bisexuality or the issue of transgender persons or any of the other forms of sexual identity and expression that are a part of the LGBTQIA+ movement. And yet what do we see the ELCA doing less than nine years later? Totally catering to the LGBTQIA+ community within seminary student bodies, doing nothing to renounce the “We Are Naked and Unashamed” movement, and inviting a transgender activist to speak to 30, 000 young people at the National Youth Gathering.

Pastor Mark Erson, Chair of the Commission for LGBTQIA+ People in the ELCA’s Metro New York Synod, recently sent out an email in which he stated, “Our commission, that was formed in 2000 to implement our RIC (Reconciled in Christ) practice, was called the Commission for Gay and Lesbian People, but now there are a lot more letters that are used to identify members of this community.” They know full well that what they are pushing for is going way beyond what was approved in 2009.

Where is the honesty – where is the integrity – when ELCA leaders are endorsing, promoting, and allowing something far beyond what was agreed to and approved at the 2009 Churchwide Assembly? How can the ELCA claim to be an advocate for justice when it acts so unjustly? How could anyone who holds to a traditional view on human sexuality feel included, valued, honored, respected, and safe?

The ELCA suffers from nothing less than a massive breach of trust because of the way in which the actions of the ELCA since 2009 have been so different from what was actually approved in 2009.

If those are examples of how ELCA leaders are neither honoring commitments nor respecting boundaries, what do I mean when I say that they are not recognizing their own inconsistencies?

One ELCA synod had as part of its recent assembly a service of worship that featured Native leaders and Native music. The invitation from the synod said, “Join us as we reflect on the respect we owe the original inhabitants of the lands that make up our synod, repent of the harm done to Native populations . . . and commit ourselves to new levels of respect and regard.”

I cannot imagine their reflecting on the respect they owe to the original, orthodox leaders of the Lutheran Church. I cannot imagine their repenting of the harm they have done when they have bullied, isolated, and marginalized those with a traditional view of the authority of the Bible, Lutheran theology, human sexuality, and the mission of the church. I cannot imagine their repenting of the harm they have done to so many congregations because of the relentless LGBTQIA+ agenda. I cannot imagine their committing themselves to new levels of respect and regard for the traditional, orthodox people who planted the churches, built and paid for the buildings, and started the social service agencies within the territory of that synod. It amazes me how a synod can balance its budget by selling buildings of closed congregations – buildings that were built and paid for by people whose theology, moral values, and mission priorities they reject.

What kind of a future does a church body have that is doing things like that?

Dennis D. Nelson
President of the Board and Director of Lutheran CORE