There were three linchpins that were integral to my departure from the ELCA. The first linchpin, the so-called “Bound Conscience” statements, kept me from leaving the ELCA for over 15 years with the belief in the lie that the ELCA was some kind of “big tent,” with room purposely made for biblical conservatives along with progressives. It was, of course, a lie intended to stop the mass exodus of conservatives and others, but it was convenient for me to believe and promote. I told myself that as long as I could preach and teach from a biblically conservative and confessional theological position without interference, I would remain in the ELCA. Why risk damaging a church when there was no interference or pressure? As the years went on, this self-deception wore thin and I felt less and less welcome and safe in the ELCA.

This Bound Conscience (BC) linchpin was exposed and readied for pulling at the 2022 Churchwide Assembly, when it was decided that BC needed to be “reconsidered.” Conservatives who already had diminished trust levels in the ELCA interpreted this as meaning that BC would be neutered or eliminated. When asked about what this meant, we were typically told that the language would be “updated,” “aligned with current understanding of issues,” or even “aligned with Federal DEIA guidelines” (except when it was pointed out that DEI was being eliminated throughout the federal government).

It took me a long time to understand that the phrasing of BC as “Conscience Bound Belief” was itself actually a trap. Scripturally conservative pastors and believers would never say that we were “conscience-bound” to a belief. We would rather say that, like Martin Luther, our conscience is bound to the plain language of Scripture. Our consciences are not simply bound to an easily dismissed social construct. Even with this problem, BC provided at least some legal and denominational cover for conservatives, while being incredibly offensive to progressives.

The concept of Bound Conscience as an important factor for conservative pastors and churches was difficult to explain to the lay people in my congregation. None had heard of it. Explaining it and what the loss of it would mean to conservative pastors and churches was critical in preparing my congregation for disaffiliation.

The second linchpin in my disaffiliation journey was the work of the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church (CRLC). This is where the “quiet part was said out loud.” I was providing sound and video support for a pastors’ conference in 2023 where I got to hear first-hand what they were planning to do to the denomination. I have never felt so unwelcome and unsafe in my entire ministry. It was as though I had fallen into a DEIA-based cult, where Jesus wasn’t really needed and scripture was only quoted to make what was being done sound vaguely religious, or to confuse anyone who dared object to anything being proposed, all presented with this kind of sanctimonious smirk intended to intimidate or shame any who disagreed. After three days of listening to their plans, I knew I had to get out of the ELCA prior to the 2025 Churchwide Assembly. There absolutely was no place for a conservative pastor – or church – in the ELCA.

If there was any doubt about my concerns, they were put to rest when the final report of the CRLC was released by the ELCA Church Council. It was so much worse than I had understood. DEIA, along with anti-racism and Critical Race theory, were now to be the central “operating system” of the ELCA, and it was now in writing. I was surprised to see that much of what the CRLC was proposing was already approved through Continuing Resolutions (requiring no vote) or was being passed on for approval. The fix was already in and the traps to catch conservative pastors and churches were now set.

Walking my congregation through this very well constructed maze of traps was interesting. It all assumed that, of course, DEIA was in place and would be implemented on every level: Churchwide, Synodical AND in congregations. The problem was that congregations still had some level of autonomy. Much of the CRLC’s plan involved implementing DEIA policies fully in congregations and congregation councils. Plans were put in place to do that, but congregation constitutions needed to be brought into line with the Churchwide and Synodical constitutions, and to do that, a constitution convention would need to be held. That wasn’t approved at the 2025 Churchwide Assembly, but all of the groundwork had been done to implement DEIA, CRT, anti-racism and all the rest of it fully into every aspect of the ELCA. For a more complete discussion on this, click here to see my Lutheran CORE article from July of 2024.

The last linchpin in my journey was the results of the ELCA’s DEIA audit that has been on the ELCA’s website for some time (found here and here ). It’s in two parts and has largely been adopted for implementation along with the CRLC’s final proposals. The DEIA audit is another fascinating “saying the quiet part out loud” document that is so disrespectful of conservative pastors and churches, literally mandating DEIA policies and training for all pastors and church councils. It’s breathtaking in its scope, and it describes the tenuous autonomy that congregations have as an obstacle to the full implementation of DEIA policies.

With all three of these linchpins about to be pulled, the wheels are about to fall off of the ELCA, at least with regard to all conservative pastors and churches. How? It’s a really clever trap. There is, as ELCA representatives insist, no directly stated threat to congregational autonomy. There is no “Do this or else” language. However, if a congregation or pastor refuses to adopt and implement these policies, they will be branded as sexist, racist and misogynist, and put under discipline or removed for failing to fall in line. When there is a pastoral transition, congregations will only be given candidates chosen to bring them back in line with current ELCA DEIA polity, or worse, given interim pastors whose job it is to weed out the “problems” with the church. And conservative pastors? Good luck with mobility or support. Any refusal to go along with the progressive agenda will be viewed as hate speech. See this video of a SWCA synod council member doing just that to motivate the 2023 synod assembly into voting to put a congregation under synodical preservation.

What Our Disaffiliation Process Looked Like

With the very helpful advice of the Lutheran Congregational Support Network YouTube videos (here) we focused ONLY on the issue of congregational autonomy. I was heading in this direction on my own, but this really helped clarify the issue. The “big tent” lie, while still being promoted by the ELCA, is easily dismissed as a manipulative tactic to keep churches from leaving. The question for me is simply, “Are conservative pastors and churches Welcome and Safe in the ELCA?” That phrase, “Welcome and Safe,” became my main emphasis as I worked to educate my congregation. If you focus on DEIA or LGBTQIA issues, you end up in endless, circular and manipulative arguments that the ELCA is very well prepared to win, or at least, to distort the issues and gaslight people into confusion. Focusing on the congregation autonomy question is the only route to take, and it is easily understood and grasped by congregation leaders and members.

Once I understood fully what was coming and what the issues were, I began the education process in my congregation – first with the council leadership, then with broader leadership, and then with the congregation as a whole. Education and information are key. Members have to fully understand the issues.

The first vote we took was with the church council, moving to ask the congregation to vote on whether we should begin the disaffiliation process at the congregation’s annual meeting. That passed unanimously.

The next vote was at that annual meeting, to decide to move forward with the disaffiliation process. There we set the official disaffiliation vote dates according to the ELCA’s model constitution for congregations. This also passed at over 95%.

Even though our formerly ALC congregation was operating under a church constitution from 1977 (!), I decided to follow the ELCA’s current process guidelines for former ALC congregations to the letter. This made little difference to us, and it removed an ELCA objection point.

It’s important to note that we engaged a conservative Christian legal firm (Tyler Law, LLP, out of Murietta, CA) to walk us through the process. Even though I was confident that I understood the process, I wanted legal backing to make sure I wasn’t missing something. I wasn’t. A representative from the firm was present at each of the two mandated disaffiliation votes to verify that the process was conducted properly, and all correspondence went through our legal firm. We had used this firm before for issues with the City of Los Angeles and some HR issues. The total legal cost to us for this process was just over $11k. I would not recommend going into this process without a legal team.

I can’t stress enough the importance of fully preparing the congregation for disaffiliation, making sure they understand completely what the issue really is. Because my congregation was well-prepared, both votes were above 95% in favor of disaffiliation. The Bishop’s Consultation meeting actually solidified the results.

Because I had a good working relationship with the current and previous synodical bishops (I provided a lot of sound and video support for them, as well as serving as a Conference Dean for many years – and having served in this synod for 32 years), the process was not contentious or adversarial. I understand that this is probably the exception rather than the rule as these things go. I do feel utterly cut off from former friends and colleagues in the synod, however. That seems par for the course.

In this disaffiliation process, I prepared extensive documentation and educational materials for my congregation. I am happy to share these with pastors or congregations considering this process. Just email me with your questions and concerns. I am also open to phone conversations on this.

Our congregation is now a part of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). We are now a part of an organization that truly honors Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. It feels like we came home.

How DEIA, Anti-Racism and CRT Are Becoming the New Gospel in the ELCA

Any meaningful discussion of these modern-day heresies absolutely must begin and end with scripture.  DEIA (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and now Accessibility – other letters are soon to come, I’m sure, as other intersectional groups demand recognition and victimhood status), Anti-Racism (which seems to actually be sort of reverse racism), and CRT (Critical Race Theory), which defines everything and everyone through the lens of racism. They ultimately divide the world into victims and victimizers, and if you’re deemed a victimizer, you must be destroyed at any cost. 

Although these ideologies are often dressed up in biblical/religious terms to sound Christian enough to mislead people, they actually are in direct opposition to scriptural admonitions, and in fact seek by their very nature to undermine the authority of Scripture and replace the Good News of the Gospel of God’s love poured out for us through Jesus’ sacrifice for us on the cross, with something truly vile and destructive. In order for these progressive idolatries (more on that term later) to be accomplished, people have to be convinced that the Bible is wrong and not to be trusted in matters of faith and life, that faith only matters if it is filtered through the DEIA, CRT and anti-racist ideologies – nothing else will be tolerated!

As background and foundation for this article, I ask that the following biblical references be kept in mind and heart. The biblical language is clear and must not be allowed to be subverted by the typical “theological word salad,” manipulative gaslighting tactics and fear mongering (“If you don’t agree with us, you’re a racist, homophobic, transphobic, or whatever ad hominem attack they can think of to cower people into silence) so often used by activists and race-baiters to stifle debate and confuse those who are not well-grounded in scripture and the Lutheran Confessions.

Scripture for Consideration

Galatians 3:23-29, especially verse 28: “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (NRSV)

Colossians 3:5-11, especially vs. 11: “In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!” (NRSV)

1 Corinthians 12:12-13: “¹² For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. ¹³ For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.” (NRSV)

Rom 8:1-8, especially 8:1 – There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. (NRSV)

The DEIA, Anti-Racism and CRT Replacement Gospel

One of the great gifts that Christianity has given to the world has been the cure for the destructive problem of “tribalism.” For the purposes of this article, I would define tribalism as the pitting of one tribe, nation, group or even gender and intersectional identity against another. When Christianity began to spread, something amazing happened: tribalism no longer defined the lives of people of faith, and that change affected their communities.  A new possibility for communal living began to emerge because people believed in, as THE defining characteristic of their lives, salvation and forgiveness through faith in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection for them.  As people came to faith, the tribalism that had separated them and pitted them against one another began to fade away. The rebirth that comes through baptism and faith was incompatible with the old waring cycles of death and destruction, and light began to shine in the darkness as the Kingdom of God began to emerge. Although we begin to see changes coming in cultures and even governments because of the presence of those changed by faith, darkness, however, will always be a part of this broken and sinful world.

Despite all the happy rhetoric surrounding them, DEIA, CRT, anti-racism, and the victim-victimizer way of categorizing people actually turn people against one another, bringing back the tribalism that fell to the power of forgiveness, becoming ultimately profoundly racist and demonic.

Why? Because it skips the whole life-changing-relationship with Jesus part that CAUSED the changes and tries to go right to the end result. But since scripture and true faith are bypassed, the end result actually becomes the activists’ Utopian fantasy of a perfect world. This is where my use of the term idolatry comes in. They worship this vision and will destroy anything in the way of accomplishing it. Their goal, sadly, is a reflection of their own brokenness(as all idols are), and therefore HAS to accommodate virtually every kind of behavior forbidden by scripture (just keep adding more letters to the abbreviations!). God and scripture are, other than the occasional out-of-context reference to give some illusion of legitimacy, taken out of the equation completely. The resulting idolatry is then inside-out and backwards (I think the technical term is “bass-ackwards”) from what scripture invites us to experience. 

The Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church

Imagine the horror and embarrassment of ELCA leadership when it was discovered that after 35 years of mandated 10% quotas of people of color and people whose primary language is other than English, the ELCA actually became on average MORE Caucasian, with some figures being quoted as high as 97%!

Imagine the thought processes at work: “What can we do now? How can we FORCE the ELCA to become the church that we want it to be. The ‘racist’ ELCA must be destroyed and rebuilt in our image (but see Genesis 1:21 to see whose image is important!). We’ll call it ‘decolonization’ or ‘deconstruction,’ but we’ve got to completely destroy it. But how can we make the churches go along with all of this? I know! We’ll use guilt to do it! That worked before, right? We’ll throw enough Bible-sounding word salad at them to confuse them, but we’ve got to convince the 97% that THEY are the problem, condemned by God, that they are evil, racist, misogynistic, sexist, and that they are victimizers! THIS is the new gospel. ‘No condemnation in Christ Jesus’? Hah! We’ll HEAP condemnation on them! We’ll minimize Jesus’ death on the cross and salvation through faith in him. We’ll undermine people’s confidence in scripture, the confessions and the creeds, and we’ll guilt them into submission. Then they will actually help us destroy the church! Brilliant! And we’ll promise them a million new members who look just like us! All they have to do is shut up and get out of the way.”

In order to accomplish this on any level, ALL of the institutions of the church must be changed so that DEIA is the unquestioned operating procedure (done!), and they have to infuse DEIA into all of the constitutional documents of Churchwide, synods, and especially churches. Already on the ELCA website is the result of their DEIA audit and recommended changes to all of our constitutions. Being pushed by the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church, this represents the reworking of the framework of the ELCA, from top to bottom. Once the DEIA is fully unleashed, nothing can stop it, and I don’t think most of the leadership in the ELCA fully understands what hell they’re about to experience themselves. DEIA demands complete obedience with no tolerance for conservative or dissenting voices. Even bishops will be forced to conform. 

The one thing still standing in the way of full domination for DEIA is Bound Conscience. These positions, put in place apparently to gaslight people who disagreed with changes made in 2009, are what gives legal cover to those who would disagree with DEIA, CRT and anti-racism. Oddly, from a conservative and biblical point of view, these clauses are deeply flawed. We would say with Luther, that our consciences are bound to the Word of God. Oddly, that part is never mentioned in the Bound Conscience clauses.

However, when Bound Conscience goes (and it is being actively “reconsidered” now), nothing is left to protect conservative pastors and churches who still dare to disagree, and we will be subject to legal action, discipline and punishment for being racist or any of the usual phobics, and whatever other attacks that would be launched. That, I believe, will happen as soon as DEIA is fully implemented in our constitutional documents. DEIA leaves no room for disagreement. The change will be breathtakingly swift. The United Methodists are now discovering, with the departure of huge numbers of conservative pastors and churches, what happens when the conservative brakes are released. Even progressives there are showing some concern at how quickly their founding documents and positions are being abandoned – with not much of substance being put in their place.

I expect these changes to begin to be implemented at the 2025 Churchwide Assembly. Once DEIA changes are implemented, Bound Conscience will fall. Conservative pastors and churches will no longer be welcome in the ELCA, nor will we be safe.

Here’s a true story, related to me by someone who witnessed it.  A small church, considering departure from the ELCA, solicited questions from the congregation.  One question surprised people, but it was, apparently, asked in earnest: If we leave the ELCA, will we go back to being a church that bans people of color?

Wait—what?  “Go back”?  “Ban”?  Some questions require their own hour to answer.  Did the questioner believe that her congregation had once banned persons of color?  Why?  Also, had the questioner never heard that the ELCA is “the whitest denomination in America,” as one of its own pastors has called it (not that other Lutherans are far behind)?  What string of pastors had neglected to teach, not only Lutheran failures in racial reconciliation, but also the Lutheran church’s rich contribution to civil rights, refugee resettlement, and the fair treatment of all people in congregation, school, and institutions of care? 

I don’t know how the congregation’s leaders ultimately addressed that question, but it proves that the question of race is on people’s mind.  Lutherans want to know where it resides in their faith and church’s life.

You know this.  You can’t breathe in America and not know it.  It has dominated the news, and one particular development has especially captured recent attention: critical race theory (CRT).  In general, conservatives have balked at CRT, criticizing instances of “CRT training” that seem to demean and unfairly condemn people of European descent.  States have begun passing resolutions banning its use in government and public education.

That criticism has echoed in the church’s halls as confessing Lutherans of various stripes point out where CRT differs from the Gospel’s more liberating message of “neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor free, nor male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).  Yet a question lingers: if not CRT, then what?

How shall denominations, congregations, and believers critique the biases that linger within their own hearts and minds?  Are there aspects of Lutheran church culture that have made it one of the whitest denominations in America, and how might the Gospel overcome that culture?

Real Forgiveness for Real Sins

I don’t pretend to have hard and fast answers.  But as I’ve reflected on the question—and if you haven’t reflected on the question, it’s time to start, for the sake of the church you love—a few thoughts have struck me as worth sharing.  You probably already know them, but it doesn’t hurt to see them in print.  As St. Paul told the Philippians: repetition doesn’t hurt the author, and it’s good for everyone else (Philippians 3:1). 

It would all seem to start with real forgiveness for real sins.  It’s one thing to say, “We don’t rely on CRT; we preach the Gospel” (and that statement is fair and true enough), but it’s another thing so to preach that Gospel that it forgives a real sin brought to light.  Where have you, your congregation, and your denomination been blind to persons of color?  How have you or your church harmed them or rebuffed them, even if unintentionally? 

These questions are safe for you to ask (that is, they may hurt, but they are ultimately secure and good), because you know the One in whose presence you ask them: Jesus, who has carried the sins of the world.  You may let them have their way with you, critiquing, judging, and enlightening you, because you know that the more real the sin is, the more real the forgiveness that comes in Jesus’ name.  So let the sins take shape, in even startling contour, and then let the grace of Christ clothe them in a brilliant mercy that overcomes them.

The church has its own language for this kind of preaching, distinct from the vocabulary of secular justice warriors.  The Bible may not speak of racism and inequality or inequity, but it does speak of old-fashioned, rotten things like enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, pride, divisions, envy, greed, and the like.  How do these works of the flesh, unearthed for us by the Spirit, illumine our problems with race, and what is Christ’s forgiving word for them? 

Preach it, and expect that preaching to change things, including you.

“You Do Not Have Because You Do Not Ask”

St. James has his moments. The second verse of his fourth chapter might be one of the better ones: have you tried asking?  Once God has spoken to us in our sin, we speak to Him by His generous grace. Only by His Word do we have words to speak, and when His Word calls out our sins and tells us, “These sins are forgiven; there is a limit to their power; you need not live under their bondage,” then we know what to ask.  Ask Him for what He desires; ask Him for the sin to be overcome and healed; ask for your soul, your congregation, and your church to welcome the people of every nation.

There’s really not too much more to say about this call to prayer, I don’t think, except do it.  Pray daily for the Gospel that we preach and the doctrine we confess to be the means by which the Lord draws all nations to Himself.  Maybe you pray from a place where God’s answer to that prayer won’t change how your congregation or life looks very much—congregations reflect their neighborhoods, after all, and so not every congregation has to be a microcosm of “The Church,” somehow ideally diverse, and thinking that it does actually denies the catholic nature of Christ’s body—but you’re not praying for only parochial concerns.  You’re praying for the whole Church, and for the Fisherman’s net to be cast across the world.

Pray, and say the amen in the confidence of God’s faithfulness. 

The Grass Isn’t Always Greener

This last suggestion (I know: there are lots more things to be said; what we have here is just a smattering) runs afoul of certain strands of church critique.  I call it (fairly, I think) the anti-institutional critique, which insists that buildings and polity and such things are irrelevant to faithfulness in mission, if not harmful to it.  To be sure, the faithfulness of a church is never measured by its stuff.  But stuff is no more irrelevant to the conduct of the ministry than our bodies are. 

What checks the sins of enmity, pride, greed, and rivalry more than for those with the most to take a weekly pilgrimage to gather with those who have the least?

God will raise our bodies, and so He calls us to steward this flesh in a certain way.  So also will He liberate creation from its bondage to decay, and so we steward creation in a certain way.  In particular, the Lutheran church should probably start paying more attention to where it lays its foundations, as in, its literal foundations. 

The church has always needed buildings for its mission.  The fact that the church first met in homes wasn’t a rejection of public buildings as much as it was the commandeering of private buildings for public use.  Throughout the church’s history, wherever missionaries spread the Gospel, they quickly built a shelter for its public proclamation, and they chose the placement of those shelters wisely.  It was an incarnational move, seeking to proclaim by the place wherein the Body gathers who and what the Body is. 

How our churches continue this ethic today may be key to understanding our problem with race.  That is, looking at our buildings and where we put them may be one way both to identify our real racial sin and to welcome God’s gracious balm for it.  For how we build has everything to do with how we use our money and why, and those economics may be the deeper root of Lutheran racial woes.

A case in point (another true story, and one repeated other places): a church in a mid-sized city had a beautiful neo-Gothic church in a busy, even crowded downtown.  Because that downtown had grown so busy, and so few of the people at the church lived there any longer, they decided to sell that building in favor of building a new house of worship far on the city’s margins, surrounded by a lush, green campus—it’s fair to say, not too different from a country club.  I knew this church a few years ago and just recently drove through its city.  I decided to check on it, and what did I find?

I found the downtown church, still a bit crumbly but nevertheless standing and beautiful,  purchased by another congregation with a more evangelical thrust and looking very well visited by a variety of people. As for the new Lutheran church—well, I almost didn’t find it.  Surrounded by beautiful green trees and a busy, suburban commercial center, it was easy to miss.  It would take effort, in fact, to find.  It would also require a car to attend, and it would take some personal courage, I imagine, to drive up to such a very nice church with anything less than a very nice car.

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So in the city where this church stands, where white people comprise the Very Nice Car classes and blacks and Latinos fill cheaper housing downtown near the bus lines, which of these churches will have a better start to overcoming racial barriers?  In order to overcome such barriers, the church must be present as its Lord is present—and how present is a church hidden behind well-manicured trees?

I’m not saying, “Build it, and they will come.”  We’ve seen that approach fail so many times.  There’s no gimmick here, and the soul-work of preaching and prayer is more than everything else.  I’m also not suggesting that persons of color are always poor or whites always rich.  But I am saying, as many others have said, that racial divisions may find their deeper roots in class divisions, and the Lutheran church’s recent architectural history may illustrate the truth of it (as does the fact that that our churches appear to lack poor and working class whites as much as they lack persons of color!).  The church must be present to those whom it seeks.  It must bring the font and Bible and altar to them, clothed in their own neighborhood. 

Taking up that calling will mean that those already in the church may have to dedicate their resources and wealth for local ministries and houses of worship either not in service of themselves or at a distance from their own homes, requiring them who are more equipped to travel to do so.  Why not?  What checks the sins of enmity, pride, greed, and rivalry more than for those with the most to take up a weekly pilgrimage to gather with those who have the least?  Wouldn’t such a pilgrimage confess, “These sins are forgiven, and therefore, they no longer set the limits and conduct of our devotion”?

Yes, I know that persons of color are guilty of their own sins of enmity, pride, greed, and the like.  I also know that they aren’t the ones most likely reading this article, and I know it because most of you are Lutherans, and Lutherans are one of the whitest Christian traditions in America.  It needs some new and more Biblical attention.  CRT is not the way, and so what is?  Preaching, praying, and showing up to be present, all of it concrete and real and down-to-earth, seems to be the way I know, the way that I’ve been given to confess.  What are some other parts of that way?  I imagine you know, or that God will show it to you if you ask.