by Brett Jenkins, member of the board of Lutheran CORE

Editor’s note: Originally called “Draft Social Statement on Women and Justice,” the document which was developed by the ELCA Task Force on Women and Justice and which has been approved by both the ELCA Conference of Bishops and the ELCA Church Council for consideration by the 2019 ELCA Churchwide Assembly is called, “Faith, Sexism, and Justice: A Lutheran Call to Action.” The ELCA Churchwide Assembly will take place in August 2019.

“Ah! Words! Just words!” the person shouted to the man at the lectern whose speech had just concluded. “Who told you culture is a search for coherence? Where do you get that idea from? This idea of coherence is a Western idea.”

Coherent or Incoherent

I heard Ravi
Zacharias tell this story.  With a
quickness of wit that I can only marvel at, he responded to the person (whom he
later learned was transgendered) by saying, “Before I answer you, Madame, let
me ask you this, then: would you prefer that my answer be coherent or
incoherent?”[1]

---

It is a dangerous proposition to write about someone else’s writing; history is full of literary, philosophical, and political critiques that were complete misfires (often cleverly worded) because the author misunderstood what he was reading. They did this because, not being part of what Charles Taylor would aptly deem the “web of interlocution” from which the original document arose, they misunderstood what was being proposed in the first place.

Having left the ELCA, grateful for the friendships and even some of the formation I enjoyed there but much more grateful to leave behind the posture of defensiveness that necessarily accompanied my ministry as a self-consciously orthodox Christian within it, I wondered actively about the idea of writing this article. I even resisted the pressure of colleagues to do so. I am a pastor of the North American Lutheran Church, and this newsletter has already featured one excellent critique by another NALC pastor, Rev. Cathy Ammlung as well as a critique by ELCA pastor, Stephen Gjerde. Both articles were detailed and incisive, so what can I add to them?

Analysis of the Introduction

Actually I can add one thing: an analysis of how the introduction of the ELCA’s proposed social statement Women and Justice represents the broader conflict of worldviews active within our culture, of which I am, indeed, still a part.

Rev. Ammlung noted in her critique numerous points on which the draft social statement was not only out of step with the Christian (and Jewish) traditions of 2000+ years, but even seemed internally incoherent, out of step with itself. Indeed, as Rev. Ammlung noted pithily, “It’s hard, though, to see in this draft how God’s revealed Word is greater than the sum of feminist, intersectional, and ‘gender/sexual justice’ language.”

Impossible

It is not hard to see—it is impossible to see, for there is no evidence to the contrary in the document, nor should we expect there to be. The constellation of “feminist, intersectional, and ‘gender/sexual justice’ language” emerges from a larger worldview wholly at variance with the Scripture’s line of sight, that of postmodernism.

Gender Feminists

In 1994, doctoral candidate in Women’s Studies at Wellesley, Christina Hoff-Somers, recognized that a foreign ideology had hijacked the equity-seeking feminism of the movement’s progenitors, separating the movement into what she deemed “equity feminists” and “gender feminists,” the latter being the product of postmodern thinking married to the aims of feminism. The feminism with which most readers will be familiar from their time as an undergraduate, on a seminary campus, or from the shriller, attention-getting voices on the nightly news is of the gender feminist lineage, which frequently claims that those Hoff-Sommers characterizes as “equity feminists” are not feminists at all, for they do not share the postmodern presuppositions that undergird their narrative and analysis.

Power

To whit, rooted in the work of theoreticians like Derrida and Foucault, postmodernism sees all social interactions (like the proposed social statement) as “word games,” and word games with only one goal: the exercise of power.

Language of Justice,
Science and Religious Truth

In such an account of the world, there is no way to discern good from evil, truth from falsehood, for all such language is merely a ruse, a “word game” to disguise the naked aggression of one person or group against another. In the view of postmodernism, we are all possessed of worldviews incommensurate with one another and irreconcilable, so our only alternative is civil war through our word games. The intersectional feminist gender-fluid activist by their own reckoning uses the language of justice, science, and religious truth but is merely a campaigner for their own peculiar position—just like everyone else.

Civil War Through
Word Games

Postmodernism allows for temporary alliances but not ultimately the pursuit of jointly-held truth or justice. Witness the growing voices within the gay community expressing relief in the fact that they came of age before the rise of transgenderism because they believe if they were coming of age now they would be forced into hormone therapy and miss out on the adult identity they now espouse. Because postmodernism believes in no higher truth or objective reality to which language correlates but only the exercise of power, it can never be more than a sophisticated exercise in narcissism, an assertion of self over-and-against everything and everyone else.

Sophisticated Narcissism

“Everyone else” necessarily includes God, of course… at least if God is purported to do anything other than underwrite our own self-perceptions and exercise of power through our word games. The postmodernist can use the language of “the Word of God,” but they cannot mean by it what Christians have historically meant—a revelation of something we could not have known without the active initiative of God. Nor can they mean by it what Lutherans have meant by it when they distinguish within that Word Law and Gospel. For both Law and Gospel reveal to us a self so impoverished and depraved it is impossible to affirm, the Law by revealing our inability to be righteous and the Gospel by revealing that we can only be saved by Christ’s righteousness, one utterly alien to ourselves.

Incoherence of
Postmodern Thought

There is a reason why the great theologian Augustine defined sin using the phrase in curvatus in se—“being turned in upon oneself.” When we turn within, seeking something affirmable by God, we cannot find our prelapsarian innocence, and what we produce is the incoherence that characterizes all postmodern thought, including the ELCA’s proposed social statement Women and Justice. The founders of postmodernism actively sought to reject the “Logo-centrism” of Western culture, that is, the logic—the coherence—born of a worldview flowing from a belief in the Logos, belief in an ordering principle within the world that does not take its cues from autonomous human actors.

God Brings Order
and Love

Of course, in the case of Christians, that Logos “became flesh and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14) God’s first act in the Book of Genesis is to call order forth from the primordial chaos, and He uses His Word to do so. The God revealed by the Scriptures is the bringer of order, of coherence.
The amazing news of the Gospel is that this bringer of order does not look upon our profound disorder—our sin—and simply destroy both it and us. In the words of one of my favorite LGBTQIA+ authors, “It is not the perfect but the imperfect who have need of love.” The Gospel is that God knew this long before Oscar Wilde and “so loved the world, that he gave his only Son”—the order-bringing Logos—“that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Order is Inherently
Hierarchical

Unfortunately, the God who brings order and coherence to not just the created order but our own lives in spite of us is necessarily antithetical to the worldview underlying the ELCA’s proposed social statement, for order is inherently hierarchical; it privileges truth over falsehood and so some narratives over others. This God also calls us away from the contemplation of ourselves—away from seeking affirmation of any sort, no matter what we find within our experience—and to the contemplation of Jesus Christ, in whom alone we are to find our un-hyphenated identity. Far from the postmodern de-legitimization of distinctions inferred by postmodern exegetes, Galatians 3:27–28 (“For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.”) teaches us that only Christ is acceptable to God and so we are to find our true identity in Him, not in any other identity, real or imagined.

ELCA Anti-logic

The unity gestured to by Paul as he ends this thought is not incidental. Just as the word adhere means “to stick together,” so the word cohere means “to form a whole.” The unity in justice that is to characterize the Body of Christ and claims to be sought by the ELCA’s latest social statement cannot be pursued using it as the mechanism, for its own internal logic is anti-logic; it reviles any coherence that would not privilege every self-perception and self-identification.

Viral Attack

A virus uses the body’s own self-defense system to undo an organism. The ELCA’s proposed social statement Women and Justice is necessarily incoherent because, in ways I assume its authors may not even be aware of because they have probably not read the primary texts that gave birth to postmodernism (Foucault and Derrida are, after all, inordinately difficult authors to plow through), it appropriates the language of truth and justice, sin and righteousness, Law and Gospel, and uses them virus-like to hobble and, if possible, undo the order-bringing work of God’s Word, inverting its meaning as necessary in order to serve an agenda not born of the Word itself. Women and Justice is an example of postmodernism gone viral within the Body of Christ, seeking to destroy it, and if the ELCA hopes to remain Christian in a way that will permit them to be recognized as such by other Christians not held captive to the postmodern mindset, they must not only reject it, but the worldview that informs it.

Moreover, all Christian communions functioning within the increasingly-postmodern West must be on guard against the same virus that has so deeply infected the ELCA and other mainline, revisionist Protestant bodies as well as (smaller) sections of the Roman Catholic and even Orthodox churches. It is in the water around us, and we must fortify our immune systems against it if we hope to not have our health compromised… or worse, to die as non-Christians mouthing Christian-sounding words.

Justice can and must be pursued for not just women and minorities but all people without de-privileging the truth or re-writing the Word of God. The Logos—coherence Himself—demands it.

[1] https://www.rzim.org/read/just-thinking-magazine/an-ancient-message-through-modern-means-to-a-postmodern-mind

Image [of virus attacking cell] by Darwin Laganzon from Pixabay

Photo [Protest]
by Peyton Sickles on Unsplash

March 2019 Lutheran CORE Newsletter

March
14, 2019

Dear
Bishop Collins –

I
read with considerable confusion and concern your letter to the Rev. W. Stevens
Shipman informing him that action had been taken by the Upper Susquehanna Synod
Council to remove him from the Word and Sacrament roster of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America.

My
area of confusion was in your quotation from section 8.62.15.d of the ELCA’s
constitution which says that “ministers on the Word and Sacrament roster of the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America must accept and adhere to this church’s
Confession of Faith, as well as abide by this church’s standards and policies
for ministers of Word and Sacrament.”

We
all know that there are pastors of the ELCA who do not adhere to the ELCA’s
Confession of Faith.  One needs to look
no further than Ebenezerher Church in San Francisco, which promotes goddess
worship; the various versions of the Lord’s Prayer which were options in the
service after 2009 which welcomed or welcomed back people to the ELCA Clergy
Roster; and any followers of Marcus Borg and his version of “Progressive
Christianity,” which denies the deity and physical, bodily resurrection of
Jesus.  There were pastors on the clergy
roster of the synod in which I served before I retired (Southwest California)
who did not believe in the basic tenants of the historic, orthodox Christian
faith as expressed in the ELCA’s Confession of Faith, but the bishop just
looked the other way.

One
needs to look no further than the signers of the “We Are Naked and Unashamed”
movement to find people who are objecting to – and one can safely assume are
not living up to – the ELCA’s standards and policies for ministers of Word and
Sacrament.  And yet not only are they
allowed to remain on the ELCA clergy roster, they are celebrated, endorsed, two
of them were chosen to be keynote speakers at last summer’s youth gathering,
and in many ways one of them, who openly advocates for “ethically sourced porn”
and sex outside of marriage, has been allowed to become the most prominent,
public spokesperson for the ELCA.

In
a letter to Bishop Eaton I expressed my concerns regarding last summer’s youth
gathering.  She wrote back, “Regarding
the ‘We Are Naked and Unashamed’ movement, it is not an official group or
policy of the ELCA.  I do not wish to
give more attention and credence to a movement that is outside this church’s
social teaching by speaking about it publicly.” 
Again, nothing is being done.  It
is not being addressed.  It is being
allowed to continue and even flourish even though it is in violation of “this
church’s standards and policies for ministers of Word and Sacrament.”

In
their “Pastoral Message”, which was released on March 6, 2019, the ELCA
Conference of Bishops said regarding “Visions and Expectations,” “We recognize
and acknowledge that its application has been uneven and inequitable.”  They ended by saying, “We aspire and pledge
in the future to apply the church’s standards for ministry with equity and
compassion.”  Is your removing Pastor
Shipman from the ELCA’s clergy roster while other people are being allowed to
remain on the roster another example of ELCA standards being applied unevenly
and inequitably?

My
area of concern has to do with the Synod Council’s motion, which you quoted at
the end of your letter, in which the Synod Council expressed its support for any
decision that you would make that would prohibit Pastor Shipman from even
attending a synod function and or event, “especially as a representative of
Lutheran CORE.” 

Is
the Synod Council saying that no representative of Lutheran CORE would be
welcome to attend one of your synod’s functions and or events?  Would I, as Executive Director of Lutheran
CORE and a retired pastor on the ELCA roster, or a pastor or member of a
congregation that is a part of the Upper Susquehanna Synod, also not be welcome
to attend a synod function and or event, such as to set up a display table at a
synod assembly?

Bishop
Eaton began the letter which I previously referred to with these words: “Grace
and peace to you and to our brothers and sisters in Christ who are part of the
Lutheran Coalition for Renewal.”  Pages 19-21
of the “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” social statement, which was approved
by the 2009 Churchwide Assembly, laid out four different positions on
same-gender relationships and behavior, which the document said are held to by
people “with conviction and integrity.”  The
social statement also said, “This church . . . encourages all people to live
out their faith . . . with profound respect for the conscience-bound belief of
the neighbor.”  That same paragraph ended
by saying, “Regarding our life together as we live with disagreement, the
people in this church will continue to accompany one another in study, prayer,
discernment, pastoral care, and mutual respect.”

The
March 6 “Pastoral Message” from the ELCA Conference of Bishops ends by saying,
“We aspire and pledge in the future . . . to listen and take seriously the concerns
of all our leaders – particularly those who historically have been
marginalized.”  Do the leaders of the
ELCA, including the leaders of the Upper Susquehanna Synod, wish to “listen and
take seriously the concerns of all our leaders” – not just those who are
described as “historically . . 
marginalized,” but also those who are currently the most marginalized –
those with a historic, traditional view?

Thank
you for your leadership in the Upper Susquehanna Synod and your attention to my
confusion and concern.  I will look
forward to receiving your response.

In
Christ,

Dennis
D. Nelson

Executive
Director of Lutheran CORE

Retired
ELCA Pastor

I was tasked by the Board of Lutheran CORE to formulate a response to the
ELCA draft social statement, “Women and Justice.” These are my own impressions and thoughts,
however, and ought not to be construed as The Official Stance of Lutheran CORE
on this statement.

Observations

I begin with two editorial observations. First: For a statement that is
centered on justice, and which mentions the word justice several hundred times,
it’d have been helpful to put the definition right up front at the beginning,
not simply hyperlinked to the glossary entry. After the first few dozen
repetitions, “justice” becomes a blur-word.

Second: The brief section on immigration touches on timely concerns but
is almost perfunctory.

Next, I have a few observations that don’t fit neatly in the categories
I’ll use shortly.

Interchangeable
or Not?

The document rightly complains that female bodies and physiology were
often ignored in medical studies. But transgenderism, which it supports as a related
“justice category,” posits an almost ontological change, as if male and female
bodies are interchangeable. The document wants to have it both ways. If
women are assumed to be “just like men” but that doesn’t fit a narrative, it is
a sign of sin and injustice. If women are discerned to be “not just like men”
but that doesn’t fit a narrative, it’s also a sign of sin and injustice.

Next: Although “justice” becomes a blur-word, there are a few
exceptions.  In lines 999-1025, the
discussion of “gender justice” speaks of living out our faith in God by love
for neighbor, with God’s grace healing and covering all our brokenness.
Similarly, in lines 522-530 there’s a reasonable description of “neighbor
justice.”  (Although how this differs
from the Golden Rule, aside from trendier language, is unclear). It’s hard,
though, to see in this draft how God’s revealed Word is greater than the sum of
feminist, intersectional, and “gender/sexual justice” language. It’s as if the
ELCA is trying to improve on what God SHOULD have said and commanded, if he’d
just been as “woke” as the This Church.

Explicit
Silence?

In the list of sins and injustices committed primarily against women, sex
trafficking and sexual abuse are rightly condemned. Oddly, neither prostitution
nor pornography are explicitly mentioned. Granted, they are specific examples
of the objectification, abuse, and commodification of women’s bodies, but they
are also the most lucrative, widespread, and pernicious examples thereof.
Perhaps the drafters wrestled with how they might have to treat a pronouncement
of This Church’s “public theologian,” Nadia Bolz-Weber, who recently opined
that there is such a thing as “ethically sourced porn” which can be enjoyed and
commended.

Scriptural
Imposition

The draft statement names real evils that injure real people. Lines
1013-1014 properly state, “Being freed in Christ involves being freed from all
that tries to replace Jesus Christ as Lord in our lives….” The document then
names “systems of patriarchy,” apparently all of them, as examples of sinful
bondage. It lifts up, as an example of the justifying freedom in Christ, being
“freed to recognize God’s work in creation through… human expression through
gender. We are enabled to see that humans are not simply gender-based opposites
and that we are not created in a hierarchy.” Elsewhere (Section 3) the document
states: “We believe God creates humanity in diversity, encompassing a wide
variety of experiences, identities, and expressions, including sex and
gender” (emphasis added). “Contemporary science” and “neurological
research” are trotted out to debunk “idolatrous” distortions of Scripture,
especially a binary interpretation of “male and female He created them.” There
is no citation from Scripture explaining how “God’s diversity in creation”
includes multiple sexual orientations or gender identities. This notion is
being imposed on Scripture for ideological purposes.

Stand
Under Scripture

This leads to the final section of this essay: more “thematic”
critiques. A fine theologian and churchman (can I still say that?), the late
Lou Smith, warned of the perils of simply trying to understand Scripture,
rather than to “stand under” it. The former puts us in control, using
our own criteria for dissecting, analyzing and judging Scripture. We treat it
as a “dead letter,” or as a merely human document, subject to our standards for
approval, critique, and judgment. The latter reminds us that Scripture
is God’s Word, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing heart and soul, mind
and flesh, revealing our sinfulness and God’s remedy. It’s therefore something
that has authority over us, whether we approve of it or not.

“Women and Justice” belongs firmly in the former camp.

Problems
within the Scriptures?

Section 16 states: “While God’s Word of Law and Gospel speaks through the
Scriptures, there are words and images, social patterns, and moral beliefs in
them that reflect the patriarchal values of the cultures and societies in which
they arose. Their continued misuse contributes to maintaining hierarchies and
patterns of inequity and harm.… Our tradition’s complicity in patriarchy and
sexism is connected to such biblical interpretation and to the nature and focus
of some of the Lutheran theological tradition. We confess that there are
problems within the Scriptures themselves and that our theological
tradition has led to a theological understanding of humankind that is overly
male-identified. These problems even become idolatrous as deeply rooted but
false beliefs” (emphasis added).

The statement comes perilously close to declaring much of Scripture to be
sinful, or at least to aiding and abetting the sins of idolatry and
patriarchalism. It doesn’t quite cross the line, as it identifies sinful
material as the product (and hobby-horse) of misogynistic males, intent on
preserving their privilege and thereby contaminating, obscuring, or defying
God’s intent.

Scriptural
Authority

This does considerable violence, though, to any notion of Scriptural
authority. Section 16 continues: “The Word of God is first and foremost Jesus
Christ, God incarnate. Secondarily, we encounter the Word as Law and Gospel in
preaching and teaching. The Canonical Scriptures are the written Word of God,
which proclaims God’s grace and sustains faith in Jesus Christ…. The Word of
God is living and active, and we take the written form of the Word of God as
the authoritative source and norm for faith. In its use as Law, it provides
guidance and reveals human brokenness. In its use as Gospel, it reveals God’s
love and promise.”

Jiggering
the Parameters

Once again, the statement tries to have it both ways. Yes, Scripture is
held “within the ELCA” as authoritative. But apparently the only way to discern
“authoritative Scripture” is to jigger the parameters. God’s Word speaks
through Scripture. Law is contrasted with Gospel love. “Guidance” softens
“God’s will.” Sin is recast as “brokenness.” In this diminished and muted
framework, the Gospel is reduced from “forgiveness of sin, and life from
death” to “God’s love and promise.” The upshot is that the social
statement jettisons anything that a feminist/intersectional arbiter might
declare to be offensive, misogynistic chaff from the “real” Word of God. This
is Marcionism for the Woke Generation.

Shockingly
Incurious

There is another problem with the philosophical and theological
underpinnings of this social statement. The drafters are shockingly incurious.
They show no interest in asking, “If patriarchy is universally evil, why did
God routinely work within it? God explicitly condemned many evil
practices. Why not this one?” They do not wonder if at times, patriarchy might
be “the best of a bad lot” of options for sinful and broken human beings to
live as a community of men, women, and children.

They insist the scandal of Jesus’ particularity as a male has no bearing
on his work. They do not ponder why Jesus routinely used “Father” language.
There is no engagement with any rationale for “male images” for God the Father,
except to warn of abuse and misuse by those who are so inbondage to the sins of
patriarchy and sexism that they clearly think of God the Father as literally
male: genitalia, patriarchal privilege, and all: “When Christians rely almost
exclusively on male images and language for God, the images and language become
literal understandings of God. This is poor theology because God always exceeds
human understanding. Taking male images of God literally can also lead to
idolatry, meaning we idolize or hold onto only the male ima-ges” (lines
966-973).

God
is Opposed to Idolatry

There is no discussion of how God’s self-revelation in Scripture
repudiates the blatantly sexual, copulating deities of surrounding cultures, or
of how the “God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” stands adamantly opposed to the idolatry,
fertility cults, and sacred prostitution that were rampant in the Middle East
and entirely too seductive to the people of Israel.

No one examines how relationships within the Trinity help us learn right
relationships with others, male or female. There is no discussion of the
nuptial imagery used for the relationship between God and Israel, or Christ and
the Church, except to tie it to oppression, sexism, and patriarchy. The
possibility that this divine/human intimate relationship could challenge,
purify, and be a model for marriage and family life is not on This Church’s
radar.

Victimhood
Instead of Justice?

There is no exploration of how Father language for God might transform
the sinful ways human fatherhood and masculinity are sometimes expressed. No
thought is spared for how matriarchies might foster other, equally harmful
pathologies, or how intersectional feminism might be a form of idolatry,
detrimental to women and men. No one seems to wonder whether intersectionality perpetuates victimhood instead of promoting justice.

Still
Idolatry

There is no interest in exploring why sexual sins in Scripture are
deemed real, even deadly sins. In the Bible, rape, incest, fornication,
adultery, homosexual activity, and prostitution are flatly condemned. They are
linked to idolatry. Why? Surely this is not simply another instance of male
hegemony!

In lines 570-575, we read, “We must continue the task of embracing our
unity and diversity so we welcome and uplift people of every sex and
gender—indeed, every body—in our work together as the Body of Christ in the
world. God’s love feeds the Body of Christ so that it might live in love.” No
one questions whether gender dysphoria or same-sex attraction should ever be
considered anything other than God’s intention and good gifts, to be celebrated
and incorporated into the Body of Christ without comment except “it’s all good.”
No one wrestles with the possibility that “God’s love” be more than sheer
affirmation and welcome, with no dying to self, repentance, forgiveness, or
transformation involved (except for the sins of male privilege and the failure
to rejoice in the marvelous diversity of sexes and genders in God’s wondrous
creation). I ask what, apparently, none of the drafters or leadership in the
ELCA has asked: what if This Church has gotten this all wrong?

“De-privileged”
Scripture

It may be a lack of curiosity. Or it may be the determined resolve to
brand such questions as dangerous manifestations of patriarchal privilege.
There’s certainly no attempt to wrestle with difficult passages of Scripture,
much less to consider whether any of them might reflect the will of God.
They’re merely “de-privileged.”

Egregious
Examples

Additionally, only egregious examples of sexism are cited as entirely
representative of most of the early church fathers. Church history, liturgy,
and ministry are seemingly unrelieved by non-misogynistic practices and
pronouncements. “The Christian Church as an institution, including the Lutheran
tradition, has been complicit in these sins” (lines 440-441). Even the
classically Lutheran notion of the “theology of the cross” is deemed
problematic because it might be perceived as abusive, demanding subservience
and suffering – especially by women.

Blanket
Condemnation

As far as I can tell, there is not one “positive” citation from the early
church fathers, the history of the Western church, the theological “Great
Tradition” that encompasses orthodox Christian thought, or much of Lutheranism
(except for the somewhat convoluted parsing of Law and Gospel, and of
justification by grace through faith, mentioned earlier). Even with qualifying
phrases (“continued misuse;” “can also lead to”), it’s not hard to read the
statement as a thoroughgoing condemnation of Scripture and Tradition from the
earliest stories of the Old Testament until the #metoo moment.

Contradictions

This leads to some genuinely contradictory statements. For example, in
lines 367-372, a perfectly fine observation is made: “The differentiation of
humankind into male and female, expressed in Genesis 2, communicates the joy
found in humans having true partners, true peers: “This at last is bone of my
bones and flesh of my flesh” (Genesis 2:23a). God creates community and family,
not a hierarchy…”

 Dishonesty

But then it goes awry: … “not a hierarchy based on race and ethnicity,
ability, social or economic status, or sex (what our bodies look like biologically)
or gender (how people express themselves)” (emphasis added). The document
rightly states that the very possibility of family is grounded in God-given
sexual differentiation between peers. But didn’t the writers remember that
they’d identified science as the proper arbiter of sexual and gender identity
and insisted that both are fluid human constructs? God’s Word, or science:
which is given precedence? And is it not simplistic and misleading – to the
point of intellectual and scientific dishonesty – to state that sex is defined
as “what our bodies look like” and gender as “how people express
themselves?”

Additionally, there are two sidebar graphics (see lines 727-747 and
1048-1060), illustrating how societal attitudes, religious beliefs, and laws,
policies and practices lead either to gender injustice or justice. It’s
presupposed that societal attitudes precede and shape religious beliefs.
Together, they shape unjust or just laws and polities which create communities
of injustice or justice for women and sexual minorities. Referring to lines
1048-1060, on forming a just society: “Working together, we can begin to
transform the circle of injustice…. Individuals and groups can challenge
harmful social attitudes and practices, reject sexist religious beliefs, and
work to change laws and policies that justify and reinforce patriarchy.”

The
Obvious Question

Nobody seems interested in what to me was an obvious question: If we
believe that God’s Word truly is “lively and active,” the “source and norm of
faith and life,” as this document states, then why is the revelation of
God’s word never considered the starting point for transformation of society? Why
is “religious belief” always secondary?How does all This Church’s
earnest language about Scripture as foundational allow the Word of God to COME
FIRST to challenge, forgive, and transform sinful human attitudes, and then to
change unjust laws and create a just community?

Let me conclude with this: If the Draft Social Statement on Women and
Justice is approved by the ELCA, then This Church neither understands, nor
stands under Scripture. And the tragedy is, it seems incurious and unconcerned
about what that means for the very real women and men it purports to care
about, and for.

January 2019 Lutheran CORE Newsletter

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

 

“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

[email protected]

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.

 

 

Click to access the 2018 Newsletter for Lent.