Formation of the North American Lutheran Church

Triggered by the move away from a strict Biblical view (of sexuality and perhaps other things), a new Lutheran denomination has now been formed out of the matrix of disenchantment with the ELCA. The North American Lutheran Church has been welcomed in some quarters by genuine celebration, and received in others with a more cynical, "Great. Another Protestant sect to add to the 35,000 already in existence."

At this point, the NALC is very small, but the future may see it grow, depending on the ELCA's future course. The new denomination may have some features which will help it grow, such as support for congregational ministries being high on its stated list of priorities. As always, time will tell.

Our Presiding Bishop Mark Hansen has called for tolerance and unity, but the Reformation itself is a reminder that calls for unity do not always trump faithfulness to scripture. In the meantime, be at peace. This as everything else, is in God's capable hands. Trust in God's capacity to set things right when and where He chooses!

Blessings,
Pastor Garry

Dr. Michael Root Converts to Roman Catholicism

See Rev. Tony Metze's blog at the right for the details ("The Bible is God's Word -- Lutheran Style'). Dr. Root is a fine theologian of deep discernment and great integrity. He has served the Lutheran Church for 40 years, and will continue his service and witness in the Roman Church. May God enfold him in His grace.

Blessings,
Pastor Garry

Shooting around the mark

Being the pastor of a very traditional Lutheran congregation for some time, I've noted a phenomenon that may be worth sharing. It works like this: We begin by worshiping God, holding Him/Her to be the ground of being (to use Tillich's phrase). Since we hold God to be holy, the things close to God, that is, proximate to God, also partake of this same holiness (things such as the bible, the Church, the sacraments, Law and Gospel, the liturgy, the Creed, perhaps even clergy in some minds).

And then something curious begins to occur. After a time, our worship focus begins to include those things which are proximate to God. So that we begin to place the bible or our liturgy or the Law on a level near to or even equal to God Himself. And suddenly the bible in our view becomes something without error, and our liturgical worship becomes something that must not change, and the Law becomes a focus of worship in its own right. And God Himself, who began as the proper focus of our worship, begins to be surrounded by idols of a more subtle sort than the usual idols of money, power, and coercion that we have learned through hard experience to be wary of.

Major Premise: We worship only God
Minor Premise: Things close to God are not God
Therefore: We do not worship things close to God

Although we may of course reverence them.

Just a thought.

Blessings,
Pastor Garry

Spirituality again: Consistency

Here's a thoughtful article on consistency for those who try to have a spiritual life without participating in a congregational family.

www.jacksonsun.com/article/20100707/LIFESTYLE/7071302/Being-a-Christian-cannot-be-separated-from-being-in-church

Solo Christianity is something like being a solo quarterback. You can have wonderful skills in passing and running and playmaking, and you can discuss football in convincing detail. But you can't ever actually play the game without the rest of the team present.

Attending church again once you're out of the routine takes effort. But if you decide to go back to church or to try a new church, I bet you'll be warmly welcomed!

Peace,
Pastor Garry

Are we smarter than God?

For a follow up to the last posting:

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/jun/3/were-smarter-than-god/

Peace!
Pastor Garry

Self versus God

As is true of most pastors, I have preached about the spiritual dangers inherent in our modern preoccupation with materialism, consumerism, and wealth. But until the environmental, social, and economic sea change (pun intended) that is now occurring in the Gulf of Mexico, I don't think I fully realized the extent of our modern arrogance. It has taken the utter lack of a "back up plan" from BP -- despite the enormous depth at which that and other oil companies are drilling for oil -- to finally give me a wake up call.

BP is hardly alone in its corporate myopia and preoccupation with itself. Consider the enormous experiments our society is embarking upon, with little or no reflection on the consequences for our civilization. It's pretty easy to name just a very few other experiments, in addition to drilling on the continental shelf. How about: research on human cloning, dramatic changes in our definition of the family, dramatic changes in our acceptance of alternative sexualities, a decline in concern for the welfare of human beings in the context of financial concerns for corporations. And for many Christian denominations, another sea change in the deterioration of the primacy of scripture and tradition as over against the organizationally useful, and ethically and morally worthless, notion of "bound conscience."

Is anybody else fed up with our societal, ecclesiastical, corporate, and individual hubris?

Grrr.

Pastor Garry

New policy statements from the ELCA

The new policy statements from the ELCA concerning the denomination's expectations for clergy are now published and available. The changes were necessary in order to accomodate the most recent Churchwide Assembly's vote to allow publicly LGBT (Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) individuals in a committed relationship to serve as clergy in the ELCA. You can find an article concerning these changes on page two of the "Core Connection" newsletter available at lutherancore.org. The full documents are available from the ELCA's web site (use the search engine and enter "Visions and Expectations."

I knew it was coming, but was still a bit shocked when I read it. It somehow seems ... starker ... when the policy changes actually appear in print. Especially the substitution of "this church" for "scripture."

If you're a member of the ELCA, continue to reflect on the role of scripture in the daily life of those who follow Christ. If you're not an ELCA member, pray for us: this division in our communion runs deep.

Blessings,
Pastor Garry

Lutherans Persisting now inactive

Dr. Michael Root has announced that the Lutherans Persisting blog is at least temporarily inactive because his duties call him out of country. He notes that the blog may not be re-activated upon his return. I wanted to take this opportunity to thank Dr. Root and Dr. Yeago for their comments into the latest troubles to beset the ELCA. Their comments have been a source of valuable insights for me and for many others. I hope that the blog will become active once again upon Dr. Root's return.

Church and culture

I've been powerfully reminded on more than one recent occasion of the truth of Lyle Schaller's remark that the Church is is wonderful shape today -- if today is 1954.

The life of the Church is always in tension between two poles. One one hand is the great Tradition of the Church, and many of the traditions of the local congregation as well. On the other hand is the ongoing need for the gospel to be proclaimed in terms that to some degree are understandable to the culture in which the Church resides. Cultures differ, and the Church necessarily takes on something of the cast of each culture. Similarly, individual congregations not only have their own traditions, they also reside in a specific community and take on some of the characteristics of that community.

But what happens when the Church does not adapt to changes in the larger culture? What happens when the local congregation does not adapt to changes in its community? I strongly suspect that when the Church does not accomodate cultural changes to some degree, when the local congregation does not change to reflect the changed needs of its community, that both run the risk of becoming increasingly irrelevant. And that for me is a serious concern.

A serious concern, because the Church must be grounded in the world view provided by scripture or it will cease to be the Church. The world view of scripture is normative for our Christian living, and yet the world view of scripture is increasingly different from that of our changing culture. I might even suggest that the world view of scripture is radically different from that of our culture.

Both the Church as a whole and the local congregation live on the margins of culture and the local community. To paraphrase Stanley Hauerwas, congregations are colonies of the Kingdom of God. And that gives both congregations and the larger Church of which we are a part a perspective that the culture itself does not - and indeed cannot -- have. Size does not matter -- Christianity seems to thrive as a minority. What matters is Christ, the Word of God, and the world view of the Kingdom of God that He came to proclaim. What matters is that the good news of God continues to be proclaimed, even when the culture or the local community -- or sometimes portions of the Church itself -- has trouble hearing it. Or doesn't want to hear.

Status Embarassmentionis

Paul Hinlicky of Roanoke College has written an article that is well worth reading about the continued fallout from the August Churchwide Assembly. In addition to noting the serious negative effects on the ELCA of the sexuality decisions, Dr. Hinlicky builds on David Yeago's assertion that we are now in a state of impaired communion, and argues that the ELCA has now moved toward a congregationalist polity, defining the locus of the Church at the congregational level.

I fear that ours is an example of how seriously impaired ecclesiology can have a devastating impact on a church body. So much for the theologically idiotic idea of "bound conscience."

Dr. Hinlicky's article can be found at Lutheran Forum. the link is to the right.

Blessings,
Pastor Garry

Regression to the Mean

Before my call to ministry of Word and Sacrament, I was a psychologist for many years. As a part of both my clinical and educational work in psychology, I found statistics to be an essential tool. Along with other social sciences, psychology uses statistics to help determine things like the "average" test score (mean, median, mode), as well as the degree of deviation from the average (standard deviation, among other indices).

The reason I'm noting all this, is that modern churches use statistics, too, to help determine all sorts of things, such as the average size congregation, demographic profiles of members, average gain or decline in membership (mostly decline, nowadays), etc. Like other organizations, church bodies rely on statistics to help them make decisions. Statistics are both useful in description and in projecting future outcomes.

The problem comes when statistics are used to determine what is normative for the Church, i.e., when statistics are used to determine what is religiously and spiritually desirable. When statistics are used in this way, then it seems to me that what is statistically average can and has become confused with what is desirable. The more people who are for or against something determines decisions made by the Church and the statistical mean becomes normative in place of scripture and tradition.

The problem with a church body's using statistics in this fashion is that the decisions that are made increasingly reflect the culture in which the church body resides. If the statistical majority rules in the place of scripture and tradition, church bodies can be expected to quickly take on the values and attitudes of the secular culture in which they reside. This is a serious challenge for any American church body, and tendsto promote the theological absurdity that -- as H. Reinhold Niebuhr suggested -- "... a God without wrath brought people without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministry of a Christ without a cross."

The salvation of God which seems so free to us was bought at a terrible price -- the suffering and death of God's son. Statistics somehow don't reflect the grittiness of this very well. Or at all.

Facing Reality

The press of ministry as well as my personal life have kept me busy enough in the recent past so that I have not added anything to this blog for a while. I do want to commend a new paper by Dr. David Yeago to your reading list. As usual, Dr. Yeago's theological insights are balanced by a genuine love for Christ as well as a pastoral sensitivity often absent in the ELCA's internal wrangling. Thank you once again, Dr. Yeago.

You can find Yeago's paper, "Facing Reality in the ELCA," at Lutherans Persisting. The link is to the right.

The Peace of Christ

Lutherans and many other Christian traditions "share the peace" as a regular part of worship. "The peace of Christ be with you always," the pastor/priest says. And the congregation responds, "And also with you," or words to that effect.

It is a sweet ritual, this wishing of peace from one to the other. But it is more than a ritual. It is a blessing in ritual form, a prayer for the other to know God.

The peace of Christ is not just any peace. It is a wish for more than the absence of conflict. It is a wish for far more -- a wish for a peaceful life, a wish for wholeness, a wish for shalom. It is more than the prophet Micah's simple prescription for righteousness: "...to act justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God" (Micah 6:8), though this is perhaps part of Christ's peace.

The peace of Christ is also the wish that the other know "the peace that passes understanding," the trust in the love of God and a deep gratitude for the salvaton that is His gift through Christ. At its heart, sharing the peace is nothing more nor less than the sharing of a desire for the other to find the joy and peace of faith in God's creating, redeeming, and sustaining love.

The keynote speaker at the January 9 gathering of Orthodox Lutherans of South Carolina was Dr. James R. Crumley, Jr., former presiding bishop of the Lutheran Church in America. His remarks are available here.

Issues in the ELCA

I thought readers might be interested in reading a recent essay by Robert Benne found at http://www.lutherancore.org/papers/benne-beginnings.shtml . Benne's essay describes some chronic, systemic, theological and organizational issues in the ELCA as clearly as anything I've seen. While as a member of the "Loyal Opposition" I have no plans to leave the ELCA or to lead my congregation in that direction, I do commend the essay to you for your reflection.

Within our synod, there is a meeting of the Orthodox Lutherans of South Carolina scheduled for January 9. It may present an opportunity for South Carolina Lutherans to share their disenchantment with the ELCA on the issues that Benne discusses.

Pr. Garry
Parishmonk

Spirituality #5: Silence

It seems like the television is on at my house almost all the time. My wife has Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, a disorder of unknown origins which carries with it a variety of disabling symptoms: a terrible fatigue, debilitating muscle and joint pain, and severely disordered sleep, to name but a few. During the long hours of night, when she is unable to sleep and I am snoring, she will often have the television going for company. I live in a world of ongoing sound even during my own sleep, so that periods of silence in my life are almost always an experience of grace.

"Be still and know that I am God," the psalmist says (Psalm 46:10). My noisy life underscores the importance of silence as a context for prayer. Added to the busy-ness of a pastor's ministry, the distractions in my life usually overpower my own poor ability to attend to the presence of God. In short, I need silence in order to experience the "Cloud of Unknowing" that seems to be the most refreshing and sustaining sort of prayer for me. Silence is important for prayer, and is a precious and too-rare commodity in my life.

Every generalization has its exceptions, I suppose. For me, one notable exception to the connection between silence and prayer seems to be music of certain type. The "type" is not easy for me to put into words. Gregorian chant helps facilitate my times of prayer, while jazz usually does not. Songs from Taize' facilitate prayer for me, rap does not. Some "praise music" facilitates prayer for me -- the songs with contemplative words and melody -- while other, louder contemporary Christian songs do not.

I'm not sure what the point is to these ramblings. Except perhaps to wonder if most Christians in our noisy world of 2010 might not be starved for silence as well, or at least hungry for deeper communion with God. Listen to your own life. If there's anything in this that resonates with you, you'll undoubtedly know.