|
|
| NEW ITEMS (April 2008) | ||
| April #1 | An open letter to the ELCA human sexuality task force 'Where will it all end?!!!' | |
| April #2 | Jesus' mission or Maslow's needs? | |
| OTHER ITEMS (March 2008) | ||
| March #1 | ELCA DRAFT STATEMENT ON SEXUALITY DRAWS CRITICISM FROM RENEWAL LEADERS | |
| March #2 | NEWS RELEASE REGARDING DRAFT STATEMENT | |
| March #3 | REGISTER NOW FOR THE WA CONVENTION | |
| OTHER ITEMS (February 2008) | ||
| February #1 | WA BOARD of DIRECTORS — sets priorities for the network | |
| February #2 | 2008 ANNUAL CONVENTION - Defending the Faith | |
| February #3 | BY WHAT AUTHORITY…? |
An open letter to the ELCA human sexuality task force 'Where will it all end?!!!'
Dear sexuality task force,
First I must compliment you, the Human Sexuality Task Force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, on a well-documented and thorough study of the sexuality issue. You have put much work into a very difficult subject, and at the present I'm not sure what more you could do given your stated assignment and the lay of the land. I felt that you tried to be open to all views, but I do have some critical comments that I hope will help bring this topic to light from a different perspective.
First I have to comment on the reaction from the "pew," which I have heard in the past few years, from several churches where I have preached or been interim pastor. These comments are amazingly widespread even in churches that call themselves "welcoming" churches. The comment is, "The church is studying this topic to death! What are they looking for?" And the more cynical one "What's the use of fighting it? The church has already made up 'its' mind where 'it' wants this thing to go and 'they' will keep studying it until 'they' get 'their' way." Even I get some of the same feeling. I suppose if we can have meetings with other denominations and religions so we can live together in peace, we can get together on anything even if our humanness is all that we have in common.
In The Lutheran magazine I have read some comments that seemed to be "put-downs" of differing views. I was disappointed in this comment from a church leader, and I quote, "Some resist any change, while others wrestle earnestly with difficult issues. Some call themselves 'welcoming' pastors or churches while others claim to be 'evangelical.'"
There are subtle, uncomfortable implications in these comments and I can't say these were isolated. They certainly made it sound to me as if those who are traditional Lutherans and Biblically conservative have not been "wrestling earnestly" with difficult issues.
I can see why some feel this issue is not really open to "serious wrestling," but is already a forgone conclusion. In reading your report I found more openness, but also a struggle to hold the ship together regardless of the outcome. If I am wrong, I am willing to hear your view--so I can pass it on.
Another issue that hits me personally: My wife and I were missionaries to Nepal for two short terms in 1996-97 and 2000. I have talked with a number of missionary friends who share my feeling that openness to gay marriage and ordination could end the ELCA's effectiveness on the mission field in most countries. I heard there were even some in Africa turning to Islam rather than taking such a liberal view of Scripture!!! I know many in Nepal who have lost their families, their lives' work, had their lives threatened and sometimes didn't survive because of their Christian faith. They believe in the Bible quite literally. My wife, who had been a skeptic, saw several healed with Christian prayer, whom the Hindu or Buddhist priests could not heal. To cast doubt on a very clear literal condemnation of homosexual behavior in both the Old and New Testament could be devastating to their new, childlike faith. I certainly hope this real danger is included in your discussions in depth and not just in passing. Even a Dubuque, Iowa, Wartburg Seminary professor who served with us in Nepal, said he would not encourage any of our Nepali pastors to study in U.S. seminaries or it could destroy their faith--or give them much useless knowledge that they could not pass on to their people without damage to our mission work.
I need to give you a bit of my background so you will understand where I am coming from. It is only fair.
I served a church in Weehawken, N.J. in the early 1960s. Sometimes I would wander down to the edge of the Palisades, two blocks from my church, and sit on a bench that gave a beautiful view of Manhattan. I went down there one night after an evening meeting and had my clerical collar on. A fellow sat at the other end of the bench and noticed my collar. "Are you a priest?" he asked.
I told him I was the next best thing and he confessed to me that he had just been excommunicated by his priest because he had gay leanings. He said he lived with his mother and had not even dated men. I told him that God would never condemn anyone for his "leanings." I told him that I, too, had temptations that were not kosher. Jesus himself, the Bible tells us, was tempted in every way such as we, but without sin. Resisting temptation with God's help was the only answer I knew. We went back to my church and knelt at the altar together and I gave him a Lutheran absolution. I mentioned this to a Lutheran Church in America officer who I met when church headquarters were in New York. He said he was shocked that I would think of allowing such a man into my church.
"Think what it would do to your congregation if they found out!" was his comment.
The church certainly has done a flip flop!
My Weehawken church was surrounded by Hispanic residents. I even went to study Spanish so I could invite them into our inner city church. But when I was asked to march for black rights in Jersey City and mentioned the needs of Hispanics, the church leaders' comments were in essence, "They don't have any problems. They aren't black."
Another flip flop.
I could go back to my ordination when I almost was turned down because I belonged to the Lutheran Peace Fellowship. They said these peace organizations were subversive. Years later in my church in Cheyenne, Wyo., I was condemned by my bishop for not preaching anti-MX-missiles every Sunday!
Another flip flop.
I could mention how many churches in inner cities were condemned if they did not send in all their "apportionments." Those were the days when the suburbs were the angels. That was where all the money and growth were coming from. We had to help a fellow inner city pastor who needed a loan from the church women for his salary, but the synod headquarters in Trenton bragged about their new $800 conference table! Here my church was, as I called it, "derriere guard." Since then, the ELCA has belatedly come to recognize the needs of the inner city.
I am divorced and am not proud of it. I did not try a mistress on the side, but divorce was such an anathema that I was removed from my roles in the synod for my divorce. I am willing to accept gays as fellow sinners, but I have trouble with gay pride!!!
Are we going to have a "divorced pride" day also?
There was a pastor in Wyoming whose divorce was delayed a year. In the meantime he found a girlfriend in the congregation who he went off to a motel with for a few days. He told me that that was no worse than gays living together without marriage. Was he right?
Just a few decades ago, the gay "issue" would never have surfaced, but now it is headline stuff. I should mention that when I was police chaplain I received the police magazine every month. In one issue, a psychiatrist said that incest should be decriminalized, and for the same reason that gays were being accepted: It often was accepted practice in some tribes and cultures for parents to teach sex to their children. It seemed to be a "given" for some people. It allowed both children and adults to give vent to some of their inner struggles and to experiment with this universal urge.
I thoroughly disagreed, but it made me think, "What will the next step be in this liberal age?"
I have read several articles, and not all from Utah, that polygamy should be decriminalized also. There is certainly less specific condemnation of polygamy in the Bible than there is of homosexual behavior. Are we going to leave this up to popular vote also? Have we come to, "Vox populi, vox dei" [the voice of the people is the voice of god]?
I had an article printed in Lutheran Partners recently in which I pointed out that democracy was a disaster almost every time it was tried in Holy Writ. We would be worshiping golden calves if the majority wishes were always followed, for just one example. One of our Canadian church leaders, Pastor Arild Borch, spoke at a synod meeting in Canada when I had a church there. He brought down the house with laughter when he did nothing but read measures that had passed synod meetings in the past. Will they be laughing at us someday? At 80 years of age I probably won't be around to hear it, but the penalty of living so long is that I have seen the church flip flop with every wind of doctrine. It has been called "wrestling with the issues" today, but it may be called "idiocy" and "failure to stand for sola Scriptura" by the next generation.
Where will it all end?!!!
Rev. Robert S. Ove, retired
Rio Rancho, NM
Jesus' mission or Maslow's needs?
It doesn't take too long or too deep a study into human psychology, sociology, anthropology or any of the other studies of human beings and their basic needs and desires before one realizes that there is a plethora of opinions out there regarding human behavior and what drives us.
Maslow set up an entire hierarchy of needs. Freud seemed a bit obsessed by our sexual needs. Skinner understood much of our behavior to be conditioned. All, however, acknowledged that there are basic human needs that drive an individual and are necessarily met if one is to survive.
Agreeing on whose list is best is not important nor is the order of needs primary for my question to be asked: Is the church's mission defined as meeting the basic needs of the individual or is there something more specific, a different--even higher--calling that defines the work of the church and sets out it's very reason for being?
Is a social agenda that defines the gospel in terms of justice and rights and development the basic mission of the church?
These are not hypothetical questions asked to amuse or infuriate, these questions and how they are answered determine and already have determined the meaning of the word "mission" across the institutional churches. How denominational leaders answer these questions reveals their basic understanding of missionary work and what evangelism is, what mission outreach is and who is sent out to do what for whom and where.
In other words, if one decides that the "greater" commission of the church is not the "Great Commission" of Jesus that sends us out to make disciples, baptizing and teaching in his name but rather it is to feed, clothe and build up, then there is a major problem.
Practically speaking, we have the people in the pews funding through their offering dollars a mission program that they believe exists to evangelize the unbelieving world and bring one person at a time the story of Jesus so He can give them the gifts of forgiveness and life eternal.
The people in the pews probably know that a mission program also is concerned that the persons the missionaries are reaching aren't physically starving, have access to clean water and other basic needs. However, the people in the pews still believe the primary mission of the church is to tell the story, Jesus' story. After all, it has been referred to as "The Greatest Story Ever Told" but many are surprised when they find out that actually telling it has been cited in more than one denomination as not necessarily the proper thing to do in some cultures and contexts, and, in fact, telling the story is no longer considered the primary mission work of the church.
How did this happen?
Years ago, when the merger that birthed the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was happening, I was serving in Tanzania, East Africa, as a missionary among the Maasai. I was sent, as many others before me, to tell the story, to start churches and to make disciples through baptism, preaching and teaching. At the time of the merger the news came that the ELCA was changing the paradigm for mission work. Instead of evangelism's being the primary mission work, we were now going to engage primarily in the ministry of "accompaniment." To read about it click here.
The primary mission positions to now be filled were jobs such as teachers, counselors, accountants, computer consultants, community developers and health care workers. Pastors and evangelists, one by one, retired or left the field, not to be replaced in many positions. In 1988 the ELCA churchwide budget funded 471 full-time missionaries in the field and the current number of the same classification of missionaries as the 471 is less than half that number.
Recognizing that Jesus himself was concerned about people's basic needs of being fed, clothed, given a drink, visited in prison and so on, we must not ignore those charitable works. But there are a number of corporations and non-government agencies that dedicate themselves to those charitable works and who want, need and deserve our support. Those agencies are set up to meet needs and many do it very well and efficiently.
These same agencies are not called to name the name of Jesus, to make disciples or to teach the faith. Their primary calling is to serve basic human needs and care for those who have no voice. That is "their" primary mission. But, if the church adopts their mission as its primary mission, whose responsibility is it to tell the story? Who sends out the evangelists? Who spreads the Word and tells the story?
During the season of Advent, the Roman Catholic Church released an important document entitled, "Doctrinal Note on Some Aspects of Evangelization". To read it click here.
In this document and in the notes from the press conference held Dec. 14, 2007 ( click here.), the leadership of the Roman Catholic Church clearly rejected the notion that the primary mission of the church was to engage in a social gospel that was based on development work and the meeting of basic human needs. The document once again honored the "Great Commission" of Jesus that directs and even "commands" the church to engage in evangelism primarily.
The document confronts those who oppose evangelism about Jesus and say that it limits human freedom and is often intolerant of other ways of salvation. The Roman Catholics address in detail the anthropological, ecclesiological and ecumenical implications of the commitment to evangelize with the Good News in these times of relativism and religious pluralism.
Two different homilies of Pope Benedict XVI are quoted in the document, "The relativism and irenicism [seeking similarities in religions] prevalent today in the area of religion are not valid reasons for failing to respond to the difficult, but awe-inspiring commitment which belongs to the nature of the Church herself and is indeed the Church's 'primary task.'" And again, "Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel! (1 Cor 9:16; cf. Rom 10:14). Thus it is evident how every activity of the Church has an essential evangelizing dimension and must never be separated from the commitment to help all persons to meet Christ in faith, which is the primary objective of evangelization: 'Social issues and the Gospel are inseparable. When we bring people only knowledge, ability, technical competence and tools, we bring them too little.'"
To that and the "more" that the 13-page document states I say, "Amen." For even if I don't agree with all things regarding their views of the nature of the church and other items included even in that document, I express my sincere thanks to the Roman Catholic Church for holding the line on the true meaning of Christian mission and evangelism. My many evangelical catholic friends should enjoy reading my assent to this Roman Catholic statement.
This old Lutheran missionary is quite happy to align with the Roman Catholics on this issue of Gospel evangelism. For, to do otherwise is to dismiss the centrality of Jesus' commission "to tell the old, old story of Jesus and his love." Rather we agree to tell the story as part of a band of Jesus' disciples, no matter the affiliation.
ELCA DRAFT STATEMENT ON SEXUALITY DRAWS CRITICISM FROM RENEWAL LEADERS
No sooner does the newest document arrive than the reactions also begin to appear. The first one to come to our attention are comments by WordAlone Director Mark Chavez and President Jaynan Egland.
If you have not already been exposed to this article, please read it click here.
NEWS RELEASE REGARDING DRAFT STATEMENT
A second response to the current draft comes from the leaders of Lutheran CORE. Following the initial article, you will find related comments by other authors. You are invited to read and study all of them. click here.
REGISTER NOW FOR THE WA CONVENTION
More information is now available regarding the National Convention of the WordAlone Network, to be held April 13 & 14 at Calvary Lutheran Church, Golden Valley, MN.
Those of us who have attended in recent years have found the effort to be quite worthwhile. This year’s program is quite appealing.
Full details and further information is available click here.
WA Board of Directors —sets priorities for the network
Most of us like to know what’s going on. Our President, Jaynan, gives us a report on current and future activities and concerns of our Board of Directors.
To keep up-to-date by reading it click here.
2008 Annual Convention - Defending the Faith
Defending the Faith. What theme could be more appropriate to the Church in this day and age.
The information is still sketchy, but more will come. The presenters are very impressive. (A little more on this next month)
Make plans to attend, if at all possible. To read this initial announcement click here.
BY WHAT AUTHORITY…?
WordAlone and its associates have been planning for some time to introduce its own publishing house.
The latest report from our President contains this paragraph: "The board looks forward to the publication this spring of WordAlone's first book, 'By What Authority?' The book has over 20 different contributing authors and addresses the crisis now facing the Christian church across the denominations in North America."
You have probably heard about this new venture. It is to be named: Sola Publishing. To find an introduction to it click here.
To visit this site for a sample of the articles to be included in "By What Authority?", please click here.