Mythbusting

Yesterday a friend's congregation voted to leave the ELCA over the sexuality issue. This friend is staying with the ELCA, which means their job and call is now over. Thankfully this friend already has another (at least temporary) call lined up for now, so they are not absolutely unemployed.

In a discussion of this on their facebook page, a classmate of theirs from seminary (someone I vaguely remember from my seminary days as well - this friend was a couple classes behind me) made a sort of snarky sounding comment about this being what happens when Church leadership pushes something forward, damn the consequences, and then criticizes people who are angry about it.

There was a lot I could say in response to this comment, but my biggest concern was to go after this myth that "liberal-agenda Church Leadership" was responsible for this, so I posted the following. I'm re-posting it here because in order to truly help take down the myth, this probably needs to be seen by more than just my friend's friends on facebook.

What I find so ironic about this is that the folks who are so angry about Churchwide Assembly decisions tend to fall on the literalist end of the spectrum when it comes to Biblical interpretation. And yet when it comes to the actual historical record of how this decision was made, they chuck facts out the window in favor of myths and conspiracy theories. I'm sure part of where they are getting that from is the Word Alone "Network News," which reads more like a Lutheran National Enquirer these days, but they send it to everybody whether you want it or not, and if people willingly read salacious trash, what can you do to stop them?

In any case, what I wrote is below. Names have been changed to protect the innocent. For non-Lutherans reading this, Higgins Road is where the ELCA's churchwide offices are located in Chicago - those who dislike the national church often use it as derogatory shorthand to refer to anyone or anything in the churchwide offices.




I am responding to Jasper's comment, and I apologize in advance if I come across tersely, but I am tired of hearing Churchwide Assembly decisions being blamed on "Church leadership so bent on making a change."

First of all, "Church leadership" did not make this decision, "the gay agenda" did not make this decision either - the regular old Lutherans (pastors and laity and bishops) who were sent to the Churchwide Assembly (CWA) on behalf of their synod are the ones who voted in favor of this change. And they didn't do it abruptly, they didn't do it in a vacuum, they did it after YEARS of of deliberate study and discussion of all aspects of the issue across the entire ELCA, they did it after DAYS of deliberate discussion and discernment (in both small and large group formats) within the CWA itself, and they did it in the context of prayerful discernment, as all decisions in the Assembly are handled.

Second, as a "consequence" of these decisions, no one is being asked to change their interpretation of Scripture or their understanding of homosexuality. No one is being asked to call a gay pastor, be they single or in a publicly accountable, monogamous, etc, partnership. What everyone IS being asked, and not by nameless, faceless, agenda-driven bureaucrats on Higgins Road, but by regular old Lutherans in congregations just like yours and mine, what we ARE being asked by these brothers and sisters in Christ, is to allow them to care pastorally for their own members in the manner they best see fit (regardless of their parishioners' orientations), and to allow them to call the pastor they believe the Holy Spirit is sending to them, regardless of that pastor's sexual orientation.

I'm not asking you to agree with CWA, I'm not asking you to agree with me. I'm not asking anyone to stay in the ELCA if their conscience binds them to leave over this issue. But stay or go, agree or disagree, I AM asking you to get the story straight (pun intended) when you talk about it with other people, especially those in your parish.

Peace,
C