ELCA will not allow synods to maintain traditional standards

From Lutheran CORE.

Jesuits

After 21 years as a Jesuit, Fr. James Martin, SJ, is finally taking his final vows. He talks about the process here. It’s a bizarre formation process–and he’s getting to take his vows earlier than some: they didn’t let Fr. Joe Fessio do it until he’d been a member 41 years!

Catholics and Translations

Bishop Donald Trautman of Erie is complaining (again) about translations of the liturgy. He’s a champion of the English translation of the mass that has been used in the US since 1970, which was based on the “dynamic equivalence” theory (and has been shown to have many problems). The Vatican has been pushing for a more literal translation–and he’s not at all happy with the result. The article is in NCR, a liberal Catholic publication, and the comments are mainly in support of him. But over at Commonweal, another liberal Catholic publication, Gregory Wolfe finds Trautman paternalistic.

Adventist Campus Ministry

Cross posted from Ignition.

I just got back from the 180˚ Symposium at Andrews University, sponsored by the Center for Youth Evangelism. Kudos to Ron Whitehead, Japhet De Oliveira, Steve Case, Ron Pickell, and all others involved. Our topic: public campus ministry. I presented a paper on Ellen G. White and the Secular Campus.

Adventists have a spotty record when it comes to ministry on public and private (”non-Adventist”) college and university campuses. We have good examples at places like Berkeley and Knoxville, active student organizations at schools like Texas A&M, and promising new ventures like that led by Sebastien Braxton in Boston. We have some training resources, like The Word on Campus (available from Advent Source) and a Campus Spiritual Life Certificate Program at the seminary that can provide quality training (but it is under-advertised and so few have taken advantage of it).

But we have little money. Our NAD coordinator is a full time pastor and works on a meager stipend and travel budget.The same is true at the conference and local level. Because of this, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of full-time Adventist chaplains. There are only a couple who have bothered to seek endorsement from Adventist Chaplaincy Ministries (and none of us can name those people). There is little stability in ministry, and so little wisdom gained from years of experience (again, we’re talking fingers on one hand when we speak of the number of campus ministers with 10 years or more of experience).

And yet there are 19,000,000 students at these colleges and universities in North America–the combined population of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, and Phoenix. 70% of Adventist students are at non-Adventist colleges.

We were reminded in an NAD report last year by Monte Sahlin that Adventism is “graying.” The median age is high, and not just because Adventists are living longer than the general population, but because we are losing young adults in their 20s, and have a dearth of members in the 20-45 age bracket.

How much wisdom and experience and giftedness have we lost through this attrition? How much tithe money has the church lost because today’s young doctors, lawyers, business entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, and video game programmers did not find the church there for them during college and grad school?

We spend millions of dollars on evangelism, throwing much of it away on mass mailings to tens of thousands of people that will result in one or two baptisms. Why not spend this money to evangelize college and university campuses that are full of seekers–and our own young people?

The harvest is ripe–where are the workers? Where is the passion? Where are the resources?

Catholics and Anglicans

Recently, the Vatican announced that it would provide for a “personal ordinariate” for Anglicans entering the Catholic Church.

Is there anything new here? Not really. It simply provides a canonical structure for what was already allowed under the 1980 Pastoral Provision. Groups of Anglicans/Episcopalians who become Catholic can have parishes that use a modified Anglican liturgy; Anglican/Episcopalian priests who are married can receive a dispensation from celibacy and be ordained as Catholic priests after appropriate formation. There are currently seven such parishes in the United States, including Our Lady of Walsingham here in Houston. Each one is currently under the authority of the local ordinary (bishop of the diocese in which they serve). This will allow for them to have a common ordinary (priest or bishop).

Contrary to US News, this does not make it “easier” for Anglicans to convert. It isn’t hard for any baptized Christian to convert. All you have to do is profess the Creed and say, “‘I believe and profess all that the holy Catholic Church believes, teaches, and proclaims to be revealed by God.”

And there’s the catch. Anglican’s can’t just be against gay marriage or gay bishops and priests (plenty of those in the Catholic church) or ordination of women. They have to accept the whole package. They have to become Roman Catholics–though they will be able to have a Catholic priest as pastor who knows Anglican traditions and can celebrate a Catholicized version of the Anglican liturgy.

Catholic Nuns Today

Here’s an example that may give some insight into why the Vatican is looking into American religious orders.

Eroticized Spirituality

A zealous Orthodox apologist describes “Why (he thinks) Orthodoxy is the true faith.” Along the way he makes some insightful criticisms of the eroticized and narcissistic spirituality of certain popular saints. I think he’s on to something. Lee Podles also discussed such things in his book, The Church Impotent.

Banishing the Dead from Their Own Funeral

“Pastor Peters,” a Lutheran pastor, on funerals.

A Surprising Lack of Anger

Lee Podles has been commenting on the case of Bishop Raymond Lahey of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, who was found with kiddie porn on his computer. He wonders why none of the official Catholic commentators express any anger at Lahey’s actions–following a consistent pattern of official Catholic response to sexual abuse.

The Mormon Vision of America

Interesting article at GetReligion explores the Mormon ideology behind a painting that many are talking about.

Americans United Mocks Religious Liberty

Americans United ceased to be a religious liberty organization years ago and became just another leftwing agitator. That’s readily apparent in their article, “Whose Conscience Counts?” The issue is the “rights” (their scare quotes) of pharmacists who oppose abortion, and who want to follow “conscience” (their scare quotes again). The article is a flat out attack on the religious liberty of individuals, and on the Workplace Religious Freedom Act, which is designed to protect that liberty.

Church and State

The odd and questionable custom of the United States having an ambassador to a church continues. Miguel Diaz has been formally welcomed by Pope Benedict XVI. And let’s not play games and imagine that we send an ambassador to the Vatican because it is a “country.” We send an ambassador not to a square mile with a population of 900 people, but to a church with a billion members–of which this ambassador is always one. Benedict knows this. That’s why his address to Diaz is about what “the Church”–especially “the Church in the United States”–must do and say. He underscored the moral vision the [Catholic] Church must uphold and teach–acting then as a teacher to a docile student.

The same teacher/student relationship is apparent each year at Red Masses around the country, which honor the legal profession and give bishops the opportunity to instruct lawyers and judges in the Catholic Church’s moral teaching. No Red Mass has a higher profile than the one in Washington, DC, which traditionally attracts many of the members of the Supreme Court. CNN notes that some have a problem with it. Ruth Bader Ginsberg says, “”I went one year, and I will never go again, because this sermon was outrageously anti-abortion.” She was shocked, shocked!–that they were teaching Catholic doctrine.

Statistics

News report says: “Teen Birth Rates Higher in Highly Religious States.”

Thomas Peters sees different reasons.

Who Was Roland Carnaby?

Roland Carnaby claimed to be a CIA agent–and was gunned down by Houston Police Officers during a traffic stop in 2008. Most local news agencies dismissed him as a nut and never followed up the story. The Houston Press stayed on the case, and has written a fascinating report.

Dan Brown’s Latest

So, during a lull in my busy day, I popped into Wal-Mart and read the last few chapters of Dan Brown’s latest book. Freemasonry is front and center in this tale, but the message is the same as in his previous books: don’t believe or trust the Bible; instead, believe those esoteric philosophies that reject the literal message of the Bible in favor of a contrary, “spiritual,” interpretation. The bottom line is, “You shall be as gods.”

Advent Conspiracy

It’s not too early to be thinking about Christmas. You know the decorations will soon be in the stores. Are you disappointed with the commercialism and the crush of the crowds and the stress and the co$t? Then check out Advent Conspiracy.

From the webpage:

The story of Christ’s birth is a story of promise, hope, and a revolutionary love.

So, what happened? What was once a time to celebrate the birth of a savior has somehow turned into a season of stress, traffic jams, and shopping lists.

And when it’s all over, many of us are left with presents to return, looming debt that will take months to pay off, and this empty feeling of missed purpose. Is this what we really want out of Christmas?

What if Christmas became a world-changing event again?

There’s a DVD available with four short videos that can be discussion starters, and there’s a book with discussion guide, too.

Encourage a different attitude in your young adult ministry, campus, or church. Join the conspiracy.

More Dan Brown. Sigh.

Dan Brown’s latest book is soon to be published. This is said to be about the freemasons.

He’ll sell lots of books because he knows how to tell a compelling story (no matter how illogical it may be–any novel is bound to be a “page turner” when its chapters are only two pages long!). And he’ll entice the gullible by his gnostic claims (yeah, they’re “fiction,” he says with a wink, but also claims a factual basis for much of his bunk). His nose will continue to grow as he tells whoppers like, “The Christians got holy communion from the Aztecs,” or, “The Church took the name ‘Satan’ from Islam because it was a dirty language,” or “That’s really Mary next to Jesus in the Last Supper!” And he will laugh all the way to the bank.

Richard McBrien on the Eucharist

Fr. Richard McBrien is one of the best known Catholic scholars. And he’s often getting himself publicity by articles taking issue with Catholic teaching. Take this, for example: Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration.

After clearing the air about an article that was in the Boston Globe (a good job), he then throws out some gratuitous swipes at the theology and practice of his church:

Notwithstanding Pope Benedict XVI’s personal endorsement of eucharistic adoration and the sporadic restoration of the practice in the archdiocese of Boston and elsewhere, it is difficult to speak favorably about the devotion today.

Now that most Catholics are literate and even well-educated, the Mass is in the language of the people (i.e, the vernacular), and its rituals are relatively easy to understand and follow, there is little or no need for extraneous eucharistic devotions. The Mass itself provides all that a Catholic needs sacramentally and spiritually.

Eucharistic adoration, perpetual or not, is a doctrinal, theological, and spiritual step backward, not forward.

Eucharistic adoration is inseparable from Catholic Eucharistic theology.  The Catholic church believes that the substance of the bread and wine of the Eucharist are, when consecrated by the priest in the mass, transformed into the substance of the body and blood of Christ, and that this presence perdures beyond the celebration of the mass. If you believe that, you will engage in Eucharistic adoration.

I think the reality here is that McBrien doesn’t really believe Catholic teaching. And yet he is a priest in good standing with a very public platform as a professor of Catholic theology.

Funny thing–some Catholics say the reason you have heresy in liberal Protestant churches like the ELCA is because there is no magisterium. Well, Catholicism has a magisterium, but it still can’t keep its own house in order.

The Blind Leading the Blind

Robert Benne, one of the ELCA opponents of homosexuality, reflects on the ELCA assembly for Christianity Today: “How the ELCA Left the Great Tradition.”

But Benne doesn’t see that his own views on Scripture are part of the problem. All ELCA theologians embrace the historical-critical method. Scripture is, in this view, at best, a human document recording human experience of the divine.

Consider this from Carl Braaten, from Christian Dogmatics (co-edited with Robert Jenson), the systematic text used in ELCA seminaries:

…Biblicism holds to an infallible Bible that can be the absolute authority in matters of belief and morals. The ancient doctrine of verbal inspiration survives. In some Christian groups the theory of inspiration is used to vouch for the absolute reliability of the Bible on all matters that relate to cosmology, biology, geography, chronology, and history. The Bible is used as a bulwark against the evolutionary hypothesis of modern natural science. …

Fundamentalist biblicism is rejected by most theologians and is out of favor in most of the seminaries that train clergy for the parish ministry. They reject biblicism not merely because historical science has disclosed errors and contradictions in the biblical writings, but rather because the authority of the Bible is elevated at the expense of the authority of Christ and his gospel. Non-fundamentalist Protestants also accept the Bible as the Word of God in some sense, but they point out that the concept of the Word of God, as Barth made clear, cannot be confined to the Bible. We  cannot say that the Bible is the Word of God in a simplistic way ….

The uniqueness, the authority, and the value of the Bible, therefore, continue to be central for contemporary theological work. By means of Scripture, Christ is pictured and proclaimed as God’s message and answer to the human predicament. Subsidiary to this central idea, the Bible is also treated as a collection of ancient documents which give us information about the history of Israel and the beginnings of Christianity. The Bible is also appreciated as a library of great literature …. The Bible is also a source document for the imaginative construction of church doctrines …. The Bible is also a devotional book full of inspiring passages to cultivate the religious life. But beyond all these viewpoints, the Bible is the unique book of the church because of its original and intrinsic connection with the history of the promises of God and its astonishing climax in the career of Jesus the Christ. (I:74-76)

So even those in the ELCA who oppose homosexuality mock “the theory of inspiration,” and treat the Bible as a human document to be interpreted in light of something else. Braaten says that something else is the gospel. That’s what those in favor of homosexuality say. That’s what led them to say the forgiving, accepting Jesus, would not turn any away. The Bible has been stripped of any claim to divine inspiration, and is reduced, in Marcionite fashion, to a proclamation of Gospel, not Law.

In this situation where the Bible has no divine authority as Law, for either party, it is not surprising that Benne says,

Sola Scriptura, a Lutheran principle adopted by evangelicals, did not seem to be sufficient in such circumstances. An authoritative tradition of interpretation of the Bible seemed to be essential. More was needed than the Bible alone.

Sola Scriptura only works when Scripture is accepted as God’s authoritative self-communication. When it is reduced to merely another human voice in the conversation, it’s not surprising that Benne must appeal to a human referee.

It is disingenuous for Benne to say, “The ELCA has formally left the Great Tradition for liberal Protestantism.” The ELCA has been a part of liberal Protestantism since it was founded in 1988. It was formed of three liberal Protestant denominations, the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches–and this latter group had its origin in a battle within the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod over Biblical inspiration. The liberals were driven out from the LCMS seminaries to form their own “Seminary in Exile” (Seminex). This was the seedbed from which the ELCA grew.

The solution to the questions of how Christians should address issues of morality and theology is not to turn from one human authority to another; it is to embrace Scripture as the inspired Word of God. It is to affirm what Paul told Timothy:

“All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness” (2 Timothy 3:16).

Our refuge is in Christ, who has revealed his will to men in this book. It is our firm foundation.

God’s Word is our great heritage
And shall be ours forever;
To spread its light from age to age
Shall be our chief endeavor.
Through life it guides our way,
In death it is our stay.
Lord, grant while words endure,
We keep its teachings pure
Throughout all generations.

To abandon it, or to treat it as just some other human book, to turn to either the authority of the individual or the authority of an individual, is to build on sand. That was the foundation of the ELCA from the very beginning.

Revisiting the JDDJ

We’re coming up on the 10th anniversary of the “Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification,” signed by the Vatican and the Lutheran World Federation. I’ll have to write my own reflection on that.

Meanwhile, here’s a reflection by Paul McCain: Betraying the Reformation: The Sad Legacy of The Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.

More Lutheran Voices

Carl Braaten.

… the ELCA has succumbed to the same ailment as liberal Protestantism. What is that? Modern Protestantism is an amalgamation of historic Christianity and the principles of the Enlightenment, its rationalism, subjectivism, and anthropocentrism. The underlying assumption is the neo-gnostic belief in the inner-dwelling of God, such that everyone is endowed with the inner light that only needs to be uncovered. The light of truth does not shine through the Scriptures and the Christian tradition as much as through scientific reason and individual experience. This is what happened in Minneapolis: appeals to reason and experience trumped Scripture and tradition, punctuated with pious injunctions of Lutheran slogans and clichés. The majority won. And they said it was the work of the Spirit, forgetting that the Holy Spirit had already spoken volumes through the millennia of Scriptural interpretation, the councils of the church, and its creeds and confessions.

Robert Benne.

It is not meet, right, and salutary that this assembly vote on God’s commandments as understood by the one, holy, catholic church throughout 2000 years. The Word of God should not be put to vote. The great orthodox churches of the world do not even consider the changes we have in mind.

Voting on these matters is doubly problematic because we have no compelling biblical or confessional grounds, nor anything approaching a consensus, to make these momentous changes. This church should not vote on the binding teaching of the church. If it does, this church may soon find itself outside of the church.

Strange Doings in Scranton

Joseph Martino has resigned as Catholic Bishop of Scranton for “health reasons.” You always gotta wonder what that means.  David Gibson speculates.

In Statu Confessionis

Pastor Steven Tibbetts introduces a new blog, Lutherans Persisting, by Michael Root of the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary.

Root began with this post:

The ELCA is now in crisis.  On the most obvious level, the decisions to permit same-sex blessings and to permit ordinations of persons in such same-sex relations will lead many individuals and congregations to contemplate leaving the ELCA.  Historically, fewer congregations leave than one expects, but some will leave and others will find ways to disengage from ELCA structures (e.g., by withholding contributions to synods and the national church).

Beyond those organizational results, the teaching and practices adopted represent a crisis.  For some, myself included, these are more than just mistakes, policies and ideas with which we disagree.  They are false teaching, teaching that directly contradicts the clear command of Scripture and the authoritative tradition of the church.  The ELCA is now not just a pilgrim church, an imperfect church on the way, but an erring church, a church which has, in an important part of its life, lost its way.

For many, these two items are the crisis.  But I think the crisis extends further.  A third aspect of the present crisis is the way tendencies present in Lutheranism since the early 20th century are now coming to a head.  One reason false teaching has captured the ELCA is that various views (a crude and static understanding of simul justus et peccator, a confusion between paradox and ambiguity, bad understandings of biblical authority) have come to be accepted as authentically Lutheran, even as defining Lutheranism.  Recent developments are not simply the outcome of ‘liberalism,’ but also of what we have come to think of as ‘Lutheranism.’  (What I worry about at 2 AM when I cannot sleep is that what we have come to think of as ’Lutheran’ actually is Lutheran, in which case the Reformation was just wrong.)  We will not come out of our present predicament without careful and extended thinking about basic questions of Lutheran theology.

Finally, a fourth aspect of the crisis are the propositions the ELCA has come to affirm in the course of adopting the recent proposals, e.g., that opposing ‘bound consciences’ can stymie consistent church teaching or that no disagreement on ethics can divide the church (unless one side of the ethical disagreement is inconsistent with the doctrine of justification).  These are bad ideas that will come back to haunt us.

Behold Now the Kingdom

A pastor’s reflections on missed opportunities at Kennedy’s funeral.

The homily–thoroughly Pelagian; no preaching of the gospel, instead patting Teddy on the back for all his “good works.”

Clericalism in Catholicism

The Vatican has rejected the Maryknoll order’s chosen superior for the US because he is a lay brother, and not a priest, demanding that in orders of laity and priests, only priests can be elected superior.

Catholic Bishops in Conflict

Archbishop Michael Sheehan of Santa Fe has come out in criticism of some of his fellow bishops–and said many others who are silent also disagree with them, but don’t want to be seen in open conflict. The issue: pro-abortion politicians. A vocal minority criticized Notre Dame’s invitation to Obama.

“Last month,” said Sheehan, “the pope made the president of France an honorary canon of St. John Lateran’s — and he [President Nicolas Sarkozy] is pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage, married invalidly to an actress, and the pope did that. It doesn’t seem that [the Vatican] had quite as big a concern about this matter of Obama and Notre Dame as some of us.”

Ted Kennedy

You’ve heard the news. Ted Kennedy has died. Friends of mine are pouring out eulogies on Facebook and blogs.

I found the man revolting … a spoiled rich kid who got what he wanted; a sleazy politician who had no scruples; a mover and shaker of the extreme left who sought to bring down the moral pillars of this nation.

Now he sleeps, awaiting the judgment. I pray that Mary Jo Kopechne, and the untold millions of abortion victims, will find justice on that day.

Albert Mohler on ELCA Actions

See Dr. Mohler’s Blog.

The actions in Minneapolis would be inconceivable but for the fact that the denomination has for decades allowed increasing theological pluralism to mark its membership and its leadership. But plainly, this pluralism allows for radically different theologies to reside within one denomination and for fundamentally divergent understandings of Scripture and biblical authority to coexist. All parties now recognize that this coexistence will be very hard to maintain. …

… What makes the Lutheran action distinctive and especially troubling is the effort to claim that a church can remain united even as it is strained by such divergent understandings of human sexuality and biblical morality. In anticipation of the meeting in Minneapolis, some Lutherans were already claiming that the issue of homosexuality simply is not a matter of fundamental importance. …

The claim that these two contradictory understandings of the Bible’s teachings on human sexuality can coexist and be recognized as being equally faithful to the Scriptures is nonsense. Those pressing for the normalization of homosexuality must put the Scriptures through hoop after hoop of theological acrobatics. The claim that a church can both condemn and bless homosexual relationships with equal faithfulness falls false on its face. Worst of all, it sows a disastrously deadly confusion about the nature of sin — a confusion that subverts the Gospel and brings eternal consequences.  Should homosexuals repent of their sin, or come to the church for the blessing of their homosexual unions?  There can be no multiple-choice answer to that question. The actions in Minneapolis will reverberate far into the future. Woe unto those who cloak such decisions with the disguise of faithfulness.

The ELCA and Postmodernism

ELCA pastor Ryan Mills, a delegate to the “Churchwide Assembly,” reflects.

Meanwhile, a statement by David deFreese, the bishop of the ELCA’s Nebraska Synod, demonstrates the postmodern attitude of those who dominate the ELCA.

The ELCA’s Ecumenical Decisions

At its Churchwide Assembly this week, the ELCA approved full communion with the United Methodist Church. It already has such agreements with the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, the Reformed Church in America, and the United Church of Christ, and the Moravian Church.

What unites all of these denominations, of course, is their liberalism. “Birds of a feather flock together.” They are united in their rejection of Biblical truth, divided from other denominations in their own tradition, but united to one another.

Paul McCain comments that this was “the worst decision the ELCA made.” “This is even more symptomatic of a theological system that is sick unto death.” And he wonders why so many ELCA pastors and lay members who were upset about the decisions regarding homosexuality had nothing to say about this.