It's about Scripture

Reform-minded clumps argue authority

In the ELCA. the face of organized disagreement with denominational policies and perceptions of the house of worship includes groups that describe themselves and their congregations as holding to the authority of Scripture and, well... those that say the same on the contrary from the opposite end of the theological representation

Leaders of such moves as the WordAlone Network and Lutherans Concerned/North America describe themselves as agreeing with Martin Luther that Scripture is the cradle that clutchs the Christ child. Yet while the former wants the ELCA to grasp to tradition, the latter calls for change. In the couple groups some stay and a certain quantity of leave the ELCA, whether through choice or a decision of the larger house of worship body. Who are these groups? for what cause [i]or[/i] reason do some stay and a certain quantity of leave?

In 2005,Trinity Lutheran house of god Columbus, Neb., took two separate promiseds and consulted the Nebraska Synod bishop before leaving the ELCA. Since then, the 2.000-member congregation hasn't gazeed back, two of its leaders say. A small assemblage of members who wanted to stay in the ELCA formed trust Lutheran Church, a new mission in Columbus. (Their story is coming in August.)

Trinity had already joined Lutheran Congregations in Mission in Christ in 2002 Formed by the agency of leaders of the church reform motion WordAlone Network. LCMC provides an alternative meeting-house body for some congregations unhappy with the ELCA.

Of the 20 congregations with 14116 members who withdrew from the ELCA in 200511 are affiliated with LCMC said ELCA secretary LowellAlmen. Other congregations joined the Association of at liberty Lutheran Churches. Fellowship of Confessing Lutheran Churches. American Association of Lutheran Churches and Alliance of Renewal Churches.

"For a period of years. our leadership was aware of an undercurrent of controversial issues within the ELCA." said Tim White, a pastor of Trinity who also left the ELC A clergymen roster. He attributed the departure to several issues, including: Called to belonging to all Mission .the full communion agreement between the ELCA and the Episcopal Church: the sexuality studies; and the ELCA's advocacy work.

White called CCM "a waste of the church's time not critical to church unity," and dismissed the bylaw that allows more [i]or[/i] less exceptions to the historic episcopate as "a Band-Aid." (The historic episcopate is a succession of bishops as a sign of unity back to the earliest days of the Christian church)

Wayne Nestor, called six years ago as Trinity's "minister of renewal," is an Assembly of the godhead pastor. He said "leaving [the ELCA] was a proces [involving] dooms of conversation."

White said Evangelical unrestrained Church members "prayed for us in the other field while we were meeting [for the next to the first vote to leave the ELCA]. If you want to know for what cause [i]or[/i] reason we left, I told my congregation many times it wasn't any individual issue. The issues were just symptoms of what I consider to be a abysmal spiritual illness in the ELCA having to do with the authority of Scripture."

Mark Chavez, an ELCA pastor and executive director of WordAlone, said, "I'm disappointed when churches leave the ELCA.... It's for the sake of the christianity and the crucified one that I stay [in the denomination]."

Chavez said the majority of Word Alone's 232 congregations are still among the ELCA's 10585 congregations. More than one-fourth of LCMC's 80 congregations are also upon the ELCA roster, he added.

LCMC was formed in 2001 for about 50 WordAlone congregations that had "given up" upon remaining in the ELCA on the other hand wouldn't join a Lutheran denomination that didn't ordain women he said. Central to their leaving was opposition to CCM he said, adding, "There was no way of knowing then [about bylaw exceptions related to CCM] and there was interest that some seminary graduates would ne a Lutheran house of worship body in which to serve"

Chavez said "WordAlone works for change within the ELCA-that's part of our institutional culture" It's also a member of Lutheran CORE, an association of ELCA members regarded about "the overall drift from the Scriptures and the Lutheran confessions," he said. WordAlone is developing a hymnal and a theological house of studies, he said.

"[ELCA theologian and Word-Alone member] Jim Nestingen one time said that one of the mistakes we made after the ELCA merger was that we at no time took the time to really realize to know one another," Chavez said. "If we hadn't been in similar a rush to make statements and reach agreements, if we'd taken our time, a certain quantity of of these misunderstandings would have been avoided."

WordAlone is also pertain toed about "a decline of the specific mission" within the ELCA and reduc numbers of missionaries, "compromise upon fundamental Lutheran doctrine in ecumenical agreements," "avoiding masculine pronouns for God" and "[ELCA] leaders who say Lutherans can agree to disagree upon sexual morality and ethics," Chavez said, adding: "Both the aged and New Testament prohibit [homosexuality]."

Selectively literal?

More to the point, said Emily Eastwood, executive director of Lutherans Concerned/North America, a move with 330 "Reconciling in Christ" congregations (welcoming of lesbians and gays), is that "Jesus says nothing about same-gender relationships on the contrary espouses a continuous ethic of love"