CORE in a bind

Lutheran CORE is trying to assert itself as the center of resistance to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's (ELCA) new policy on gay partnered clergy.  If you want to leave the ELCA, you can join CORE, which is planning to form a new denomination for these congregations next year.  If you want to stay in the ELCA, but register a protest by joining CORE, you can do that too.

So far, about 200 congregations, out of 10,000, have taken votes to leave the ELCA.  Most have passed, some have not.  Now that we've moved past Christmas, no doubt many more congregations will be grappling with whether or not to stay in the ELCA.

A national denomination needs at least 1000 congregations to have much impact or get much notice.  The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod (WELS) has about 400,000 members in about 1000 congregations, and hardly anybody outside of Lutheran circles even knows they exist. 

Unless there is some new groundswell, it seems doubtful to me that CORE will reach that 1000 congregation threshold.  The first congregations to leave--the "low-hanging fruit," you might say--were those who were so outraged at the churchwide assembly's decision that they feel compelled to do so.

Beyond that, though, how do you sell a new denomination whose basic philosophy is distinguished by opposition?  For most of the dissidents, the ELCA was more or less fine until it opened the door for partnered gay clergy.  A new denomination formed on the basis of opposition to that decision has, right from the start, defined itself negatively.  (One wag suggested "Not-in-my-Lutheran-Church" as a name for the new denomination.) 

Robert Benne, professor at the Roanoke College Center for Religion and Spirituality and member of the CORE board, seems to understand this.  Benne offers ten criticisms of the ELCA, saying that "our movement is not obsessed about one or two issues, but rather is a holistic response to a systemic problem."  It's not just about gays, in other words.

Maybe so, but the first item on his list is gays.  "The acceptance of homosexual conduct," he writes, "has become the 'line in the sand' separating revisionist from orthodox Christianity."  If that's the "line in the sand," then that's the issue.

The first thing CORE must do, he says, is leave behind "the heterodox arrogance by which the leadership of the ELCA has ignored the clear meaning of Scripture."  Notice that it's the "leadership" which is in the wrong, not those rank-and-file folks who did the actual voting.  When in doubt, take a swipe at the supposed "elites". 

In truth, the leadership of the ELCA had almost nothing to do with the August vote.  Those who supported change worked through the established processes of the church.  It wasn't a decision handed down from on high.  It came from the "grass roots."  To accuse the leadership of "heterodox arrogance" is mere hyperbolic fluff borne of frustration.

After that, he rakes the ELCA for being too nice (number two) and not hitting people with enough sin, judgment, and firey hell, then calls for a reinvigoration of heirarchy (number three/nine) because bishops and theologians know better.  The ELCA "allowed a lay-dominated bi-annual assembly to vote on Christian doctrine" and diminished "the influence of the learned and experienced." 

But wait.  Wasn't that vote because of the "heterodox arrogance" of the ELCA leadership?  Now you're telling us it was because lay people are too ignorant to know what they're doing, and what they need is the "learned and experienced"--i.e. anyone who agrees with me--to tell them what to do.  Turns out Benne was for the "elites" before he was against them.  

Item number six is a potpourri of grievance that seems to be centered in something called "hypersensitive feminism."  This has caused all sorts of horrible things--environmentalism, multiculturalism--and "a near-hysterical revulsion against our mostly white, middle-class, Euro-American composition."  Since the ELCA is mainly white, middle-class, and Euro-American, we must be afflicted with "hysterical revulsion" at ourselves.  (One supposes that if Jews can be "self-loathing," so can Lutherans.) 

In item nine, Benne asserts that CORE's ecumenical trajectory should be toward Rome and the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS), which is not surprising since, even though Benne wants to assert that it's not about gays, they both agree with CORE on gays--"intrinsically disordered," says Rome;  "intrinisically sinful," says the LCMS.

The "gay issue" is either explicit (one,six) or implicit (two, three, nine) in half the gripes on his list.  The other issues he touches upon--evangelism (four), theological education (five), "catholicity" (seven), advocacy (eight), "pretentious buildings" (ten)--feel tacked on in order to expand the list of grievances to the nice round number of 10.  (Why did Luther quit at 95?  He should have gone for 100.)

Benne has struggled mightily, but brought forth a mouse.  The "gay issue" remains the "line in the sand," and this question remains for CORE:  Is there a way to be a new denomination that isn't defined by its opposition on one issue?  Benne has tried to find a way to say "yes," but, after all his efforts, the answer still appears to be "no."  

Comments

[toujoursdan]

The similarities to the rhetoric we had to endure are amazing. They definitely learned from our right-wing.

[DKSampson]

Our break-aways say it isn't about gays, it is about Biblical interpretation. Of course, most of them are still angry over ordination of women...

[John Petty]

The Biblical angle is, to me, the most galling. They simply pronounce that the Bible supports their view, when it flat doesn't.

[Jody]

I am still waiting for even one of the CORE supporters at our church to explain why they don't just join the LCMS. They have yet to explain why ordaining women is not just as forbidden by the Bible as ordaining partnered gay men.

The reliance on the Creation story is especially odd to me, and has been since 2005. If you're going to go the "but God intended this type of partnership route, and deviations are a sign of fallen humanity," then why not be just as fired up about female subordination as a consequence of Eve's fall?

The lack of consistency, especially from people with pretty vigorous theological training, baffles me.

[Rob Horne]

I appreciate your critique of the Lutheran CORE movement. While I am theologically and politically conservative, I have had my own misgivings of Lutheran CORE's approach to 'reform'. You are spot on in your assessment that CORE is being defined by what they are against, and not what they stand form. They may garner some support, but I have difficulty seeing a large groundswell that would propel them to a point of parity with the ELCA. I don't know that they should, however, want to be on parity with the ELCA or any of the mainline protestant denominations. This whole process has turned me off to denominational structure and church authority. CORE feels to much like a church denomination to me and I am discovering that I am much more comfortable in a congregational model for church polity based on church associations.

[Steve Miller]

I am a gay man, raised in the LCMS. I had wanted to go to seminary ever since I was a teenager.

Then I went to Concordia and found that it (and, by proxy, the seminaries they feed) were filled with law-thumping, dour-faced, angry young men. That was not my scene.

It wasn't until this whole "scandal" broke that the thought of entering a seminary ever re-entered my mind.

My point here? You win some, you lose some.

Great post.

[John Petty]

Jody, you are right about the centrality of the creation story for the "dissenters." I went to a conservative discussion board and asked them to make their best case for me. They tended to assert Genesis 1-2. (Someone then said, "So God blessed procreation. It does not follow that God condemns all other arrangements.")

Rob, considering all that religious heirarchies have done over the centuries, skepticism about them seems a good policy. That said, I commend Bishop Hanson for the job he's done so far.

Steve, my sympathies. How about one of our fine ELCA seminaries?