How Far Is the Great Divide...
...between the ELCA and the LCMS?
A good friend of mine is an ELCA pastor and actually has served on the ELCA Task Force for Human Sexuality. Most observers seem pretty convinced that at the next Churchwide Assembly in 2009, the ELCA will officially hold the position that homosexuals should be ordained and their unions should be consecrated by the church. With that sort of departure from historic Christianity, the logical conclusion is that there will be many who will choose to leave the ELCA.
The question I then ask is, "Will those who leave the ELCA find a home in Missouri?" Or is the divide already too great? OR...has the LCMS been doing enough shifting of its own to compensate for the shift in the ELCA?
2 comments:
what do you think the answer to those questions are?
Hmmmm...I think one of the challenges the ELCA faces is that its spectrum of theological thought is so large. While there are conservative theologians and conservative laypeople in the ELCA, the spectrum extends so far left as to include all the fads of liberal Christianity. I see the leadership of the ELCA falling into the left end of that spectrum, by and large.
I wonder if the same thing is happening in Missouri. I think the spectrum may be getting larger. Although it's not nearly as far left reaching as the ELCA, it's widening rapidly. I think the gap between the most "conservative" LCMS pastors and the most "liberal" LCMS pastors is getting bigger and bigger.
I believe the direction of the LCMS could be determined when the fallout from the ELCA takes place. Remember--during the walkout in the 70s, our most liberal LCMS theologians became the ones who charted the course for what we now know as ELCA. It may be time to pay the piper...it could be their "conservative" theologians (which are still liberal by LCMS standards) that will chart the course for Missouri.
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