CrossAlone Lutheran District

In a recent news report Chilstrom carries water for the ELCA once again, attacking those leaving as fixated on sex and mixed up in general. But:

1.   Chilstrom equates the Gospel with tolerance, with a simplistic universalism of “luv.”  He needs a theological course correction, beginning with “the cross alone is our theology” (Luther).

2.   Chilstrom is blind to the fact that the ELCA is, step by step, following the Episcopal Church in the US (TEC). While 80% of Anglicans in the world go one way, TEC and its companions go another. The LWF has exactly the same percentages, with the ELCA among the 20%.

3.   The ELCA is the one focused on sex, and the so-called “bound conscience” turns out to be a one-way street.

4.   Chilstrom minimizes ELCA losses: “By the end of 2010 several hundred congregations…will have left [the ELCA].” He’s out of touch. LCMC already has over 500 congregations, and the NALC is just starting up. ELCA Secretary David D. Swartling has said that fewer congregations have left than expected but income has dropped more than expected. Moreover, many individuals have silently left from churches that won’t vote to leave or have failed to get the required 2/3’s majority vote to exit the ELCA.

5.   Again note how the balloon has slowly been going down in TEC, in spite of strong loyalty to historical roots, as both side realize what TEC leaders themselves have described as “two different religions” within the same organization.

On This Day, 1600 Years Ago, Rome Fell[1]

And, as a consequence, Augustine wrote The City of God.
Was the fall of Rome a sign of the end?
Were the Christians at fault because they had rejected the religion of the City of Man,
symbolized by Rome?
What was God doing, anyway?

“Here we have no abiding city” (Hebrews 13:14 KJV).

In our time,
again a time of chaos and collapse,
perhaps again to be followed by Dark Ages,
or even The End in 2012
that the Lord is Lord both of chaos and cosmos,
even of Western civilization,
makes all the difference.

For His city is the City of God, which He has prepared (Philippians 3:20).

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[1] On August 24, 410, for the first time in 800 years Rome fell, to an army of the Visigoths (Northern Europeans), led by Alaric, an Arian Christian general.

Having dedicated much of his life to ecumenical exchange within Christendom through leadership at the Konfessionkundliches Institut des Evangelisches Bundes in Bensheim,[1] [Professor Hans-Martin] Barth forthrightly examines how Luther also clarifies the contributions that his latter-day adherents can make to ecumenical conversation.  He notes that the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification of 1999 stands on “uneven ground” because Roman Catholics do not regard it as foundational for the church’s existence, whereas, Barth affirms, “the true church finds its identity in the message of justification” (253, cf. 294).  He also points to the fact that “the Leuenberg Concord of 1973 indeed diminished the tensions between Reformed and Lutheran understanding [of the Lord’s Supper], without being able to solve [these tensions] theologically” (324).[2]

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[1]The center for ecumenical scholarship of the Protestant churches in Germany.

[2]Lutheran Quarterly 24:2 (2010) 196, in a review by Robert Kolb of Hans-Martin Barth, Die Theologie Martin Luthers. Eine kritische Würdigung. Gütersloh:Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 2009.

In the beginning was Diversity, and Diversity was with God, and Diversity was God. Diversity was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Diversity, and without it nothing was made that was made. In Diversity was life, and the life was the light of humankind. And Diversity shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it….The true Diversity that enlightens every human was coming into the world. Diversity was in the world, and the world was made through it, yet the world knew it not….

Eternal Spirit,
Earth-maker, Pain bearer, Life-giver,
Source of all that is and that shall be,
Father and Mother of us all,
Loving God, in whom is heaven.
The hallowing of your name
echo through the universe!
The way of your justice be followed
by the peoples of the world!
Your heavenly will be done
by all created beings!
Your commonwealth of peace and freedom
sustain our hope and come on earth!
With the bread we need for today, feed us.
In the hurts we absorb from one another,
forgive us.
In times of temptation and test,
strengthen us.
From trials too great to endure, spare us.
From the grip of all that is evil, free us.
For you reign in the glory of the power
that is love, now and forever. Amen

Our Mother who is within us
we celebrate your many names.
Your wisdom come,
your will be done,
unfolding from the depths
within us.
Each day you give us all that we need.
You remind us of our limits
and we let go.
You support us in our power
and we act in courage.
For you are the dwelling place within us,
the empowerment around us,
and the celebration among us,
now and forever. Amen

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The two “Lord’s Prayers” above were used at the Rite of Reception (re-ordination) of seven GLBT ELCA pastors in San Francisco, July 25, 2010.  See the whole service here. (See page 16 for the above prayers.)

“The insistence that scripture interprets itself is simply the hermeneutical correlate of justification by faith alone.” [1]

“Take Christ out of the Scriptures and what will you find left in them?”[2]

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[1] Forde, “Authority in the Church: The Lutheran Reformation,” A more radical Gospel: Essays on Eschatology, Authority, Atonement, and Ecumenism,) LQ Books (2004) 66.

[2] LW 33:26.

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Barth famously said: “Preach with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other,” and of course the Bible is trump.  But Barth also famously rejected law and gospel for gospel and law. It makes all the difference.

When Bishop Duane C. Pederson (NW WI) in The Lutheran (August, 2010, pp. 24-25) advocates the Barthian approach, it is hard to know whether to laugh or cry. Either he is woefully ignorant or he is woefully ignorant. Lutherans have proclaimed law and gospel, and these categories do not come second. Of course we take up context and Scripture, but primary is Christ alone through grace (the cross) alone by faith alone.

When Gerhard Forde writes in the previous post:

1. “…all causes are relativized” and “…there are no levers here,” this means:

a. There is no “revealed” or “natural” law except the basic content of the law: love and care for the neighbor. Forde: “What the law enjoins is love of and service to the neighbor. That is its fundamental and ineradicable content” (Forde, “Law and Sexual Behavior,” Lutheran Quarterly 9/1 [Spring 1995]18).

b. There is no third use of the law, no particular revealed law(s) for the Christian, nor can one see through any “natural law” to discern divine intention.

2. The bottom line: “This flows from the very nature of the gospel and cannot be compromised,” and the “very essence of the matter.” If anyone exerts a “pressure which destroys this freedom, we come to a serious parting of the ways.”

This means that any and every attempt to counter antinomism by bringing back “revealed” or “natural” law, even “evangelical counsels,” contradicts the gospel (Galatians 5:1).

“First of all, if justification proceeds by way of negation, then the judgment is indeed universal and all causes are relativized. This flows from the very nature of the gospel and cannot be compromised.

“Secondly, for Luther’s theology, it seems to me that the only way from such universal negation back to the concrete is the way of freedom….The Kingdom of God indeed comes by God’s power alone, and thus one is turned back into the world for the time being to serve the neighbor….If we are to remain true to the gospel, we must realize that there are no levers here. If the movement is not one of freedom, all is lost. Moralists, social reformers, ideologues, revolutionaries, and even just plain zealous religious people may no doubt find this frustrating and maddening, but it is of the very essence of the matter. Whenever a cause is exempted from the negation, so as to exert a pressure which destroys this freedom, we come to a serious parting of the ways.”[1]

“The Gentiles are not obligated to obey Moses. Moses is the Sachsenspiegel for the Jews” (LW  35:167).

“Indeed, we would make new decalogues, as Paul does in all the epistles, and Peter, but above all Christ in the gospel” (LW  34:112).

“Take Christ out of the Scriptures and what will you find left in them?”

(LW 33:26).

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[1] Forde, “The Viability of Luther Today: A North American Perspective,” Word & World 7 (1987) 29.

Blessed are you, Father and Lord,

Who created joy and gladness, bridegroom and bride,

comfort and delight, love and friendship,

Who established marriage for the happiness

and well-being of men and women,

We thank you for the gift of love to these two,

and we rejoice on this glad occasion.

We put this marriage into your hands,

Surround them with your love now and always,

________ and ______ have joined their lives together,

Let their love for each other be a seal upon their hearts,

a mantle about their shoulders, and a crown upon their heads.

May they find all the tasks in life easier because they

Approach those tasks together.

In sickness and health may they find your strength,

In doubts and struggles may they see your light,

In hurts and failures may they find your pardon,

In loneliness and desperation may they find your joy,

May they find no cold because each is warmth to the other,

Bless them with your presence here and now and at all times,

We pray in Christ’s name,  Amen.