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It is understandable that those of us who have reaped the benefits of patriarchy might feel a little offended and put upon when it is clear that things are changing.
The fact that we feel put upon and offended indicates that we have not fully understood the offense on the other side.
Pastor Morris, you are too literal. I thought that in context my words would be read as an “as if” statement. Acting “as if” Jesus was their campaign manager. (But they do contend the have the only true Word of God.)
This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.
....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.
So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we’ve (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.
First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won’t last. I truly hope I’m wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.
The men I know who are married to other men are husband and husband.
As more folks within the Evangelical (and LCMS) camps have friends and relatives who live together without marriage or marry a same-sex partner, many will find ways to accommodate them. In a similar way, a generation or two ago, conservative churches accommodated divorced and remarried folks; or folks who married outside the faith, e.g., Lutherans who married Roman Catholics. What had been seen as forbidden, or at least discouraged, had become acceptable (or at least tolerated) rather than ostracize friends and family.
Thank you for the illustration of smog - a climate-related issue that humans caused and humans have been able to reduce.
This is part of an article I wrote for FL eight years ago after the Obergefell ruling. I've put in bold the parts I think relate well to the First Things article on David French. I remember what little feedback I got on the article being surprise that I suspected Evangelicals would prove unreliable.
....However it came to be, the fact remains that it was a long fought but ultimately resounding victory for progressives, decay being progress of a sort. And to those for whom everything is reducible to power struggles, victory by bogus judicial fiat counts the same as any other. As athletes say, a win is a win. Religious leaders who have no king but Caesar will shrug, say their hands are tied and reluctantly just go with the new reality, while those who dare not call thing what it is will naturally laud these rulings which require everyone to pretend (at least officially) that two men are husband and wife. But American churches in line with historic Christianity on this issue increasingly find themselves in a new and foreign context.
So what will happen in and to the LCMS as a result of this new context and what should we do about it now that we’ve (possibly) forgotten how to be strangers in a strange land? Allow me to offer first two predictions and then two prescriptions.
First prediction: this will not unify the LCMS. I know, I know, going way out on a limb there. But there is always the idea floating around that becoming an embattled minority will galvanize people who share a cause to put aside other differences. At first it may seem like this will happen in the LCMS; the various camps will rally together around a common identity as torch-bearers of traditional marriage. And that may seem to be happening for a little while, but it won’t last. I truly hope I’m wrong on this (stranger things have happened, I readily admit), but I think Evangelicals will soon go wobbly and this cultural change will, given enough time, simply provide another stage on which the same LCMS play is enacted.
I agree about both dueling experts and that the most hysterical ones are not objective. But let me suggest this...
Say I agree with the most dire climate predictions: now what? I've used this approach dealing with several people who are emotional to the point of hysteria. I accept for the sake of argument all your science. So what?
If we do, as Greta Thunberg demands ("how dare you!"), and stop using fossil fuels tomorrow...What comes next? You've been freed!I can tell you for one thing that millions of people will die, and it will be the most vulnerable that the caring people allegedly care about the most.
Of course, Greta has recently revealed herself as not just concerned with the environment, but also against capitalism. This is my shocked face. There is a real but not well covered split among climate activists between those who are truly trying to find alternatives, and those who would hijack the movement to achieve other, longstanding political goals. Especially their disdain for the modern industrial society we live in. (This is the problem with the Greens in Germany. They don't just hate/fear nuclear energy, they want plants decommissioned and replaced with nothing, so the country has less energy which means less industrial and yes, economic! activity.)
The reason nothing much will change about our energy sources is that we do not yet have the technology to replace fossil fuels. It's not like people aren't trying, they are numerous incentives to do so. It simply does not exist. I for one would like us to invent them, because we will eventually run out of fossil fuels, no matter the global temperature.
You can't replace something with nothing. I challenge anyone who says we need to DO SOMETHING about the climate emergency to be specific. And in that specificity, tell me exactly how much of a difference what you are proposing would make. And the negative unintended consequences.
Because that's what I think Jesus would do.
I don't say it is unworkable. I say that there is no Lutheran denomination in America that is interested in making it work. The ELCA Churchwide Assembly, by a vast majority (88% I am told) voted to abandon that experiment in 2022. Every Lutheran denomination in America is one way or the other. There is no middle. That's not a comment on your exegesis or your good will, just a lament that the day for compromise seems to be over.
Perhaps. Below is the highlight of the resolution.
ASSEMBLY Two-Thirds Vote Required
ACTION YES-708; NO-93
CA22.03.23 To authorize a possible revision of the social statement on Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust which reconsiders the church’s current concept of the four positions of bound conscience. This revision would focus on pages 19-21 (“lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships) and any other references to the four positions of bound conscience.
A revision of the statement is necessary, I believe, not so much because of the four positions of bound conscience, (I think that they accurate express the convictions of people in the ELCA,) but because it was created before same-sex marriages were recognized throughout the U.S., so "lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships" was used.
What about the text of the amendment?
The minutes of the Assembly have not been posted, so I don't have the full text or the discussion.
Then why didn't you say so, instead of pretending that the resolution was what I was talking about? You knew that I was referring to the amendment.
Nothing I found on actions of CWA22 mentioned an amendment.
Rather than just "a highlight" which isn't much more than the title of the action, reading the "Summary" itself may help reveal what happened
(or given possible secret handshake code/jargon, maybe not...). Anyway,
https://download.elca.org/ELCA%20Resource%20Repository/Summary_of_2022_CWA_Actions.pdf?_ga=2.120743432.1823308662.1669307740-352950788.1669307740 .
That's what I copied and pasted in the purple.
I don't say it is unworkable. I say that there is no Lutheran denomination in America that is interested in making it work. The ELCA Churchwide Assembly, by a vast majority (88% I am told) voted to abandon that experiment in 2022. Every Lutheran denomination in America is one way or the other. There is no middle. That's not a comment on your exegesis or your good will, just a lament that the day for compromise seems to be over.
Perhaps. Below is the highlight of the resolution.
ASSEMBLY Two-Thirds Vote Required
ACTION YES-708; NO-93
CA22.03.23 To authorize a possible revision of the social statement on Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust which reconsiders the church’s current concept of the four positions of bound conscience. This revision would focus on pages 19-21 (“lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships) and any other references to the four positions of bound conscience.
A revision of the statement is necessary, I believe, not so much because of the four positions of bound conscience, (I think that they accurate express the convictions of people in the ELCA,) but because it was created before same-sex marriages were recognized throughout the U.S., so "lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships" was used.
What about the text of the amendment?
The minutes of the Assembly have not been posted, so I don't have the full text or the discussion.
Then why didn't you say so, instead of pretending that the resolution was what I was talking about? You knew that I was referring to the amendment.
Nothing I found on actions of CWA22 mentioned an amendment.
I think some of this may hinge on how we understand good works themselves, and bearing fruit. Do they come from ourselves or are they an outgrowth of the Holy Spirit working within us. I tend to lean on the latter.
