The problem with the big tent is that not all the acts can share the ring. The lion act and the miniature ponies don't belong in the same space, neither will the high wire act want to share the ring while the firewater is spouting it off below.
That is an ELCA problem and will be for a while to come. We want to be diverse. The problem is that diversity turns into division in one simple action: assertion of one's position. If the liberal and the conservative merely live next to one another, there really is no problem. We have done that and are doing that in many things as is the LCMS. It becomes division and hostility when someone asserts that their view is "the right one." The implication being that the other side needs to convert.
As soon as either side asserts that diversity is nice but that their side is "right" diversity ends and division starts and all kinds of political bullying and other unsavory tactics will be pulled out. Once that starts, and it started in ELCA over 10 years ago, it is a goat rodeo to try to restore diversity think because the fighting mechanisms and habits of the factions will not just go away. 2009 was an attempt to create a framework to make a move to diversity happen. I am not so sure it can be done by such simple fiat. You cannot legislate humility and you cannot sign a cease fire agreement on behalf of a parties you do not represent.
BTW: You have to accept diversity as a value for any of this in the first place. No problem there.
So part of the bargain is to agree that no position can be held to be the right position, all positions are, if not equally likely, at least potentially right - a sort of assumed equality among positions? I may like my position better than yours, but I can't say that what I believe is right if that would make your position wrong? It seems to me that among other things it calls on everyone to hold their position kind of lightly and not actually argue for it for that would imply one position is right and the other one wrong.
How post-modern.
That still does not deal with the implied bias affirmed by some in the ELCA that while the traditionalist position will be tolerated, it will not be supported, while the revisionist position is supported, or at least informs the actual policy and workings of the ELCA.
Dan
Dan,
Two things: Yes, it is post modern in a way but if you think about it, families do this all the time. My brothers and I are "diverse" in our political views. At the same time we get along quite well. What happens when one of us just cannot resist talking politics? Angry faces and swollen voices. What holds us together? Well, we are brothers. COuld it happen that we get in so deep a fight with one another that we would permanently take a vacation from one another? It is possible I would suppose - other families have done so. We know that some subjects will be divisive and we stray there only with much care.
I would think that we continue to work under the assumption that the ELCA is a very cohesive family with deep roots in this faith we call Lutheran and have cherished through the generations. It is an assumption that the generation that worked out the merger worked under and it is the assumption that allowed them to leave even important things unresolved in the trust that, since we will do it like we always have, we can afford to wait a spell before we make a definite decision. Being from three different ways of being church, I think that was a big mistake since the closeness we assumed was not as abundant as we dreamed.
As I look at my own congregation and the congregation that surround me, it occurs to me that generational adherence and deep roots in Lutheranism, ELCA, ALC, LCA, are in the minority. Many of my colleagues and I are in congregations that have dipped into the pool of unchurched, loose Catholics, Methodist, etc. Life time members, Lutheran or congregational, are a minority where I travel.
This challenges the base assumption that we are just a happy family that will live through thick and thin and stick together in spite of our difference. We are not an organic whole. People can "check out," and do. They have done it before after all and all was well with them. Add to this this point: To some extent, memories of better places, Lutheran (ALC, LCA) and otherwise, make the idea of departing palatable even to Lutherans. 'The world will not end. It is just a corporate affiliation. We changed it once before. Why not now." And again the idea of this organic whole that the LIFT process held up is challenged. We are not this one happy family. A deep value and a grand dream, the a dream of a united Lutherandom on American shores, is being challenged.
Which brings me to the second point: People do not like it when their base assumptions are challenged and people do not like it when some reject the base assumption hard enough to walk away. Right now it is conservatives who are walking off so they are the ones that are raising the ire of those who want to think that we are just a one happy family. As conservatives walk off, their friends who chose to stay will be viewed with suspicion. That is what I think brings in the bias against conservatives you are trying to understand.
The question is well asked: What holds any denomination together? Maybe you can answer it for the LCMS, Dan. But, don't come to me with "subscription to the confessions." That makes you Lutheran. What makes you LCMS to the point that you will never walk away? What glues any of us into our denominations, in the corporate entity sense of the word? "Because we got <fill in the blank> right?" That can change, can't it? "Because it is here where I found out about God and God's amazing Grace?" Thankfulness? That has limits and we all know it. Congregations go through turmoil when pastor Bludwizc leaves after 30 years of ministry because "He was the guy who first taught me about God's amazing Grace and maybe now it is time to go on." Subtitle: I was only sticking around to thank Pastor but now . . .
I know this is a touchy subject to raise: What keeps you <fill in alphabet sup combination of your choice>? But, does it not go to the heart of the issue in Eau Claire or many places in ELCA where churches and individuals have been leaving in the last two years and where bishops and others are trying to find reasons for people to stay? All while we are still in division I might add.
