Is the ALPB Forum Online a safe space?

[Brian Stoffregen]

A couple of things that I learned in mediation training also apply here. People tend to overemphasize the importance of things that are important to them and underemphasize the importance of things that are important to others. They also tend to underestimate their own ability to cope, to change, and to accept less than they want without serious harm. And to also then over estimate what others can and should do along those lines. It's human nature not really a function of conservatives or liberals. The same applies to groups.

Perhaps an illustration of this in a non-religious setting: are the family members in the emergency room who believe that their loved one's issues are the most important ones in the universe (or at least the hospital,) without considering that there could be other people with even more severe injuries who are in greater need of the staff's attention.


Included under the word "important" may also be the word "personal."


It's one thing to talk about closed communion (whether the LCMS's version or even the ELCA's policy of the sacrament being only for the baptized, which some disagree with,) and another level when a family member or friend is denied the sacrament because of those doctrines.

[RDPreus]

Advocating that we be "polite" is nice, but we have varying definitions of what that means. I think "out east" we are a bit more comfortable with forceful words, loud words, even sort-of angry words than some folks in the midwest. Just yesterday, I was having a face-to-face contretemps with a medical supply company, disorganized and slow to deliver, and the woman said, "You don't have to shout."
   I responded, "I'm from New Jersey, that's how we talk, and it's nowhere near shouting."
   In this modest forum, I have tried not to declare someone "un-Lutheran" or "un-Christian" or "un-Biblical," though my language may at times have indicated I find other aspects of their belief and personality to be gravely flawed.
   In covering New Jersey state and local politics, and having covered some DC politicos, I found that - until now - they could rant, rail, and rave about another member of the body during the debate, then go out to dinner together. It wasn't personal. (That may have changed in today's settings.)
   But in church disputes, it is often "personal" or "eternal" or so earth-and-heaven shaking that rancor and nastiness abides.
I mentioned years ago how - when I worked for the Lutheran Council in the USA - Jack Preus came to a 1971 annual meeting and tried to get me and my boss, the great Erik Modean, fired because we had covered the growing troubles in the LCMS. Jack had been on a "world tour" and because the LWF ran our stories, everyone he met asked him about the controversy, which was a story for us because it was causing the LCMS to break fellowship with the ALC.
   His efforts to get us canned failed.
   That night, Erik and I were in a booth near the bar of the Grammercy Park Hotel, when Jack and Milt Carpenter and another LCMS rep came in. They sat at the bar, and in a few minutes Jack left the bar and came to our table. Instantly - while I was preparing to run for cover - Jack and Erik began reminiscing and laughing about some of the "old days" (Erik had been around since the late 1950s) and some of the folks they both knew, including ALPB notable Ade Meyer.) That went on for about an hour and when the last round of drinks came, Jack had our tab put on his bill.
Having grown up in a political family, he knew that opponents in policy need not be deadly enemies. A lot of church folks don't know that.

Having experienced the passive aggressive approach of Minnesota Nice as well as the in your face bluntness of New Jersey (I usually attribute it to New York, but then all those eastern states look the same to me), I will take the latter over the former.  Polite is great!  But clarity and honesty is better.  In Minnesota, "that's interesting" means "you're an idiot!  You don't know what you're talking about."     

[Donald_Kirchner]

Advocating that we be "polite" is nice, but we have varying definitions of what that means. I think "out east" we are a bit more comfortable with forceful words, loud words, even sort-of angry words than some folks in the midwest. Just yesterday, I was having a face-to-face contretemps with a medical supply company, disorganized and slow to deliver, and the woman said, "You don't have to shout."
   I responded, "I'm from New Jersey, that's how we talk, and it's nowhere near shouting."
   In this modest forum, I have tried not to declare someone "un-Lutheran" or "un-Christian" or "un-Biblical," though my language may at times have indicated I find other aspects of their belief and personality to be gravely flawed.
   In covering New Jersey state and local politics, and having covered some DC politicos, I found that - until now - they could rant, rail, and rave about another member of the body during the debate, then go out to dinner together. It wasn't personal. (That may have changed in today's settings.)
   But in church disputes, it is often "personal" or "eternal" or so earth-and-heaven shaking that rancor and nastiness abides.
I mentioned years ago how - when I worked for the Lutheran Council in the USA - Jack Preus came to a 1971 annual meeting and tried to get me and my boss, the great Erik Modean, fired because we had covered the growing troubles in the LCMS. Jack had been on a "world tour" and because the LWF ran our stories, everyone he met asked him about the controversy, which was a story for us because it was causing the LCMS to break fellowship with the ALC.
   His efforts to get us canned failed.
   That night, Erik and I were in a booth near the bar of the Grammercy Park Hotel, when Jack and Milt Carpenter and another LCMS rep came in. They sat at the bar, and in a few minutes Jack left the bar and came to our table. Instantly - while I was preparing to run for cover - Jack and Erik began reminiscing and laughing about some of the "old days" (Erik had been around since the late 1950s) and some of the folks they both knew, including ALPB notable Ade Meyer.) That went on for about an hour and when the last round of drinks came, Jack had our tab put on his bill.
Having grown up in a political family, he knew that opponents in policy need not be deadly enemies. A lot of church folks don't know that.

Having experienced the passive aggressive approach of Minnesota Nice as well as the in your face bluntness of New Jersey (I usually attribute it to New York, but then all those eastern states look the same to me), I will take the latter over the former.  Polite is great!  But clarity and honesty is better.  In Minnesota, "that's interesting" means "you're an idiot!  You don't know what you're talking about." 

But Rolf, so long as you can translate, it's better being dissed sweetly than with New Jersey F-bombs! 😉

"Minnesota Nice: A complex term. It's a spirit of genuine goodwill, i.e., having jumper cables in the trunk so you'll always be able to help. But it's also an emotional reserve that, while unfailingly polite, keeps folks at a distance. Some equate this with passive-aggressiveness, which just goes to show you can't please everyone, right?"

https://static.startribune.com/guide/items/true_mn_glossary.html

[Steven W Bohler]

Advocating that we be "polite" is nice, but we have varying definitions of what that means. I think "out east" we are a bit more comfortable with forceful words, loud words, even sort-of angry words than some folks in the midwest. Just yesterday, I was having a face-to-face contretemps with a medical supply company, disorganized and slow to deliver, and the woman said, "You don't have to shout."
   I responded, "I'm from New Jersey, that's how we talk, and it's nowhere near shouting."
   In this modest forum, I have tried not to declare someone "un-Lutheran" or "un-Christian" or "un-Biblical," though my language may at times have indicated I find other aspects of their belief and personality to be gravely flawed.
   In covering New Jersey state and local politics, and having covered some DC politicos, I found that - until now - they could rant, rail, and rave about another member of the body during the debate, then go out to dinner together. It wasn't personal. (That may have changed in today's settings.)
   But in church disputes, it is often "personal" or "eternal" or so earth-and-heaven shaking that rancor and nastiness abides.
I mentioned years ago how - when I worked for the Lutheran Council in the USA - Jack Preus came to a 1971 annual meeting and tried to get me and my boss, the great Erik Modean, fired because we had covered the growing troubles in the LCMS. Jack had been on a "world tour" and because the LWF ran our stories, everyone he met asked him about the controversy, which was a story for us because it was causing the LCMS to break fellowship with the ALC.
   His efforts to get us canned failed.
   That night, Erik and I were in a booth near the bar of the Grammercy Park Hotel, when Jack and Milt Carpenter and another LCMS rep came in. They sat at the bar, and in a few minutes Jack left the bar and came to our table. Instantly - while I was preparing to run for cover - Jack and Erik began reminiscing and laughing about some of the "old days" (Erik had been around since the late 1950s) and some of the folks they both knew, including ALPB notable Ade Meyer.) That went on for about an hour and when the last round of drinks came, Jack had our tab put on his bill.
Having grown up in a political family, he knew that opponents in policy need not be deadly enemies. A lot of church folks don't know that.

Having experienced the passive aggressive approach of Minnesota Nice as well as the in your face bluntness of New Jersey (I usually attribute it to New York, but then all those eastern states look the same to me), I will take the latter over the former.  Polite is great!  But clarity and honesty is better.  In Minnesota, "that's interesting" means "you're an idiot!  You don't know what you're talking about." 

That's interesting. 

[Dan Fienen]

Curious, we are being told that for a certain participant who hails from New Jersey or New York a certain bluntness, brusqueness, even harshness of expression is to be expected even welcomed as his natural mode of expression. Meanwhile, from this same participant we've received bitter complaints that other posters have driven away others of his comrades by being too harsh in their posting.

[Donald_Kirchner]

He's from Iowa!

New Jerseyite is a persona. But it works, I guess.

[Charles Austin]

Twenty two years in Iowa, 18 of those years as a callow youth. Fifty one years in New York/New Jersey, as an adult and a lot of those years in a rough and tumble profession. It's good that the years in Europe and big doses of international work and travel gave this humble correspondent some sophistication and polish. 

[David Garner]

Polite is great!  But clarity and honesty is better.  In Minnesota, "that's interesting" means "you're an idiot!  You don't know what you're talking about." 

In the South we just say "bless your heart......"

[James S. Rustad]

Twenty two years in Iowa, 18 of those years as a callow youth. Fifty one years in New York/New Jersey, as an adult and a lot of those years in a rough and tumble profession. It's good that the years in Europe and big doses of international work and travel gave this humble correspondent some sophistication and polish. 

That's interesting.  Bless your heart.

[Dan Fienen]

Peter:
The (f?)act that it hurts your feelings that anyone would think or say that about you is your problem.

Me:
Lord, have mercy! Do you think my "feelings" are hurt or, if so, that it matters? No. No. And No. That's not where we are here.
What matters is how you regard those of us in the ELCA and the import you place on our differences. You accuse us of working against the Church. Your accusations go far beyond the label of heterodoxy or even heresy. Your assessment is that we have abandoned the faith, and done so - in your opinion - for profane reasons.
How nice that you have "good friends" who are ELCA, although any of us might even say that about atheists or worse. And we're not talking about friendship, we are talking about relations within the Body of Christ.
Your church body has not even denounced us as fervently as you do (although I think many in it, like you, want to).
And within the framework of ALPB, we are supposed to be fostering understanding and cooperation, and perhaps even fellowship somewhere down the line. Your words and attitudes do not fit those efforts one bit. As much as I dislike and (in my heart of hearts sometimes mock) some things within the LCMS, I consider you a valid Lutheran denomination and a full partner in the Church, the Body of Christ. You cannot do that for us.
So I'm sad, not hurt, but sad that your views get strewn around within ALPB circles. Others in your LCMS arenas over the years started their own communications networks to hammer us. I don't like seeing you use ALPB to do so.

Brain has compared some of us to the Pharisees who opposed and agitated against Jesus. You have stated that you think that we refuse to listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, that our positions are based not on Scripture or on faith but on our own fears, preferences, and cultural orientation. You demand as the basis for discussion that your positions be treated as equally valid Lutheran positions as anyone else's. To say that the ELCA is wrong in some of what they have done or said is to undermine inter Lutheran relations and violate the purpose of ALPB, which seems to be to provide a forum for you to enlighten the rest of us. At least that seems to be what you consider your mission among us.


Harsh, even over the top rhetoric has been a part of life here on the Forum for as long as I have been here, and it has not all come from the knuckle draggers from the LCMS. We used to be compared to donkeys until you decided that was slander against the noble creature donkeys. 

[Donald_Kirchner]

"I fear that the Church has lost its prophetic voice," Bishop of Providence Thomas Tobin tweeted Friday. "Where are the John the Baptists who will confront the Herods of our day?"

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-slammed-catholic-priests-meeting-pope-francis-communion

[Charles Austin]

So the US Catholic bishops are going to take on the pope and object to the words of the pope. Good luck with that. It's going to be fun to watch.
Guess who requires them to submit their resignations at a certain age and guess who appoints their successors.

[Donald_Kirchner]

So, again you miss the point, Charles 🙄

[Charles Austin]

So enlighten me.

[Brian Stoffregen]

"I fear that the Church has lost its prophetic voice," Bishop of Providence Thomas Tobin tweeted Friday. "Where are the John the Baptists who will confront the Herods of our day?"

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-slammed-catholic-priests-meeting-pope-francis-communion

Hmmm, was John the Baptist a Christian or Jewish prophet? I am certain that his baptism was not a Christian baptism.