Own Up to It CORE: You Left the ELCA.

It seems as if Lutheran CORE (COalition for REnewal) made an official announcement that it will be sponsoring a new denomination named, "North American Lutheran Church" (NALC). Two things immediately strike me, and neither one has to do with the issues that were the catalysts to this separation.

First: In its press release regarding the formation of another Lutheran body, Lutheran Core states, again, that members and member churches of CORE are not leaving the ELCA but that the ELCA has left them. I am not so sure why it is so important to the leadership of CORE to continually announce this. If CORE's focus is no longer to reform the ELCA then what difference does it make if CORE left the ELCA or if the ELCA has left CORE?

But since it has been brought up, again, I challenge this erroneous notion that the ELCA left the faithful Christians of CORE. I think, and this is just my assumption, that the reason for claiming that the ELCA has left CORE is to express that CORE is on the correct side of the whole invisible verses visible understanding of the true church.

For those who are not Lutheran, this doctrine basically states that the true church of Jesus Christ is not found in buildings and denominational hierarchies, which are signs of the visible church. The invisible church is wherever the faithful are gathered around the Gospel purely preached, the sacraments administered rightly and the people sent out in faith to follow and bear witness to Christ. The visible church can, and hopefully does as much as possible, overlap the invisible church, but does not necessarily do so. During the Reformation, when parts of the church had to function without the Roman hierarchy, it was an important truth to emphasize that it is faith in Christ, not a line of religious leaders, that truly defines Christ's Church.

And, it very well may be necessary for CORE to do so today; I'm not making a commentary on that in this post. But this whole "ELCA left us" propaganda to announce the formation of a new Lutheran denomination has also been referenced in some past comments and commentaries linking it with Luther's stand against Pope Leo X. The big difference is, off course, Luther did not leave Rome; Rome kicked him out. Rome literally did leave Luther by giving him an ultimatum to renounce what he knew to be Christian truths or to be excommunicated. No such demand has been given to Lutheran CORE. No congregation is being forced out or being condemned as outside Christ's means of grace because of positions that do not conform to the changes that came from the Churchwide Assembly last August.

Therefore, with all respect to the leaders of Lutheran CORE, CORE has left the ELCA. And perhaps history will judge this to be the correct and faithful response, but the leaders of CORE are not correct in maintaining that somehow their culpability for a schism of the visible church of the ELCA was not initiated by CORE. In fact, if the leaders of CORE truly believe that their positions are correct and that forming a new Lutheran denomination in North America is the next logical step, they should have the confidence to claim responsibility for the separation instead of claiming the martyr's role of having the ELCA leave them.

Second: The argument that CORE has been forced out of the ELCA because it forces faithful Christians to be in communion with a heterodox denomination that denies the plain sense understanding of Scripture is illogical. CORE has consistently claimed that the ELCA leadership and the Churchwide Assemblies do not represent the beliefs of a majority of Lutherans or Lutheran congregations in the ELCA. Well, if a majority of Lutherans and Lutheran congregations do not agree with the ELCA leadership, then this means that the leaders of Lutheran CORE are advocating for an exodus from a denomination in which a majority of the people and congregations agree with their positions. Is it not Lutheran CORE, then, who is placing more importance upon the externals of the visible church than the core elements of the invisible church that truly unites the body of Christ in faith?

Plus, I have never seen Lutherans more energized or showing more interest in the issues confronting the church that they are right now. If people are finally energized to take action, and a majority of the people in the ELCA are in agreement with the positions of Lutheran CORE, then it makes no sense to leave the ELCA now and form a new denomination. The vote changing clergy standards passed by one single vote. Given all the concern and disapproval being expressed from various parts of the ELCA, is it not a definite possibility that this one vote decision could be reversed at the next Churchwide Assembly and that reform in the ELCA structure sympathetic to Lutheran CORE's values could be initiated? But since CORE has decided to sponsor a new denomination and will be wooing like-minded people and congregations out of the ELCA, then there will be no opposition to the very policies that Lutheran CORE wishes to challenge in a church body that supposedly, right now, has a majority that is sympathetic to those very same concerns.

As I stated earlier, history may prove that what the leadership of Lutheran CORE has initiated to be a bold, faithful decision that will better the mission of the Gospel. But from my position, right now, all Lutheran CORE or the North American Lutheran Church seems to be is another meaningless acronym with its own ax to grind. I suspect that a majority of Lutherans feel caught between the extremes right now just like a majority of Americans do between Kieth Oberman's self-righteous rants and Bill O'Riley's "no-spin" spins. Even when one side or the other is right, the obnoxiousness of it all makes many of us wish that they would both just shut up.