Fighting the Wrong Battle

Rev. Roland J. Wells, Jr.

I. We've had ten Years of Talking Past Each Other on Moral Issues

In the first decade of the new ELCA, we have seen a church torn apart over several battles which have created more heat than light. Our church has been torn asunder, support of the church has fallen greatly, and we have recalled our professional, lifetime missionaries to point that was unthinkable a decade ago.

We were forced to deal with an original abortion statement which would have made our church pro-choice. As it is now, we have a weak pro-life abortion statement which is so poorly written, creating confusion in interpretation, that it couldnt pass freshman English. Worse, it can be interpreted contrary to its direct wording!

More inflammatory, we faced the issue of acceptance of the gay/lesbian lifestyle and whether this is acceptable for our clergy. How we have changed! Under the old ALC Conduct Unbecoming Clergy document, if a pastor ran up bad debts or was unable to get along with lay leaders, these were grounds for removal from the Clergy Roster of the church! Indeed, those are understandable--but to have a serious discussion on whether or not practicing homosexuals, even monogamous practicing homosexuals can enter the clergy roster would have seemed utterly impossible twenty years ago! But that's what happens when forces within our church leadership have seen this as their number one agenda.

Even so, as threatening as these things seem to loving, joyful Christians, these issues are not the real problem facing the church. In fact, the conservatives are speaking to a whole different concern than that which the left wing of the church are pushing. We are talking past each other.

II. The Impact of Liberation Theology

For example, the left wing have approached the gay/lesbian issue in terms of a liberationist method. This method came down to mainstream Protestants via liberation theology from Latin America. Liberation theology is based on the idea that God loves poor people, not just the rich and prosperous. Therefore, God always takes the side of the poor and powerless. In some ways, this was desperately needed in the Latin American countries where the church had often been on the political side of power and wealth. But it found a strange home in America.

Curiously, this theology became the darling of the liberal white guilt social activists from the 60's and 70's. These well-fed, well-housed, well-educated folks found in this a great vehicle, a socio/politically attractive vehicle, by which any oppressed people could be championed. Using the tactics developed in liberation theology and the (good) civil rights movement, it then became possible for any group to call itself marginalized and therefore worthy of the churchs backing. In the eighties, our district assemblies were filled with harangue after harangue. One marginalized group after another was championed, always with the moral certainty a full stomach brings. We had resolutions regarding South Africa, Central America, undocumented aliens, and finally the civil rights of gay/lesbian people.

III. The Method of the Liberationists

In each of these cases, liberationists used this reasoning:

1) The highlighted group were presented as being powerless within the organization or society.

2) Therefore they were an oppressed people.

3) Therefore, God is on their side, by definition, because God, by definition is on the side of the oppressed. (The God of the Liberationists can be identified by two characteristics: standing with the oppressed and unconditional love. This becomes the Gospel reduction of this group.)

4) Therefore the church should automatically see the will of God as being to put on political/social/financial pressure on the oppressing group to make Gods will come to be realized, and the Kingdom of God rule on earth.

This liberationist method became the perfect vehicle for the left because it came from the poor of the third world. Who could say anything bad about those poor people fighting the decadent rule of the rich? It was such an innocuous approach! But what it provided was a Trojan horse, which made it possible to use the conduit of support for the underdog (what could be more American or biblical?) and justify any powerless group. And thereby, anything white or male or orthodox or conservative or status quo is, by definition, part of the power structure and therefore by definition, in need of being overthrown!

III. The Method has Landed

Group after group marched down this road, basically because it wasn't nice to resist them-- God loves everybody, and we shouldn't be mean to anybody. In fact, Gods unconditional love accepts everybody as they are, and so should we.

And we bought it! Now, apartheid certainly was not a good thing, granted. But I remember one Synod assembly in the early days of the ELCA where the peacenjustice folks were pushing for divestment of funds from South Africa in the same week Nelson Mandela was begging Americans to now send their capital to build South Africa! We also backed the Sandinistas after democratic elections removed them! When global politics are boiled down to what feels nice, some strange things happen!

The liberationist agenda firmly holds much of mainline Protestantism in a death grip. Its problem is that it doesn't proclaim the Triune God as revealed in the Bible. Liberationists confuse the First Article (the creation part of the creed) concern of a just government with the Third Article reality of the Church and the Kingdom of God. Economic justice becomes the sign of the kingdom. Salvation is a piece of the action. They make Jesus Christ nothing but a good man who is an example of a liberationist political leader who was gunned down by the power mongers on the right. (--Jesus was actually Che Guevara?!?)

Now, this theological construction has not been publicly discussed or even articulated much. Until recently I've never heard any articulate refutation of this whole theology/mind set/agenda. It has been received uncritically in dozens and dozens of articles in our Lutheran and Lutheran Women Today.

IV) Conservatives Have had no Weapon

The conservatives ended up helpless before this onslaught for several reasons:

1) We didn't recognize what Liberation theology would become.

2) We couldn't effectively fight this as a heresy. because being against these kindly oppressed people would be like kicking Grandma in the shin!

3) We do not have any organizations which are anti-gay (for example). We don't want any organizations that are 'anti-gay.' Conservatives are not anti-gay. Most conservative pastors quietly love and care for gay people in every congregation, whether rural, suburban or city. On the other hand, there are several groups working single-mindedly on the gay agenda in the church, but no one has the time, desire or energy to counter say, Lutherans Concerned.

4) What is important for us is the authority of Scripture. Liberationists reduce the Gospel to God is on the side of the oppressed, and a few Bible verses give them the few Scriptural moorings they need. >From there its all just a question of siding with this years oppressed.

5) Meanwhile, the conservatives keep trying to put their fingers in the many dikes that are rupturing around them. Our church is being destroyed by a theological system that's every bit as alien to us as any other works-righteousness religion such as Islam or Mormonism.

V. More Waves are on the Way

These things will remain a challenge for us for the foreseeable future. The next wave will be a deconstructed, creation-based, self-validating feminist theology. This teaching is growing in popularity in main line Protestantism. It teaches, my feelings are the highest authority. This is the force behind the Re-imagining events. The evangelical scholars who are preparing rebuttals to this work say that responding to radical feminist theology will be difficult for two reasons:

1) Any attack on the teachings will be termed anti-woman. If conservatives protest, they can be dismissed as being hierarchical, paternalistic and Christocentric, a new dirty word in the trendy left.

2) This theology has as its foundational idea that one's own experience and feelings are the most valid judge of reality and Scripture. Therefore, if Scripture makes me feel bad, it's wrong.

VI. God's Word is our Only Defense and Hope

Again, what is at stake here is the role of the Word of God in our ELCA. Attacking these 'isms' may forestall some political power, but not make the situation any better. The only thing that can save our denomination as it marches lemming-like behind the rest of the mainline churches is the proclamation of God's Word. Only as we boldly go out to the church and teach people basic Lutheran Bible doctrine and call for personal faith can we make a difference. Only as we stand in the church and articulate how the Bible is the Word of God can we expect there to be a turn-around in our church. Only when a large number of pastors have been set free by the Word of God can we expect change.

The role of the Word of God is the heart of Lutheranism. Right now we have heart failure and plugged arteries in the church. The church has become big and flabby, unable to accomplish the task it was created to do. And its supply of life-giving blood, the Word of God, is blocked by so many accretions detrimental to its task.

That's the battle. We must choose our targets clearly, and clearly explain what's at stake. We must teach and show what's going on in these new theologies. Maybe then we can see our church turned around. God has done that several times before in Lutheranism. Get down on your knees and pray that many of our leaders will hear and answer the call to renew the church!