One Pastor's Thoughts

You are not alone facing this mystery; we all struggle to understand the complexity of life. Rushford Lutheran Church is a place where you can come to learn about God's love for you, where you can grow in faith, use your gifts, and a place where you can share your joys and sorrows in a community of care, compassion and faith. We invite you to come and to experience the difference this makes in your life.

For more information about the mission and ministry at Rushford Lutheran Church please call (507) 864-7152 or e-mail rlc@acegroup.cc

Pastor's Thoughts

Our congregation will vote in just a few days after you have received this newsletter.  I hope the voting result will show a congregation that has put aside differences and has decided to move ahead with unity; however, I fear it will show, once again, a split in our congregation of how we understand the Bible.  Let me share with you my journey in that understanding.

I grew up in a Lutheran Church that taught us God's Word is the light unto our feet to guide us in our daily living.  The Holy Scriptures provided the teachings by which we were to live out our daily calling as Christians in the world.  When I was ordained into the American Lutheran Church, I took a vow to abide by and uphold the teachings of the church.  To preach, teach, or live contrary to my ordination vows would be heresy.  In October, 1980, the ALC put out a social statement titled, “Human Sexuality and Sexual Behavior,” in which it stated, This church regards the practice of homosexual erotic behavior as contrary to God's intent for his children.  It rejects the contention that homosexual behavior is simply another form of sexual behavior equally valid with the dominant male/female pattern.  The social statement also addressed the issue of abortion: We view abortion as a fundamentally inappropriate means of birth control.  Indeed, willful abortion—the sacrifice of a fetal life—is always an offense against God and the human spirit.

The Lutheran Church in America also put out similar statements at that time.  After the merger of the ALC, LCA, and the AELC (Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches—a breakaway group from the LCMS), both of these social statements have been reversed.  How could things change so quickly in just twenty years?  The answer is in the leadership of the ELCA.  Herbert Chilstrom was voted in as the first presiding bishop of the ELCA.  It soon became apparent that Chilstrom wanted changes made.  He did not view abortion as something against God's will but rather a woman's choice.  He did not regard the practice of homosexuality as something contrary to God's will but as a normal sexual lifestyle.  Chilstrom then set up committees, or taskforces, to work at overturning the recent social statements. 

I watched and listened to what was going on, thinking these things won't happen.  Most of the other pastors thought as I did, that these changes will never happen.  I didn't realize the power of the bishop or the way politics is played out in the church.  When you can put on the task force who you want, you can stack it to say whatever you want it to say.  This is what has happened with all the social statements that have come out of the ELCA.  In just a few years the statement on abortion was overturned and last year the social statement on sexuality was adopted, overturning those made thirty years earlier.

The question remains, however, as to why have our presiding bishops and many of our pastors taken these positions that are opposite to what the church has always taught?  They are part of a group of theologians who have a new theology to which they adhere.  It is called revision theology.  They believe that the only basic truth we need to get from the Bible is that God loves us and Jesus is the Son of God and saves us from our sins.  Everything else in the Bible is not binding on our faith.

Social justice is very important to revision theologians.  Since they view homosexuality as a social justice issue, the teachings in the Bible against homosexuality become irrelevant.  Since God is love and everybody is loved by somebody, and certainly by God, then everybody will be saved.  Universal salvation is a strong teaching among revision theologians, even though the Bible teaches us otherwise.

After the churchwide assembly in August of 2009, I was still with the ELCA.  I was dazed but somehow I believed that this could be corrected.  Groups like WordAlone and CORE have been working within the ELCA

for many years to try and get the ELCA back to the center.  They have failed and now recommend leaving the ELCA.  Last fall I attended a conference at Roseville Lutheran Church in the cities put on by WordAlone.  There I met Dr. Preus and Dr. Crumley, the two presidents of the predecessor church bodies.  Dr. Preus was with the ALC and Dr. Crumley was with the LCA.  Both have been working hard to correct the direction the ELCA has taken.  They said that if they knew the ELCA was going to go in the direction it has, they would never have gone through with the merger.  They are deeply saddened as to what has happened in their church.

What would Jesus do?  I think Jesus would call Bishop Mark Hanson and the Chicago council hypocrites.  He would speak to them like he did to the Pharisees.  They take the Word of God and change it for their own traditions and like to puff themselves up, ignoring the advice of the Council of Bishops and others who advised them not to change the 2/3 rule for the Churchwide Assembly vote.

I, too, was in denial for years about what was going on in the ELCA and where it was headed.  I must stop.  I must be true to my faith.  I must, as the Bible teaches us, put God first.  I must love God above all else.  Salvation is not from the ELCA—it is from God alone.  Some of you will vote to stay in the ELCA because of friendship.  That is the wrong reason.  Your friends cannot save you.  What do you believe in your heart?  When making choices about faith and life, morality and ethics, where do you place the importance of the Bible?  By their own admission and writings the ELCA doesn't place the Bible as the most important anymore.  First and most important is our individual experience they say.  How do you feel about this?  What is your experience?  Second in importance is science.  We must let scientists inform our faith.  Third is philosophy.  As if faith is a matter of the mind and reason.

Fourth is the Bible.  THE BIBLE COMES IN FOURTH AS TO HOW THE ELCA MAKES DECISIONS ABOUT MATTERS OF FAITH AND DAILY LIVING!

People should vote to stay in the ELCA if you agree with the new theological interpretations; if you agree the leadership of the church can manipulate and control church policies and doctrines; if you agree that the cross of Christ is now emptied of its power because there is no one to save because everyone will go to heaven; if you agree that human nature has changed and Jesus didn't have it all right.  I will cling to the cross; I will trust in God's Word as it is revealed in Holy Scripture.

It's so sad because the ELCA has many wonderful ministry programs.  To have such inept leadership that would jeopardize the ministries of the church to further their own theological and social agendas is appalling.  It is both futile and foolish, as well as contrary to its duties and rights, for a Christian congregation to subject itself to the opinions of human leaders who depart from the Word of God.

Go with the LCMC (Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ).  Contrary to what some are saying, we will lose nothing except those above us who are trying to control the church.  There will still be a youth group, a women's organization, a men's club and so forth.  I have chosen to go with LCMC.  If the vote goes to stay with the ELCA, I will resign as soon as I receive a call from a LCMC church.  I hope that doesn't happen.  I would like to stay and continue to be your pastor, teaching and preaching the gospel as I was taught, helping you to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ.

Shalom,

Roger

Pastor Roger Michaelson 

ELCA Treasurer Provides Mid-Year Financial Report to ELCA Leaders

From <NEWS@ELCA.ORG>
Date Tue, 5 Oct 2010 17:21:35 -0500

Title: ELCA Treasurer Provides Mid-Year Financial Report to ELCA 
Leaders
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

>October 5, 2010  

ELCA Treasurer Provides Mid-Year Financial Report to ELCA Leaders
10-262-JB

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- A mid-year budget reduction of $4.2 million in
current fund spending by the Church Council of the Evangelical 
Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA) has helped the churchwide organization 
maintain
a balance of income and spending for 2010 through Aug. 31, said 
Christina
Jackson-Skelton, ELCA treasurer.  However, in a report to ELCA 
leaders,
she expressed concern about continuing declines in mission support 
income
to the churchwide organization, down $5 million so far this year.

More http://www.elca.org/News/Releases.asp?a=4649

For information contact:

John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
http://www.facebook.com/elcanews
Twitter: http://twitter.com/elcanews

Parishes leaving ELCA find an unexpected price to pay

 

G. JEFFREY MacDONALD     0

Published: October 4, 2010

(RNS) South Dakota pastor Julius Badigo has long known that Christian discipleship is costly. For him, that cost is increasingly measured in dollars — to the tune of thousands per month.

Badigo lost his $2,200 monthly salary earlier this year when his church cut ties with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), in protest of new denominational policies to allow non-celibate gay clergy and the blessing of same-sex unions.

Badigo's seminary coursework ended abruptly, too, when the ELCA stopped funding his tuition. Married with two children, he still leads Falls Community Church in Sioux Falls, but his only income is $70 per week from a part-time job as a security guard.

"I'm hoping to get my Master of Divinity degree, but I don't know how I'm going to pay for it now," Badigo said. "In the church, I'm the only pastor, but nobody's paying me, and we have a lot of bills ... That's why I'm just praying for God's help."

Parishes unhappy with the ELCA's new gay policies are exploring alternatives, such as switching to the more conservative North American Lutheran Church (NALC), which officially launched in August. Weighing options, however, includes counting what can be considerable costs — and determining how much they're willing to suffer for their convictions.

Since the ELCA approved its policy switch in August 2009, 362 of its 10,000-plus congregations have voted to leave the denomination (some have not yet taken a requisite second vote).

Financial costs haven't always loomed large in congregational decisions since, unlike some other mainline denominations, the ELCA lets a congregation retain its building if it joins up with another recognized Lutheran denomination, such as the NALC.

Even so, some Lutheran parishes are debating whether the price of separation from the ELCA is worthwhile. And for fledgling congregations — including the ELCA's 105 mission churches that serve African immigrants in the United States â€” financial issues play an important role as well.

Most of the ELCA's African mission churches in the U.S. don't own buildings and depend on ELCA financial support to pay pastors and fund outreach programs. Yet all 105 strongly oppose the ELCA's new policies, according to Jordan Long, a pastor in Rochester, N.Y., who directs African ministries for Lutheran CORE, the group orchestrating the NALC launch.

"I know a lot of congregations that are stuck," Long said. "It's not because they support the resolution (on gay clergy and same-sex blessings), but because they are afraid of the consequences" if they leave the ELCA.

Potential consequences include repaying tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars to the ELCA.

"In the event the new or mission congregation leaves the (ELCA), it is supposed to return all funds it has received to the ELCA," ELCA spokesman John Brooks said in an e-mail. Debt repayment obligations are evaluated on a case-by-case basis, Brooks said.

Long's congregation, Niles Lutheran Mission, left the ELCA in August, triggering a requirement to repay more than $150,000 the congregation received since 2007. The ELCA made an exception and forgave Niles' debt in a Sept. 16 letter, Brooks said.

To date, almost all African mission congregations have remained in the ELCA.

Members of the One in Christ Mission in Telford, Pa., have been disillusioned with the ELCA since last summer, according to Mission Developer Didi Panzo. But they have opted not to sever their ELCA ties — "not yet," Panzo said — choosing instead to keep Panzo on board as their ELCA-supported leader. His five-year term as head of the 30-member congregation ends in December.

"For the members, it is a shame to be named 'Lutheran'" because of the denomination's homosexuality policy, Panzo said. "The (One in Christ) Mission never participates in any ELCA event ... But leaving is a process. I'm still in conversation with my bishop."

To date, the NALC officially claims fewer than two dozen congregations. NALC Bishop Paull Spring hopes the denomination will grow to 200 or more congregations by the end of 2011.

Still, even well-established churches on solid financial footing must first be convinced that the benefits are worth the costs.

At St. John's Lutheran Church in Grove City, Ohio, members have been reluctant to give up a sense of ownership of ELCA institutions, including camps, according to Pastor Donald Allman.

Allman said his parish faces cold treatment from other ELCA churches who assume he and his flock must be anti-gay since they voted to join the NALC this year. (For St. John's, the divisive issue wasn't homosexuality but rather the ELCA's lack of emphasis on evangelism, Allman said.)

Even so, these costs are likely to be accepted if the church votes, as expected, to leave the ELCA in coming months.

"There is always a cost for discipleship, and we have talked about some of those costs," Allman said. "Nobody has raised the question of whether the cost was worth it or not. They just seem to have assumed that the cost has been worth it."

KRE/DEA END MacDONALD

Read more: http://www.newsok.com/parishes-leaving-elca-find-an-unexpected-price-to-pay/article/feed/197831#ixzz11XZjH3Sw

Survey: Many Americans Know Little About Religion

Survey: Many Americans Know Little About Religion

Published September 28, 2010

| Associated Press

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A new survey of Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths.

Forty-five percent of Roman Catholics who participated in the study didn't know that, according to church teaching, the bread and wine used in Holy Communion is not just a symbol, but becomes the body and blood of Christ.

More than half of Protestants could not identify Martin Luther as the person who inspired the Protestant Reformation. And about four in 10 Jews did not know that Maimonides, one of the greatest rabbis and intellectuals in history, was Jewish.

The survey released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life aimed to test a broad range of religious knowledge, including understanding of the Bible, core teachings of different faiths and major figures in religious history. The U.S. is one of the most religious countries in the developed world, especially compared to largely secular Western Europe, but faith leaders and educators have long lamented that Americans still know relatively little about religion.

Respondents to the survey were asked 32 questions with a range of difficulty, including whether they could name the Islamic holy book and the first book of the Bible, or say what century the Mormon religion was founded. On average, participants in the survey answered correctly overall for half of the survey questions.

Atheists and agnostics scored highest, with an average of 21 correct answers, while Jews and Mormons followed with about 20 accurate responses. Protestants overall averaged 16 correct answers, while Catholics followed with a score of about 15.

Not surprisingly, those who said they attended worship at least once a week and considered religion important in their lives often performed better on the overall survey. However, level of education was the best predictor of religious knowledge. The top-performing groups on the survey still came out ahead even when controlling for how much schooling they had completed.

On questions about Christianity, Mormons scored the highest, with an average of about eight correct answers out of 12, followed by white evangelicals, with an average of just over seven correct answers. Jews, along with atheists and agnostics, knew the most about other faiths, such as Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism. Less than half of Americans know that the Dalai Lama is Buddhist, and less than four in 10 know that Vishnu and Shiva are part of Hinduism.

The study also found that many Americans don't understand constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools. While a majority know that public school teachers cannot lead classes in prayer, less than a quarter know that the U.S. Supreme Court has clearly stated that teachers can read from the Bible as an example of literature.

"Many Americans think the constitutional restrictions on religion in public schools are tighter than they really are," Pew researchers wrote.

The survey of 3,412 people, conducted between May and June of this year, had a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 percentage points, while the margins of error for individual religious groups was higher.

Anita Hill, 2 other lesbians in committed relationships welcomed as ELCA pastors

By JEFF STRICKLER, Star Tribune

September 20, 2010

In a ceremony that started with a public mea culpa and ended with a prolonged standing ovation, three lesbian ministers were officially embraced Saturday by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The three were the Rev. Anita Hill, pastor of St. Paul-Reformation Lutheran Church in St. Paul, and two Minneapolis chaplains: the Rev. Phyllis Zillhart at Fairview Home Care and Hospice and the Rev. Ruth Frost at the Hospice of the Twin Cities.
Although they never had been officially recognized by the ELCA, the three of them have a combined 60 years of service as Lutheran pastors.
"This is both a historic and an insignificant day," the Rev. Peter Rogness, bishop of the ELCA's St. Paul synod, said shortly before he and the Rev. Craig Johnson, the Minneapolis bishop, jointly oversaw the ceremony.
It was historic because it "opens doors to new possibilities," Rogness said. But it was insignificant in that "next week, next month and next year, they will be doing the same thing they did last week, last month and last year: pastoring to people."
Officially called a Rite of Reception, the ceremony began with an unusual litany of confession in which it was the church rather than the congregation admitting to wrongful behavior.
"We have fallen short in honoring all people of God and being an instrument for that grace," the statement said. "We have disciplined, censured and expelled when we should have listened, learned and included."
When St. Paul-Reformation installed Hill as a pastor in 2001, it was stripped of its synod vote. A church in San Francisco that Zillhart and Frost co-pastored before moving to Minnesota in 2005 received a harsher penalty: It was kicked out of the ELCA.
The official recognition of the three was set in motion a year ago when the denomination's general assembly voted to drop its ban on gay and lesbian preachers who are involved in committed relationships.

Other than the applause that greeted the official blessing of the pastors, the biggest reaction came at the start of the sermon. The Rev. Barbara Lundblad, who teaches preaching at Union Theological Seminary in New York, began by saying that she was going to ignore the guidelines that she insists her students follow.
Then she added with a wry smile: "I think there are people here today who realize that sometimes rules have to be broken."
The ceremony was held at Lutheran Church of the Redeemer in St. Paul, the same sanctuary where Hill was ordained.
"We have come a long way in 9 1/2 years," said the host pastor, the Rev. James Erlandson, as he greeted the crowd.
Even though Hill's church was put under sanctions when it appointed her as pastor -- they were lifted 16 months later by Rogness shortly after he was named bishop -- now the congregation is touted as one of the ELCA's bright spots. Its average Sunday attendance has grown from 100 to 200 under Hill's leadership, defying the nationwide trend toward the atrophy of inner-city churches.
She could have applied for official designation earlier but decided to wait in deference to associates who were ordained before her. She also wanted to go through the process with Zillhart and Frost, who were among the founders of Lutheran Lesbian and Gay Ministries (now known as Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries) in California in the 1990s.
"I stood on their shoulders," she said in an interview before the service. Likewise, she now expects to be one of those providing shoulders for others. Despite her change in official status, she doesn't think that she's heard the last of the controversy over gay and lesbian clergy.
"The Lutherans have been ordaining women since 1970, but there are still congregations that don't feel comfortable with a female pastor," she said. "I think we're doing this for future generations of GLBT preachers."
Jeff Strickler • 612-673-7392

© 2010 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

Not Your Smallest Lutheran Church

Not Your Smallest Lutheran Church

Tuesday, August 31, 2010, 7:00 PM

Russell E. Saltzman

It is very hard to swallow yet another Lutheran church body in America but that, following a two-day August 26-27 convocation in Columbus, Ohio, is what America has: the North American Lutheran Church (NALC). “North America” sounds rather expansive and that is only because some few congregations of Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada will be part of the new denomination.
And I say “yet another” because in 1930 there were perhaps twenty to twenty-four Lutheran groups in America. Following nearly seventy years of fervent consolidation and church merger leading to the 1987 formation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), Lutherans have successfully reduced their synodical groups down to, hmm, some twenty to twenty-four church bodies.
Every merger has left a splinter, a micro-synod among the ruins, and some of the micro-synods have in turn spawned their own splits. One split occurred within a synod comprising maybe some twelve congregations on whether the King James Version is the only translation properly used in public worship. I forget whether it was the larger or smaller portion that went off with the KJV under their arms, not that it much matters. It is hard keeping an exact count of Lutheran church bodies because not that many people—Lutherans included—really bother. But it does say something about Lutherans, if not about their nature then at least about how seriously they take their finer points of doctrine and practice.

The best estimate for the eventual membership of the NALC doesn’t top 200 parishes until the end of 2011. Five hundred congregations over the next six years is also tossed around. Compare that to the 10,000 parishes with a combined membership of 4.8 million remaining in the ELCA and in any tilting contest, the windmill wins. Still, 200 parishes—that figure would make the NALC the fourth largest Lutheran synod in United States (depending on whether you are counting “associations” or “synods”—never mind, Lutherans know the difference). Fourth place prompted at least one wag to suggest a synodical motto: “Not Your Smallest Lutheran Church.”
Micro as it is, the NALC, was formed in direct response to ELCA actions a year ago voting to permit the ordination of pastors in homosexual liaisons—albeit liaisons characterized by mutuality, same-sex monogamy, and lifelong commitment. Though the first ordinations included one or two self-identified bisexuals and at least one transgendered individual (all in San Francisco this past July), the ELCA neglected to provide for any rite of union or blessing or marriage suggesting any sort of accountability for the gay clergy admitted to the ELCA roll. As for the transgendered person, best as I can dope that out, this is a guy who wants to be a woman attracted to other women. Or woman; that monogamy thing, remember?
But it isn’t all about sex. That is a hard thing to remember and it doesn’t much help when the media report only that, nor does it help when Herb Chilstrom, the first ELCA presiding bishop, says it must be about sex and traditionalist hang-ups. But as I posted a year ago, approval of homosexuality

. . . is merely the presenting issue following a long, long line of revisionist propositions that have found a home with the Christian left. The authority of Scripture, the reality of sin, the name of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—all these and other critical expositions on God’s revelation to humanity have been under sustained attack. When these go, well, only sex is left and here we are, [blessing] what Scripture, natural law, and common sense itself condemns. (See: An Ecumenical Moment for One)

As micro-synods go, NALC doesn’t look half bad. Of course my judgment is not without self-interest. The NALC is the off-spring of the Lutheran Coalition for Reform (CORE) and I was briefly a member of CORE’s steering committee and later an advisory member to the board. I was not unimpressed by the convocation.
I attended worried about the tone and tenor of things. The prospect of hearing angry Lutherans denouncing the ELCA wasn’t a pleasant one. Yet remarks against the ELCA were few, and when they did come up they were respectful. Thoughts of leaving the ELCA are painful, daunting in fact. These are folks who did once literally ache for the unification of Lutherans in North America. There was little chance, of course, that the far more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod would ever consent, but even here there was hope that, given time, okay, maybe a lot of time, something nonetheless might be done that would bring the two largest Lutheran bodies together. Dreams fade, but most of NALC’s leadership, especially the new NALC bishop, the Rev. Dr. Paull Spring (a former bishop in the ELCA), had once spent themselves in creating the ELCA. The conversation on leaving was somberly poignant, even melancholic.
The NALC’s formation brought Tanzanian Bp. Benson Bagonza, Kanagwe Diocese, to Columbus, who participated in Spring’s installation. Several bishops of the new Anglican Church in North America attended as observers, along with Fr. James Massa, executive director of the USCCB secretariat for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs. Also present, several pastors of the Ethiopian Lutheran Mekane Yesus Church. African Lutherans might be best described as incensed by ELCA actions. The Lutheran World Federation just completed a recent international assembly where acrimonious debate on human sexuality and the rule of Scripture was barely avoided; Africans see the NALC as someone they can do business with.
Where this all goes, of course, is anyone’s guess in the moment, yet in the same moment, the NALC is betting that genuinely disaffected ELCA Lutheran congregations will find themselves a new home.
Russell E. Saltzman is pastor of Ruskin Heights Lutheran Church, Kansas City, Missouri.