is leading ELCA's transition to a lavender ministerium.
This is part of a larger photo from the 2009 convention.
One ELCA blogger was gloating over his synod having two separate escape routes:
1. LCMC, which overlaps the Word Alone Network, and
2. Lutheran Core, which was quite visible at the 2009 convention and started on the path of creating another denomination, hosted by two former ELCA bishops. After poisoning the food for decades, the geezer bishops want to be the new chefs!
In fact, there was already established, some years ago, the equivalent of LCMC, called the
Lutheran Ministerium and Synod - USA.
They are meeting next week. They would never get into WELS, because the theme this year is The Means of Grace - For You. Meanwhile, Patterson's district is beating the dead horse of UOJ shortly after.
There are other groups, too, created from congregations leaving ELCA.
Every day is a new story on a congregation leaving ELCA or congregations being kicked out of associating with LCMC. If you look over the LCMC site, their congregations are very large and well established. I recall from LCA days that almost all the synod income came from the big churches with their low debt and low overhead (cost per member). In California, too, the big congregations are leaving fast.
ELCA will continue, but rejoicing over a variety of exit strategies will not get them the vitality they threw away with such gusto in 2009.
---
Professor Paul Hinlickey, ELCA:
Word on the street confirms the appeal of Nestigen’s argument. Receipts to the ELCA are said to be down by 30+%; more than one ELCA seminary is in imminent danger of bankruptcy. In my own synod, under the leadership of a sound bishop who thanklessly sought a unity-saving compromise in August, not only was there a significant 2009 shortfall, but proportionate giving to the ELCA has now been cut from 50.6% to 36% (among other budget slashing moves locally) for the coming year. Congregational pledges to the Virginia Synod for 2010 in turn are down a half a million dollars, something like 25%. In an astonishing two-page letter from the Synod appealing for help, the name “ELCA” was named only once, in a curious paragraph telling the long history of the Virginia Synod through its various predecessor bodies. The pitch: no love lost with the ELCA, but that is not really who we are here, locally, anyway. A similar story is being repeated in many other synods. In statu embarassmentionis.
Also for those who support the ELCA’s heterodoxy. They also now choose to designate their benevolence accordingly. The trust is just gone. So we are all, like it or not, in this de facto situation now of congregationalism. Consequently, in statu embarassmentionis.
As I mentioned, my own embarrassment is that I am not voluntarily going to leave the ELCA. But neither will I in any way cooperate in “Churchwide’s” dysfunction any longer, and my non-cooperation will be a matter of the public witness of an ordained servant of the Word. I will insist upon my rights after 30+ years of service, and I will gladly continue in my congregation and other local ministries, but I will never again contribute a solitary dime, one volunteer hour, a prayer (except in the manner of praying for one’s enemies), or act of good will on behalf of this theological and moral bankruptcy. Thus I am going to act on my “bound conscience” in this de facto debacle of congregationalism that has been thrust upon us. I will work actively in Lutheran CORE for the new configuration of American Lutheranism that will someday emerge from these ruins.
---
to Missouri's Springfield seminary
to Provost of an ALC university.
Apostasy pays,
while orthodoxy prays.
