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| ELCA Pastor Charles Austin is a true ecumenist - he loves every confession of faith except his own. |
Sigh.
Perhaps I have been at this way too long. I have always been a strong advocate of Lutheran unity. I hoped for the mergers that produced the LCA and the ELCA. My concern was a stronger church, more cooperative church, more effective and efficient witness on the part of Lutheranism.
Then came 1969 in the LCMS and the aftermath, the schism.
Then came the AELC and the impetus to form the ELCA, which has not turned out to be as strong and unified as we had hoped.
For then came 2009 and the departure of many from our fellowship and two more denominations – NALC and LCMC.
Perhaps I’m a romantic or cock-eyed optimist; but online discussions on Luther Link and this modest forum were still about Lutheran unity. Here and now, however, it is not about hopes for greater unity, but about solidifying and beefing up the reasons we cannot be more unified.
So why should I not just say: “Nuts to Lutheran unity”?
Episcopalians will work with us in mission and ministry. So will Methodists, Presbyterians, and United Church of Christ congregations. Moravians and those in the Reformed Church in America will work with us in full fellowship and cooperation.
That’s more than 13 million Christians in full fellowship with the ELCA. We have joint congregations, shared seminary projects; our pastors serve one another’s parishes and we are expanding our joint efforts.
This is all good stuff, and sometimes I wonder, I really wonder, why I give a gnat’s tooth whether the LCMS “likes” us or wants anything at all to do with us, or why I should try – without any measure of success – to explain my church body to Missourians. What's the point?
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GJ - How ironic, to have the ELCA pastor and journalist provide the perfect answer about whether WELS and Missouri should work with this Black Hole of ecumenical Enthusiasm, persistently drawing more church bodies into its communion fellowship and always aiming even lower.
Focusing a gimlet eye on ELCA's passions and turn-offs will also provide the careful reader with a true portrait of the apostate LCMS and WELS officials. They stick their noses into the air - about ELCA - for dramatic purposes, to fool the rubes in the Midwest, the members and clergy they really despise - but long to be with ELCA, meek, loving, lowly, mild.
Universal Objective Justification is the great unifier.
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| WELS college teacher, Northwestern College, LCMS seminary professor, then ALC college professor - Jungkuntz' UOJ stance is still admired and reprinted by WELS. |
