For reminders of how important this is to me, see this blog entry and this one for the story of this photo. On Friday, September 28, Lutheran CORE is holding a gathering, 'This Church' and God's Church, at St. Mark Lutheran Church in Lindenhurst, Illinois, on the north side of metro Chicago. From 10 am to 4 pm CORE will review what happened at this Churchwide Assembly and plan for the next two years' Synod and Churchwide Assemblies. Dr. James A. Nestingen, Dr. Robert Benne, and retired Bishop Paull Spring will speak. And ELCA Lutherans, clergy and lay, from across the land will be there because they want to have the ELCA we were promised 20-25 years ago, not the one we're getting. Here's the brochure.
CORE has just sent out this message:
If you are planning to attend the Lutheran CORE gathering in Lindenhurst, Ill., or know someone who is, it is important that you register by Sept 21. In addition to making sure we have enough lunches ordered for everyone, we will have a working lunch during which people from within regions can meet each other and start networking. You'll miss that valuable time if you have to run out for lunch because you didn't pre-register for the gathering.I'll be there and hope you are able to be there, too. I also know that there will be several folks from the Champaign-Urbana area traveling together, so if you are near there on the way to Chicago, contact me and I'll put you in contact with those folks.
The registration information is at:
http://www.commonconfession.net/PDFs/COREgathering.pdf
Please mail your check to the WordAlone office in New Brighton, Minn. or call (toll free: 888-551-7254 or 651-633-6004) by Sept 21 to register.
Lutheran CORE is a reform movement within the ELCA which intends to serve as an effective coalition of individuals, congregations, and reform groups. It's four emphases are:
1. To uphold the authority of the Bible as the primary source an dnorm of faith and practice, in conformity with the Lutheran Confessions and the Constitution of the ELCA.
2. To insist upon the priority of the revealed Name of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in worship and educational materials produced by and for the ELCA.
3. To uphold the doctrine of marriage of one man and one woman for life, as maintained by the Chruch throughout the centuries.
4. To encourage and recruit leaders in congregations, synods, and theurchwide organization, including bishops, who will commit themselves to these goals.
3 comments:
Dear Pastor Tibbetts,
What exactly "was" the ELCA that was promised 20 years ago?
Fair enough question, Peter.
It was a church as imagined by the likes of Muhlenberg, Krauth, or Jacobs -- a Lutheran Church of North America, rather than the liberal protestant church imagined by Schmucker and, alas, our current leaders.
A church willing to struggle theologically with our Missouri Synod brethren that we may together proclaim a witness of the Gospel that speaks differently than our largely Reformed (at least in terms of theological language) culture, instead of a church that runs towards "full communion" with Reformed and Methodist churches pretending that there are no serious theological obstacles.
A church that teaches by properly distinguishing between the Law and Gospel, rather than a church whose leaders regularly (and, indeed, rightly) attack conservative "Fundamentalists" by (erroneously) offering a "progressive" ideology that is, quite frankly, every bit as "fundamentalist" -- but to a different end.
Is that a helpful beginning?
This sounds like a far better church than the one the ELCA is now. It is definitely the church my Ohio Synod/ALC ancestors supported with their stewardship. It sounds like a church that could engage in good theological discussions with the Missouri Synod that strenghtens both Lutheran bodies and could better present the rich Lutheran theology we have to America which desperately needs to hear the law and the gospel.
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