No Confessional Church can elevate unity over truth. Lutherans have the Confessions which are easily consulted in The Book of Concord. The first recommendation of the ELCA's "Report with Recommendations of the task force for the ELCA Studies on Sexuality" makes unity the prime consideration. Already we see that various synod councils, bishops, pastors and lay leaders are labeling healthy dissent as being against unity.

One wonders what could drive any group of leaders to even conceive of such a notion. There must be an illness in the body as the Anglican Communion terms it. The ELCA and the ECUSA are mutual signatories of "Called to Common Mission," (a long story which space does not permit) the ELCA at present is by constitution bound to be in agreement with its own foundational documents. The members of the ELCA would expect the ECUSA to be bound to theirs, and they should expect us to be bound to ours. However, we are wed to a system that changes rules every time we meet!

One of the changes upon us is the ordaining of active homosexuals. Our Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson has said publicly that because there are two irreconcilable hermeneutics (which simply means "how one reads something") we should "make room at the Table" for both.

We are not free to interpret Scripture according to what seems right to us. Why would our leaders suggest the evil condemned in Judges 17:6 In those days there was no king in Israel, but every man did that which was right in his own eyes. The church teaches that we are to discern the ways in which our lives do not line up with mandates of scripture and to then seek God's Spirit to help us conform, pleading for deliverance from sin and finding ways to make one accountable so that success is likely. Daily repentance forms the only ground safe enough for an interpreter to stand on.

Perhaps the most helpful hermeneutical concept to take to heart when faced with revisionism is what Hans George Gadamer wrote about time not being a gulf to be bridged; rather it is "the supportive ground of the course of events in which the present is rooted." Temporal distance "is not a yawning abyss but is filled with the continuity of custom and tradition, in the light of which everything handed presents itself." Tradition is alive, and the church must examine why it is so willing to jettison tradition or the parts that are doing so may well be committing suicide. The foremost reason sin and repentance have fallen out of use is the revision of the doctrine on sin. If sin has been placed by "oppression," the first horizon is blurred and the second is altered, and rather than speaking of determining God's will, that is doing theology, one is revising to the point of devising new political theory, which is actually not new but Gnosticism.

We need to be aware that the Church has always had faithful leaders and pretenders. It sounds harsh, but in view of a church split over this issue, can it be said that the pan-denominational illness which we are referring to is the presence of false teaching, even false prophecy?

My concern is truth and the future of my denomination whose leadership seems to have had an attack of amnesia. After drinking a potion one part cheap grace, one part secularism, one part materialism and one part Enlightenment thinking, its members have fallen asleep like Rip van Winkle. It happened to me but I was revived by a kind-hearted Anglican. Though ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson says that his church is not searching for its identity, he too is being diplomatic, and conciliatory, which of course, puts people to sleep. He is asleep himself, or to use another analogy, is blind to the ruination that the ECUSA is experiencing, but even more so, he is blind to the truth of the Scripture. One can not help but be sympathetic to his enormous task. His call is to head an institution.

We congregational pastors have a different job. We are to protect our sheep. We should be able to do that. It is a horrible day to realize that your own shepherd is in danger of being a false shepherd. It is a fearsome thing to speak this out publicly, but it is a worse thing to hold it inside. What may be an inflammatory charge to some, completely reckless, is actually amazingly easy to verify. We do not need a four year study by a commission. It took me years of experience and three months of research, but you can do it in two minutes by reading the results of my research. You will agree or disagree. It is that simple.

Much of the actual content of the Bible is word after word written by prophets who were speaking for the LORD. Even Moses was a prophet. See Deuteronomy 18:15, "The LORD thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken." When someone denies that Scripture is prophecy, are they not in danger of being a false prophet? If we turn to Scripture, we see that Israel had false princes, false priests, and false prophets. In Jeremiah 23, the word of the LORD calls them out one-by-one: false shepherds (v. 1), false prophets (v. 9), false leaders (v. 10), false prophets and priests doing evil even in the temple (v.11).

Jesus spoke of the wheat and tares. See Matthew 13:24-30. St. John speaks of the need to test spirits to avoid false prophets. See 1 John 4:1, "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God; for many false prophets have gone out into the world." St. Paul had his own interesting approach for dealing with false apostles. See Galatians 5:12, "I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!"

See 2 Peter 2:1-6, "But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive opinions. They will even deny the Master who bought them -- bringing swift destruction on themselves. Even so, many will follow their licentious ways, and because of these teachers the way of truth will be maligned. And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation, pronounced against them long ago, has not been idle, and their destruction is not asleep. For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of deepest darkness to be kept until the judgment; and if he did not spare the ancient world, even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood on a world of the ungodly; and if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes he condemned them to extinction1 and made them an example of what is coming to the ungodly?"
See Jude 1:8, "Yet in the same way these dreamers also defile the flesh, reject authority, and slander the glorious ones."

These warnings bring the principle of Pascal's wager to mind, "What if it is true, what if that is this! Are there two religions within the one church?

I have three simple propositions; that denominations declare moratoria on the breaking of the confessional aspects of their constitution; that all in the teaching office, professors, bishops and staff, as well as clergy enter into an organized study of their foundational documents; and that chairs be funded in our seminaries to teach the foundational documents. This will cause us to reexamine the way it interprets Scripture, and could this examination not lead to a humbling, repenting, heart-work of God?

Leadership speaks of bewildering arrays of interpretive strategies. Is it so bewildering, or actually very simple? In the parable of the sower, Jesus taught there were four ways to get it wrong and one way to get it right, which is one must accept the word of God. The four or more ways that the Word does not bear fruit have to do with the state of the hearer. Good soil. An understanding of Scripture as being worthy of reception is a critical piece of building a fuller understanding of what God intends to speak to the Church in order to know and trust what is Gods' will for the Church. We are to be Holy Soil.

I find it highly ironic that the coalition of gay activists and the clergy and professors who support them call themselves Good Soil. I've seen their petition and a list of signers. I know many of them. It includes many loving Christians, but of those I know, to a person they are Liberals who use a contextual hermeneutic which they received from feminist theologians.

Remember, it is not the controversial issue of homosexuality which has brought disunity, but is the existence of two irreconcilable hermeneutics within the organized church. We are in a crisis. Crisis does not mean, "Really, really bad. It means judgment. What side of the line are you on? Church or club? The church is those who have been "called out." Can there be compromise with the revisionists? See 1 Corinthians 6:9-11 Paul writes, "Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! Fornicators, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, sodomites, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, robbers -- none of these will inherit the kingdom of God. And this is what some of you used to be. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."

Why is the leadership of the ELCA blind to the wrack and ruin the ECUSA is experiencing? They are proposing the exact thing that is splitting the ECUSA in two. I have to believe that they are blind. The situation in the ELCA is the blind leading the blind.

Well not everyone is blind, and WordAlone, a reform movement in the ELCA is going to lead sheep to where they might safely graze.

Friends, a person's life is shaped and characterized by their behaviors, which in turn shape their thinking, interpreting, and understanding. As Luther said, we are all bent in on ourselves, and this is most certainly true! When we cannot see beyond our favorite contemporary theologians to read Scripture in its plain sense, we are being blinded by some false light. To hope that we can have two completely different understandings of what God's Word is, but still came to the same table is a false hope.

Thanks be to God that the power of God can unbend us. People remain bent if they do not call for help. ELCA revisionists are doomed to the same fate as ECUSA revisionists. After he and the majority of his House of Bishops decided to not issue a statement of regret to the Anglican Communion for going ahead and ordaining as bishop a practicing homosexual, ECUSA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold's statement, "The regret we can offer wholeheartedly and as a unified body is regret for the consequences our actions have had in other contexts, but that does not mean that we necessarily regret the action itself," is that not to be characterized as unrepentant? One of the ECUSA bishops issued a statement after the January 2005 House of Bishops meetings describing the bishops' apology as a ruse, writing, "It is sort of like a man apologizing to his wife for having had an adulterous affair, and asking her forgiveness, but then continuing on with the illicit affair anyway." The Church of England's House of Bishops met at the same time as the ECUSA HOB, and their statement says in a extraordinarily straightforward manner that Griswold proceeded in ordaining Robinson in a willful manner. They also would seem to see this as pertinent to the meaning of repentance.

See Romans 12:1-9, "I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God-- what is good and acceptable and perfect. For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good?"

If our leaders refuse metanoia, to turn aside, to repent, they are doomed to remain bent in on themselves. The ELCA will split just as the ECUSA is. At that time, collectively, shepherds must decide, should lead their sheep out, in order to be "a people called out."

If so, the formation of an association of congregations to stand against the prevailing hermeneutic in the ELCA is the only course of action that can be recommended. It is highly ironic, but as once were called out of the world (1 Cor 6:11), now we may be called out of a church.

The church simply must be able to see a hermeneutic's susceptibility to error
Every interpreter is not free, but a servant of the church with the same call as all have had since our Lord left the wilderness after his Temptation. We need a hermeneutic of holiness whose foundation in an understanding of repentance from sin, humility and gratitude for God's free gift in the knowledge of redemption through the shed blood of Jesus Christ, and the experience of sanctification and growth in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
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Further reading: Mark Hanson acknowledges that ELCA members and clergy express doubts about whether we know our identity, "There are those who argue that the ELCA is in search of its identity: looking back to predecessor church bodies, looking around at ecumenical and global partners, and looking ahead, wondering who we are becoming." When Hanson states that "Lutheran identity, grounded in Scripture, the Confessions, and ecumenical creeds, will at times emphasize those theological convictions ?" Common sense alone must force one to wonder how much Hanson recognizes that the ELCA is legally bound to those Confessions at all times. http://www.elca.org/lp/0403_07.html

See Leander Harding, "Homosexuality and the American Religion" Copyright © The Anglican Communion Institute, http://www.anglicancommunioninstitute.org/articles/homoamerrel.htm

See Walter Sundberg, "Take Yourself as the Starting Point': Controversy over Sexuality in the ELCA, http://wordalone.org/conferences/annual2004/sundberg.htm

and "Sex and the Sacraments"
http://icmnews.org/ICMNwsltr/Articles/skip6.htm