September 2004, from Pastor Fryer

And please forgive me for "reading you out of the church." I did not mean to do that. When I shared with you that I think that we are "in profound disagreement concerning not only Lutheranism, but also the faith of the Church," I did not mean to read you out of the church. For one thing, to say that we are in profound disagreement means that I might be the one who is wrong, not you. Or we both might be wrong. That is one reason I am glad to bring Jenson into this picture, to have an important theologian we both respect to help us.

But there is another reason I did not mean to read you out of the church. It has to do with a remarkable sequence of people at my congregation who have left Lutheranism and become Roman Catholic: Richard John Neuhaus (who was Pastoral Associate at Immanuel along with David Lotz), Raymond Schulze and his wife Margaret, and now Leonard and Christa Klein (Leonard was Assistant Pastor along with Ray back in the 1970s). Plus, some of our leading congregational leaders at Immanuel have become Roman Catholic: Barbara Zelenko and Fred and Candie Frankel.

Besides these Immanuel people, there were two other Lutheran theologians who have left the ELCA: Jaraslov Pelikan and Robert Wilken. When I was ordained into the LCA, I was proud to be entering the clergy ranks of a church that included people of such faith and learning. Plus there are friends who have left the ELCA: Michael Plekon, here in Metro New York, and my classmate Sharon Ross in Texas. Both Michael and Sharon became Eastern Orthodox, as did Pelikan.

These people are all gracious and gentle and nuanced and would not express the matter so crudely as I do, but I cannot help but think that the loss of these folk from the ELCA constitutes a kind of judgment against us -- the judgment that the ELCA is a house unworthy of Christian habitation. No doubt, they had more positive reasons for leaving the ELCA, but I suspect that there was this too: a judgment against the ELCA.

Then there was Bishop Michael McDaniel. He stayed in the ELCA, but lived out his days with a broken heart at what had become of the Lutheran tradition. At least, that's how I understood him, and he meant an awful lot to Carol and me.

And then there are the quiet stories of discouragement and malaise. For example, recently Carol and I have been trying to encourage a young clergywoman in the Midwest whose only sin, as far as we can tell, is that she has tried to be a good soldier in the ELCA by sharing that wretched human sexuality study guide with her congregation, with the result that the congregation no longer trusts her to be a faithful pastor. You know what it is like to be a young clergyperson with a family and children to take care of -- how full of idealism we were and trust in our synods when we began, but also how vulnerable we were, with little money and little seasoning to help us weather life's storms. This young clergywoman in the Midwest is being blown away, and her story will pass with little notice, but I blame the ELCA. There are troubled, heartsick clergy in our Metro NY Synod and renewal or protest movements swirling around.

Something is wrong with the ELCA. My love for Lutheranism is still strong, but not my love for the ELCA nor the ELCA majority theology I believe has led such good people to leave the ELCA.

And yet, I do not mean to leave. My theme is this: I do not want to write people out of the church, nor do I want people to write me out of the church. God willing, the outcome of my course on "The Church" at Immanuel will be that I lift up the virtues of persistence, patience, mutual love, and a yearning for the unity of the Church. I want no writing of people out of the church.

My claim of a profound disagreement between us has a hopeful background. My aim is not that we will break unity but rather that you and I will make headway on a difficult task -- the task of reckoning with different construals of Lutheranism. Let me review some history to try to make this more clear.

You know this history as well as I do, but let me share my slant on it. In the early 1990s there were two national conferences at St. Olaf: "Call to Faithfulness I" and "Call to Faithfulness II." It was a remarkable thing. The mere contours of it were fascinating to me: someone issued a call to confessionally serious Lutherans suggesting that the question of "faithfulness" was at stake, and people by the hundreds came rushing from across the land. Fine lectures were given by distinguished theologians. We sang and worshipped together. And yet, things did not work out. We held that second "Call to Faithfulness Conference," but by the end of that conference, it was pretty clear to everyone that there would be no point in a third conference.

I think the lecture by David Yeago rather clarified things, and put into articulate words what many of us were thinking or suspecting in our more inchoate ways. In his lecture, Yeago offered an earnest, methodical critique of the theology of Gerhard Forde -- a mature theologian David Yeago personally honored, but with whom he disagreed. Forde, for Yeago, was the paradigmatic theologian of what was then called the "Radical Lutherans," as I recall it, while Yeago himself was speaking from the point of view of the "Evangelical Catholics."

Yeago carefully walked us through Forde's theology, lifting up key points at which the Radical Lutherans would go one way and Evangelical Catholics another way. Forde was there, and gave his testimony afterwards that he felt that Yeago had fairly represented him, though he mildly wondered whether the disagreements were so profound as Yeago thought.

Yeago's important line at the climax of his lecture went something like this: "Dear Brothers and Sisters: I think we must conclude that it is not our Lutheranism that unites us, but rather our Lutheranism that divides us. But the good news is that we are united in the holy things. We are united at the Table."

An important factor was the audience for these "Call to Faithfulness" conferences: the entire group was made up of people who took the Lutheran Confessions and the Bible seriously. It was a fairly large group, yet they recognized about themselves that already, back in the early 1990s, they were a minority within the ELCA. Bishop Chilstrom and the ELCA beaurocracy were walking in their own path. The folks gathered at St. Olaf were united in sensing that something was wrong, something adrift in the ELCA, but as it turned out, they came to understand that they were not united among themselves. "It is not our Lutheranism that unites us, but our Lutheranism that divides us."

Again, it is important to note the audience for these "Call to Faithfulness" conferences. They were all committed to the confessions and the Bible. No one was questioning their "central commitments to Scripture and the Confessions that have been at the heart" of their ministries, as you seem to fear that I am questioning your commitments. But don't fear that. I do not doubt your commitment to Scripture and Confessions. Neither did Yeago doubt Forde's commitment to Scripture and Confessions. And yet, Yeago and Forde represent different construals of Lutheranism. They each have coherent, extended, detailed interpretations of the faith, well-supported by Bible and Confessions, and yet they are incompatible. They cannot both be true. They might both be false, but they can't both be true.

Now, turning to the present, I am hoping that you and I can renew the conversation that was somewhat set aside for me at the end of the second St. Olaf conference. It is good that you and I are united at the Table. But I am hoping that we will press on toward some kind of theological unity -- a unity that at present, I fear, does not exist. Our dialogue so far has inclined me to believe that you are part of the majority ELCA theology, and I am something different -- though I hope that you will still see me as a Lutheran Christian.

I think we must press on toward some kind of unity because the present disunity is so very dispiriting. Things aren't working, from my point of view. You have your passions concerning justice in the city and evangelism and other good things, and the ELCA has its various passions, but meanwhile, Neuhaus, Pelikan, Wilken, Schulze, Klein, and others have left, and we are on the verge of changes in moral teaching.

I share with you some embarrassment about asking Jenson to review our conversation. I am not a theologian, but simply a parish pastor driven to theology as best I can. But I am willing to do it, to share our exchanges with Mr. Jenson, because I think that the cause is important. Actually, I am pretty excited about what you and I are attempting. I hope and pray that it will be of benefit for our synod.

So, I mean to go ahead and forward our recent exchanges to Jenson and to invite any thoughts he might have about them.

In Christ,

Gregory