Foes fume over Lutheran-Episcopal agreement
The other day, I took some bad advice and attended a meeting of Lutheran clergy who were upset with a recent decision of their denomination, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The decision created "full communion'' between the ELCA churches and the Episcopal Church in the United States. This agreement will allow Lutheran clergy to serve Episcopal churches and vice versa. It also will allow members of both churches to receive Holy Communion. The Lutheran assembly voted by more than two-thirds of its delegates to approve the proposal. If the Episcopalians also accept the agreement, this new cooperation between the denominations will begin in earnest. However, bunches of Lutherans are agitated about the agreement. Not only do they not like the proposal, they are downright scared that all Lutherans are going to become more like Episcopalians overnight. What that means is, the Lutheran church will suddenly and without even a nod to its history become so enamored of bishops and fancy robes and titles and complicated church procedures and policies that ordinary people will not be able to tell who is Episcopalian and who is Lutheran. But Lutheran history teaches us something completely different. Examples abound about Lutherans defying secular and church authority and going off on their own to do a particular ministry. The greatest example, of course, is Martin Luther, who challenged Catholic Church authority, demanded changes, spent months as a fugitive and finally founded the Lutheran church as a better path to God than the corrupt Catholicism of the time. Lutherans have always been inspired by these true anecdotes of heroes in Scandinavia, Germany and in developing countries all over the world who risked their lives to bring an unencumbered gospel to people. You can't whitewash Lutheran history -- it is indelible and powerful. And yet scores of Lutherans apparently fear that Lutheran bishops will become more hierarchical, issuing edicts, censuring clergy and wearing pointy hats and fancy embroidered robes. Bishops from all over the Lutheran church have promised that those High Church measures will not be a part of their ministry. But concern from rank and file Lutherans persists. So the Lutheran church here in the northern part of the United States called a meeting, and organizers invited the presiding bishop of the church, H. George Anderson. The two local bishops, Mark Hanson and David Olson, also attended. Obviously, these concerns are not taken lightly. I stayed at the meeting for 1 1/2 hours, certainly longer than I wished. It was a gorgeous Sunday afternoon in Minnesota, when the colors of the leaves on the trees were changing before our eyes. But there we were, 200 disgruntled Lutherans and one reporter, in a hot and humid basement room of a huge church in St. Paul. Then the questions began -- some of the stuff was so obscure and off point that the presiding bishop had to study the questionable documents before he could formulate an answer. One reverend curmudgeon wanted to know why the churchwide assembly changed the language describing the duties of a bishop concerning clergy from "supervise" to "oversee." The insinuation was that this had something to do with the way Episcopal bishops deal with their clergy. Bishop Mark Hanson calmly told the crowd that lawyers for the Lutheran church suggested the change, because it is impossible for a bishop to supervise clergy. But they do oversee clergy. The change, Hanson said, was prompted by sexual-harassment lawsuits. Now there are rumors the so-called loyal opposition will form a nongeographical synod which could stretch from coast to coast and allow a greater freedom of expression. Let us pity the poor bishop who gets elected to "oversee" that bunch of malcontents Clark D. Morphew9 Oct 99