Courage and Belief
by Governor Al Quie*When that third dialogue group presented what is now named Called to Common Mission (CCM) with Episcopalians, I knew that the leadership of our church was going to work to bring the historic Episcopate (hE) into our church. I tried to figure out how we could prevent that from happening ..
I want to talk about what happened within us. Many of us in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America(ELCA) do not believe in the historic Episcopate. It takes courage to protest against authority.
If one does what he or she do not believe in, it will corrupt that person's soul. Let me take this up because it's important.Just Do It-In Politics
The words we've heard from the day when the Denver Assembly adopted CCM, "Just Do It-you don't have to believe in it"- remind me of hearing the evangelistic theologian Steven Brown when he said, "Fake it 'til you make it. "
Last week I was with a number of former office holders and people in politics in both major parties from our state. One asked me, "What are you doing now?" I said, "I just came from a meeting where we were talking about the CCM and doing some planning." He asked, "What's that about?"
So I told them about the HE, and said, "But we're being asked to do something we don't believe in.". Their response was fascinating - in their faces, in their body language, they cringed. People in politics know what happens to you if you do what you don't believe. They've lived it.
Let me illustrate. In high school I began to believe in free trade. Many people do not; they want to be protected. The leather industry, making hides in Minnesota, wanted protection when I was in Congress. I thought, "This is not going to go any place in Congress. I will introduce a bill to protect against the competition with foreign hides, even if I'm a free-trader." Lo and behold, that year the Ways and Means Committee took up that trade legislation. I figured it would be defeated, but it wasn't. Because they knew I was a free trader, they included my amendment. I was sucked in. I sat in that hall knowing that I had to make a decision. I had colleagues who respected my votes, and they came and asked me, "How are you going to vote?" I didn't know how I was going to vote. Finally, I knew. I could not live with myself if I voted for that legislation I voted against it. I put my name up there first. And I saw colleagues who had talked to me quickly put their name up alongside mine.
If you do what you don't believe in, you can't be a leader. You'll lose. But worse than that, something happens within you, and we're all faced with that with the CCM.
After the 1994 election, one of the provisions in the "Contract with America" was to pass a constitutional amendment for a balanced budget. It passed the House. Every Republican and some Democrats voted for it. Because it took two-thirds majority, it missed by one vote in the Senate. Every other Republican but Mark Hatfield voted for it. He believed you should not tamper with the United States Constitution in that way. Mark Hatfield can live with himself now in retirement in Oregon.
I have another friend, now a bitter man. He himself is totally opposite to the way he voted when he was in Congress. But there he was, voting the way he did not believe ..Look at what has happened to our Congress, with Political Action Committees causing people to vote the way they do not believe. This did not just corrupt their own souls, however. I watched people when it happened. They left Congress just disappointed in themselves. Acting against belief has corrupted the institution, also.
Just Do It-in the ELCA
We cannot act by ourselves, because it is not only our soul, it's the soul of the institution also, the soul of the ELCA. And it is the soul of the people who do not believe in the historic Episcopate. Will they have any leadership to follow? That's what we're talking about providing here.
It takes courage to stand by your beliefs. I remember through these last years talking to pastors. When you finally get close to them, they'll say quietly, "I'm worried about the pension." See, they're thinking of their future, their family - "Can I do this? Will I lose my pension" Then I hear a seminarian, "Will I get a call if it is known I am opposed to the CCM?"
I remember the day I stood up to my father. We were -farmers, and I took him by both suspenders of his overalls, and I told him what I believed and where I stood. I was scared! I thought I would lose the farm. Now that I have sons, and I really know my father - I know how proud he was of me. For if I had courage enough to say "no" to him, I'd have courage enough to say "no" to other things in this world that he believed I ought to say "no" to. It's easier once you stand up.
I was faced with this challenge when I ran for my first re-election to Congress. My special election had been won by just 603 votes. You get kind of worried about the next election when that happens. A very strong, important person in my congressional district sent a cash contribution to my campaign. It was against my principle, because cash contributions can be hid. I wanted only checks and to make them public, so that anybody would know who it was that contributed. He wanted to give underneath the table. He was important. Losing him could lose my election. I tell you this because I want to share with you the struggles that you'll go through. I sent the money back and said I wouldn't take it.It Takes Courage to Act As You Believe
That was the most freeing thing that happened to me-after the election. Because I worried up to that time, would he retaliate or not? It isn't all loving in this business. But wonderful when you are free!! Remember that great man Elijah who took care of all the priests of Baal after he got the fire from heaven. But then Queen Jezebel wrote him, "I'm gonna get YOU!" He got scared and headed for a cave.
Many of you who want better things for our ELCA by opposing the implementation of CCM, have the desire to head for a cave. "Let's head off, get out of here." In fact, that's what 1 had intended to do if the church ever voted for this CCM. The Sunday before the vote was to be taken, would be the last time I was going to go to a Lutheran church. I even decided the Presbyterian church I would join. But then I realized I loved this church. "I gotta fight!"
Many of you want to fight for your faith. I want to join with you. I want this church to be a church of the "Word Alone."
As we sang in those hymns this morning, I want this church to be a confessing church, one that drives us to the Word and the Sacraments, a church where the Augsburg Confession would be something that all of us know, not just something that all of you pastors forget.Look at the Apostle Peter. He was scared too. He was so certain he was strong, but he denied Christ. Yet he was welcomed back again. Courage is handling fear; courage isn't being without fear.
The HE Didn't Happen
The other thing I wanted to mention: we need to know the reason why we're opposed to the HE, and why we don't believe in it. I say this especially to you lay people, because I think all of you pastors can give good theological answers why you oppose its imposition upon us. This is why.Number one, it didn't happen.
For those of you who are unaware of it, nobody can prove that there is a direct line down from the apostles in an unbroken succession to the Episcopal bishops today. It can be assured, rather, that there was not. Secondly, they say HE is a sign of unity. Well if it ever was, it's a sign that has failed. The Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church have been at odds with each other for a thousand years while practicing the HE; and then the Episcopalians came along with their Ordinals in 1662 which included the HE. For 337 years now they've been at odds with the other two. It isn't a sign of unity, it's a sign of conformity. That's the reason for it. Emperor Constantine wanted conformity, and the English king wanted conformity, to get those Presbyterians out of England.
Thirdly, "It's more than a fish" . What do I mean? When I was a kid we had Roman Catholic hired men on the farm. My mother always fixed fish on Friday, because that was her expression of love for them. Rather than getting a special dispensation from their priest or their bishop in order to come and work in a Lutheran family, she did that for them. Now I have to tell you, if we were required to pass a resolution in our church that everybody who hires Catholics has to agree that fish is something you have to eat on Friday, and now all Lutherans would eatfish on Friday, we would absolutely refuse, because we didn't believe in it; it could not be made mandatory.
I tell this story because the historic Episcopate is more than fish. There is something theological about this. What it means is that instead of the congregation being the defining entity of the church, the bishop becomes more of the defining entity. It's a battle that our church has been in for at least these last ten years What we're dealing with is that the congregations had no voice in this CCM decision, as though the congregations were not the church, not the ELCA.
Don't Think These Thoughts Above are reasons I am opposed to the CCM agreement. I want to suggest some thoughts not to think about-ever. Don't think that the Episcopal church at their convention this summer will turn the CCM down. Some people live in a hope that they might, and save us - that's not going to happen.
Don't think that the ELCA will gladly permit us to follow our conscience. They stood in the way all the time when people have suggested it.
Thirdly, don't think that this is as far as it is going to go. That's the story that you're going to be told and are being told, "This is as far as it will go.
CCM supporters won't be able to do anything more to change our church, because we could stop them." So? Just remember the pattern - all studies on further enlarging the CCM are to be made up in the future just as it was in the writing of the CCM - three Episcopalians, two Lutherans in favor of what the Episcopalians are for, and for window-dressing, one Lutheran who is opposed to it.
Even when the ELGA leadership knows the church is against extending the CCM into new areas, will you work on it and be able to stop those changes? No, it's like the play called "The Wall." Did anybody read it? It took place in Warsaw, Poland - all the Jews had to put on an yellow star of David arm band. Some people wanted to protest? "Oh no, let's get along. We're proud of who we are, we can wear an arm band"
They were put into a ghetto, behind the wall. Some people wanted to protest! "Oh no, we like living with each other - let's do that." It went from one step to another, until six million of them were dead. That's what I heard this morning - theELCA is moving away from what we believe, away from our Lutheran roots, step by step.
So I just wanted to share with you something we say in politics. -"It is no sin to be kicked out for voting the way you believe - no sin for being kicked out for living the way you believe."
By adopting the CCM we aren't really going forward. We're being forced to pick up something that existed back when there were monarchies and emperors and the church adapted their authoritarian pattern. But this isn't the way God has now been moving the political patterns of the world at all. With the CCM we're being asked to go back to Egypt. Remember the yammering of the people when they ran into trouble in the desert. They wanted to go back to to the onions and garlic of their slavery. Remember they didn't willingly leave Egypt. Pharaoh finally kicked them out, bought them off, gave them all that gold and silver when they left.
I think what we need to do, number one, is: form an organization so we can help each other. Secondly, pick a leader. Thirdly, and this is important, love-as Jesus Christ loved. As He spoke of loving your enemies, do not act in any way other than in love towards those who believe in an historic Episcopate for our church. Act in no way but love for those who still figure the hE doesn't make any difference. We are followers of Jesus Christ. This is a great opportunity to act in that way. So, be of good cheer, because either what we are doing is the will of the Lord, or else He's going to teach us a great big lesson."
* Governor Quie gave this address at the exploratory gathering of the opponents of Called to Common Mission, at Roseville, Mn. in Oct. 1999. He was a long-time member of the US House of Representatives , later Governor of Minnesota, has occupied many positions of major responsibility in the Lutheran Church in the U.S., and is an Advisory Board member of FOCL.
Unity And/Or Truth
Martin Luther
"The world maintains, as many people do who not understand, that we should not fight about an article and thus trample upon Christian love; rather although we disagree on one small point, if we agree on everything else, we should give in and overlook the difference in order to preserve brotherly and Christian unity and fellowship."
No, my dear man, do not commend peace and unity to me when thereby God’s Word is lost . . . The Word was given unto us for eternal life and not to further outward peace and unity . . . Therefore, do not talk to me about love and friendship if that means breaking with the Word or the faith, for the Gospel does not say that love brings eternal life, God’s grace and heavenly treasures, but instead, “the Word.”
- Luther's comments on 2 Cor. 13:8:
"For we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth."
Listen To Columbine
On Thursday, May27, 1999, Darrell Scott, the father of Rachel Scott, a victim of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado ,was invited to address the House Judiciary Committee's subcommittee. What he said to our national leaders during this special session of Congress was painfully truthful. It needs to be heard by every parent, every teacher, every politician, every sociologist, every psychologist, and every so-called expert! These courageous words spoken by Darrell Scott are powerful, penetrating, and deeply personal. There is no doubt that God sent this man as a voice crying in the wilderness. The following is a portion of the transcript both good and evil in the hearts of men and women.
"We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence. The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.
"The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain's heart.
"In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the N RA because I don't believe that they are responsible for my daughter's death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel's murder I would be their strongest opponent.
"I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy - it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies! Much of the blame lies here in this room. Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves. I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best. This was written way before I knew I would be speaking here today:
"Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You've stripped away our heritage
You've outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere And ask the question "Why"
You regulate restrictive laws Through legislative creed
And yet you fail to understand, That God is what we need!"
"Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, soul, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our makeup, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and reek havoc. Spiritual influences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation's history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact. What has happened to us as a nation?
"We have refused to honor God, and in doing so, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine's tragedy occurs politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties.
"We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts. Political posturing and restrictive legislation are not the answers. The young people of our nation hold the key. There is a spiritual awakening taking place that will not be squelched!
"We do not need more religion. We do not need more gaudy television evangelists spewing out verbal religious garbage. We do not need more million dollar church buildings built while people with basic needs are being ignored. We do need a change of heart and a humble acknowledgment that this nation was founded on the principle of simple trust in God!
"As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes He did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in
America, and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School - prayer was brought back to our schools.
"Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God - given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA -I give to you a sincere challenge. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone! My daughter's death will not be in vain! The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!"
-Downloaded from the internet.
Perspectives
It's No Secret: South Korean evangelist Billy Jang Hwan Kim, the new president of the Baptist World Alliance, was asked if South Korea's mega-churches - in each of which thousands worship on Sundays - could teach smaller Baptist churches how to boost the number of believers. He replied, "Number one, pray. Number two, pray. Number three, pray. That can change the life of the church." Dr. Kim added, "A proper prayer life demands a lot of discipline. We have a prayer meeting every day at 5 a.m. I didn't learn that when I was at American Bible College. But that's what makes Korean churches grow."
Why SOLA GRATIA Gets Fouled Up: David John See I Jr, in WORLD Magazine (10/30/99) comments, "[In her CD album, Amen, Paula Cole] proclaims that fuzziness is next to godliness: 'I believe in 10vefTo be the center of all things/And I believe in love to be the way to find our inner light.'
What's right about this is the longing for love. Augustine, reflecting on his youth, admitted in his Confessions that 'The single desire that dominated my search for delight was simply to love and to be loved.' What's insufficient about this is the idea that the heart itself can satisfy the heart's longings.
"Words like god, spirituality, gospel, grace, and love are empty apart from biblical content. Take, for example, Judy Collins's explanation of John Newton's hymn, Amazing Grace. She said, 'Amazing Grace is a song about letting go, bottoming out, seeing the light, turning it over, trusting the universe, breathing in, breathing out, going with the flow; timing is everything, trust your instincts, don't push the river, ease on down the road, get on your knees, let your guard down, drop your defenses, lighten up.'
Such draining away of the precious and explicit content of our Lutheran doctrinal language will help account for the increasingly vociferous and apparently uninformed advocacy in the churches of life-styles and ideas that are strictly anti-biblical. We just don't seem to get it, to grasp what the Bible's words actually say.
Football Perspective: Pacific Lutheran Univ. football coach Frosty Westering requires players to help grounded opponents get up, and to greet trash talk with a thumbs-up. "When you have a relationship with Jesus Christ your point of view is a lot different than the humanistic person who says hooray for me and nuts to you.," he said. PLU won this year's NCAA Div.1I1 national championship.
How to Live Longer: According to a new study in Demography magazine, you may live up to 14 years longer if you go to church. This supports other findings that religious belief and church attendance are key indicators of health, social behavior, political leanings, lifestyles and morality.
For the last 50 years, about four in ten Americans attend a house of worship weekly, and 70% claim a religious affiliation. This makes religion as important as sex, income, race, age, education and region in understanding how Americans act, said Robert Hummer of the Population Research Center at the University of Texas, author of the Demography study. His team researched 21,000 adult Americans over nine years, looking at their religious behavior. "Those who never attend [church] exhibit 50 percent higher risks of mortality over the follow-up period than those who attend most frequently," the study found. The research was funded in part by the National Science Foundation.
Larry Witham noted in the Washington Times (7/5/99) that in recent years "non-governmental research is looking at religion with precision because it is turning out to be a 'strong predictor' of how Americans act." For example, "In the 1996 presidential election, one group of researchers found in exit polls that the religious affiliation of voters was twice as strong as one's sex or income as a predictor of their ballot choice."
No Doubt About It; He's Holding His Breath- Who? The Maker of all the universes, of course. He can't wait to hear what the Harvard University symposium decided this winter when it invited Billy Graham to lecture on the topic, "Is God Relevant to the 21 st Century." Relax, God, theological academics never get beyond, "Yes, but..." anyway. You're probably safe for a couple of decades at least.
Reader Responses
DEAR EDITOR:
Congratulations for your excellent article, "What Are We Going to Do Now?" in the last FOCL-Point. I read every word and heartily agree with all you said. Even at 90 years, I feel for our church and try to do everything I can to keep the pure Gospel of Sin and Grace in my preaching. Our beloved Church is now in deep trouble; the Church's ego and personal ego have taken over in so many cases. Keep up the good work.
Pastor Steve Syverud, Walnut Creek, CA
DEAR EDITOR:
Keep it up! Stick to His Word.
Dagmar Brodt, Punta Gorda, FLDEAR EDITOR:
We thoroughly read and appreciate your publication and are thankful for your witness, especially in this time when our leadership has turned toward CCM and the historic episcopate is more important than Scripture, Confessions and conscience.
Pastor Norman Olson, Starbuck, MN
DEAR EDITOR:
I fear for the future of the ELCA – it has become so liberal and gone astray from the authority of Scripture. Many seem to think they can pick and choose what they want to accept or reject in the Scripture, e.g. Romans 1: 22-32. The vote to approve the CCM with the ultra liberal Episcopalians is about the last straw. We may not be members of the Lutheran Church much longer.
Leo and Mary Peterson, Sunnyvale, CA
DEAR EDITOR:
We'll need to make one more appeal to the ELCA to change its course.
Pastor Arland Fiske, Laporta, MN
DEAR EDITOR:
I am a conservative libertarian who prefers that the church eschew partisanship of any kind (left or right), while proclaiming the Word and administering the sacraments faithfully to feed God's flock. The ELCA conservatives must emphasize the theological and ecclesiological issues at hand in ELCA's drift from historic Lutheranism We may have to convene a "Call to Faithfulness III Conference" to determine what to do about ELCA, especially if we 'tie the knot' with the church that has given us James Pike, John Spong, Carter Heyward, and Joseph Fletcher. Keep the faith, and God's peace.
Keith R Deschler, Racine, WI
DEAR EDITOR:
I question your sense that the church overwhelmingly affirmed the 1993 study on ministry. Many in our church are concerned that it is badly flawed. We have a sort-of understanding of ministry that bears no resemblance to any other church. We MUST revisit that issue and cannot take the document to be cast in stone.
You and others like you have done far more to divide the church than the original Concordat ever would have. It was clear from the start that you were mobilizing to get your own way. Your Missouri tactics in these past two years have bred fear and mistrust in this church. Your efforts to force the minority's opinion on the rest of us have held the church hostage.
Fred Opalinski, Latrobe, PA.
[Ed. comment: So which minority-the one in the first paragraph or the one in the second-shall have the right to try to change Church actions?]
The Courage to Resist
by Alan WaiteResolving to "claim the future for a new generation," over 1500 Lutherans officially established the WordAlone Network as a counterweight to the ELCA's imposition of the historic Episcopate during a March 26-29 gathering at St Andrew's Lutheran Church in Mahtomedi, Minnesota.
Participants vowed to pursue an aggressive agenda for church reform, and for resistance to historic Episcopate (HE) mandates within the LutheranEpiscopal Agreement, "Called to Common Mission" (CCM).
The four-day convention brought together several hundred ELCA clergy and nearly one thousand lay members from 30 different states, and included 13 seminary professors, three bishops, former Minnesota Governor Albert Quie, and former ALC Presiding Bishop Dr. David Preus.
Attendees adopted by-laws, elected a national board of directors, decided on activist and educational strategies, and agreed to ordain seminarians who refuse to accept the hE. They also endorsed and forwarded to the ELCA Church Council a compromise proposal, drafted by supporters and opponents of the CCM in Milwaukee six weeks earlier, dubbed the "Common Ground Resolution."
Amidst traditional hymns and raucous blues and gospel music, the convention worshiped, prayed, shared, and organized. Absent was any prevailing sense of anger or resentment. "It was an incredibly uplifting experience and clearly lay-centered," remarked closing worship leader Rev. Mark Chavez, Zion Lutheran, East Petersburg, Pennsylvania, "The spirit was infectious, positive, and reforming. It only reaffirms what we all knew: the grass roots of our Church are staunchly against the CCM."
Dr. Preus opened the gathering by relaying how our "Lutheran family" came to such "a radical departure from Lutheran doctrine" in agreeing to accept the historic Episcopate (hE). He described an evolving theological shift in American Lutheranism leading up to the 1987 merger, and the radical theological tenets held by many of the Lutheran activists who shaped the formation ofthe ELCA. Preus suggested that the ELCA's leadership continue to be out-of-touch with mainstream Lutheranism.
Lay leader, Gov. Albert Quie likened the historic episcopate to another, contemporary controversy, "It is the same sign to us that a Confederate flag is to African Americans."
Dr. James Nestigen, Professor of Church History Luther Seminary, argued that ELCA leadership is undermining core Lutheran teachings through coercive imposition of the HE. "The freedom of the Gospel is lost when coercion is used," he said, . . . this is supposed to be a merged church, but to a whole lot of us it looks like a hostile take 0ver . . . this leadership has taken on the feeling of betrayal."
The convention received reports on a variety of different topics ranging from the theological flaws of the CCM to the more fundamental issues of electing non-hE bishops, clergy pensions, retaining church property should a schism occur, and redirecting benevolences.
In a poignant moment, over a dozen seminarians received a standing ovation from the capacity convention crowd when asked to stand and be recognized. "We know what you are risking," convention chairman Rev. Roger Eigenfeld told them, "and your courage to resist inspires us all."
Eigenfeld, unanimously elected by the new board as WordAlone's first president, summed up the event in words reminiscent of an earlier Lutheran resistance movement, "We will resist with love, but we will resist. We aren't going to leave. We want to stay, we might get kicked out, but here we stand."
Alan Waite, assoc. editor of FOCl POINT, is a member of the Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd, Sacramento, CA. He attended the March 2000 WordAlone Network founding convention in Mahtomedi, Minn.