Lutherans divided

GENEVA – For eight years, Eric Johnson worshipped at Geneva Lutheran Church. But last year, a few months after the church majority voted to stay with its national Lutheran organization, Johnson, of Maple Park, and his family left to join a new church, started by former members of Geneva Lutheran.

New Hope Lutheran Church was started by two dozen members of Geneva Lutheran. They worship at the Geneva Park District Community Center, 710 Western Ave.

Johnson is president of New Hope's church council and said he will not talk about leaving Geneva Lutheran.

"We have moved on from that," Johnson said. "We are dedicated to the Gospel and the Lord's supper. We are grounded in Scripture ... and striving to bring the word of Christ to the Fox Valley area."


The issue

Sometimes Lutherans disagree.

The nation's largest Lutheran organization, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, with 4.2 million members, voted to ordain gays and lesbians in committed monogamous relationships to serve as clergy. The vote was 559 to 451 in August 2009 at its church-wide Assembly in Minneapolis.

Individual congregations were not required to call gay clergy to ministry.

The ELCA has lost about 5 percent of its congregations over the issue, about 400 to 500 churches out of 10,400, officials said. Among those that left are Hosanna! Lutheran Church, a 2,000-member congregation in St. Charles Township.

Hosanna and New Hope are now both affiliated with Lutheran Congregations in Ministry for Christ, an independent conservative Lutheran association that formed in 2000.

Rev. Martha Uecker Nelson, 51, is chaplain at Provena St. Joseph Hospital in Elgin and serves as one of eight trustees on the national LCMC board. She is also married to Rev. John Nelson, pastor of Hosanna.

"We are standing on Scripture as our norm," said Uecker Nelson, 51, of Campton Hills. "We are congregationally based instead of a hierarchy with bishops."

The gay clergy is a minor issue, U. Nelson said.

"The gay clergy is a minor issue," U. Nelson said. "It's not an issue for us. People are gay and we welcome all people in the LCMC, but that is not how the Bible teaches us for our lifestyle."

The real issue, she said, was "bound conscience."

"It's not theological, to say it is up to the individual whether what they do is sin," U.  Nelson said. "We understand this is following popular culture. It stems from being able to push the gay and lesbian issue, so they changed doctrine for that issue. If you change it for one thing, you change it for all things." 

U. Nelson said the assembly made decisions that should have included theologians.

"The gay and lesbian movement put a lot of money into a lot of denominations to raise the issue and push the agenda," U. Nelson said. "We don't agree with the way the ELCA dealt with it."

For herself, personally, U. Nelson called it a "Here I stand" moment.

"What does the Bible say and this is what we believe," U. Nelson said. "We can't just go with a popular trend, not to be a willow bending in the wind but a standard to agree with or disagree with but always Scripturally based."

At Hosanna, the Rev. John Nelson, 54, set up a task force to go through the issues and present their findings for the congregation to decide to stay or go. In November 2009, the congregation voted to terminate its association with the ELCA, 207-25.

Nelson agreed with his wife that "bound conscience" is a bigger issue than gay clergy.

"The ELCA has changed the first commandment, instead of the Lord God being primary,  the ELCA  is saying  humans are  gods," Nelson said. "The ELCA, in bound conscience, is saying  people are smarter than God.  So,  in bound conscience , if you think God does not think it's sin, then it's not sin. It's changed the perspective of the definition of sin and who determines what is sin."

Nelson said Martin Luther, the reformer who initiated the Protestant Reformation in 1517, taught that human conscience is sinful because it is part of a fallen world.

"We need the grace of God to save us from the state that we're in," Nelson said. "How can we bind ourselves to that which is sinful? We voted to be affiliated with LCMC who believes that God is smarter than humans."



Why some left

Protestations aside, it is the gay issue that caused some to leave, said the Rev. Wayne Miller, bishop of the ELCA Metropolitan Chicago Synod.

"There has been no change in doctrine," Miller said. "The ELCA, at its last national assembly in 2009, opened the possibility, as a matter of church practice, that we could call pastors in committed same-gender relationships. It's a congregational option, not doctrine. Some people found this option to be unacceptable to the point where they can no longer remain affiliated."

Miller said churches that have left say it is because the resolution is a change in the way the authority of Scripture is seen.

"We do not see it that way," Miller said. "We see it as an understanding ... of Scripture interpreted by a community of faith that is continually being interpreted ... through prayer, study and conversation."

As to "bound conscience," being a greater issue, Miller dismissed it as "a fabrication."

Miller said the term dates to the Reformation. It allowed reformers to say people in the Christian faith could stand against the church's teaching.

"Bound conscience ... binds us together when we do not agree," Miller said. "They have used a complete misunderstanding of the concept. Where does my conscience come from? In my view, it comes from my entire experience of being raised in a community of faith, tied to my identity as part of church. My conscience does not separate me; it connects me."

Miller said the core issues of faith have not moved or changed.

"We continue to be a faith community that defines itself by understanding that all that I am and all I have comes by grace alone by faith alone in Christ alone," Miller said. "Our mission to bear witness of the love and power of Jesus Christ has not changed."

Miller compared objections to gay ordination to denominations, such as the Missouri and Wisconsin Lutheran Synods, that do not ordain women.

"It is exactly the same principles of Biblical interpretation that opened us to the ordination of women in 1970," Miller said. "A community of faith is constantly listening to how the Spirit is opening them to new understanding."

Decisions

One Geneva Lutheran member who voted to leave but opted to stay was Batavia resident Carol Jacklin, who serves as the congregational secretary.

"I will say that I wrestled with it," Jacklin, 76, said. "Not the question regarding gay clergy. My question was, 'What is this going to do to my congregation?'"

Then Jacklin said she asked herself what would Jesus do?

"What table would Jesus be sitting at? He would be sitting with the outcasts, and he would be sitting with the very people that so many were concerned about, as far as gay clergy in committed relationships," Jacklin said. "Jesus said we are supposed to love everyone. He did not say there was a specific group you could love and another group not so much. I said to myself, I'm staying with my congregation, the one I belonged to since 1968."

One Lutheran who welcomed the ELCA vote was Keith Fry, 52, who is openly gay and has been in a committed relationship for 20 years. Fry left his job at a publishing house to go to seminary and graduated in June 2009.

"I waited anxiously for the assembly's decision," Fry said.

Two weeks after the decision, Fry was called to be pastor of Christ the Lord Lutheran Church in Elgin, with 350 baptized members. His being gay and in a relationship was an issue for some, he said.

"We probably lost a dozen members, but also last year we received 24 new members and baptized seven babies," Fry said. "Life goes on. We are very much committed to service to God and to our neighbor and very much committed to being part of the ELCA."

Fry said he believes it is the gay issue that has prompted congregations to leave the ELCA. As to the Scripture that speaks against homosexuality, Fry said it is open to question.

"Paul also talks about we are free in Christ and Scripture teaches the Spirit will lead us into new understanding," Fry said. "'I will send the Spirit, and the Spirit will lead you into truth.' Paul clearly defended slavery and told them to go back and be good slaves. We understand as Christian people, we cannot have that same understanding."

Still, Fry said he does not have any animosity toward those who disagree.

"I just wish they wouldn't try so hard to work against those of us who have a different understanding," Fry said. "We do not give a good witness to the world when we tear one another apart."