What Is the ELCA Problem About?
Part of a 7 week course called "Sense and Sensuality" by Rev. Gary Blobaum
It’s not about sexuality. Or rather, sexuality became a problem in the ELCA
because its theology was already a problem. The theology of the ELCA has
been called “Christianity Lite.” It purports to hold fast the full-bodied theology
of the Christian creeds. In reality, it waters them down.
The ELCA constitution promises: “This church accepts the Apostle’s, Nicene,
and Athanasian Creeds as true declarations of the faith of this church.” But
does the ELCA actually believe that the declarations of the creeds are true?
Look at two essays on the ELCA website ( HYPERLINK
"http://www.elca.org" www.elca.org). Type Virgin Birth or Resurrection in the
search space.
The first essay acknowledges that the Augsburg Confession “supports the
Western Church’s traditional understanding of the doctrine referred to as The
Virgin Birth.” But the essay goes on: “While it remains official and normative
for the Evangelical Lutheran Church today, [this teaching of the Augsburg
Confession] has not closed the doctrinal debate over Jesus’ conception for
many Lutherans…” In other words, although this is the official position of the
ELCA, many Lutherans doubt it.
Many Lutherans? Has anyone noticed the volume dropping on the phrase
“born of the Virgin Mary” during the confession of the creed? Who are these
Lutherans who debate the truth of the virginal conception of Jesus? And why is
the ELCA contradicting its own constitution to champion their doubt?
Doubt over the virginal conception of Jesus seems the primary theme of the
essay. For example, the essay contends that “not all early theologians espoused
the doctrine…” But it names only one such theologian: Marcion, who was a
heretic.
In a series of three paragraphs, the essay marshals the following arguments
against belief in the virginal conception: 1. the Greek word “virgin” in Matthew
1:23 translates from Isaiah 4:7 the Hebrew word “young woman;” 2. some
pagan mythological figures were said to have been born of virgin mothers; and
3. some Old Testament “heroes such as Ishmael, Isaac, Samson, and Samuel”
were born in unusual circumstances and the early Christians supposedly wanted
to portray Jesus’ birth as having surpassed theirs.
The essay concludes: “When we confess in the Apostle’s Creed that Jesus was
‘conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary…’ we
are not making a gynecological assertion.” Oh? The ELCA may not be
confessing a gynecological fact, but the rest of the Church is. The vast majority
of Christians believe in the virginal conception of Jesus as a physical and
historical fact.
But what, in place of this bold creedal confession, does the ELCA believe?
Back to the essay: “…we are not making a gynecological assertion. We are
saying that God entered into Christ…” God entered into Christ? That is either
heresy or very close to it. According to orthodox faith, the divine nature of
Christ cannot be the result of God entering into Christ. There was no point at
which God entered into Christ because from the moment of his conception
Christ was God. There was never a time when Jesus was not divine. There
was never a time when Jesus, even as an embryo, awaited God’s entering into
him.
For the ELCA, the doctrine of the virginal conception of Jesus seems an
embarrassment, as if educated people can no longer believe such things.
Perhaps the ELCA wants to appeal to the culture, to make it easier for modern
people to believe. In doing so, however, the ELCA is becoming
indistinguishable from the culture itself.
Doubt is the prevailing mood as well in the essay on resurrection. It argues that
the “accounts of Jesus’ resurrection emphasize the doubt and uncertainty of the
disciples.” Well, let’s see. The first New Testament account of the
resurrection (A.D. 51) is found in First Corinthians 15:1-7. It says nothing at
all about doubt and uncertainty as it recounts the appearances of the risen Jesus
to more than 500 sisters and brothers. Mark’s account says nothing about
doubt and uncertainty either. It reports “terror and amazement.” Matthew tells
of “fear and great joy” among the women, and he reports that the disciples
worshiped the Lord “but some doubted.” In Luke, Peter is “amazed,” the hearts
of the Emmaus disciples burn with excitement, and the other disciples are
startled and terrified and assume Jesus is a ghost until he quells their doubts by
eating a fish in front of them. Later the disciples “worshiped him and returned
to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple blessing God.”
In John, everyone who sees Jesus believes, including Thomas whose doubt
prior to seeing Jesus culminates in the most profound confession of faith in the
New Testament: “My Lord and my God.” To claim, as the essay does, that
these narratives emphasize doubt and uncertainty is to seriously distort them.
“Some doubted.” But the emphasis is on fear, joy, worship, and burning hearts.
Still more seriously, the essay skirts the fact that Jesus rose bodily from the
dead. His Easter appearances it calls “apparitions” as if the disciples did not
really see their Lord standing bodily before them. In terms more Buddhist than
Biblical, the essay defines resurrection as “the ultimate life passage.” After
death, it claims, Christians can expect to enter “a life of the spirit, a new and
permanent form of life.” The creeds, by contrast, boldly declare: “I believe in
the resurrection of the body.” We do not become wispy spirits in a nondescript
heaven; we feast, we drink wine, we dine at the table of the Lord and see the
love in his real and human face.
If at some point in his earthly life, God merely “entered into” Christ; and if
Christ and those who believe in Christ merely enter the life of the spirit – we
can remain pretty much as we are. In that case, God wants not so much to
change us as to guide us through life and through life’s “ultimate passage.” But
if our salvation required of God something as drastic as becoming human flesh,
and if human bodies will one day be exalted, then we know: we will be
radically changed. No life passage will do – only a miracle. In repentance and
service to the lowly, we will be humbled as Jesus was humbled; in forgiveness
and bodily resurrection, we will be exalted as Jesus is exalted.
The vivid faith of the Christian creeds is fading in the ELCA.