“This ‘new Reformed body’ is intended to foster a new way of being
the church, just as traditional, mainline denominations rose to serve
in their day,” wrote leaders of the new Evangelical Covenant Order of
Presbyterians. According to RNS, Conservative
Presbyterians launched a new denomination on Thursday (Jan. 19),
saying that the Presbyterian Church (USA) is too consumed by internal
conflicts and bureaucracy to nurture healthy congregations.
The PCUSA has been bleeding members for a long time (a half million over the last decade) and there are other conservative Presbyterian denominations (Presbyterian Church in America, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Bible Presbyterian Church, the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church (ARP Synod), the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America, the Westminster Presbyterian Church in the United States (WPCUS), and the Reformed Presbyterian Church in the United States (RPCUS)New Covenant Presbyterian Church). Apparently none of those were suitable for the folks leaving.
I am not sure that there is much to be gained for Presbyterianism to have so many so diverse a store of choices for those who like the brand. I am not so sure that Lutheranism gains much from a mind numbing plethora of acronyms in a sea of Lutheran choices, either. It seems to me that we delight in building up and then tearing down old structures, those we deemed to have outlived their usefulness or become flawed to the point we can no longer be satisfied in them. I fully understand that there are hills on which the stand must be made against encroaching liberalism that seeks to steal the fact from the truth. I fully appreciate that there must be boundaries for a diversity that has the potential to rob any confessional identity from a group. I just wonder if it is not a symptom of our times that we find it harder and harder to agree on our confessions or on what they say and how they should be practiced. If that is the case, we have much more to lose than a headquarters and a letterhead. I would not be inclined to suggest that the Lutheran cause (or any, really) would gain from innumerable elfin denominations formed by people who have narrowed the cause of unity so that the fewest number can fit. They are more than small. They are mischievous. I am not advocating broad church but instead suggesting that renewing the old structure is a better bet than creating a new one to replicate what was lost.
In the case of Missouri, I would ask those inclined to leave for an existing microsynod or to create their own church body to give it some time. We have a young and energetic President, we have strong seminaries, we have a renewed sense of the "church" as it functions in mission and ministry... but change, real change, will not happen overnight. It is not about simply clamping down but about renewing our unity and coming to more unanimity of mind and heart as we live out what it means to be confessional Lutherans within this church body.
4 comments:
The only reason for this new Presbyterian denomination is the same rationale as that for the NALC; they want to oppose the sodomism that has prevailed in their parent denomination, and yet to continue to practice its elder doppelganger, the pretended ordination of women.
Lutheranism as a denomination to the
general public is one more option.
LCMS as a denomination to its own
members has a history of internal
warfare for the past 50 years.
The moderates and the conservatives
jockey for power and the presidency.
We alternate between Preus, Bohlmann
Barry, Kieshnick, Harrison, ??????
"The LCMS is too consumed by internal conflicts and bureaucracy to nurture healthy congregations."
There. Fixed it for you. At least that is what I have seen some NALC pastors write as a reason for not leaving the ELCA for the LCMS.
Pastor Peters: I do enjoy reading about the plight of other denominations, because such news gives me insight into the LCMS. How does the LCMS stand compared to other denominations, is the LCMS getting better, getting worse, or staying the same? Is there any evidence that the healing and regeneration will begin soon?
@Anonymous
It is interesting to note that most (all?) Willow Creek LCMS pastors have never set foot in a non-denominational seeker church. And if they did, would they like what they would discover?
Is the Koinonia Project an effort to end the never ending 50+ year cycle of warfare? I would like to hope so. All of this infighting is keeping Synod from moving forward.
~Cafeteria Lutheran
I think I counted eleven Presbyterian denominations listed in your article.
The average non-Presbyterian who knows nothing about Presbyterianism will get his information from the media. Most news reports about the Presbyterian church will be about the PCUSA. A non-PC person would automatically think: "I know about *those* strange liberal people. They are all for the gays and for universal salvation. Forget that."
Do most non-Presbyterians even know or care that so many micro-denominations of the PC exist. Who has the patience to figure out which PC denominations are conservative, and which are liberal. Do even disaffected PCUSA laypeople have the patience, motivation, and skill to select the "right" micro-denomination. Perhaps it would be less confusing to walk away from the whole "alphabet soup" of church acronyms and find a non-PC denomination.
For the above two paragraphs:
Replace the word "Presbyterian" with the word "Lutheran"; Replace Presbyterianism with "Lutheranism"; and Replace PC with "Lutheran Church"; Replace PCUSA with "ELCA".
By the way, what is the future of Lutheran micro-synods in the USA. What would prompt them to decide that merging would be the only way to increase their stagnant size and influence. Is the LCMS or the AALC in discussions with any of them:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Lutheran_denominations_in_North_America
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