Owning the fringes. . .

ELCA Presiding Bishop Eaton delivered a lecture and then participated on a forum with some of the folks nearly everyone would describe as the extreme fringe of the ELCA.

She took part in the September 22, 2017, Augsburg University’s annual Christensen Symposium. The first half of the symposium was an "Address by Bishop Eaton" and the second half was "#DecolonizeLutheranism Community Panel with Bishop Eaton."

So what is #DecolonizeLutheranism? They are some of the most extreme and radical ELCA leaders around.  They included:

• "Jessica Davis, Christian Educator and #decolonizeLutheranism Chaplain. 
• Rev. Lura Groen, Pastor and #decolonizeLutheranism Chaplain
• Francisco Herrera, Ph. D candidate at LSTC and Convener of #decolonizeLutheranism" (see here)

A little more about these folks can be found here.   ELCA Rev. Lura Groen is trying to start mission which she has named “St. Jezebel's Church.” (see here)   She is the author of some of the strangest stuff on the fringes of the ELCA.  She wrote "a Liturgical Proclamation of Queer Holiness." (see here) Things like:

"May the Mighty One dance Her fierce dance on all the walls of injustice.
May the Strong, Proud Mama keep all Her babies safe.
May the Femme of all Femmes paint us in beauty.
May the Seductive One change our hearts.
May the Love of the Universe wiggle Her wide hips at you, and wrap Her thighs around you.
May the Promiscuous One make love to you, 
And may She rock your world." (see here)
 

Jessica Davis signed the ​"Naked & Unashamed Statement" which charged the ELCA with oppression against GLBTQ people.  "We are ELCA Lutherans…The plethora of stories we hear in our conversations demonstrate that life and liberty are being oppressed in the pressure for church leaders to be in marital relationships, or otherwise abstain from all sexual intimacy. The common good of both parishioners and church leaders would benefit from the freedom to be in a variety of healthy relationships…”  And she would like to see marriage no longer "privileged" as the acceptable form of "sexual relationality" and she wants all language that "perpetuates heteronormativity and sexual oppression” removed from the church.  (see here)

Francisco Herrera is perhaps even more radical.  He has been quoted saying such things as  it is the "deepest, darkest dreams of so many" ELCA members to kill black people (see here);  "...if the God that we serve would condemn such gorgeous souls to eternal torment, let that God stand accursed — and you with him!" (see here); and "God is a woman… who loves us, who desires us, who wants to make love to us, who longs for us in a perfumed garden, eagerly waiting to give herself to us with passion and abandon.” (see here)

So what does it mean that the Presiding Bishop of the ELCA sits with such folks on a panel?  It means she embraces them as part of the ELCA fold, it legitimizes their complaints, and presents them as acceptable to the mainstream of the ELCA.  In other words, she does just what I have complained about.  She refuses to marginalize these people and their points of view and so dilutes and diminishes the witness of the ELCA and erodes its Lutheran-ness.  This is the the way those on the fringe have changed the direction the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, effectively hijacking the church from those thought to be in the mainstream in the small towns and villages throughout the Midwest.  Why are they not complaining?  That is the great mystery.  When will these folks (many of whom live in my home town and are salt of the earth kind of people) wise up, rise up, and fight (or, if they are not going to fight, leave the remnants of a nobler past being squandered on foolishness, heresy, and apostasy.

UPDATE. . . A Transgender Service at Luther Seminary (ELCA). . .