ELCA document available for the asking

You'll find this comment in its entirety here. I wanted to make a few observations.

Anonymous said ...
Actually, that is not true. At the first vote, 66% percent in Fountain Hills voted to LEAVE, there could not be 80% who wanted to stay... I used to be a member there, have since joined La Casa.

There are always two sides to any story. The pro-ELCA forced a vote which they knew would fail because they paid for people to come back and vote with airplane tickets who were away at college and in other states who hadn't been in worship for years. There is only one pastor there, not two. You have bad information.

The split occurred because after the vote failed, a second vote was taken to affiliate with LCMC and the pro-ELCA folks left.

This is the legacy of the 2009 ELCA actions. It is the parishes and local pastors and members who suffer-if there is bad leadership, it is with the leaders of the ELCA who pushed this for the past 15 years when 60% of the members of the ELCA were saying no, don't do it. 600 people voted for 4 million, now down to about 3.2 million.

Sad.

Thank you for your opinion on this issue.  I do not have knowledge of the procedure or vote that the Fountain Hills church followed, so I cannot comment on this.  I think it is time for me to say something again:

The ELCA ruling does not force individual churches to follow this decision.  It is left up to the local church to hire whomever they want.  Bishop Talmage said as much, as has ELCA national.  However, when a congregation decides to leave ELCA, it makes a statement to the community.  This simply cannot be dismissed.

I have received from ELCA, Marcus Kunz to be precise, a presentation that national makes available to speakers who discuss this decision from the ELCA viewpoint.  If anyone wishes a copy, please contact me via email and I will see that you receive one.  Many.oneof@yahoo.com is my email address. 

Thank you again for your post.  Please remember to be present at the congregational meeting and vote your conscience on NOVEMBER 7.  Yours in service to Christ, Tom.

The more information and viewpoints, the better

You'll find the original comment excerpted below here. It's dated September 27 at 10:26 p.m. I wanted to respond to a few points.

Anonymous said ...

The ELCA is dying. So is every other denomination. They have dropped over a million members in twenty years and now the decline is accelerating. The ELCA leaders keep saying only a few hundred have left, but every weekend five to ten more churches vote to leave, and it keeps accelerating... check this blog out,

http://davidbarnhart.blogspot.com/

Just last weekend almost 20 more voted to leave!

This is a very good resource for discussion.  I would point out that our pastors fall on this side of the argument as well.  I would think exposure of this type of information would be beneficial to all of us to have at our disposal, but we also need information from the other side of the same amount and from a recognized authority.  This is exactly what I would like to see from both sides of this argument.

Anonymous said ...
This is not to mention the churches that have split, like in Fountain Hills. The true damage is not churches leaving, it is the ones closing their doors as members walk and people split. Sad the ECLA has decided politics and social issues are more important than preaching the bible.

Again, I would argue that the interpretation of “importance” of issues and exactly what “preaching the Bible”  means are at the heart of this issue.  I have a real difficulty with excluding people from things due to anthropological traits, and I suppose that would be where I differ with an awful lot of folk.  I understand that, but then I have something much more authoritative than everyday scriptural text:  The words of Christ’ commandment to us all as Christians.  I can’t get away from the feeling that to exclude means that we are walking away from, not closer to Jesus Christ.  And that bothers me immensely.

Anonymous said ...
As for you getting a larger number to vote, good luck. Judging that you have a grand total of less than 1% of the membership voting here, I don't think that will happen.

Thanks for the well wishes.  We’ve had nearly 2,300 views of this blog, so somebody is paying attention.  And as far as our count is concerned, I wouldn’t even consider that a sampling worth considering.  It is what it is, and people who view our site have left the posts, but not necessarily their vote, so I’m not concerned in the least.  Thanks again for your post, and providing meaningful information.

Please remember to be present at the November 7 congregational meeting and vote your conscience.  Yours in service to Christ, Tom.

The meaning of conscience-bound

You'll find the comment below in its entirety here. It's dated September 25 at 9:32 a.m. I want to make some observations about it.

Anonymous said ...
The ELCA no longer views scripture as absolute. Rather, it has replaced scripture based theology with "On the basis of conscience-bound belief". Indeed, this issue the Lutheran Church (ELCA) is facing today is due to this move from a concept of "there are some absolute truths" to "conscience-bound beliefs" of social justice. The concept by definition removes the word of "God" as the arbiter of truth and substitutes human behavior/environment as the norm for truth. Once this occurs, the authority of scripture is supplanted by the material world and therefore, will be constantly changing.

In talking about conscience-bound belief, the ELCA, I believe, is recognizing that some of its members will feel conscience-bound to be in disagreement with the actions taken at last year’s church assembly. For that reason, the denomination said no congregation would be forced to take any action that it would find unacceptable, such as accepting a practicing gay minister. La Casa will never be forced to do so.

I believe this is an equitable way to avoid a schism in the church while recognizing that Christians will differ on this highly contentious issue. This is one reason I believe we need not leave the ELCA at this time and that we should make time for a full, open discussion of these issues. The people on the other side of the issue aren’t demons, and we shouldn’t demonize them. They are brothers and sisters in Christ, and we should at least give them a full hearing and understand their position before we disassociate ourselves from them.

Interested in a face-to-face meeting?

If you're interested in meeting face to face to discuss options for the Nov. 7 congregational meeting at La Casa, send me an email to many.oneof@yahoo.com. You're welcome to come regardless of where you stand on the issue.

My own preference, as you know, is that the congregation would not leave the ELCA until we have had a fuller discussion of the issues that includes at least one representative who will articulate completely how and why the ELCA came to its decision to allow gay clergy in committed relationships to serve congregations who would welcome them.

If enough interest is expressed, I will let you know of the time and location of the meeting. Thanks for your consideration.