In Response to Rev. D. Lothar Schwabe

This is my individual response to an article posted on "How to Become a Progressive Christian." The article can be found at The Disciple Ship

 

We have leaders in the LCMC (Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ) and NALC (North American Lutheran Church) who believe that the future of the church lies in adopting the theology of sexist, homophobic, pharisaic Christianity promoted by a narrow reading of select theologians.

I want to provide some practical suggestions on how LCMC and NALC Lutherans can get themselves ready to make the change from being confessional Lutherans built on the scaffolding of the theology of Martin Luther laid on the cornerstone of Christ to being full-fledged sexist, homophobic, pharisaic Christians.

First of all, you must believe everything the Bible says. It is not helpful to take the Bible seriously as the living Word of God if you want to become a Pharisaic Christian. You must accept all the New Testament without context. You must have the courage to ignore science, conflicting passages, archeological record, sociology and knowledge in general. You must ignore anything that refers to the context of Jesus. Jesus died on the cross as an ordinary criminal but you need to paint a bloody, violent, and destructive death. You must never ask God any questions and bury all doubt and reason. You must also delete anything that refers to universal salvation and God breaking boundaries in the Easter story and the resurrection of Jesus. You may keep everything that relates to Jesus as divine. After you are finished with that your Bible will be the center of your world. You will be able to carry the Bible around underlined in red with all the words that hint at a fire, judgment and death.

Secondly, you must convince yourself that anything in the Bible cannot be questioned. It cannot include prophetic words that promote social justice, or that it includes words of poetry, allegory or female wisdom. Logically that should cause a problem when it comes to the teaching of pharisaic, Kingdom of Glory theology that the real Christian faith is all about God's judgment. Because if there is any human progress that proves that God's love through the movement of the Holy Spirit exists other than being words written in a book then how do you know that God's grace really exists? It is inconsistent to reject anything that suggests the human spark of creation and then talk about God's judgment. But for pharisaic Christians that does not seem to be a problem, after all, dead, white 16^th German Theology is perfection.

Thirdly, when it comes to the gospel of inclusiveness and being radically welcoming, you must be prepared to make some exceptions. Yes, God certainly loves all regardless of their sexuality and your churches propose that they welcome everyone with open arms. But, when it comes to Christians who test the openness and welcome, who test your adherence to the principles of Jesus Christ, well, there is a limit to which Biblical passages you adhere too.

Finally, you must trust your leaders and the theology they chose to promote. After all, if a local pastor can promote conflict, split congregations and lead some into leaving a denomination how can you doubt them? They have theological training and have studied the issues and you are a simple lay person. It is also helpful not to ask the question how the church will deal with mission in the 21^st century. It would be a public relations nightmare to publically admit that the Bible is 66 books of living faith. It would be unsettling to admit that generations of future pastors will mislead their congregations in believing in the transforming power of Christ. So you better not touch that one.

Anyway, good luck. For any further questions ask your pastor, she …. Ooops sorry, ask anyway.

Comments

[Brent Peters]

I came across your article as I was doing a web search on Rev. D. Lothar Schwabe who passed away yesterday. The link to his article is not working any longer but that doesn’t matter as I gather from your response to him and from web search on you, that you have no concerns with practicing LGBTQ2+ persons taking full part in the sacraments of the church, including marriage (not sure if it is considered a sacrament in you denomination).
On one hand, I can understand the desire to be inclusive, as Jesus was certainly an example of that for us, not turning away anyone who was genuinely seeking to know more about him (rich, poor, Gentile, Jew, Pharisee, Samaritan, etc…)

On the other hand, I observe that his inclusion certainly had limits (i.e. pointing out that the rich young ruler still had things to work out before he could be part of the God’s kingdom). Nowhere in scripture do I see that God is pleased with same-sex sexual relations, in fact God specifically prohibited those relations. Which all begs the question, as to why do you believe that God changed their mind and now approves of those same relations?

[Charles Fredrickson]

Dear Mr. Peters,
Thank you for your thoughts. I was not aware that the link was no longer working so I appreciate that note. In regards to your other points, I sense that you have spent some time and thought on the topic of full inclusion (LGBTQ2+). One key point in my journey to full inclusion is similar to your comment "Nowhere in scripture....prohibited those relations." In reading scripture, I have found that at times we have construed God's intent for creation. For example as part of the covenant keeping as developed over the ages the Hebrew people prescribed their societal norms onto God's law (see Leviticus). Thus, in order to remain in right relationship with God they saw eating pork as not being in right relationship with God. Similarly they saw homosexuality (male/male) in that same vein. As a Christian, I believe that our right relationship with God is through Christ. As such I know longer saw those same OT scriptural references through the same vein. Blessings on your journey of faith.