Some Thoughts on the #NashvilleStatement

Here are some thoughts on the Nashville Statement

Preamble

              I wonder, in this moment in time, with so many things going on—white nationalism on the rise in this country threatening people of color, increasingly severe storms causing havoc both at home and across the globe (most noticed in Houston), nations threatening nuclear war… in the midst of all these things… I wonder why the Nashville Statement was released?

              You attack individual autonomy when it comes to issues of sex, gender, and orientation. I wonder if a similarly strong attack will be made regarding how individual autonomy shapes economic, ecological, and political life in this country? I shall not hold my breath.

              You declare gay and trans lives to be shortsighted, ruinous, and dishonorable. Then you pat yourself on the back as an unashamed courageous and clearly counter-cultural force in this country. I wonder how such counter-cultural people have gained a seat at the table of the President of the United States, and I wonder still more why this document was released to coincide with his administration’s roll out of anti-trans and anti-gay agenda items?

              I marvel at how you have sold yourself for pottage. You claim our “true identity” is as male and female—but scripture declares that our true identity is the one we have been given in baptism—we are Children of God.

In fact, you double down on this point and link a person’s gender, being male and female, to a person’s salvation. “Design” and salvation are tied together for you. There was a time when my denomination’s namesake, Martin Luther, stood against what he believed to be salvation by works. I think you go one step worse—salvation by right self-conception. As a Lutheran I must deny this—our actions, or thoughts, or anything this is ours, will not save us. We are saved only because God is gracious.

Article 1

              I have noticed you have dishonored every marriage that does not produce children and any remarriage after divorce. You also ignore the reality that when clergy perform marriages we do so partially as officials of the state. There is literally a human contract involved in what we do.

Article 2

              How often do you wed two virgins in your church? How many of you were virgins on your wedding night? I worry that these types of statements, that ignore the facts on the ground, often serve to make the church look foolish, out of touch, and easily dismissed. I remember being told not to lust by a pastor, that if I looked at a girl with lust I truly ought to pluck out my eye. I was a teenage boy going through puberty, this scared the hell out of me. When I finally went to a lay adult with my genuine struggle to be perfect, his response was, “just don’t listen to the pastor, no one ever actually does anything like that.”

Article 3

              In what ways are male and female distinct? Which differences are the ones that matter, which are the “divinely ordained differences”? I would venture to guess that decision will be made by mainly men, at least judging by the average signer of this statement.

              I wonder, if sexual difference does not render inequality of dignity or worth, does that mean you will work to close the gender pay gap? That you will fight for the Equal Rights Amendment? That you will ordain women…

Article 4

              It seems to me that discerning what aspects of our present life are part of “the fall” and which are “divinely ordained” is not an easy thing to discern. After all, when God showed up on earth the religious leaders of his day crucified him, and the Apostle Paul, no slouch when it comes to biblical interpretation, attacked the early church on account of his reading of Deuteronomy—he who dies upon a tree is cursed. If you think God’s will is clear, you will likely crucify Christ and persecute his church.

Article 5

              Taking this affirmation seriously for a moment, this would mean part of a man’s self-conception ought to be non-monogamy, as our “reproductive structures” contain enough sperm to knock-up the whole planet a hundred times over. Natural Law arguments only work if you ignore nature.

Article 6

              You seem to mean well.

Article 7

              Again, you’ve tied self-conception to redemption, you lean toward salvation by self-conception. How does God save me based on my manliness?

I wonder as well, how this and article 5 play out. One looks to natural law, the other to scripture. For that matter, what all does the bible say about sexuality, gender, and orientation?

Article 8

              I wonder how many married gay people you’ve talked to? By and large their marriages and relationships with their partners have made their lives richer and more fruitful. I’ve seen the fruits of the Spirit blossom on account of homosexual relationships.

              I also wonder how this article squares with your natural law arguments. If homosexual sex is found in most every animal in nature, how then is it unnatural?

Article 9

              Again, if article 5 means anything you have to take seriously sexual desire as natural.

Article 10

              If supporting homosexual marriage and transgender people is a sin, then I’ll sin boldly.

              By the same token, there are ways in which fellow Christians can disagree, respect for the bound conscience of the neighbor. But if you aren’t practicing it in your statement, I shall not do so in my response.

Article 11

              This is a strange article. I hope it is not saying we ought to purposefully misgender people. Maybe its call for truth about one another as male and female calls us to fight toxic masculinity and sexism?

Article 12

              You all are pietists!

              You seem to believe people might be holy before the general resurrection. Yet we are both justified and sinner—claiming otherwise leads people to hide their sins and foster hypocrisy. We’re only as sick as our secrets. Don’t make people sick with false promises.

Article 13

              Your ongoing assumption that you know God’s revealed will reeks of self-aggrandizement. At the same time you don’t know if you are affirming “natural law” or “scripture” and seem not to have actually thought through any of it beyond that you require gender, sex, and orientation to align for everyone in the way that it does for the majority of people.

              Also, have you talked to transgender-folk about their struggles to “forsake transgender self-conceptions”? Have you talk to them about the liberation they have experienced when they’ve become who they believe God has called them to be?

Article 14

I like The Denver Statement’s response to this:
“WE AFFIRM that Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners and that through Christ’s death and resurrection forgiveness of sins and eternal life are available to every person; this is a supreme treasure.

WE DENY that God is a boy and has actual arms.”

Romans 12

Dear Siblings in Christ,

         It is worth reflecting on what I’ve said up until now, before we move on to a new subject:

         Remember, we are infected and used by that parasite Sin.

         Remember, that we are saved by that unstoppable love and promise of God revealed to us by the Holy Spirit.

         Remember, that we continue to try and clog up God’s mercy, and yet God continues all the more to hold us fast with the mysterious works of His grace.

         I remind you of this, because it speaks to the seriousness of our actions, and also, the gentle / power of God’s actions.

         Just as the cultural and religious practices I wrote to you about can muddy the clear love of God for all people

—our actions may also show God’s love forth more clearly… a mirror can be scuffed or it can be shiny—what it is reflecting doesn’t change.

We’re all made in the image of God, reflecting God’s love

—I hope we as a community might be as reflective of that love as possible.

         Some might jump out of their seats at this statement—they might ask, is that Paul I hear? Because, you see, I often get a bad rap.

         There is a whole genre of screed—a whole way of talking about me—that I find hurtful, and for that matter, only works if you’ve not actually read what I’ve written.

         There are people who point out that I never knew the Christ before the resurrection. This is clearly true, but what follows is less so…

         They then go on to say, okay, maybe Paul’s fine at talking about what Christ has done for us on the cross and in the empty tomb—that he’s saved us.

But, they add, he never knew the Jesus who Mary and Peter and Matthew, and all the Disciples, knew. So, they say with smug satisfaction, he never knew Jesus, his teachings, or his commands, and therefore his witness is invalid and untrue. He doesn’t get to tell people about Christ.

         And to be fair to them, the Creeds of the Church that followed several centuries after me, did focus on death and resurrection, seemingly without a focus on Jesus’ teachings.

         “Born of the virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate”—skips 30 crucial years, right?

That said, if we take seriously our confession “Jesus is our Lord” it seems obvious that we ought to ask, what does my Lord require?

        

-I will admit I am one who was late born, I did not have the opportunity to know Jesus before the resurrection, but I would add that the same can be said of you, yet Jesus still speaks in his Church today!

-I would add, that if you see Christ’s death and resurrection as a small thing, you may need to take time to consider them again.

-I would add, that if you don’t see the freedom won by Christ for us as having ethical implications for your life, you need to look more deeply in your heart and more squarely at your neighbor’s needs.

-Finally, it is worth stating that I did spend time with the disciples. Some even suggest the church of Antioch that produced the Gospel of Matthew was my home congregation—which would explain all the fixation on strained community life in that Gospel—after all, wherever I go, it seems Christian Community gets all stirred up!

But perhaps I need no other defense of my Apostleship and my knowledge of Jesus’ teachings, save my own words to the Romans, and to you today

—if you are feeling ambitious, read Matthew 5-7 and Romans 12-15 together… it will be eye opening.

All I’m saying today, is the same thing Jesus said in his Sermon on the Mount, my words earnestly expound upon Jesus’ Beatitudes—those blessings he called forth on that majestic mountain!

My words just happen to be pointed to a particular congregation. I’m just helping them, and you, reflect God’s love as a community!

This deep love from God, which you all reflect…

I hope it is genuine. I hope it is as real as the love we see between siblings or best friends or lovers.

         I hope you take yourselves seriously. You bear the image of God—don’t sell yourself short, and don’t let anyone else sell you out either.

         I hope you consider regularly how you can shine that light, which is already there, to the whole world!

         I hope you consider how you can honor that image in others, remind them of how beloved they are, no matter who they are!

         Remind them through hospitality, charity, patience, prayer, and hope—through all these, God’s love might be reflected to the whole world.

        

         What I’m calling you to is a hard thing for all of us, whether we’re beginners in belief or have trusted God for a good long time, yet it helps people see what God is doing in Christ Jesus our Lord!

         You will be persecuted, in those situations do not curse those who persecute you, but bless them—as Jesus said, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for my name’s sake.”

         You will come across folk in all kinds of moods, rejoice with the joyous, cry with the mourners. Didn’t Jesus say, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted”?

         Live together in harmony, don’t be haughty, know the limits of your wisdom and make your home with the lowly—after all didn’t Jesus says, “blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”?

         Do not repay evil with evil—that just makes more evil, our Lord did instruct us, “if you are struck, turn the other cheek.”

         Live peacefully with everyone, for Jesus said, “blessed are the peacemakers.”

         Love not only each other, not only the stranger, but even those who hate you and spitefully misuse you.

         Love as completely as God loves—for in so doing, God’s love, mercy, and grace might be known to all.

         Live with the assumption that the goal of life is the redemption of all of us—after all, evil isn’t to be destroyed, it is to be redeemed!

A Unified Theory of Lutheranism Today

 So, at Learning, Lawn Chairs, and Lemonade (my church's summer intergenerational group) we’ve been thinking about the Future Church.

            Each week I come out with three props to start things off: a pair of glasses, a hammer, and a map. These three props represent the three considerations of Aristotelian Ethics (but if I’d told everyone we meeting to talk about Aristotle, no one would have showed up)—determine where you are at, what tools you have to get where you are going, and know where you ultimately want to end up.

Glasses (Where we’re at):

            As some of you have heard before, I think where we are at, as both a church and a nation, can be defined by 3Ds: Disestablishment, Decentralization, and Demographic Shift. 

            The Church is (or in some regions of the country, is becoming) disestablished here in the USA—that is, we have a different voice in our country and in our culture than we once did. There was a time when our society saw the church as an integral part of the social fabric and treated us as such. For example, there were blue laws that kept businesses closed on Sunday so employment wasn’t a barrier to worship. These days most people don’t equate Good Christian with Good American, the distinction between those two things has grown and changed.

            The most quoted line of poet William Yeats comes from the beginning of his poem “The Second Coming” in which he writes:

            Turning and turning in the widening gyre

            The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

            Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold

            There is no center to things any more, everything has cracked open and separated out. At one time, everyone got their news from one straight laced news man, a single source, and that was the reality everyone bought into. At one time, you were likely to live next to a neighbor with a differing political opinion from yours and that was okay. At one time, people regularly bowled in leagues and regularly joined organizations of all sorts. Now, there are news channels that cater to any viewpoint, everything is looked at through a partisan lens and there are literally now “blue” and “red” neighborhoods—a great sorting based on ideology, the same number of people bowl as before, but alone because league attendance has plummeted, and any organization that takes serious commitment has taken a serious hit. In short, we’re feeling the effects of decentralization.

            There has also been a great demographic shift going on in America for a while. For example, in the 1950 census 87% of Americans claimed to be European, in 2010 64% made that same claim. As the same time, Asians went from 0.2% of the population to 5%, Latinos from 2% to 16%, and “multi-racial” wasn’t even a category but now is the identity claimed by 2% of our population. While these ethnic changes have taken place economic changes have occurred as well. There are now 10% fewer people in America considered middle class, and at the same time the cost of everything has risen dramatically, while incomes have not.

            These 3D’s represent the landscape in which we are doing ministry. George Orwell once wrote: “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” And it is; the day in day out stuff of ministering in this time and place can make us lose sight of the ground we are on and the realities we face. But if we know the landscape, we can find firm footing and show forth God’s love rightly. And the reality in which we find ourselves living together as church isn’t bad news, at worst it is neutral, it is just where we are. In fact, there are some real positives! 

            Without the social pressures of being a good citizen and a good Christian, those of us still in the church are here because we really want to be here, not because there is social pressure to be here! 

            There is a power to decentralization—a small group of people can do giant things. That should be good news to us, after all we are a small group of people tasked to do nothing short of be God’s hands in the world! 

            Non-Europeans are the majority of new immigrant to this country, and Lutheranism has traditionally grown with new immigrants from Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Norway… Well guess what, there are now more Lutherans in either Ethiopia or Tanzania than in Sweden, more Lutherans in Indonesia than Denmark, more Lutherans in India than Finland, Norway, or the USA, more Lutherans in Nigeria than the Netherlands. For that matter, the majority of Namibians are Lutheran. You get the picture, our country’s ethnic demographic changes should only scare us if we see Lutheranism as being about Lederhosen and Lefse instead of Grace and Word and Sacrament and Cross.

            As for the economics of it all, maybe this jolt to the middle class will help us hear those in poverty in a new way. Perhaps it can make us more thankful for those things we do have. Could we maybe become more creative in response to our limits? Even more generous? 

Hammer (what tools do we have):

            On one hand we have some really solid theological centers in Lutheranism—Grace and Faith, Scripture as the two edged sword of Law and Gospel, the Christian as both Saint and Sinner at the same time, the Cross as the lens with which we look at everything… these are incredibly important… but they can also be rather abstract… so it is worth looking to the other hand, and finding more concrete tools—specifically, those things we do in worship. 

            They are the practices of the Church that have existed since the beginning—in Luke’s Gospel on the road to Emmaus (Luke 23:13-35) they gather, read scripture, share a meal, and are sent back into the world. In the Didache (an early Christian handbook for worship probably written by Christians who were especially fond of Matthew’s Gospel) and in Justin Martyr’s description of what Christians do in worship, they all spell out the same thing. At base, Christians gather, read the word of God, share a common meal, and are sent out to bring the Gospel to the world, by whatever means they can.

            Gathering, Word, Meal, Sending. These are our tools to use in the world in which we live. 

            Gathering, how revolutionary today! We’re a people who don’t do it alone; who insist upon community, even when it is hard. We are centered in Christ’s death and life for us and practice confession and forgiveness in it. 

            Word, we are challenged and comforted continually by God’s story. There are many stories in our culture, many of them unhelpful, so we cling instead to those stories in which Christ found his being. We tell them and are transformed by them, sacred story shaping who we are; God’s story is our story. 

            Meal, one of thanksgiving and celebration, one in which we receive true nourishment, Christ himself for us. Grace physically present to us. Thanksgiving and community around a meal from God!

            Sending, the church does not exist for itself, or its members, but for the world which God loves. We are filled, to be emptied. We have practiced being community, found how our story intersects with God’s story, been thankful and fed, so we may now be that outside the church walls, loving our neighbor.

Map (Where we want to end up):

            Finally, there is the ultimate question—what’s the point of all this? What’s Lutheranism for? What’s the goal of church? 

            Taking a look at my handy dandy Small Catechism, I can look to Luther’s description of the 10 commandments and from it gather humans are to fear[1], love, and trust God. That’s it right there! Our goal is to help people fear, love, and trust God. We are making wonder filled, beloved, people who are confident that God has got them!

Putting it all together:

            The ultimate goal of the church is to help people be in awe of, love, and trust, God. The practices of Christian worship are the main tools we use to get to that goal. The disestablishment of the church, the decentralization of our society, and the demographic shifts in our country, present both challenges and opportunities to reaching this goal. 

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[1] I believe fear in this sense has more to do with awe. Just as seeing the Grand Canyon gives us a sense of smallness and wonder and a tinge of fear (especially if you are afraid of heights), so too does a proper relationship to God.

Sermon: Another letter of Paul to St. Stephen Lutheran

Dear Sibblings in Christ,

         For three chapters in my letter to the Romans, I struggled, twisted and turned, tried to articulate and express what God was doing with his people.

         I struggled so mightily because the whole thing, God’s merciful acts for us, is so mysterious and unexpected.

         I struggled as well, because I was writing to a mixed community—both Jew and Gentile; one that had experienced turmoil on account of the persecution and expulsion of the Jews in Rome… for 3 years the community had been solely gentile, the Emperor had removed all the Jews from the city, including the Christian Jews in that congregation—and by the time they returned the dynamics there had shifted, relations strained.

         I struggled, because that question weighed so heavily upon my soul—what of my own kinspeople? What of the people from whom Jesus Christ came, whom God adopted, made a relationship with, gave the commandments to, who rightly worshipped God and held tightly to God’s promises. What, I asked, is God doing in relationship to his people? Who are his people? How does God’s mercy and God’s majesty play out?

         I struggled with it, and still do.

         But this I know. I know that at least I, Paul, embraced God’s law without the Spirit, and in so doing condemned what God was doing through Jesus Christ.

         I persecuted the early church;

I witnessed and aided the stoning of Saint Stephen;

I called cursed that which God had blessed—truly I had blasphemed the Holy Spirit.

         And I did so because I clung to holy words “cursed is the one who hangs upon a tree,” I held to them so tightly that I squeezed the holiness right out of them. I couldn’t see Jesus holding out his loving arms to all people from that cursed tree!

         And I worried that my people had done something similar, that some of

-Our cultural practices,

-The boundary markers created to keep our communities safe,

-Emblems of Identity held dear, so the dominant culture couldn’t crush the covenant God made with us…

That these things had become a stumbling block.

That these same fences keeping corruption out, were now keeping God’s mercy confined,

Keeping those who desperately needed the salvation of Jesus, from receiving it.

         And it is hard to talk about these things, these days, because my words are sometimes been used as ammunition by anti-Semites to injure my people—the Jews.

         In fact, I think the only honest way to hear my words is to apply them to your congregation or synod or denomination or religious tradition.

         The only honest way to hear my words about my people is to sincerely assess:

your own cultural practices,

your own boundary markers,

your own emblems of identity,

your own fences,

your own fanaticism.

How have they held back God’s work—the reconciliation of the whole world?

How have they stifled the Spirit and called cursed, those things which God has blessed?

         For example:

         I have heard that 300 years after my death Christianity tied itself to Rome—that being Roman and being Christian became part of a single cultural package—and then Rome fell and nearly took the faith down with it.

         I have heard of Christian churches that lock their doors during the service, because they are afraid of their neighbors—they literally fence off those seeking the freedom of Christ.

         I’ve even heard of some Christians that so associate their faith with a meeting of people in a building, that they forget that being a Christian is a lifetime of ongoing repentance, everywhere, not just for an hour on Sunday.

         I encourage you to think of the fanatics, fences, emblems of identity, boundary markers, and cultural practices of your faith that might be getting in the way of Christ.

(Pause)

         Those things—are, at the end of the day, all human attempt to Resurrect Jesus, and to incarnate God. They are works of humans, that are for not.

         After all, you must know that God already came in the flesh of Jesus,

and death has already been overcome by Christ

—the resurrection, the incarnation, they are God’s to do, not yours!

         These things are already done. All we can do is trust it to be true

—trust that God’s got this.

         All we can do is get out of the way and watch God at work in the lives of people with whom we wouldn’t expect God to act

—listen to the good news that God has acted for us and not against us

—for all of us, against no one!

God’s merciful reach is bigger than our boldest imagination!

God is always merciful.

It’s all a gift, a calling, a promise, and it is all-irrevocable.

God is faithful and God’s promises are unbreakable.

         How this all come together—it is ultimately a great mystery—the mysterious works of God—and even as it is a struggle to speak of it, or grasp it in our minds or hearts, or express it ourselves,

it is so marvelous!

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