Thoughts from an alum

Given the news coming out of Luther Seminary today, I thought I'd offer my reflections.  A couple of things I write here are suggestions of actions I believe would be helpful; some are simply my thoughts, feelings, and reactions.  Other people may disagree with my suggestions, or feel, think, and react differently.  That is fine.  Also, please note: I am a very recent alum.  I am not an HR guru, a finance person, or a higher ed administrator.  I am not a current student, nor a an old-timer with a degree from LNTS.  I'm a first-call pastor at a smallish congregation in a small Midwestern town.  So, here goes.

• I like Rick Bliese.  From his rosy Santa Claus cheeks to his "dad jeans", by all accounts, he is a good, caring person who loves Jesus and the students, faculty, and staff at Luther.  He has personally been very supportive to me during my time at seminary and in candidacy, and I feel bad that this is what eventually "had" to happen.
• We need to be in prayer for him and his family - obviously this is a huge, and hugely negative, transition for them, down to the fact that they live in seminary housing and so will need to find a new place to live.
• The seminary is going to have to find a way to start handling pastoral care for students.  I'm aware Luther just hired a new campus pastor - I know nothing about her except that she's supposedly good.  I hope she is, although she has no institutional memory at this point, and in times of major upheaval such as this, that can be somewhat limiting.  Others are going to have to step up.  Students on campus are literally (yes) dying for someone to care for them.  Administration is generally available to meet one-on-one, or hold a "forum" in the chapel for people to (sort of) air their concerns.  But very few individuals offer one-on-one prayers, or hugs-and-tears.  Students feel trampled-upon at frequent intervals, and the sense, I believe, is that even when policies, decisions, transitions, whatever are "good" or "right", they are handled in a way that communicates that students aren't all that important.  Just like churches that want to grow need to start asking, "If I were a visitor, how would I react to this?", Luther staff/administration needs to start asking, "If I were a student, how would I react to this?"  
• I feel lied to.  For years, we have heard from President Bliese and others that, "Look, the economy [and the 2009 decisions] have been rough on everybody.  We're struggling, but we're making good decisions, and we're going to be okay.  We're certainly in better shape than the others."  I'm not sure whether Luther is "struggling, and not going to be okay", or whether the other 7 are already 6-feet-under, as it were.
• This raises huge vocational questions.  What are any of us doing as pastors in the ELCA, receiving graduate education from her seminaries, when they are all barely - barely - keeping their heads above water? What is the long-term survivability of the ELCA?  And if the answer is "not much", then why are we all dragging ourselves through the torture that is candidacy?  
• It also raises huge vocational reminders: I don't believe (or at least, I haven't heard anything that would make me think) Rick Bliese is guilty of true illegalities: fraud or embezzlement or such.  Apparently he asked forgiveness today for "poor fiscal leadership".  Mismanagement and poor leadership are not illegal, but they are sinful.  As pastors/youth leaders/professors/etc, we need to be aware that our own mismanagement and poor stewardship of what we've been given (not necessarily, or only, money) is just as sinful in the eyes of Our Lord as embezzlement. 
• I love Luther, and I thoroughly enjoyed my time there.  (Well, most days...)  I love the faculty and staff, the administration, my fellow students.  I learned a lot of really awesome facts and ideas there, and I grew tremendously.  But I have a ton of educational debt, as do most of my fellow students.  The cafeteria is barely open anymore.  Contracts prevent students from purchasing books...at the bookstore. And yet, certain individuals and departments spend ridiculous amounts of seminary funds on high-end coffee and cookies every day of the week.  There are flat-screen TVs in every corner of Northwestern and the OCC.  NW and OCC have both recently undergone major asthetic remodels, while the dorms and apartments battle bedbugs and mold year-round.  I understand that fundraising is not as simple as "write us a check, please, and make it out to 'cash'".  I understand that donors want to earmark their money for things that they might not realize aren't totally the top priority.  But the administration needs to realize that students notice these things, and fair or not, find statements about "concern for rising student debt" to sound rather platitudinous against the backdrop of a flatscreen TV  hanging on the wall in the lunchline. 
• "Where there is no vision, the people perish."  Look, this isn't about Rick Bliese.  It's not really even about the economy, or about 2009 decisions that torqued off rich old ladies, or spending money on frivolities instead of necessities.  It's about the fact that much of the ELCA and many of her associated enterprises - Luther Seminary among them - has taken its eye off the ball.  We are told that we are to be missional - but missional about what?  A vast cohort of students, faculty, and staff (and therefore pastors, bishops, and synod staff) get more worked up about personal pronouns for God than personal relationships with God.  We are taught that to "want people to come to church on Sunday morning" indicates a lack of understanding that God works outside the church.  We are taught that the Church, and Word & Sacrament, are nice, you know, but so are justice and advocacy.  I spent more time in seminary learning about "family systems" than I did sacramental theology.  No, for realz.  I was assigned more papers about why we shouldn't evangelize, than about how and why we should.  I recognize that this is a huge indictment of the entire system, and I want to be clear that I do not, by any means, include anyone and everyone who is part of the system in this.  There remain many, many good and faithful students, faculty, staff, pastors, bishops, and synod staff.  But donors (and your average layperson trying to decide whether to venture out into the cold to go to church on Sunday, for that matter) don't get excited about advocacy for advocacy's sake, or "training students to reflect a baptismal approach to missionality blah blah blah", or even "buy your own hymnal!"  You know what's exciting?  Jesus.  Jesus is exciting because He forgives sins - our own, and everybody else's.  He is exciting because by the power of the resurrection, he transforms lives in the here and now.  He is exciting because he is constantly creating us anew, he promises us eternal life, he has already begun to set this upside-down world right-side-up again and one day he's going to finish the job, there's gonna be a new heaven and a new earth, where everything is going to be fixed, and how awesome is that going to be? Tell little old ladies that we're training pastors to reach out to the world around us and share the everlasting love of Jesus Christ.  Tell them that with passion, and conviction, like it's the best thing you've ever heard about (because it is - even better than sliced bread) and they'll start writing checks.  Tell them you've got students who are slogging through the economy just like the rest of us, but who are so in love with Jesus that they'd be here no matter what, come hell or high water, bedbugs or mold, learning how to spread the Good News in the 21st century just like Paul did in the 1st, and people will be fired up.   

So there you've got it - just some honest first impressions from the recent grad. Feel free to chime in with your own, or tell me I'm totally wrong.  But something's gotta be done, that's all I know.  And remember to pray for Rick Bliese.  

All Are Welcome...

A serious question:

Are Republicans welcome in the ELCA?

(NOT: Are they "allowed"?  NOT: Do they check your voter reg at the door on Sunday morning?)

But, are Republicans welcome, truly welcome in the ELCA? 

Are they welcome in your congregation?

(A way to think about this: what would your reaction be if you found out that the person sitting in the pew behind you voted for John McCain?  What would your reaction be if a lady in your WELCA group wanted to start a chapter of Lutherans for Life?)

Just a question...

CPE, Redux

I spent the last few days at a synod leadership conference/retreat, which was, shall I say...well, I don't even have a good word to describe it. 

On the one hand, it was really nice.  I got to meet lots of new people, other pastors in my area, spend some quality time with my supervisor and other interns that I know from school, etc...

But the content of the conference had been billed ahead of time as being about how to connect with people and be a more effective leader in your congregation.  Awesome.  Or, not.  It turned out to be CPE 2.0.  Right down to the words and charts and graphs and the "understanding your feelings" and "developing an awareness of how you impact the system."  It was so fake and so froo-froo that I found it difficult to even listen respectfully.  I just got done with 11 weeks of this, I took the few bits of useful information from it, and I literally just signed off on the final evaluation this afternoon and I freaking want to be done with it.  I spent lots of time texting my CPE colleagues, my pastor at home, and my mom.  I made mental to-do lists.  I drank coffee.  I worked hard at not fidgeting, not biting my nails, not rolling my eyes, etc...

The other reason I struggled was that this was ostensibly a gathering of religious leaders, and the man presenting the material (four 75-90 minute sessions) claimed to be a Lutheran pastor.  And yet, I saw very little indication that he had any more sincere, identifiably orthodox Christian theology than my CPE Supervisor.  (At one point he talked about he and his wife leading pilgrimages to India and Nepal.  I'm unaware of any major Christian sites in India and Nepal that would make them good locations for a pilgrimage.  Maybe I'm missing something, though.)

Anyhow, one of the sessions this morning was focused on understanding the trajectory of group development and cohesion, and how we go from "pseudo-community," where basically everyone pretends to get along and suppresses their true feelings, to "chaos," where there is lots of conflict because everyone is starting to feel free to express how they really feel, to um...something where people start to decide how to get along despite their differences, to "community," where people actually do get along.  One of the pastors in the room mentioned that his congregation seems to be in the "chaos" stage right now, and that part of the problem is that there are people who no longer believe that they can get along.  He has people who have fundamental philosophical/doctrinal differences with the group, and are questioning whether those can - or even should - be overcome for the sake of community building.  This man's question to the presenter was whether it is possible or even desirable that all groups eventually move out of the chaos phase, even if they have to sacrifice doctrine to do so.  The presenter's response was, "Well, it's very sad that they are choosing not to be a part of the community and work through the chaos.  No one should ever have to give up their personal doctrinal commitments, we just have to learn how to live together despite our differences."  The pastor was very frustrated because this didn't answer his question, although, given that the presenter comes heavily endorsed by the ELCA and is headed out to colleges and seminaries in the coming months to ply this information to the unsuspecting young'uns, it should have given him all he needed to know.  (Maybe it did, I don't know, I didn't talk with him after.)

Help! I Started Blogging and I Can't Stop!

I must be a writer at heart, because now that I've gotten into this whole blogging thing, I really flippin' love it. 

It occurred to me today, though, that it might be good if I said something nice about the ELCA.  After all, I'm still here, so it must be for a reason, right?  Despite its current trajectory of sacrificing the faith once delivered, I will have to say that being here has edified me in certain areas.  First of all, I used to be a big, conservative jerk.  I was totally sold on ridiculously far-right political positions, and really was one of those people who equated the Republican Party with God.  (I know, leave me alone, ok?)  It's really pretty embarrassing to talk about some of the organizations I was involved in, and things I used to believe, not to mention the things I thought and said about other people.  But I'm also one of those people who has a strong sense of loyalty, and at some point I figured out that I was going to be part of the ELCA for the forseeable future, and so maybe I should be less judgy about them.  This dovetailed with what was going on in my life on another front, when I jumped on board the Straight Talk Express.  About 3 or 4 years ago, God got a hold of me and rather violently (it seemed at the time) got me on my knees about some positions I had on issues and the way I treated people who disagreed with me. 

The ELCA tends to focus a lot on what we are supposed to "do" - support this, write letters for that, get involved here, give money there, etc...I don't always agree with the specifics - the object or the method of our "doing", but I will admit that thinking through the things the national church body supports has made me get serious about being aware of others around me.  Too often, one of the critiques of conservatism is that it is not very compassionate.  For most politically conservative individuals, if you probed deeply, I don't think you'd find a lack of compassion, I think you'd just find it expressed differently.  But, because of how we think about the role of government, we can come across as kind of cold-hearted, particularly given how the mainstream media tends to frame the debate.  (Of course, there are the occasional complete jerks who don't care about anything except themselves... they're on the left, too, though.)  And the thing is, the Bible tells us that we're supposed to be compassionate.  It's easy for Lutherans to talk a good game about "justification by grace through faith," which is totally true.  But we still have to deal with, for example, Matthew 25 or Matthew 19.  Or even the fact that Romans, Martin Luther's favorite book, seems to have as its theme that "faith is a way of life."  Indeed, "the just shall live by faith" but then again, "faith without works is dead."  So, you know, there we are.  However, because I tend to disagree with the object and method of our "doing" in the ELCA, we've now bumped up against another problem. 

The Faith Once Delivered, Part II

So, what exactly is the "faith once delivered?"

That's probably a bigger question for another post - it gets into questions like, "What, precisely, is the Gospel?" It probably involves questions surrounding development of doctrine and the canon, ecclesiological questions around the Reformation and Protestantism, and so on. But the point is, there is one. There is a "faith once delivered."

And I think the ELCA has lost this. Why do I say this? Well, let's start with the seminaries, since that's where I'm at. In our classes, (possibly with the exception of Lutheran Confessions class, depending on who is teaching it) nobody teaches us "the faith once delivered." We read a little of this and a little of that. A chapter of Luther and a chapter of Barth. A chapter of somebody from the Patristic era and a chapter of Sallie McFague. A chapter of Hauerwas and a chapter of Aristotle. And at the end, nobody says, "This is true, and the others are wrong for the following reasons." Or even, "This one is best, and while the others can be helpful, they ultimately break down at such-and-such a place." And if that's what's going on at my seminary, I'm sure it's not really different at any of the others.

The Faith Once Delivered

"Beloved, although I was very eager to write to you about our common salvation, I found it necessary to write appealing to you to contend for the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints."  Jude 1:3

The State of the ELCA

It is a weird, weird time to be in the ELCA, and even stranger to be in seminary. It's not something that is very popular to say, but the whole denomination is in a lot of flux right now. Money is extremely tight, individuals and congregations are leaving for any number of other smaller, alphabet soup Lutheran "denominations", others are staying and waiting for better options. There's not a lot of leadership within the denomination - for those inside or outside the seminaries. This adaptation of Luther's "my conscience is bound to the Word of God" to "my conscience is bound to me and my personal opinion" has, in my personal opinion, left a lot of people scrambling.

Everybody has to say that what everybody else thinks or says is okay, even though no one actually thinks that anything other than their own opinion is, in fact, okay. There is miscommunication, distrust, suspicion, and rudeness on all sides. Seminary students and professors have to guess at each other's opinions from classroom vibes or campus rumors. Seminarians and candidacy committees play footsie with each other, trying not to talk about the thing that everyone is talking about and no one is talking about, all at once.

As a new friend of mine has been prone to say, "It all comes down to authority." Who is in charge, who is leading this bandwagon of crazy ELCA-ers, and where is that person (people?) leading us?  I wish I knew...