The NALC and Bonhoeffer


The newsletter from the new North American Lutheran Church reporting on its recent convocation here in Ohio appeared in my mailbox this morning. I subscribe because it is important to know the full breadth of any conversation.

Reading the lengthy reports, I was once again chilled by the negativity that runs like an angry torrent through everything the NALC writes about itself. This denomination is not for something as against something - specifically, the 2009 vote of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to open the ministry of the church to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in committed relationships. This single issue constitutes the rock upon which the NALC is attempting to build its church (see Sunday's Gospel reading, Matthew 16:13-20).

The conversation the NALC has been having since its official founding a year ago is that the ELCA is wrong on this issue - not just wrong, but dead wrong. Can one ever hope to have a genuine Christian conversation in the midst of such blanket condemnations -- the same kind that dominate the rhetoric of Tea Party activists?

“If anyone thinks theology doesn’t matter, we should remember that we would not be here without the theological failure of the ELCA,” prominent theologian Carl Braaten said at the NALC convocation. “Bad theology, like poisonous food, always makes the body sick and that also goes for Christ’s Body, the Church.”

Even more disturbing are the parallels the NALC's new bishop, John Bradosky, drew on the one hand between the ELCA and the Nazi-submissive German Evangelical Church of the 1930s, and the NALC and Dietrich Bonhoeffer's activism, on the other.

"Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of the leaders of the Confessing Church movement that opposed and separated itself from the German church because it was conscripted by the culture and political agendas, willing to compromise the truth for the sake of its own survival, willing to offer cheap grace while turning a blind eye to a culture that opposed the truth of the Gospel," Bradosky said. "Bonhoeffer wrote, 'When Christ calls a person, He bids him come and die.' Bonhoeffer gave his life for the sake of boldly confessing Jesus Christ. The need for the confessing church has never been greater. The NALC is rooted in the confessing movement."

These comparisons are outrageous. Should the ELCA dignify such rhetoric with a response? If not, what is the consequence of its continued silence?

Postscript: In terms of tone, compare the NALC proceedings to that of the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, "Freed in Christ to Serve," wrapping up today. Which better reflects the life and ministry of Jesus?

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