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 con