OK folks, lets take a moment to talk about the elephant in the room. As you know, the phrase "elephant in the room" means the "plain and obvious problem taking up all the space and effort that no one wants to talk about." Only, the elephant that I have spent the last twenty years of my life struggling with has neither been obvious nor plain. In fact I have struggled and strove, wrestled and wrangled, and nearly exhausted myself trying to find the dang thing. Some days I convinced myself there was no single elephant, just a series of tiny issues that only seemed related.
The elephant I have been searching for is the problem that I have bounced up against in the ELCA time and time again. From the day I first set foot on an ELCA seminary campus to today I have been troubled by an apparition of a problem that always seemed just at the corner of my eye, but never full in view.
First there was the troubling collapse of the the mainline churches. I could see the collapse happening when I was just a high-schooler. It was part of what motivated me to become a clergyman... that nagging knowledge that church as we knew it was crumbling and mutating into something else, and someone had to do something. Between televangelists, megachurches, failing
old-line congregations, heretical preachers, and the drastic rise of modern atheism something novel and chilling was happening.
But then there was the attitude toward Biblical authority that I discovered when I went to seminary where the scriptures were dissected, redacted, and discredited. There was the lax attitude toward Biblical literacy that I encountered regularly among my fellow Christians who seemed to see theology and Biblical studies as only minorly relevant to their lives as believers. Even the lack of interest in Biblical teaching among "Christian Leaders" stood out to me. How could we be the church of Jesus Christ and have so little interest in His word?
As I moved into leadership in the ELCA time and time again I encountered decisions, policy, and "theology" that seemed to be politically driven and culturally oriented with little to no interest in orthodox Lutheran theology or the Biblical witness. The decision made to allow for same sex marriages in the ELCA in 2009 seemed eerily devoid of both Biblical discussion and Theological content. It isn't that I don't think we need to engage in a conversation about same sex marriage, but the context of that discussion seemed social and cultural, but not Biblical or theological. Recently, as we have encountered controversy after controversy in the ELCA the content has seemed varied and unrelated: bishops advocating for polyamory, our national assembly denying that salvation comes through Christ alone, our National Youth Assembly inviting a witch who advocates for "ethically sourced pornography" (who also happens to be an ELCA pastor) to speak to our children, the hiring of a Hindu to be president of one of our most important ministries (LIRS), the invitation of pagan priestesses to be presenters at national theology conferences...the list just goes on and on. Somehow it doesn't seem to be one elephant in the room some much as a swarm millions of gnat sized elephants.
Then I came across a post from Elizabeth Eaton, the ELCA Presiding Bishop, in which she stated
that she did not believe in Hell, or that if it existed "it was empty". I suddenly began to put some pieces together. The radical presenters at the national youth assembly also advocated for what theologians call "universalism", or the notion that all the world is universally saved by Christ regardless of their faith, or rejection of faith. The national ELCA adjudicatory body, the Chruchwide Assembly, passed a statement saying that we cannot know that faith in Jesus is the only way to salvation, and that we cannot know how God works in other religions to bring about salvation. Then, my own Bishop, Abraham Allende stood in front of my congregation on a Sunday and stated in no uncertain terms that Jesus died for the salvation of all of the world, even those who rejected faith in Jesus Christ are still saved. He stood in Jesus' sanctuary in Shelby, Ohio and proudly announced that he was a universalist. Just to be clear, the church declared universalism to be heresy in the sixth century. It has been anathema (an offense that requires that you no longer be considered Christian any longer) to preach, teach, or even believe in universalism for over 1,500 years.
Suddenly I realized that I couldn't see the elephant in the room because it was UNDER the room.
The elephant wasn't carefully camouflaged so I couldn't see it, it was under all of the eerily anti-Christian events that had been swirling confusingly around me. If one assumes a universalist perspective, immediately every decision and policy makes sense. Invited a foul mouthed "devotional writer" to address a national youth assembly? She's cool and everyone is going to be saved so what does it matter if she is not Christian? Don't want to invest time and money in evangelism? Don't want to offend people of other religions by evangelizing them? Don't worry, everyone is saved, so it's all fine. Want to focus on hip cultural trends and ignore directly addressing things like doctrine, gospel, scriptures, faith, or moral teaching? That's fine, everyone is saved anyway, do what you like. Want to advocated actively for sin? That's fine, we're all a part of the Kingdom of God no matter what. Want to hand over leadership of the church to non-Christians? That's fine, they are just as much saved as those who believe... and after all, we all serve the same god regardless of our religion right? Want to ignore Biblical authority? That's fine, we are all our own personal authorities.
The elephant of universalism was under the troubles and failings that I had been struggling with all the time. I couldn't see it until I lifted up the lid on all those issues and looked to see what was supporting them.
The church of the twenty first century has one, and only one, challenge. Do we put Christ first? I'm not talking about the Christ we imagine when we say things like, "The Jesus I believe in would never/ would always..." You know, the graven image of Christ we fashion out of social rhetoric and personal opinion. No, I am talking about the Christ found in the witness of the scripture, in the witness of the historic church, in the witness of the common practice of Christians worldwide (not just here in the universalist west). The church of the twenty-first century has one, and only one objective: root out anything that puts Christ anything but first, and lift up Jesus above all. Let's haul the elephant of universalism up from the basement into the living room and deal with it once and for all.
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