Exodus International approves of schism in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America this week.
Spokesman Randy Thomas said:
I’ve said it a million times, homosexuality is just the manifestation of much deeper theological and moral disagreements. While separation is viewed as a last resort and only approached slowly and with wisdom …sometimes separation is inevitable and must be done.
Separation is not inevitable. It is engineered:
Engineered by well-funded Christian Rightist outsiders and by political groups such as the Institute on Religion and Democracy, which since the 1980s has purposely disrupted mainline Christianity. While posing as a voice for renewal and reform, IRD became infamous for supporting far-right terrorism against liberal churches in Latin America. Most notably, IRD sought to foment U.S. government disruption and contra violence against the Nicaraguan Council of Protestant Churches (Consejo de Iglesias Pro-Alianza Denominacional, or CEPAD). Back in the United States, IRD simultaneously fomented miscommunication and ultraconservative heresy in order to disable mainstream Christian churches, disrupt their efforts on behalf of human rights, and enrich then-nascent Christian Rightist megachurches — and the social-conservative wing of the Republican Party, which sought to subsidize the growth of the Christian Right.
Like Exodus International, the new Lutheran spinoff will exist not as a champion of Biblical values, butrather as a monument to antigay bigotry and spiritual egotism.
What really frosts me is that former Lutheran to catholic “convert” “Reverend” Richard John Neuhaus, was a big fomenter of the whole IRD subversion of these mainline churches, because they were getting too progressive. Can you imagine the hue and cry from the roman bishops if mainline protestant clergy were involved in actively trying to stir up unrest in their denomination? In 1990 a now-deceased gay Lutheran clergyman who was one of my best friends told me matter-of-factly that Richard John Neuhaus was gay and he knew one of his former boyfriends. I am convinced that this guy joined the roman church out of his own internalized homophobia: great place to hide and you get to be a star for Jesus with a whole lot of perks. So many self-hating gay men spread so much poison around for the rest of us to clean up.
When one hoists their homophobia above Christ’s commandments, that tells us all we need to know about their real god. (And I purposely use a small ‘g’ in that case.)
True, a split is engineered, and orgs like the Presbyterian Lay Committee have been wishing and planning for a split for years, in spite of their PR to the contrary.
Yet speaking as a progressive Presbyterian with 40 years of pastoring, I’m ready for a split … we have fought one another to a draw – neither able to get on with our respective agendas.
Church history, sadly, is full of splits and realignments – always a loss, but always a gain as well. To have a Presbyterian Church fully committed to LGBT ordination and marriage equality would be a wonderful day.
I am sure Randy “Uncle Silly” Thomas is an expert in separations. From what I’ve been reading lately his organization has been laying off many of its employees.