I've made no secret of my hope that the ELCA would move toward greater inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the church. So this past week I have had a a number of folks come up to me and say,"Well, I guess you are dancing in the street" or "We won!." But I have to say that my reaction has been a little more bittersweet.

I am old enough to remember how the churches in my home state of South Carolina greeted greater inclusion of blacks in the life of previously white churches and the ordination of women in the Lutheran church. I remember the recrimination, the charges that "2000 years of Christian consensus" was being jettisoned. I remember the division, the feelings of truly good folks who felt that their church had abandoned them. I remember the pastors who had their lives turned upside down for defending a position at odds with powerful folks in their congregations. So I am in no mood to gloat.  

I remember a famous Old Testament scholar saying that you can always tell the true prophet from the false prophet because the true prophet speaks his word of warning and judgment with a tear in the eye, taking no delight in the hard words. I am afraid that there have not been nearly enough genuine tears shed. There has been a lot of thundering about "thus saith the Lord." I worry that there has been precious little concern about anything except "winning." The way of Christ has never been defined by a position on sexuality or the issues the ELCA has been debating. You do not need to drag Jesus or the teachings of the chuch into a debate to come out where both progressives and conservatives want to come out. Too often it feels as though folks have decided on their positon and then backfilled the theological arguments to buttress the case. What has historically defined the way of Christ is the spirit of Jesus and his call to sacrificial love. What has defined the way of Christ is a radical call to trust God and walk in the way of humility. In the first centuries it was "See how they love one another" that made people sit up and take notice of this upstart sect, not its social positions. To be sure, part of faithfulness is trying to spin out the implications of faith, but that is a second order action, after we have understood Jesus' radical way. I hope we will increasing direct our thoughts to the great early hymn we find in Phil. 2:4-11. I have found it relatively easy to be at peace with the position I have taken on the recent issues---what I find hard is having the gracious mind of Christ