Many people lament the myriad "problems within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA)." Some are blatantly hostile towards the ELCA because they perceive that it wantonly teaches positions contrary to Scripture and Confession. Others are more positive, believing that law and gospel are preached from many ELCA pulpits, and that an adjustment in decision-making processes can keep the 16-year-old Lutheran body afloat.
I believe, however, that both of these responses are naïve. The ELCA can neither be blamed for sincerely believed heresy nor "fixed" through structural modification.
The problem with the ELCA is not difficult to diagnose: Like many other Protestant denominations, the ELCA no longer takes seriously the fall of created being into sin. The results of this forgetfulness are legion within the ELCA. They include its current ecumenical opinions and its developing understanding of human sexuality.
The fall is not a very popular topic in contemporary American culture. Indeed, it is something of an embarrassment for many people _ theologians included. Classically conceived, the fall is an irrational event of cosmic proportions. It is irrational because it can neither be derived logically from creation, nor explained wholly on the basis of it. While God created the universe good and without flaw _ evil, sin and flaw have always developed within that created goodness. Moreover, God is in no way responsible for their development.
A major problem in talking about creation and fall today is that many in the church have forgotten what the doctrine of creation is all about. Many sincere Christians tend to pair creation with evolution. They claim that the universe either came into being through intelligent design, or that it was merely the result of blind efficient causes. Many pitch the battle with the secular at this point:Either God designed the universe and thus we must take God seriously, or the universe arose from fortuitous antecedent conditions and we can forget about God altogether.
But the doctrine of creation should not be paired with evolution; rather, creation belongs together with the fall. The two are complements, one cannot be thought of without the other. The doctrine of creation teaches that there is a deep "oughtness" present within all of Being; it claims that there is an "original intentionality" pervading all that is. The doctrine of the fall, on the other hand, declares that this "oughtness" is never achievable; it holds that the created divine intentionality is inescapably perverted under the conditions of existence.
For most Americans this is a puzzling teaching.
"How," they say, "can there be an original divine intentionality that is not realized. After all, God is all_powerful, so God can implement everything he intends." This line of thinking _ I call it the "God doesn't make junk position" _ assumes that whatever traits humans happen to be born with are given by a benevolent deity who, in His great care, creates each and every person with unique drives and abilities.
Unfortunately, this assumption confuses the original created order with the order that arises continually within time. Instead of declaring the inexorable waywardness of all Being from what ought to be, it simply assumes that what is, is that which ought to be. All things coming into being are given the sanction of divine creation. It is this fundamental confusion between what the tradition called natural law _ the human perception of the original divine intentionality called "eternal law" _ and that which comes into being within nature, that pervades much of the reflection upon sexuality within the ELCA. The argument is simple, though seldom stated this starkly: 1) All things that are, are created by God; 2) Bob's homosexual orientation is a thing that is; 3) Therefore, Bob's homosexual orientation is a thing created by God.
The Christian tradition, however, clearly and continuously taught that nature (that which is) does not conform to Nature (that which ought to be). This gap between Nature created in the image of God and nature as it arises within the field of time constitutes the fall. Unfortunately, this gap can only be named and never explained. Creation did not carry within itself the "seeds of its own destruction." To say that sin explains the fall simply begs the question. We can go no further than to claim that the world that ought to be is not the world that is.
The fundamental confusion of creation and fall pervades current ecumenical thinking as well.
It is precisely when the fall is not taken seriously that we begin to dream that we can build structures that manifest the properties of paradise. Wouldn't it be wonderful to think that an association of human beings could together comprise the Body of Christ in a strong sense? On this way of thinking, the visible church sheds the qualities of the fallen, temporal order and becomes the vehicle (or being) of God within time itself. The predicates "one", "holy", "catholic", and "apostolic" are now applied to a visible structure whose unity is effectively symbolized by the unity of the bishop. Downplaying the fall results in unwarranted optimism about the very nature of church. It results in a conception of church that mirrors human thinking about God: Just as God is victorious over the power of sin, so is the church victorious over the vicissitudes of history. The church becomes divine substance, and a gulf opens between it and other social orders. Holy orders in the church are metaphysically elevated; they become ontologically (in reality) pregnant with the divine.
The movement known as WordAlone grounds itself upon the confession that sin pervades all created objects, events and states of affairs, and that even justification by the free grace of Christ cannot change that fact. WordAlone claims that the way that things ought to be is not the way they are, and the way they are, is not the way they ought to be. Accordingly, it exposes as idolatrous any claim that what is, ought to be.
WordAlone declares that just as the fall cannot be deduced from the goodness of God's creation, so too cannot original creation be extrapolated from the fall. Grace does not perfect nature, nor does nature anticipate grace. Just as the fall is discontinuous from creation, so are our redeemed lives in Christ discontinuous from our fallen condition. The Word alone bridges the discontinuities of creation and fall, sin and righteousness.
To remember the fall is to recall that God is not responsible for all that comes to be within the fissures of time. To remember the fall is to declare that human history can never be wholly gathered within the folds of the eternal. To remember the fall is to recollect that chaos is constantly present within temporality, scuttling every effort to transubstantiate the finite into the substance of divinity.
Because we know so well the power of sin in all finite structures, we reject the notion that a historic episcopacy can effectively sign the unity of church and vouchsafe the power and presence of the Word. Because we know so well the power of this sin, we reject all efforts to identify pervasive and unavoidable fallen sexual structures with the goodness of God's creation.