ELCA leaders accused of often having subjective view of truth
by Allie Martin
February 15, 2007
(OneNewsNow.com) - - The head of the Institute on Religion and Democracy says a recent proposal by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to change its policies regarding homosexual ministers is an example of the dangerous moral relativism that is common in American Christianity.
Recently, a discipline hearing committee of the ELCA ruled that Bradley Schmeling, who is an active homosexual, be removed from the denomination's clergy roster. However, the committee said the denomination's policy regarding homosexual clergy is flawed and should be changed at the ELCA's annual meeting this summer.
Jim Tonkowich is president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, an ecumenical watchdog group that advocates for church renewal and reform. He says the Evangelical Lutheran Church's leaders have a subjective approach to truth, as do many other mainline denominations and churches.
"Our culture is dominated by radical individualism and a radical subjectivity; what's true for me is true for me," Tonkowich observes. "And if I feel called in some direction," he says, "the assumption is that if I have this subjective feeling, whether it's love for another person, whether it's a desire to be in the ministry, whether it's for another latte -- how dare you get in my way?"
The ECLA and other denominations often rely on this kind of "subjective truth" and moral relativism when setting guidelines, the Institute spokesman asserts. "Rather than submitting to the authority of the scriptures and the authority of the church, it's every man for himself and every woman for herself," he says. "We're in a position not unlike what was in the [Bible's] Book of Judges, where the refrain is 'and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.'
"When you have that kind of a system, enforcing church discipline becomes exceedingly difficult," Tonkowich adds. He encourages Christians in any church or religious organization to investigate the core beliefs of their denominational and spiritual leaders.
