When Good Things Happen to Weird People

After church today, we had a congregational meeting and adopted a resolution to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA - the preposition was a point of dispute, and the resolution had to be amended, for it was first proposed that we leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America - big difference). Now we have to complete the process of leaving, which involves a ninety day waiting period (we only want deliberate, well thought out schisms) and possibly a visit from an ELCA bishop who would, I reckon, come down and ask us if we're really, really, 100% completely sure about taking such a drastic step; a step which, all said, doesn't appear as drastic as appointing homosexuals to high places of authority within the church.

I talk like I've got all this down, but you would be amazed at how little I actually know about Lutheran infightings and by-laws and whatnot. In my defense, I've only been Lutheran for about a year, and I'm not positive I'm Lutheran even now. Basically, I just want an organ, some responsive readings, congregational psalmody, creedal recitation, and sacraments every week (four out of five ain't bad - more on that in a second). The rest (including the fine points of soteriology, which the Lutherans, along with the Anglicans, appear to be less hung up on than most) is secondary.

You see, at some point about six years ago, I decided to make the ecclesiological shift from a vague primitivism to a perhaps even vaguer high liturgicalism. This was a radical change for me, and the culmination of a long, circuitous process. I won't go into it here, except to sum up briefly: starting about six years ago (I'm leaving out the whole first 16 years of the story), I abandoned the two or three Baptist churches I was then hopping between; went briefly to two different Presbyterian churches; went to an Episcopal church for about two years; moved to Georgia and found the Episcopal churches here wearisomely liberal; tried a couple of Anglican and Lutheran churches in the area but decided they were either too far away, too snotty, or just plain weird; and finally settled down in the Lutheran church in the next town up from ours, where just this morning my wife and I and the other folk there voted to leave the ELCA.

Now everything is not perfect even here. For instance, the congregation voted several months ago to stick to biweekly, rather than shift to weekly, communion - a bummer for a sacramentalist like myself; but at least folks still manage to raise an eyebrow when the talk turns to gay preachers. The vote was 66 to 9 in favor of bailing. I was pleasantly surprised - emphasis on both 'pleasantly' and 'surprised'.