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ELM and ...Word Alone?
Abstract: How alike are they?
After last week's launch of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM) the following entry appeard on Chris Halverson's Luthermatrix blog:
So... this is a group of folk who are working toward inclusion of practicing gay/lesbian clergypeople.
What I find interesting is that this group wanted to find a way to organize itself as a group within the ELCA, but... not of it... so to speak. They ended up using as a model the Word Alone movement!
Odd stuff this world. And the ELCA still hangs together somewhere in tension between these and other forces. What is the center? Can it hold?
This view of ELM doesn't sound exactly right to us, and it really seemed to bother some of the ELM people we talked to. We weren't able to speak to any Word Alone folks for their perspective.
ELM has more or less the same focus as its predecessor LLGM: credentialing and finding calls for LGBT clergy. ELM is essentially a mission society, and while the ELM folks find ELCA policy regrettable, the legislative work of changing that policy is not a priority for them. Since 2005, most of the work for policy change within the ELCA has been done by Lutherans Concerned.
Word Alone, on the other hand, is an association of like-minded congregations and individuals who have banded together, sometimes for reform, and sometimes for mutual protection.
In many respects, Word Alone most resembles Evangelical Lutherans in Mission (ELIM), the "moderate" caucus in the LCMS in the early 1970's. ELIM provided a way for LCMS pastors and congregations to stand together in opposition to a predominantly "conservative" church bureaucracy. Word Alone serves much the same purpose for ELCA pastors and congregations who feel called to oppose the "liberal" ELCA organization.
The Word Alone / ELIM comparison only underscores Chris Halverson's concern: ELIM laid the foundation for one of the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches (AELC) which split from the LCMS in the late 1970s and latter became part of the ELCA.
