Lutheran CORE

"Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Renewal) is a community of confessing Lutheran seeking to mobilize Lutherans for evangelical renewal." There's a lot of unpacking to do with that little statement, and the brochure which provides a fuller explanation of their principles is too long to reproduce or condense here. To give you a brief idea, they were on the opposite legislative side as Goodsoil-LC/NA at the 2009 CWA.

Curiosity got the better of me as I saw a Lutheran CORE event scheduled on the event board next to all the ELCA and Goodsoil events, from 7pm to 9pm in one of the smaller meeting rooms on the other side of the hotel. I believe that was the only Lutheran CORE "event" scheduled that week, and sparsely populated: there was one representative from the organization when I was there, and as I was coming in, only one other person was there (clearly only there for informational purposes), and as I was leaving, one other person came in. This gave me a chance to have a more in-depth chat with the representative, which was good. In session the next day, Bishop Hanson mentioned that the CORE room had been vandalized, admonishing those responsible.

The CORE representative I spoke with was Pr. Dick Mathisen, who is on the Steering Committee. On the basis of that conversation, it seemed as though CORE most wanted to make clear at this Assembly that it was not a separatist organization among Lutherans ("People think that because we started our own denomination last year"): Pr. Mathisen is at an ELCA church and intends to remain, and whenever he mentioned someone else in Lutheran CORE by name, he was quick to emphasize that that person was in the ELCA. Regarding the new denomination (NALC), he did acknowlege that there was some friction within CORE on that point, and that the new denomination was begun at the insistence of the minority of ELCA CORE members who found remaining in the denomination intolerable, and some will challenge anyone who claims to subscribe to their traditionalist view while remaining in the ELCA. But the general advice given by CORE to people in congregations contemplating a vote for disaffiliation is to not take that vote, unless you're certain of an overwhelming majority (90% was the figure he gave) in favor of disaffiliation. The newsletter I took from the CORE room has what seems to be a very pastoral and reasonable "Frequently Asked Questions" (pages 6-7) warning against "stirring the pot" and how "never-ending discernment and dialogue can permanently cripple your congregation‘s overall ministry."

Pr. Mathison said that CORE's presence at the assembly was the result of four decisions they had recently taken:

• To have a presence at the Assembly
  
• To present (if only on their website), a response to proposed constitutional provisions related to disaffiliation which clearly explains CORE's position on disaffiliation (he made clear that there was no organizational push to effect legislation this assembly, and they had no one on the floor counting votes, which they did do in 2009).
  
• To present alternative prayers (written by Pr. Steve Shipman) to those found in Sundays and Seasons*, and
  
• To open a line of communication to every ELCA congregation.

All in all, Lutheran CORE had what could fairly be called a token presence at the assembly, but the symbolism was important: they wanted to be clear that although they disagreed with recent actions of the denominations, they weren't "writing off" the ELCA, and would continue to try to engage traditionalists within the denomination.

*I scoured the website pretty well for these, but am not finding anything. If anyone finds something, let me know and I'll update this post with a link.