Editor notes
By Daniel J. Lehmann
Money stirs some concerns
Topic reveals broader issues I
t’s been said that money brings out the best and worst in people. I don’t know about that, but it can certainly stir things up. In the April issue my col- umn, “A conversation about money,” and a chart on ELCA income and expenses (page 8) sure did that.
One reader challenged the graphic showing income and expenses from 1989
to 2013 as “deceptive to the point of being unethical” because the chart ranged only from $45 million to $90 million, instead of from zero. “Whether by igno- rance or by intent, this presentation does not speak well for the ELCA,” the writer said, also invoking the book How to Lie with Statistics. A couple readers took issue with the premise of the column. It’s not about
money, one said (page 48), it “is a conversation about what the ELCA stands for,” citing the 2009 votes on sexuality matters. And a pastor, reacting to the column, told of a clergy gathering in which it
was agreed that the national expression of the church should focus on the educa- tion of pastors and other church leaders, the rostering of such, missionaries and World Hunger. Everything else should be left to congregations and individual members. He added that the column ended with a “dismissive sort of line that I have heard from some other so-called leaders in the bureaucracy of the church.” Well. The first two concerns can be dealt with quickly, not the third. Charts
like the one cited have been in use by the media throughout the 40-plus years I’ve been at this. I trust that people do read the numbers involved and under- stand them for what they are. And yes, the sexuality votes likely contributed to the decline in giving from lost member- ship, along with the worst recession since the Great Depression and the steady, continuing decline in worship attendance and church participation that started in the 1960s. The church structure issue is different. I know there are those from back-
The tension between the two views (of church struc- ture) has never been fully resolved within the ELCA.
grounds in which the congregation is the main, if not only, thing that matters. Then there are others (myself included) who see the congregation as just one part of a larger whole. The tension between the two views has never been fully resolved within the ELCA. Congregationalism appears to be on the ascent. I remain con- vinced we can do better and more together than in parochial settings alone. What the three situations highlight to differing degrees, however, is some
members’ suspicions of the churchwide and synodical expressions of the church. This mimics a similar distrust by elements in the general U.S. population toward other forms of structure, such as government. Can we negotiate these waters within the church with less vitriol, self-righteousness and division than we do in our nation? Sounds like fodder for a future cover story in The Lutheran.
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