Saturday, August 29, 2009

POTF Blog Of The Week: Territorial Bloggings’ A Lesson re: Polity

I’ve often quoted other people’s blogs here at Putting Out The Fire as there are an infinite number of people who write worthwhile material better than I would ever hope to. What I don’t think I’ve ever done is pick a blog of the week and I think that needs to change. I may not always have a blog of the week but every now and then I think I’d like to point out a particular post that just strikes me as a cut above the rest. Hey, why should big time talk show hosts and producers have all the fun? Also, it’s my blog and I can do with it what I please.

With all that being said, drum roll please…GHP over at Territorial Bloggings has a great post titled A Lesson re: Polity that looks at both the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s organizational structure and their representation in convention and how the proposed reorganization of our beloved church body, the Lutheran Church- Missouri Synod, by the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synod Structure and Governance (BRTFSSG) and what that might mean for us if such a proposal is adopted.

GHP is one smart cookie in that he has the foresight to see the possible problems of “top-down process (wherein the concept of every member having a truly & practically equal voice is lost), or a skewed and less-than-representational national voting body (wherein important changes could be driven by an agenda of the few, rather than by a representative consensus of the many…)” with what just happened at the ELCA convention as backdrop. A great post GHP and congratulations on being selected as the inaugural pick for POTF’s Blog of the Week!

3 comments:

ghp said...

Thanks, Frank - I'm honored!

Now, I'm only about behind you in producing solid posts by a ratio of 4 or 5 to 1... ;^)

Frank Gillespie said...

Quantity does NOT trump quality so it doesn’t matter how farther ahead I am in the posting column ;-)
I understand the synodicrats wanting to see BRTFSSG passed but I just can’t wrap my head around people at the congregational level wanting to lose the ability to guarantee that their voice will be heard at convention (although I do understand why the largest congregations want more of a say based on number of people on the books. I just don’t see that there are that many of those large congregation compared to the smaller neighborhood churches) Too often people want to jump on board and support something without thinking about all the consequences of doing so. Therein is the genius of your post.

ghp said...

Well, I *have* been told before that there is a certain idiocy to my savant-ness! ;^)

It is quite amazing, though, how willing folks have been to trade away their birthright for the pottage of the promise of "efficiency". What the CWA brought home for me was just how devastating the theological & doctrinal impact could & would almost assuredly be.