Expecting a Ripple, Non-Compliant Congregation Undergoes "Catastrophe"

"Asked why the ministry would violate church policy to call Mason in the midst of
such an active community ministry, Kalke said: "We called her because we needed an associate pastor. We needed a person who was culturally competent." CCLM asked the synod to provide candidates for the call, but it did not offer anyone, Kalke said, so CCLM hired Mason first as a staff person before it called and installed her as an associate pastor.

" 'We didn't expect a catastrophe,' Kalke said of the synod action in response. 'We expected a ripple.' "

This is what happens when congregations routinely violate Synodical and Church policy with impunity, or at most, with a slap on the wrist, and for whatever reasons, a Synod decides that "in this case" harsh sanctions ought to be imposed.

Can anyone really believe that CCLM had any right to expect that their congregation number would be revoked - after all of the ELCA's and the Pacifica Synod's willingness to flout the stated policies of the Church again and again?

What is at question is why the Pacifica Synod should choose to impose the more "draconian" penalty in this case. Was it a case of not wishing to undercut the position of the revisionist party in the ELCA so close to August 2005? Or, is it another strategy: that old saying that the best way to get a "bad" law off the books is to rigorously enforce it?

Or perhaps it simply is as Bishop Finck states: "What we have said to the [CCLM] board is that [Mason's orientation] may be the central issue for you, but it is not the central issue for us."