Since I am not Lutheran myself, I am something of an"outside observer" to the situation and trends in the ELCA. I attended California Lutheran College (now CLU) in the mid to late '60s, partly because I lived near there and could attend there while living at home. I graduated from there in 1969. While there, I saw something of the emerging liberal-relativist trends in the ELCA (ALC and LCA at that time) . I was alienated at that time, and pretty well turned away from religious faith altogether, coming to consider myself a conservative agnostic. Several years later, I did return to religious faith in a different denomination/tradition Had that not happened, I would likely still be a secular, nonreligious conservative.