wfn.org | LUTHERANS LAUNCH REVIEW OF SOCIAL POLICY APPARATUS

[PCUSA_NEWS@ecunet.org]

16-Jun-95

95210   LUTHERANS LAUNCH REVIEW OF SOCIAL POLICY APPARATUS 
 
      by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America News Service 
 
CHICAGO--The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has begun a 
review of how it addresses social issues.  The ELCA's Division for Church 
and Society "studies social issues and prepares social statements for this 
church's consideration and action." 
 
     "With our current understanding of social statements, we may try to do 
too many things in one kind of document," said Per M. Anderson, assistant 
professor of religion at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minn.   
 
 
     He chairs a Social Statement Review Committee assembled by the church 
and society board "to undertake a good-faith search into the nature of 
social statements and the use of social statements in the ELCA." 
 
     "Everyone seems to have a concern about social statements at this 
point," Anderson said.  "We're trying to put our finger on the nature of 
those concerns." 
 
     One irony noted at the committee's first meeting May 15-16 was that 
some Lutherans want their church to speak out on difficult social issues, 
but they resent their church telling them what to do.   
 
     The committee developed a plan to assess concerns that many of the 
ELCA's 5.2 million members have about social statements through focus 
groups and surveys.  The group's report is due by the end of 1996. 
 
 

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