wfn.org | ELCA Boards 'Mixed' About Recommendations On Homosexuality

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

March 15, 2005

ELCA Boards 'Mixed' About Recommendations On Homosexuality
05-043-FI

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The two boards of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA) Division for Church in Society (DCS) and
Division for Ministry (DM) met here March 10-12 in small groups
and in plenary sessions, together and separately, and drafted a
joint response to a report and three recommendations on
homosexuality that their task force for the ELCA Studies on
Sexuality developed for the 2005 Churchwide Assembly in August.
     "We have indicated where we would come down, but we see our
job as helping the Church Council constructively deal with the
recommendations from the task force," said the Rev. James B.
Martin-Schramm, DCS board chair and associate professor of
religion, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa.
     The council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as
the legislative authority of the church between biennial
churchwide assemblies.	It will meet here April 8-11 and prepare
a resolution for assembly action on the recommendations.
     The report and recommendations, released Jan. 13, provide
possible answers to two key questions on homosexuality:  Should
the church bless same-gender relationships?  Should the church
allow people in such relationships to serve the church as
professional lay and ordained ministers?
     The task force recommended that the ELCA:
     + concentrate on finding ways to live together faithfully in
the midst of disagreements.
     + continue to respect the pastoral guidance of a 1993
statement of the ELCA Conference of Bishops opposing the blessing
of homosexual relationships but remaining open to pastors wanting
to provide pastoral care for gay and lesbian Lutherans.
     + continue under current standards that expect unmarried
ministers to abstain from sexual relations -- defining marriage
as being between a man and a woman -- but, respecting the
consciences of those who find these standards in conflict with
the mission of the church, the ELCA may choose to refrain from
disciplining gay and lesbian ministers in committed relationships
and from disciplining those who call or approve partnered gay or
lesbian people for ministry.
     "The boards of DM and DCS were supportive of the first
recommendation," the boards said in their joint statement.  "We
recognize that we are a church divided along many issues, but
that we share a common mission and vision in seeking to
understand what God is telling us in this time and in this
place."
     The boards' statement said the DCS board appreciated the
second recommendation's "allowance for prayerful support for
couples in same-sex committed relationships," while the DM
board's response was "more mixed."  Members of both boards raised
concerns that "prayerful support" and "blessing" are not defined
and open to interpretation, and that "recommendations two and
three inform one another and must be considered in tandem."
     "Although both boards voted in a straw poll against adopting
recommendation three as presented by the task force, many
expressed a desire to 'create space,' picking up a phrase from
the task force report," the boards said.  Some board members were
concerned that "create space" was not defined either, while
others "welcomed the term as a means to express their desire to
allow exception for those who, as a matter of conscience, would
act contrary to churchwide policy."
     In another straw poll the DCS board favored the intent of
recommendation three to create space, while more than half of the
DM board voted against the concept.  The discussion that
surrounded the straw polls revealed that board members voted one
way or another for a variety of reasons -- sometimes conflicting
reasons.
     "We had a difficult time interpreting the results of our
straw polls on recommendation three.  The votes of members were
cast for a variety of reasons, not necessarily because the
members supported or opposed the recommendations," the boards
said.
     The boards considered three ways to create space that were
developed by a committee of the ELCA church council:  withholding
discipline as described in recommendation three, creating a
"provisional" roster of professional lay and ordained ministers
who are otherwise in compliance with the church's expectations,
and creating a process to grant exceptions from being in
compliance with the church's expectations.
     Straw polls indicated the boards preferred granting
exceptions much more than the other two options.  The boards
followed the results of the polls with a series of concerns and
questions that were raised during the discussions because there
were a variety of reasons given for the votes.
     The boards listed among their concerns that "the exception
process is not a suitable expression of inclusion for gay and
lesbian persons" and that "many want to create space but don't
have a good suggestion for how to do it."
     The boards' questions included:
+ How would this recommendation be administered practically?
+ Is this church developing a pattern of granting exceptions to
churchwide policies?
+ Is a vote on this issue premature?  Is there a way to live
together and have ongoing dialogue about these questions without
voting at this time?
     The task force report included a section describing two
dissenting views expressed by some task force members.	The
boards decided to conduct another straw poll, asking board
members to say which of the two views they "tended toward."
     Twenty-three board members leaned toward a dissenting view
that would amend current ELCA policies to allow people in
committed same-gender relationships to serve as professional lay
and ordained ministers.  Seven board members leaned toward the
other dissenting view that would ask those, "who for reasons of
conscience will act contrary to the aforementioned policies, to
graciously accept and endure the discipline of the church."
     The boards said, "We recognize this outcome seems to reflect
a perspective different from that which emerged from the
churchwide responses" to the ELCA Studies on Sexuality.
     "We avoided what was one of my concerns going into this,
which was that we might get bogged down in the process -- that
there might be some inclination to revisit the work of the task
force and redo it as opposed to receiving the report and
responding to it," said the DM board chair, the Rev. Robert J.
Karli, First English Lutheran Church, Austin, Texas.
     Karli said he sensed some frustration among DM board members
because "we were not able to come out with any more clear
statement than the task force had come out with."  He said the
views expressed in the task force report had been a "microcosm"
of the views held across the ELCA, and the views expressed by the
boards proved to reflect those expressed by the task force.
     "Personally," Martin-Schramm said, "I wish our church would
bless same-sex unions and roster persons in those unions, so that
we can get on with many more important issues, but I understand
that the majority of my church isn't at that point."
     "If the question then is how to create space among the three
options," Martin-Schramm said, "it's pretty clear that the other
two alternatives lacked much support at all from either board and
that the only one where you have a significant amount of support
is around creating a policy to grant exceptions."
     "Creating a policy for granting exceptions was strongly the
preference, but certainly not unanimous.  There was a slim
majority," Karli said.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news