wfn.org | CORRECTION: Lutheran Theologians Respond to ELCA Task Force Documents

[<NEWS@ELCA.ORG>]

Title: CORRECTION: Lutheran Theologians Respond to ELCA Task Force Documents
ELCA NEWS SERVICE

>March 23, 2009  

CORRECTION: Lutheran Theologians Respond to ELCA Task Force Documents
09-069-MRC

Please replace the text of the ELCA News Service story
"Lutheran Theologians Respond to ELCA Task Force Documents,"
issued March 20, 2009, with the revised text below.  We request
that the original story be discarded and not used.  We are sorry
for any inconvenience this may cause.  Thank you for your
attention to this matter.

>John R. Brooks
>Director, ELCA News Service
>Chicago

Lutheran Theologians Respond to ELCA Task Force Documents
09-069-MRC

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Three theologians of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) responded unfavorably to
content in two documents released by the Task Force for ELCA
Studies on Sexuality.

The task force released Feb. 19 a proposed social statement
on human sexuality and a report recommending a process to
consider changes to ministry policies that could make it possible
for Lutherans in committed same-gender relationships to serve as
ELCA associates in ministry, deaconesses, diaconal ministers and
ordained ministers. Recommendations for both documents will be
considered at the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, the church's
chief legislative body, Aug. 17-23 in Minneapolis.

According to the Rev. Carl E. Braaten, the ELCA is at a
crossroads.  Braaten, Sun City West, Ariz., is co-founder and
director of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology.
He's also professor emeritus of systematic theology, Lutheran
School of Theology at Chicago, one of eight ELCA seminaries.

The social statement "professes not to know the difference
between right and wrong on crucial matters of human sexuality,"
he said.  The task force has made "a proposal to the church that
takes one side of a controversial issue on which it does not
expect that a consensus will emerge soon or ever."

If the ELCA assembly is to adopt the social statement and
approve the task force's recommendation, Braaten said, "That
would constitute a radical departure from the overwhelming
consensus that has prevailed in historic Christianity through 20
centuries."  He said many pastors and congregations will choose
not to leave the ELCA but "remain and protest as a confessing
movement."

Braaten's comments are at http://tinyurl.com/d22hg8 on the
Web.

According to Dr. Robert D. Benne, the social statement
avoids making "normative judgments about homosexual conduct by
neglecting the testimony of the Bible and the Christian moral
tradition on that issue."  Benne is professor emeritus and
director of the Center for Religion and Society, Roanoke College,
Salem, Va.  Roanoke is one of 28 colleges and universities of the
ELCA.

"I believe it is incontestable that the Scriptures and the
moral teaching of the Christian church throughout the ages -- and
presently that of the ecumenical church -- proscribe homosexual
relations of any sort," Benne said.

"I am not satisfied with appeals to sincerity and tolerance,
especially since I think Christian teaching is clear.  And I am
certainly not satisfied with those appeals when the
recommendations of the task force lead to no teachings at all on
the subject, but yet lead to sharp changes in practice," he said.

"There definitely is a sense in which we can live with our
differences when it comes to public policy," Benne said.  "But
the sexuality issues under discussion have to do with the
teaching and practice of the church.  They strike much closer to
the core of Christian life and teaching -- what does it mean to
love the neighbor in sexual matters?"

Benne's comments are available at http://tinyurl.com/cjtxwu
on the Web.

The Rev. Paul R. Hinlicky, Roanoke's Tice Professor in
Lutheran Studies, said he's contemplating a "divorce" -- "Not
from my wife of 35 years, but from my denomination," he wrote.
Writing for The Lutheran Forum, Hinlicky said that the ELCA "has
come up with a different plan for a new future," putting "our
covenant itself to a vote in August."

"The historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran
Confessions have recognized marriage as a covenant between a man
and a woman," said Hinlicky, quoting the proposed social
statement.  But they appear in the proposed social statement "as
memories of the way we used to be," he said.

Hinlicky quoted the proposed social statement:  "It must be
noted that some, though not all, in this church and within the
larger Christian community, conclude that marriage is also the
appropriate term to use in describing similar benefits,
protection, and support for same-gender couples entering into
lifelong monogamous relationships. They believe that such
accountable relationships also provide the necessary foundation
that supports trust and familial and community thriving," he
cited.  He also noted the proposed social statement's
recommendation that "other contractual agreements such as civil
unions also seek to provide some of these protections and to hold
those involved in such relationships accountable to one another
and to society."

But Hinlicky challenged what he described as "this
unscriptural revision of marriage," writing it is "a misleading
half-truth, beginning with the haughty words, 'this church.'"

"In fact, the Church, including member Churches of the
Lutheran World Federation, especially the younger Churches of
Africa and Asia, Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, and
Protestant evangelicalism, overwhelmingly dispute this
unscriptural revision of the doctrine of marriage, as also many
do in the declining and dying liberal Protestant churches of
North America."

Hinlicky continued, "The real voice of the people of God
across the world and through the ages seems to matter not at all
in this (social statement) draft, any more than Holy Scripture as
parsed by the Lutheran Confessions. Surely, 'this church's'
congregations, if given an honest and secret ballot, would
overwhelmingly reject the manipulation of language and meaning
involved in calling "marriage" anything other than that relation
in Scripture and Confession described above."

>The full text of Hinlicky's commentary is at
>http://tinyurl.com/cz4jar on the Internet.

>---

The task force's report and recommendation on ministry
policies and social statement are available at
http://www.ELCA.org/faithfuljourney on the ELCA Web site.

For information contact:

John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog