wfn.org | ELCA Addressing Sexual Abuse in the Church

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

November 15, 1998

ELCA ADDRESSING SEXUAL ABUSE IN THE CHURCH
98-CC2-03-FI

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA) received a 12-page report, "Implementation of the
ELCA Strategy for Responding to Sexual Abuse in the Church, November 1993-
November 1998" from the ELCA's Division for Ministry and Commission for
Women as a summary of work accomplished to date.  The council adopted the
strategy in 1992.
     The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the
legislative authority of the church between meetings of the ELCA's
Churchwide Assembly.  The council is meeting here Nov. 13-16.  Assemblies
are held every other year; the next is August 16-22 in Denver.
     "Sexual abuse in congregations happens infrequently in our church,"
said the Rev. Joseph M. Wagner, executive director of the ELCA Division for
Ministry, "but when it happens it is devastating."  He added that the
division will do more to "help churches become safe places" by working
directly with "members of the congregations not just clergy."
     The council decided the church will continue "to lift up the need to
promote safety, integrity and dignity in pastoral relationships" and "to
provide funding for program and staff within the Division for Ministry to
coordinate and extend this work."
     "In 1989, the Commission for Women developed a resolution that became
a memorial to the churchwide assembly calling on the ELCA to take seriously
the impact of clergy sexual abuse as a form of violence that gravely
wounded individuals and congregations," the Rev. Jan Erickson-Pearson,
strategy director, said in her final report to the commission's steering
committee and the division's board.  "As a result of that early leadership,
a task force started work and it is their vision that we have carried out
over these past several years," she said.
     "We get it now, for the most part.  We understand that this is not
just about the private victimization of individuals, horrific as that is,"
said Erickson-Pearson.  "It is about the betrayal of the entire church's
trust and expectation that ordained pastors will use the unique
constellation of resources given them for ministry solely for the purposes
of serving the church's and the gospel's best interests."
     "This is not a quick fix problem.  Nothing less than changes in the
culture of our relationships, our arrangements of power, our understanding
of gender and power, our notions of authority and our sense of vocation --
all of us -- is required," said Erickson-Pearson.
     The steering committee of the ELCA's Commission for Women went on to
ask the Church Council to look beyond clergy conduct and establish a
working group of people in various units of the church that would design
"the ELCA's response to incidents of sexual abuse, the care of victims of
such abuse, and measures to prevent sexual abuse within the church."

For information contact:
Frank Imhoff, Assoc. Director (773) 380-2955 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html