Living Theology
in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church In America
Volume 6, Number 3
Christmas 2001
AS
I SEE IT...
What I Expect of Our New
Presiding Bishop
Frank
C. Senn
In my last column I asked, “What do we expect of our
bishops?” To answer, I simply laid out
the job description of an evangelical episcopate in the Augsburg Confession,
Article 28. Since I wrote that article,
we have elected and installed a new Presiding Bishop of the ELCA and installed
our own Synod Bishop. It is also
evident that certain troublesome issues are going to consume much of our time
and energy for the next four years, particularly those issues identified as
“the gay agenda.”
Now, let me be clear that by “gay agenda” I mean the
issues that are before this Church that call for doctrinal and legislative
decisions. The “gay agenda” concerns our
issues, not those of gay people as a whole. I know many gay people from hanging around with musicians and
theater people, and I know that they do not all share the same perspectives or
concerns. Far from wanting the church
to bless same-sex unions, I know some gays who regard marriage as a bourgeois
institution. I also know some gay men
who express hostilities toward the ordination of women that would make the pope
blush. So by “gay agenda” I understand
the items that have been laid before the church for its deliberation, such as
the blessing of same-sex unions and the ordination of candidates living in
“committed same-sex relationships”.
We have our own study program being conducted in the
Metropolitan Chicago Synod and the ELCA is embarked on an official study whose
results come due at the 2005 Churchwide Assembly. There will be plenty of time to debate the theological and
pastoral issues revolving around these agenda items in the future (if I
continue writing and Let’s Talk
continues publishing). I don’t want to
get into the particulars of these proposals, programs and processes here. Instead, I want to say something about the
role of the bishops vis-a-vis all this deliberating that is going on.
Our new Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson was elected in
a very divided assembly. The final vote
for Presiding Bishop was split almost 50-50 between Hanson and Bishop Donald
McCoid; Hanson won with 51.6% of the vote.
As far as I know, I’ve never met either of them and I wasn’t at the
assembly. I only know about them what
has been reported. But what was reported
made it seem that Hanson and McCoid represent two different sides of the
ELCA. So the 50-50 split was not just a
popularity contest; it represented different visions of the life, mission, and
maybe even of the polity of the church.
The whole purpose of the ecclesiastical ballot is to
prevent this kind of division of the house from happening. But the ELCA Constitution short-circuits the
true ecclesiastical ballot by eliminating candidates after each ballot and
allowing someone to be elected on the final ballot by the simple majority. In a true ecclesiastical ballot the voting
would continue until someone emerges who represents the consensus of the
assembly. (It requires 75% of the
College of Cardinals to elect the Bishop of Rome.) That might mean reaching down into the pack if two candidates
continue to prevent the other from being elected. Contrary to common opinion, I don’t believe that conducting such
an election is impossible, especially with the availability of electronic
means. You just keep voting until a
consensus emerges. And you vote
immediately after the announcement of the previous ballot so that discussion
cannot take place. Each member of the
assembly relies on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. (Now there’s a radical idea!)
Give Bishop Hanson credit for acknowledging that he
was elected without a consensus of the assembly. Conventional wisdom would say that he’s going to have to exert
leadership by building a consensus. But
what kind of consensus? A consensus
that we should bless same-sex unions and ordain homosexuals who have sex with
other homosexuals? I would say that a
consensus already exists: the consensus
fidelium, the consensus of the faithful.
The current teaching of the church regarding marriage and the orders of
creation and the current church practice represent the consensus of the
faithful down through the centuries. It
is a consensus based on the interpretation of Scripture and the moral
tradition. It is this consensus that we
are being asked now to abandon, and part of that effort will be to show that
the conventional exegesis of Scripture cannot hold and that the moral tradition
cannot stand in the wake of new evidence.
It is O.K. for individual members of the church to
make these claims and press debate.
Even teaching theologians can make these claims. But bishops cannot depart from the consensus fidelium because it belongs to
their office to defend the faith and morals of the church. The Augsburg Confession, Article 28: 34-35,
holds “Concerning this question, our people teach that bishops do not have the
power to institute or establish something contrary to the gospel, as is
indicated above and as is taught by canon law throughout the ninth distinction
[of Gratian]. Now it is patently
contrary to God’s command and Word to make laws out of opinions or to require
that by observing them a person makes satisfaction for sins and obtains
grace.” The Lutheran reformers were
especially concerned that bishops not institute new teachings or practices that
would snare consciences or put the faithful in bad faith.
Many years ago—1967, in fact, when the Lutheran
world was celebrating the 550th anniversary of the beginning of
Luther’s Reformation—I heard the Most Reverend Hanns Lilje, Bishop of Hanover,
Presiding Bishop of the United Lutheran Church in Germany, and President of the
Lutheran World Federation, preach at a Reformation Festival. The next morning he spoke to seminarians (of
which I was one). One seminarian asked
this esteemed churchman whether he still espoused a particular idea he had put
forward as a young theologian, and if not, why not. Bishop Lilje replied that he was not at liberty to promote novel
ideas, including his own, because he was a bishop of the church and he had to
guard the faith of the faithful.
That’s what I ask of Bishop Hanson in the difficult
days ahead for the ELCA. To take myself
as an example of why this is necessary: even though I continue to read and
write and get involved in the work of the wider church, I am a full-time parish
pastor. All the rest has to take a back
seat to my front seat daily pastoral work.
I do the best I can to keep up with discussions going on the church, but
I simply don’t have the time to become involved in every issue that comes down
the pike, even important ones like the items on the gay agenda. Yet there are pro-gay advocates in the
church who are pushing their agenda.
They are well organized, adequately financed, and politically astute,
and so far there is no organized opposition.
I look to the Presiding Bishop and to the Synod Bishop to be the
advocates of the consensus fidelium,
to guard the faith of the faithful and to uphold the moral tradition by which
we try to live in obedience to God’s law.
As the Augsburg Confession teaches, as long as the bishops do this, we
owe them our obedience.
Frank C. Senn