Living Theology
in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Volume 8, Number 2
Summer 2003
Human Sexuality in the ELCA:
Perspectives on the Struggle
ALPB
Conference on Christian Sexuality, Ruskin Heights Lutheran Church, Kansas City, MO,
October 2002
They came to the heartland
from every state except Hawaii, and some from Canada. Conference organizer Russell Saltzman had been clear about what
they should expect. In his announcement
(Forum Letter, Vol. 31, No. 3, March
2002) he wrote of theological and ecclesiological challenges posed by “gay
theology” as the ELCA debates the blessing of same-sex unions and the
ordination of non-celibate gays. The
conference would serve as a platform for the theological critique of gay
theology from an exclusively classical Christian perspective. It would not offer “balanced
presentations.” Gay advocates, wrote
Saltzman, have had ample opportunity and doubtless will have many future
occasions to make their case. The purpose of this conference was to produce a
courageous apologetic for the Christian sexual ethic.
The Lutheran reported the conference under the headline “Group: ‘No’ to Same-Sex
Unions” (Vol. 16, No. 1, January 2003, pp. 58-59, with further detail posted on
www.thelutheran.org/0301/world.html).
The reader’s first impression, beginning with the headline, is that the
conference brought together a group of nay-sayers. As I compared The Lutheran’s
report with my own recollections and notes, I could agree that the article and
its Internet supplement were reasonably accurate and complete, including the
fact that there were a lot of Noes
spoken at the conference. However, a
careful reading made clear that the Noes
were necessary implications of the resounding Yes spoken in affirmation
of the church’s traditional teaching on marriage. The conference organizers and speakers knew that affirming a teaching
implies disaffirming threats to the teaching.
We should be accustomed to Yeas implying Nays in the church. The “I
do” and “I will” spoken by candidates for baptism, confirmation, marriage, or
ordination imply that “I don’t” and “I won’t” will necessarily be spoken in
living out the affirmation. The
conference fine-tuned a statement (that we include below), which puts it this
way: “The freedom of the Gospel does not make the forbidden permissible;
rather, that freedom encourages and enables us to embrace joyfully a life of
faithful service and holy living.” The
real mark of the conference was this vision of joyful and affirmative fidelity.
Taken together the
presentations form the apologetic announced by Pr. Saltzman. Their appearance in a book would be an
important contribution to the ELCA discussions; we were told that conversations
with a publisher are underway. Following are thumbnail sketches, which serve
only as pointers to the scholarship and insights exhibited.
Robert Gagnon, Pittsburgh
Theological Seminary, author of The Bible
and Homosexual Practice (Abingdon Press, 2001) reviewed the Genesis stories
that placed sex within the created order and the texts from Genesis, Leviticus,
Ezekiel, Judges and, in the New Testament, from Jude, 2 Peter, Romans, 1
Corinthians, and 1 Timothy that related and interpreted sexual violations of
that order. These texts uniformly
portray same-sex relations as unnatural and sinful.
Is there some other
trajectory in the church’s reading and interpreting of these texts that would
lead to a different conclusion? James
Nestigen, professor of church history at Luther Seminary, asserted that the
ecumenical consensus for two millennia and the Lutheran view of vocation have
consistently affirmed the biblical understanding of marriage. Attempts to find a place for homosexual
behavior in the story are of recent origin, stemming from an American emphasis
on the primacy of the individual over the community.
Robert Benne, professor of
religion, Roanoke College, author of Ordinary
Saints: An Introduction to the Christian Life (Wipf and Stock Publishers,
2001) examined such cultural influences on the church. He sees enormous pressures on religious
traditions – not sparing the Lutherans – to accommodate to a highly
individualistic, postmodern culture. He
placed gay theology in the context of the liberal drift being experienced in
the American protestant mainline, contrasting the directions of that drift with
the Christian moral tradition.
The easy acceptance of clergy divorce is an example of liberal
drift in the church’s view of marriage.
Russell E. Saltzman, organizer of the conference, editor of Forum Letter, and pastor of the host
church characterized such easiness as a tragic departure from good order that
weakens the church in its consideration of same-sex unions. Remembering his own divorce with anguish he
argued that clergy divorce be examined by bishops on a case by case basis.
What can the church
bless? What is conveyed by ritual
blessing and the symbols it employs?
Amy Schifrin, pastor of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in St. Cloud, MN spoke
unhesitatingly about homosexual acts, and about the angst of lesbian women she
had counseled, as she argued that the blessing of gay unions is a way of ritualizing
death.
Can science contribute to
our understanding of homosexuality, perhaps providing arguments for or against
the questions before the church?
Research psychologist and pastor Merton Strommen, author of The Church & Homosexuality: Searching for
a Middle Ground (Kirk House Publishers, 2001) pointed to the value of
psychological and sociological studies in understanding homosexuality as a
phenomenon but also cautioned that study results were sometimes tendentiously
interpreted or ignored by professional organizations, the media, and church
offices. In particular he was concerned
that information about reorientation therapy is not being incorporated into the
church’s pastoral ministry.
Phillip Max Johnson, pastor
of St. Paul, Jersey City, NJ and senior of the Society of the Holy Trinity
spoke of the opportunities and responsibilities of pastors in caring for
homosexual persons. Johnson was also
concerned about the situation of pastors who affirmed traditional teaching
about marriage in synods that were moving toward revising that teaching.
Besides the possibility of a
fracture in the ELCA, what are the implications for relations with other church
bodies of implementing changes from the gay agenda? Jay Scott Newman, pastor of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church,
Greenville, SC and former dean of men, Josephium Pontifical College, Columbus,
OH summarized Roman Catholic teaching about homosexuality, spoke of pastoral
care based on that teaching, and pointed to the dire ecumenical impact of a
revised view of marriage. He was
forthright about – and dismayed by – the scandal of sexual infidelity in his
own church body.
Thomas A. Skrenes, bishop of
the ELCA Northern Great Lakes Synod, looked at the effect of the proposed
changes on congregations from a synod bishop’s perspective. He had found that the laity are weakened in
their ability to struggle with the issue because they are not biblically well
informed. Congregations are vulnerable
to the claims of strong advocacy groups, to activist minorities committed to
the revisions.
In various ways these
speakers drew on foundational integrating themes: the Christian life as
vocation and the church’s traditional teaching about marriage. Several spoke of their own personal struggle
to discern the direction in which the Spirit is leading the church. It is necessary to ask difficult
questions. Do we have enough new
knowledge from science, enough new insight from biblical and historical studies
to demand a new Christian paradigm for eros? Is it even possible to say that there is
enough doubt to suggest that striving for agape
toward our homosexual sisters and brothers may lead us to the revisions? The answer to both questions was “No” as a
consequence of affirming that the traditional understanding of Scripture and
the confessions is a reliable way to think about love, however ineptly we bring
that understanding into our lives and use it to build up the church.
A “Pastoral Statement of
Conviction and Concern” was drafted by Leonard Klein, Richard O. Johnson,
Robert Benne, and Paull Spring and fine-tuned in both plenary and small group
discussions. It is addressed to the
Presiding Bishop, the Conference of Bishops, the Church Council, the Task Force
on Human Sexuality, and the Congregations of the ELCA. It reads as follows:
The Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America is in the midst of studies on human sexuality. We wish to be a part of this process and to
be active participants in the conversation.
We do so in reliance on the Spirit’s power to keep the church faithful
to its Biblical and confessional heritage.
We also do so with the intention to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in
the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4:3).
We offer the following
statement as a way of summarizing our position on human sexuality and as our
way of affirming what the church has taught and confessed on these issues since
apostolic times.
1. The Bible and the Christian Tradition, including the Lutheran
Confessions, see sexuality as integrally related to the doctrine of
marriage. Marriage, an institution
ordained by God, is the life-long union of one man and one woman for the
creation of human life and for their mutual love and care. Sexual intercourse is not a fundamental
private right or psychological necessity, but a gift of God. Its purpose is to serve as a means of
uniting husband and wife and continuing God’s life-creating work. The confessions teach that we are to “live
chastely in thought, word, and deed in [our] particular situation” (Large Catechism 394:219, Tappert
trans.). Sexual intercourse is part of
the vocation of marriage and is misused in any other context.
2. The Gospel frees us from the curse of the Law, that is, the
judgment that falls on us because we are sinners. It does not free us from the righteous life that the Law
summarizes. “You, having been set free
from sin, have become slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:18). The freedom of the Gospel does not make the
forbidden permissible; rather, that freedom encourages and enables us to
embrace joyfully a life of faithful service and holy living. In Christ we are given the grace, by the
Holy Spirit, to “know how to control [our] own body in holiness and honor” (1
Thessalonians 4:4).
3. We view any change in
the church’s doctrine of marriage as a grave error. The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is currently studying
whether the church may bless homosexual relationships, and whether the church
may ordain sexually active homosexuals to the office of the ministry. Such proposed changes in Christian doctrine
distort the Biblical record, appeal to questionable scientific theories,
suppress inconvenient data, and rely overwhelmingly on individual experience
which has been conditioned by contemporary culture and values. We are troubled by the process that has been
used in recent studies on human sexuality within the ELCA. The conversations on this issue thus far
have largely focused on personal experience and the sharing of anecdotes,
rather than on the teaching of Holy Scripture and the theological and
confessional witness of the church. We
call the church to recognize that personal experience is not a reliable
interpretive key to the word of God.
4. Three strategies have been proposed by those who wish to change
the present policy. One is “ordination
to place,” in which a non-celibate homosexual is ordained exclusively to serve
one congregation. A second is
“synodical option,” which permits synods to set their own standards in this
matter. A third strategy might be
termed “conscientious pluralism,” in which traditional and revisionist
perspectives on these matters are allowed to co-exist in the church. Any of these proposals would destroy the
unity of the ELCA and of its ordained ministry.
5. We understand the genuine
suffering and challenge that our homosexual brothers and sisters face. We
repudiate all forms of prejudice and hatred, but we believe that Christian
love requires the clear proclamation of God’s truth which alone can free and
reconcile us. Sensitive pastoral care
for homosexual persons will include compassion, encouragement and the same
call to repentance and chastity that God continually places before us all.
Because we love the whole
church, many of us are facing a potential crisis of conscience regarding the
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. We earnestly desire to remain actively
engaged in the life and mission of our church, but we observe that the ELCA is
becoming schismatic and sectarian. We therefore pray that our church’s
reflection on human sexuality be determined by an obedient listening to the
Word of God and by a faithful witness to that Word.
The statement declares that,
“We wish to be a part of [the studies on human sexuality] and to be active
participants in the conversation.”
Signers of the statement are asking to be heard. The report in The Lutheran says that the conference attendees complained that the
ELCA doesn’t listen to them. Should the
fact that the report was published in The
Lutheran be regarded as an official way of paying attention? The leaders of the human sexuality study
have declared that all voices will be heard and no doubt they will “hear” the
critique offered by the conference.
What does that mean? Is “being
heard” more than simply being acknowledged as having a certain position?
A careful reading of the statement helps answer the question of how the signers want to be heard. Paragraph 3 points to the trouble with the process underway in the ELCA. “The conversations on this issue thus far
have largely focused on personal experience and the sharing of anecdotes,
rather than on the teaching of Holy Scripture and the theological and
confessional witness of the church.”
The apologetic offered in Kansas City contains intrinsic claims of
authority that trump “personal experience and the sharing of anecdotes.” I think that the signers of the statement
are saying that the ELCA hears their “Noes” but is unwilling to accept the
authority of their “Yes” to the church’s teaching about marriage.
The very openness of the
ELCA to various expressions may appeal to our sense of fairness, to our respect
for everyone’s opinion and it would make sense if we were talking about
preferred options or a negotiating position as part of a process leading to
compromise. In fact, Paragraph 4 names
the compromises under discussion and rejects them.
There is another kind of
“being heard” that is largely undetermined at this time: what will the
laypeople hear? How will they
respond? Most of the attendees at the
conference were clergy. In his closing
remarks, Russell Saltzman said that it is time to “stop protecting the laity
[from this issue].” When (and if) it
becomes more widely discussed in this synod and across the land, will the
discussion be “largely focused on personal experience and the sharing of
anecdotes” or something deeper? The
“classical Christian perspective” of the conference might well be heard and be
a touchstone.
An informal show of hands
showed that very many conferees were subscribers to Lutheran Forum and Forum
Letter, which are among the publications of the conference sponsor, the
American Lutheran Publicity Bureau (ALPB).
This is not surprising. The view
of Christian sexuality upheld at the conference is consistent with the
theological stance of the ALPB, an independent pan-Lutheran renewal
organization.
James Nuechterlein, a member
of the ALPB Board, has given a summary of the place of “evangelical catholics”
in American Lutheranism. (“Turn Out the Lights?”, First Things, No. 115, August/September 2001, pp. 17-18.) Whether or not they apply this label to
themselves, I sensed the concern of the conferees for the recovery of the
liturgical and confessional heritage of Lutheranism. They know that they are swimming upstream against a strong
current. That may be why Russell
Saltzman said that the apologetic produced by the conference would be
courageous.
Wayne R. Cowell
Member, Gloria Dei, Downers Grove