[1]

Above, presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, right, leading Assembly worship

I have postponed talking about the Churchwide Assembly of the [2] Evangelical Lutheran Church in America until the last possible moment, and for good reason. This mother of all Lutheran conventions opens tomorrow in Minneapolis, and with all the religious hype and theological terror of the Book of Revelation, if not the special effects of such apocalypse.

Because sex is on the agenda again, there are conservative voices who have been threatening to start the Armageddon war right there on the prairie. The “sky is falling” flag of Chicken Little is being carried most openly by the [3] Word Alone Network of New Brighton, Minnesota. Their last conservative knee-jerk convention was held in another hotbed of activism, Golden Valley, Minnesota.

“God’s authority is being hijacked in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” wrote Betsy Carlson, the Editor of their Network News in the July-August edition.  I thought conservatives still believed that women are to remain silent in the church (1 Corinthians 14:33-35), but I guess they are just as good as casuistry as anybody.

Word Alone officially thinks that the ELCA is “moving toward schism,” much the same as observers of the Anglican /[4] Episcopal Church USA impasse think so. But when a chunk falls off an iceberg into the sea, however, one cannot attribute the split-off to the iceberg. It is not the ELCA which is moving toward or causing a schism, but the little piece of it which has defined its mission around crying: “Sex! Schism! War! Sky is falling! Oh my!”

Seriously, nobody wants to see splits or disunity, but perhaps it would be best, even in God’s compassionate gaze, if the statistically minor group which cannot stand the thought of homosexuals in the larger fellowship would just take themselves and their particular slant on Christian faith elsewhere. God love ‘em, God bless ‘em. They are never going to be happy trying to keep unity, if they’ve spent the better part of the last 8 or 10 years planting the seeds of schism, building their mass mailing lists, raising funds and producing their DVDs filled with alarm.

It reminds me of those few but unhappy times when I was having something very ugly going on in my stomach. (If you are faint of heart, skip down a paragraph.) I felt absolutely terrible until my stomach involuntarily forced a vomit. It always amazed me that after that brief and icky moment how much better I felt almost immediately. (The Scriptures are not afraid of such graphic language, incidentally; the word occurs 12 times in the NRSV; cf, Ecclesiasticus 31:21.) I suspect the ELCA will feel considerably better when those within it who cannot stomach gay and lesbian Christians serving Christ in their midst simply eject themselves.

So what is at stake this year are two major things: first, a major teaching or Social Statement on Human Sexuality is up for a vote. So far the ELCA has adopted nine such teaching documents on these topics: abortion, church in society, the death penalty, economic life, education, the environment, health and healthcare, peace and race, ethnicity and culture. “Our Calling in Education” was adopted with a few amendments by the Churchwide Assembly two years ago, but I think I yawned right through the vote. Education is probably more important to society as a whole than individual sexual behavior, but it doesn’t stir the passions (no pun intended).

“Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” is a responsibly prepared social teaching that of course has flaws everywhere. More truthfully than in the past, the entire process that led to its drafting has been transparent about the lack of consensus on controversial matters of sexuality. You can find the proposed statement [5] here, even if it is a bit buried on the ELCA web site.

The 2007 ELCA Assembly heard a progress report on “Gift and Trust” and delegates demanded that the study commission not avoid talking about gay and lesbian people serving as pastors and lay professional leaders, but “directed the task force assigned to develop the social statement on human sexuality to ‘specifically address and make recommendations to the 2009 Churchwide Assembly on changes to any policies that preclude practicing homosexual persons from the rosters of this church.’” the commission also has brought in a [6] Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies, a four-footed beast that will take some careful husbandry to get into the barn. The recommendations include the lifting of the ban against partnered lesbian and gay people from serving as pastors or lay professionals, which would reverse the odious 1990 Vision & Expectations and Guidelines for Discipline which the ELCA’s church council had put into place quickly and furtively to block the ordination of three highly qualified but openly gay seminary graduates. The fourth and final of these recommendations, unfortunately, is a cumbersome 67-lines long and almost defies summary of its 7 “Resolveds.”

The first order of business that concerns us beginning tomorrow is whether or not the these liberalizing recommendations will require a 2/3 majority vote for adoption. That will be a decision about the Rules, which must be agreed upon along with the Agenda. What we have been told, however, is that to require a 2/3 majority for passage would itself require a 2/3 majority vote on such an Assembly rule, so it seems unlikely.

In my deepest safe places of the heart, I know I should be at prayer about these matters. If these recommendations pass this Assembly, the wheels would be put in motion to remove the ban that has kept me off the ELCA clergy roster since 1991. But closer to the surface, I just want it all to be over with quickly. I remain neither hopeful nor optimistic, but I do put my trust in the Holy Spirit.  Stay tuned.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles