Tornado of the Spirit?

August 20, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

I had wanted to be there. I had hoped it would be a watershed event, a tipping point in the history of the church, or at least of our church, the Lutheran church.

As many of you know, we couldn’t go this time, primarily because of my spouse’s serious back injury just before Holy Week. (He is recovering well, after a disastrous fall which fractured 7 vertebrae —not 4 as previously stated— and 2 ribs, but after 19 weeks still has to wear a rigid neck and body brace for periods of each day.)

So I am dependent upon the reports of others as to how and when the Spirit is moving among us as the Church is gathered in it formal biennial Assembly in the Mini-Apple.

LC/NA Communications Director Phil Soucy’s e-mails have been most helpful, especially as he colored in details of the day: that while the debate was storming inside the Convention Center on Wednesday about the proposed and amended social statement of the church Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, a real live tornado swept through downtown Minneapolis, violent enough to send order people to the basement.

“And then there was the Scripture text for tonight’s Goodsoil worship service at Central Lutheran Church, across from the Convention Center. Mark 4: 35-41. The story of crossing the Sea of Galilee during which Christ calmed the seas. The story in which it is said that ‘A great windstorm arose…’ And it did.”We had a tornado, with not a lot of warning. The problem with being deep inside a large structure like the Convention Center is that you are completely insulated from what is going on outside. Suddenly there was a shrill lip whistle heard in Goodsoil Central and an authoritative voice said that “no option, you are required to go to the lowest level of the center and stay there. Tornado coming.”"And it did, a real tornado. Came down on 12th Street between the Hilton Gardens we are staying in and Central Lutheran. All the tentage, tables, and chairs of the meal service and Pub that Central Lutheran had been using to support the assembly were pushed down and thrown around. Some of the tables ended up on the roof of the Convention Center. We were hustled to the bottom floor of the Convention Center. The Assembly kept meeting. Guess they thought the Assembly was safe enough where it was. Luckily no one was injured near the Convention Center, and none of debris penetrated the substantial glass on the Center.”

He goes on to recount the “storm” inside the center as amendments to this pivotal document were considered. In the end, amendments which would have weakened the progressive tone of “Gift and Trust” were not adopted. And then the vote was taken.Mind you, under ELCA rules, the Churchwide Assembly is the highest legislative authority — not the bishops or the Church Council. When more than 1,000 voting members (not delegates: they can vote their own conscience independent of the people who elected them) gather and vote, we must say that the Church has spoken. “There was one brief moment when it looked like we were going to move without debate straight through the amendment we were working on to the actual Social Statement and vote without any parliamentary debate at all - just vote on the amendment then just turn right around and vote on the Social Statement, done. The motion was defeated, but it gave everyone a scare.”All the efforts to change the Social Statement to make it reflect a-man-and-a-woman bias, an exclusive bias, were defeated.”The vote apparently was a cliff-hanger of the highest order, and will certainly be recounted in the future either with great joy or with much hand-wringing, depending on which side you’re on. The vote: “The time for debate had to be extended past the scheduled end time to allow for as much debate as had been scheduled. As the additional time was running down, finally a motion was made to call the question. And a vote was had, 676-338.”So:  Total ballots cast: 1,014.  Needed to pass, a two-thirds super-majority. [Math computation: 1014 x 2 ÷ 3 = 676.]   Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust was adopted by a 2/3 or 66.67% majority exactly, or 676 votes. Was this the workings of the Spirit? “Ross Murray [LC/NA Director of Youth, Young Adult, and Family Ministry] said someone asked him if it was a sign from the Holy Spirit that a great wind arose when the question of the Social Statement was taken up in earnest. He said he replied that, yes, it could have been just as much a sign as was the sun coming out when the Social Statement passed.”

My gut instinct is to think, no, this new “Gift and Trust” is not the coming of the Kingdom [sic] of God, nor the collapse of the Berlin Wall or the walls of Jericho. It will not automatically open every door to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer or questioning individual. But it will provide a better theological and theoretical basis for the policies and the ministries of the whole church.

I am emotionally and spiritually unprepared to think much of anything grander about such progress in my church, because I have spent the better part of 35 years listening to negative decisions and action, and more than a truckload of rejective, punitive, and hurtful if not hateful speech. But the Spirit tells me, quietly, to remain open and not to be cynical.

Today’s Assembly action, as reported in an ELCA news release, was that the voting members adopted “implementing resolutions” by a 71% majority vote (695 to 285):

“MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) – Congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have been asked to implement the newly adopted social statement on human sexuality by continuing the study of sexuality, assist members to welcome people who are gay and lesbians, encourage comprehensive sex education programs in public schools, support the church’s work to combat HIV/AIDS and to take the “spirit of this statement” into all appropriate activities.”Most notable among these resolutions reported in the news release: “The resolutions also asked the ELCA’s Board of Pensions to amend its benefit policies to bring them in line with the social statement, presumably to provide benefits for partners of ELCA employees who are in same-gender relationships.”Okay, so maybe Jericho has thrown open a couple of gates after all. Maybe it’s just as well I couldn’t be there. I might have gotten very emotional at that point. Stay tuned.—Pastor Dan Hooper

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