Baby steps.

GO TO www.GoodSoil.org RIGHT NOW!

Regarding the ELCA's continuing, painful study process on the issues of blessing same-sex unions and ordaining people in them, perhaps you have seen the coverage in this month's issue of The Lutheran magazine, where on page 23 you'll also find a small piece by me. (The unabridged version of that piece, which makes a stronger point, I think, will follow below.) Or perhaps you've actually read the report, whether in English or en Español. If you've had any of these encounters, you're probably rather frustrated, angered, disappointed, and somewhat hopeless. I certainly have been, but last night was a small glimmer of hope. At the regular meeting of the Congregational Council of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan, a resolution (written by me) was unanimously passed asking for the Council of Metro New York Synod to act!

For someone who has lived with and resisted THE HEINOUS SENTENCE of Vision and Expectations ("Persons who are homosexual in their self-understanding are expected to refrain from homosexual sexual relationships") for close to ten years, I cannot tell you what joy it was even to imagine how that sentence could be different. Read below!

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TRINITY EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH
OF MANHATTAN
IGLESIA LUTERANA TRINIDAD


RESOLUTION OF THE CONGREGATION COUNCIL REQUESTING ACTION BY THE SYNOD COUNCIL

WHEREAS, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan, a congregation of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), has fully welcomed lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people for the past two decades; and

WHEREAS, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan provided a place of pastoral and material comfort for people dying from and living with AIDS from the earliest days of the epidemic, when many were denied full care because of their sexual orientation; and

WHEREAS, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan has for several years been a Reconciling in Christ Congregation, and as such welcomes all people, including gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals and couples as fully participating members of our ministry; and

WHEREAS, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan affirms that bisexual, transgender, lesbian, and gay people are regularly at risk of physical, emotional, and spiritual harm when policies, institutions, and cultural assumptions discriminate against them in favor of heterosexuals; and

WHEREAS, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan believes that churches gravely damage transgender, bisexual, lesbian, and gay people when they refuse to bless people in committed same-sex relationships and refuse to approve and call candidates who are in them; and

WHEREAS, Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church of Manhattan desires that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recognize the precious gifts that its gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender members have to offer as lay members and as rostered leaders; and

WHEREAS, the Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, to which the Metropolitan New York Synod Council relates, will consider at its regular meeting on April 8-11 the “Report and Recommendations of the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality” in preparation for the 2005 Churchwide Assembly,

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Congregation Council of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church (“the Congregation Council”) REQUESTS the Metropolitan New York Synod Council (“the Synod Council”) take the following TWO actions in response to the aforesaid “Report.”

ACTION 1:
The Congregation Council requests that the Synod Council consider and pass the following resolution, in these words or others to similar effect:

“BE IT RESOLVED, that with regard to candidacy processes for rostered persons, it shall be the policy of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to approve and call partnered gay and lesbian candidates who are otherwise in compliance with Vision and Expectations; and be it further
RESOLVED, that with regard to discipline processes for rostered people and congregations, it shall be the policy of the Metropolitan New York Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to refrain from disciplining partnered gay and lesbian people who have been so approved and called and the congregations that call them.”

ACTION 2:
The Congregation Council requests that the Synod Council consider and pass the following resolution, in these words or others to similar effect, and that, pursuant to §14.21.11 of the Constitution of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Synod Council transmit such resolution to the Church Council of the ELCA in time for that Council’s meeting of April 8-11, 2005:

“BE IT RESOLVED, that the Metropolitan New York Synod believes that Recommendation Three of the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality strikes a necessary balance between those who favor the approval and call of candidates who are in committed same-sex relationships; and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Metropolitan New York Synod expresses its concern that Recommendation Three may create confusion in that it affirms a disciplinary policy that excludes people in committed same-sex relations from rostered ministry yet permits synods and congregations not to enforce this policy; and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Metropolitan New York Synod recognizes that some synods and congregations do and will want to approve and call people in committed same-sex relationships, while other synods and congregations do not and will not want to approve and call them; and be it further
RESOLVED, that the Metropolitan New York Synod asks that the Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America recommend the following changes for the approval of the 2005 Churchwide Assembly, in order to allow the church to remain together even while disagreeing:

(A) The sentence in Guidelines for Discipline currently reading ‘Practicing homosexual persons are precluded from the ordained ministry in this church’ will read: ‘Although some synods and congregations will approve and call people in committed same-sex relationships and some synods and congregations will not, people in heterosexual and homosexual relationships will be held to the same standards of sexual conduct for the rostered ministries of this church.’
(B) The sentence in Vision and Expectations currently reading ‘Ordained ministers who are homosexual in their self-understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships’ will read ‘All ordained ministers, whatever their sexual self-understanding, will honor the gift of sexuality in accordance with standards of this church’; and be it further

RESOLVED, that the Metropolitan New York Synod asks that the Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America develop and recommend for the approval of the 2005 Churchwide Assembly of standardized policies detailing the chaste and faithful behaviors that are expected of all rostered leaders regardless of whether that person is heterosexual or homosexual.”

APPROVED by the Congregation Council at its regular meeting of MARCH 8, 2005.

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"The Broader Work of Justice: Respose the the ELCA Sexuality Studies"
By Jeremy D. Posadas

The time has come to end the occupation of our resources – spiritual, theological, and material – by the question of some people’s sexuality. There are too many other struggles that our world cries for us to fight, that God’s Gospel demands that we end. Poverty, homelessness, violence, discrimination: we as a church cannot afford to divert time and resources away from these broader matters of justice because we so narrowly focus on same-sex relationships.

Though favoring different results, fully 82.5% of respondents to the Sexuality Studies do not want more dialogue: we want action, so that we can move on. The Task Force’s recommendations, while well-intentioned, will not permit the ELCA to move beyond issues about which the vast majority of ELCA members have already made up their minds.

Our world and our Gospel need this church to move on, but to do so we must tell the plain truth: are lesbians and gays welcome to full participation in the life of the ELCA, or are they not? “Full participation” means nothing less than complete participation on an equal basis with straight people, in marriage and ministry. Those who do not support such participation deserve a policy that says so and is consistently implemented. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and those who love us likewise deserve a church that fully, truly welcomes us; and if the ELCA does not, then we need to move on to churches that do.

So that the people of God can move on to the broader tasks of God’s justice, synod assemblies, the ELCA Church Council, and the Churchwide Assembly should craft and approve one policy for the church, consistently implemented, that explicitly states whether or not lesbians and gays will have full participation. In so doing, if we cannot journey together faithfully, then we must choose to move on our journeys faithfully, rather than on a journey together.