As you may know, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is this week holding its 9th Churchwide Assembly, the denominations biennial highest authority. The most controversial and central issue this Assembly is deciding is the fate of ELCA Christians in committed same-gender relationships: whether to bless these relationships and ordain qualified people in them. Sadly, as pathetic as it is to be debating that, the actual proposals fall short of any inclusive vision: they explicitly preserve policies that explicitly discriminate against people in same-gender relationships, while allowing local exceptions to be made on account of either "pastoral discretion" (in the case of marriage) or the decision of each bishop individually (in the case of ordination). Nevertheless, realistically these are the only proposals that have any chance of passing. You can follow the progress of the Assembly from two sources: www.Goodsoil.org, the umbrella for the various ELCA organizations fighting for change, and the official Assembly webpage (which includes live webcast of plenary sessions). The final vote - by which my own destiny and career will be decided is to be held at the plenary THIS Friday, August 12, beginning at 8:15am. I hope you will pray or remember or think about or be enraged at the ELCA this week, and particularly on Friday during the vote. My own latest position on the matter - what I would say if I were a voting member - is below.
A REFLECTION BEFORE THE ELCA VOTE ON BLESSING SAME-GENDER UNIONS AND ORDAINING CANDIDATES WHO ARE IN THEM.
It is high time for us in the ELCA to vote and decide whether we will make room for God's love to be all it is: vast enough to welcome - truly welcome - lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender members as radiantly as every stranger in our midst. It is time, because too long we have deafened our ears to the desperate cries of God's people, and God's Earth itself, for justice. The struggle of LGBT people for full inclusion in our church is, of course, deeply embedded with the struggle of all people in our world for the freedom and dignity in, with, and for which God created us. But we in the ELCA must confess our sin in obsessing over our prejudices against one group of people so that we can ignore our complicity in oppressing many peoples - throughout our nation and over the globe. Those of us who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender in the ELCA, and those who love us, must REFUSE to bear any longer the burden of ignoring the cries of God's world: not on our backs, not on our bodies, not in our relationships, and not on heads on which no bishop has the courage to place hands! We must have enough honesty before Our God to admit that it is NOT enough simply to ask for justice for ourselves - we must demand justice for ourselves only as one part of demanding justice for all people.
Having our same-gender unions blessed by this church will not be worth one bit if the church that blesses us isn't a church always at the forefront of ending structures of impoverishment, structures of genocide, structures of degradation of the total environment. Being called and authorized as a leader of this church - no matter how hard the journey - is an affront to the Gospel unless the church that ordains us is willing to RISK EVERYTHING for those who are most vulnerable to the predations of unchecked corporate power; unequal distribution of health, wealth, and leisure; and unjust violence against and death of poor people, people of darker skin, and women and children throughout the world. As we near a turning-point - when either everything will be changed for the better or else we must ask ourselves, "Where do we go from here?" - the Gospel of a God devoted to justice unto, and beyond, Crucifixion itself leaves us one ethical option. Yes, we must demand and win for ourselves inclusion in this church on equal basis and with equal recognition with all of God's people. But vastly more important than this, we must demand that our church own up to its moral responsibility and be a church worth including any one of God's children in the first place. We must demand that our church commit to RISK EVERYTHING TO RESIST INJUSTICE, in the holy and precious name of a righteous God who in her grace RISKS EVERYTHING to bring us - EVERY LAST ONE OF US - home to paradise.
May this church, finally, hear and answer the call of such a God as ours.
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Lutherans Reject Easing Gay Clergy Rules
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: August 12, 2005
Filed at 9:00 p.m. ET
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- A national meeting of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America rejected a proposal Friday that would have allowed gays in committed relationships to serve as clergy under certain conditions.
The measure would have affirmed the church ban on ordaining sexually active gays and lesbians, but would have allowed bishops and church districts called synods to seek an exception for a particular candidate -- if that person was in a long-term relationship and met other restrictions.
Delegates voted against the measure 503-490. Even if it had won a simple majority of votes, that wouldn't have been enough; the proposal needed a two-thirds majority to pass. . . . [cont.]
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