Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Opens Doors, Removes Anti-LGBT Policy
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America reached a significant “tipping point” in mid-August when its biennial churchwide Assembly, meeting in Minneapolis, deciding to allow for the recognition of same-gender relationships and permit partnered lesbian or gay clergy to serve openly as pastors and lay professionals in the church.
Read the Pastoral Letter by Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson on September 23, 2009
The ELCA becomes the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. to do so, following similar liberalizing actions in the United Church of Christ and the Episcopal Church USA. Last month the latter, meeting in General Convention in Anaheim, ended a de facto moratorium on electing any additional gay or lesbian bishops by affirming the gifts for ministry of all people, including LGBT people. The ELCA has a relationship of “full communion” with both the UCC and ECUSA, which allows each church body to hire and place clergy from the other churchbody in its own congregations.
In a stunning vote August 19, which many considered nothing less than the work of the Spirit, voting members at the churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America adopted a new Social Statement, a major teaching document, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” by a two-thirds majority vote, that provides a solid foundation for the church’s theological understanding and policy implementation. The document provides the basis for congregations to recognize and celebrate the commitment of same-sex couples.
During discussion of the document, a real live tornado swept through downtown Minneapolis, where the Assembly was meeting. the proceedings were not interrupted, although outsiders immediately suggested that the severe weather was a warning from God! Yet when the approving vote was finally taken after hours of debate, the sun came out! Two days later the Assembly adopted four resolutions which authorized the revision of existing policies of the church that “precluded” the service of open and sexually-active lesbian or gay clergy. One of the resolutions adopted expressly allows congregations that choose to do so to recognize lesbian and gay couples. (The word “marriage” is not used but was implied.)
During the week-long Assembly, the presence of Goodsoil, a coalition of LGBT-positive organizations within the ELCA (including Lutherans Concerned) was strongly felt by voting members and visitors alike. Goodsoil also provided a devotional booklet to help voting members base their votes on faith and conscience. In the booklet, “One Table, Many Blessings,” 95 pastors of the church who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender “came out” with their stories. (The number is reminiscent of the 95 theses of Martin Luther which were posted on the church door in 1517 to launch the Reformation.)
The actions in 2009 culminate an era of intense controversy, debate and activism within the ELCA over human sexuality and homosexuality. Difficult relations between the ELCA and its LGBT members erupted early in the life of the churchbody, which was officially created in 1988 as a merger of smaller Lutheran denominations, when three seminary graduates who were gay came out publicly. When two of them were irregularly called to serve congregations in San Francisco in 1990, the ELCA Church Council immediately countered by adopting policy document which banned sexually-active lesbian and gay people from the Lutheran ministry and required life-long celibacy instead. In 1995 the two San Francisco congregations were formally expelled from the ELCA’s roster of congregations.
A major flashpoint erupted as recently as 2007 when Rev. Bradley Schmeling, Pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta came out to his bishop. After a hearing (church trial) in which the committee charged with the duty to determine Schmeling’s status agreed that the policy precluding gay clergy was wrong, but concluded that it had no choice but to enforce the policy against him. Only weeks before the 2007 Churchwide Assembly in Chicago, Schmeling was expelled from the ELCA's Clergy Roster. Strong support for his continuing service as a pastor was evident in Chicago, however, as dozens of visitors came to the Assembly as “Friends Accompanying Bradley” (FAB for short), and a mid-Assembly worship service attracted more than 700 supporters including 14 bishops of the ELCA.
Each biennium, the ELCA has been presented with memorials and proposed actions to change its approach to the lesbian and gay people in the church. During recent years the strategy used by Goodsoil participants for promoting change within the church shifted dramatically — from public demonstrations, including actions which led to pastors, bishops and lay people being arrested in front of the convention center to graceful “engagement” with voting members (assembly delegates who are free to vote their own conscience).
“It no longer had the feel of ‘us’ and ‘them,’” said Ray Huff, a member of the Southwest California Synod Council, who attended the Assembly as a “congregational observer representing RIC congregation Hollywood Lutheran. “It was totally ‘us’ and ‘us.’”
Some observers have noted the significance of the Lutheran vote because its nationwide membership is heavily weighted toward the Midwest, a typically more conservative area of the U.S. Of its 4.7 million members, some 800,000 are in Minnesota alone. When a typically middle-of-the-road denomination changes its views and policies about LGBT matters, it is strong evidence that a “tipping point” has been reached in both church and society.
Among other actions in Minneapolis, the ELCA Assembly also adopted a status of “full communion” with the United Methodist Church, a much larger and much more conservative Protestant churchbody. The UMC has steadfastly resisted all change of policy which would permit gay/lesbian pastors to serve, and is still expelling clergy simply for blessing a lesbian or gay couple in a church ceremony.
It remains to be seen how the ELCA’s liberalizing action will affect is ecumenical relationships over the long term. The president of the Lutheran Church, Rev. Dr. Gerald Kieschnick, brought “greetings” during the ELCA’s assembly which amounted to a cold and severe scolding for the liberal actions, and threatened of further chilling of the relationship between the two largest Lutheran groups in the U.S. And according to one news report, former US Conference of Catholic Bishops President Archbishop Wilton Gregory, sent a video message “urging the Lutheran Church to keep banning gay and lesbian clergy. Bishop Gregory even launched a subtle threat, saying that if the Lutheran Church decided to welcome gays and lesbians into the clergy fold, it could spell the end of relationships between the denomination and the Catholic Church.”
Among those Lutheran groups welcoming the policy change are Lutherans Concerned/North America (and its local chapters including LC/Los Angeles), whose Executive Director Emily Eastwood has been a tireless proponent for change since she began serving in 2002. Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM)—which formed as a merger of Lutheran Lesbian & Gay Ministries and the Extraordinary Candidacy Project in 2007—also welcomes the change. However, it remains to be seen how the relaxing of policy against LGBT clergy will play out in practice. Over 40 clergy or candidates for ordination are presently members of the alternative, or extra ordinem roster, because they are out as LGBT persons who stand in “principled non-compliance” with the existing anti-LGBT rules. It is unlikely that the ELCA will simply accept all ELM rostered clergy and candidates as a group, but the implementation of the specific procedures to allow LGBT clergy to serve have yet to be worked out by the ELCA.
For further information, see the web sites for the ELCA and for LC/NA