ELCA Assembly Opens Ministry to Partnered Gay and Lesbian Lutherans

MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) - The 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted today to open the ministry of the church to gay and lesbian pastors and other professional workers living in committed relationships.

The action came by a vote of 559-451 at the highest legislative body of the 4.6 million member denomination. Earlier the assembly also approved a resolution committing the church to find ways for congregations that choose to do so to "recognize, support and hold publicly accountable life-long, monogamous, same gender relationships," though the resolution did not use the word "marriage."

The actions here change the church's policy, which previously allowed gays and lesbians into the ordained ministry only if they remained celibate.

Throughout the assembly, which opened Aug. 17, the more than 1,000 voting members have debated issues of human sexuality. On Wednesday they adopted a social statement on the subject as a teaching tool and policy guide for the denomination.

The churchwide assembly of the ELCA is meeting here Aug. 17-23 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. About 2,000 people are participating, including 1,045 ELCA voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly is "God's work. Our hands."

Before discussing the thornier issues of same-gender unions in the ordained ministry, the assembly approved, by a vote of 771-230, a resolution committing the church to respect the differences of opinions on the matter and honor the "bound consciences" of those who disagree.

During the hours of discussion, led by ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson, the delegates paused several times each hour for prayer, sometimes as a whole assembly, sometimes in small groups around the tables where the voting members of the assembly sat, debated and cast their votes.

Discussion here proved that matters of sexuality will be contentious throughout the church. A resolution that would have reasserted the church's current policy drew 344 votes, but failed because it was rejected by 670 of the voting members.

Pastor Richard Mahan of the ELCA West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod was among several speakers contending that the proposed changes are contrary to biblical teaching. "I cannot see how the church that I have known for 40 years can condone what God has condemned," Mahan said, "Nowhere does it say in scripture that homosexuality and same sex marriage is acceptable of God."

But others said a greater acceptance of people who are gay and lesbian in the church was consistent with the Bible. Bishop Gary Wollersheim of the ELCA Northern Illinois Synod said, "It's a matter of justice, a matter of hospitality, it's what Jesus would have us do." Wollersheim said he had been strongly influenced by meetings with youth at youth leadership events in his synod, a regional unit of the ELCA.

Some speakers contend that the actions taken here will alienate ELCA members and cause a drop in membership. But Allison Guttu of the ELCA Metropolitan New York Synod said, "I have seen congregations flourish while engaging these issues; I have seen congregations grow recognizing the gifts of gay and lesbian pastors."

During discussion of resolutions on implementation of the proposals, Bishop Kurt Kusserow of the ELCA Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod asked that the church make clear provision in its policies to recognize the conviction of members who believe that this church cannot call or roster people in a publicly accountable, lifelong, monagamous, same-gender relationship. A resolution that the denomination consider a proposal for how it will exercise flexibility within its existing structure and practices to allow Lutherans in same gender relationship to be approved for professional service in the church. That resolution passed by a vote of 667-307.

Help stop the Veto

Tuesdays evening vote by the Anchorage Assembly is cause for a cautious celebration and is a very brief respite for the LGBT community, and supporters of equal rights in Anchorage, Alaska. AO 2009-64 passed the Anchorage City Assembly, including “sexual orientation” as a protected class, illegal to discriminate against. The vote ended in 7 votes in favor and 4 opposed. This was the culmination of months of public hearings (over 600), tireless grassroots efforts, bitter and well-funded opposition from Jerry Prevo’s Anchorage Baptist Temple, and a city Assembly that conducted themselves brilliantly.

Mayor Dan Sullivan, son of former Anchorage Mayor George Sullivan, has the opportunity to veto this ordinance, just as his father did back in the seventies, when a bill with the same purpose successfully passed the Assembly.

As members of the Anchorage faith community, I call upon you to contact Mayor Sullivan with your input regarding discrimination in Anchorage. Identify yourself as a member of a faith community and mention the name of your church affiliation and ask that Mayor Sullivan Not Veto this important ordinance.

Email Mayor Sullivan.
Call Mayor Sullivan at (907) 343-7170
If that doesn’t work, try (907) 343-7100

Faith Based Health Care debate info from Sojourners and PICO

An excellent faith bases source for discussion of the Health Care debate from Sojourners and PICO.

This two page PDF handout provides an initial resource for congregations to engage in the health care debate in a constructive way, based on faith values.
http://www.sojo.net/action/alerts/Health_Care_Toolkit_2-page.pdf

An eight page dicussion guide
http://www.sojo.net/action/alerts/health_care_toolkit.pdf

The home web site for the above and other information:
http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm?action=action.display&item=HC09-main

NIMBY

I was scared and angry last Sunday, two emotions that are more closely connected in our psyche than most would want to acknowledge. I woke up and got the newspaper and a cup of coffee. The dog followed me out and went for her morning romp. Most days she barks at the back door in a few minutes after smelling all the smells in the area and making sure all is as it should be. This morning however her return was delayed. I called and called to no avail. My wife stepped outside and heard a dog yelping and I went to investigate. Our back yard is undeveloped woods and borders on a gravel section of Huffman road. It was along that section that I pinpointed the intermittent yelping and found our dog. She was standing in a torn bag of garbage and fish guts with the plastic pull strap around her neck pinning her to the ground. She was scared and stinky and when I released her she ran in a panic to the house. The day before we had a black bear in our yard, I now knew what attracted it. We left for a trip right after church and it was Wednesday morning before I could dawn rubber gloves and clean up the mess, by then there were four additional smelly garbage bags to dispose of.

I was scared at what might have happened to our dog and how sick she might have become. I was scared at how close she came to strangling herself. I was angry that someone would throw garbage in our back yard and then to assure that it was no accident, to later heap more bags on the same site. Many facets of the incident have been rolling around in my head ever since.

In Genesis 4 we hear the story of the first brothers, Cain and Abel. After Cain killed Abel the Lord came and said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?" "I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's keeper?"

First it is interesting to note that the first homicide in the Bible is a fratricide. Which begs the question, Biblically speaking is not all killing, from the darkness of the back alleys to antiseptic chambers set aside for lethal injection, the same? Even in Cain’s answer, there is a distancing of the self. Am I my brother’s keeper, whether answered in the affirmative or in the negative, denotes a separation that our quest for rugged individuality perpetuates. Am I my brother’s keeper? The answer is more than a simple “no, you are not your brother’s keeper.” The answer is “No, you are not your brother’s keeper; you are your brother’s Brother, your sister’s Sister.”

In my lifetime there has been a significant shift from “we” to “me.” It is manifest in our housing as we have moved from a walkway to the front porch, to a driveway and a back deck, from getting a hammer and board to fix that hole you stepped in on your neighbor’s porch to going to court to sue for damages. Theologically, Jesus has been changed from the risen Christ who brought salvation to all to my personal savior that I have made a decision to follow thus proving the serpent’s rightness all along that “I” could be a god in charge of my own salvation. Equal rights in Anchorage is only a concern for someone else’s children and the garbage only becomes a problem when it, and the bear it draws in, are in my back yard.

Carl Marx rightly pointed out the flaw of Christian charity. The real Christian task should not be that of just helping the poor with charity; rather it is to ensure for the poor the exercise of those rights whereby they can cease to be poor. The generosity of our giving in this, and many other churches in Anchorage is exemplar, but to acknowledge one another as brother or sister is to see in each act of charity the systemic injustice that perpetuates the need. Without confronting the injustice, the simple act of charity alone is the acknowledgement of the correctness of Carl Marx’s judgment that the perpetuation of that injustice then becomes the permanent fount through which our generosity assuages our guilt.

Rather than condemning the NIMBY’s (Not In My Back Yard) of the world, scripture points to the correctness of that approach and then, as if confronting the expert in the law in each one of us, Jesus points to a definition of neighbor that is beyond our limited geographical understanding (Luke 10). Christ’s understanding of NIMBY acknowledges the bag of fish guts that might have killed my dog as well as well as the poison that is pumped into the air to provide cheep goods for my consumption, the waste from our nuclear plants safely stored away for our children’s children to deal with. Christ’s NIMBY means it is not enough to relish the joy of your daughter’s marriage without allowing others the same joy at the marriage of their child who may love differently than your own. Christ’s NIMBY is to recognize that great health care is not great when it is beyond the affordable reach of some.

So rather than turning my anger outward only, to confront the demon who despoiled my space, I am called by the love of God to confront also the injustice the despoils the lives of the many to whom Jesus points to and says, they too are your neighbor, your brother and your sister. To the victims of injustice, inaction differs little from wrong action. So stand up and say, Not In My Back Yard, then look to the horizon and begin to grasp just how expansive that back yard really is and how many brothers and sisters live therein.