Debating gay issues

The debate over homosexuality is rifting another denomination this week as voting members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America debate the issues of openly homosexual clergy and the place of committed, monogamous gay relationships in the church.

At the 2009 Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis this week, the ELCA on Wednesday passed a "social statement" that opponents say throws out thousands of years of Biblical teaching. On Friday, the assembly will decide whether or not to allow non-celibate, homosexual clergy to be on its official rosters.

A task force on sexuality drafted both the social statement and the recommended changes to policy. The social statement says that there are different "conscience-bound" beliefs about the morality of lifelong, monogamous homosexual relationships and there is no emerging consensus on whether the church should "honor these relationships, uplift, shelter, and protect them." It urges members to respect one another's "conscience-bound belief."

Mark Chavez, director of the Lutheran Coalition for Reform (CORE), says that this idea of "bound conscience" goes against the Scriptural understanding of conscience as bound by God's Word, reinterpreting it to mean "each individual person is supposed to bind their conscience to other people in the church and agree to disagree on what's moral and immoral."

The ELCA's shrinking member rolls clearly frame the debate. The total number of members added to the ELCA fell by 24 percent between 2001 and 2007. In one open letter before the assembly, former Bishop Herbert Chilstrom said when it comes to growing the local church, "the results are not encouraging," but he believes that passing the social statement and ministry recommendation "may be the gateway to becoming a stronger and more spiritual and more just church."

On the other side, Lutheran CORE argues that dispelling tradition will only undermine the ELCA's ecumenical and multicultural relationships. Chavez says that many Hispanic and African-immigrant congregations, as in the Anglican Church, oppose the changes. Hispanic church leaders sent an open letter to voting members of the ELCA saying that homosexual behavior is unscriptural and asking them to vote against the changes. African leaders have called voting members, written open letters, and even established a presence in Minneapolis to talk to voting members at the assembly.

As the assembly braces for the second vote over homosexual clergy, those opposing the changes pushed for a two-thirds-vote approval, which the assembly often employs for major decisions. The members rejected the supermajority vote, making approval possible by a simple majority instead. The social statement passed by a bare two-thirds majority.