ELCA Study on Sexuality Due in January
The Church Council of the ELCA passed the recommended timeline for the Study on Sexuality’s release; The study, which will go public on January 15, deals with the blessing of gay unions and the rostering of gay clergy.
The issue of sexuality, specifically homosexuality, in the church was one of the main topics of discourse during the 2004 Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Church Council gathering in Chicago, Ill., Nov. 15, 2004. The Council, which acts as the legislative authority of the church between the biennial churchwide assemblies, heard updates ELCA’s Studies on Sexuality report, participated in the study, and passed the proposed timeline related to the study.
The ELCA commissioned a 14-member Task Force to study the issue of sexuality within the church, during the 2001 Churchwide Assembly. The four-year study, due to be released in January 2005, primarily deals with “the blessing of same-gender unions and the rostering of persons in committed gay or lesbian relationships.”
The policy of the ELCA states that ordained ministers are to refrain from engaging in
homosexual sexual relationships. Additionally, any person on the official ELCA clergy roster must not engage in any sexual relationship outside of marriage."
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However, despite such prohibitions, the number of homosexual ELCA clergy has continued to increase – although in most cases, the gay priests are ordained without the consent of the local bishop.
The Study on Sexuality, which addresses this contentious issue, will make a recommendation on the church policies regarding homosexuality. These recommendations – either to keep the current policy against homosexuals’ ordinations or to change it – will be reviewed throughout 2005 and will be voted upon by the Churchwide Assembly during its August meeting in Orlando.
Facing the challenge of the upcoming assembly vote, the Church Council in November decided to require a two-thirds majority standard to pass the task force’s policy next year. The main reason to change the standard from a simple majority to a 2/3 majority was to make it “harder” to change the policies of the ELCA than to maintain them.
"There were those who felt that maybe it just needed a simple majority, that we were actually changing the rules of procedure in anticipation of the task force report," said Carlos Peña, vice president of the ELCA and chair of the Church Council, Galveston.
However, Peña said setting the assembly rules of procedure before seeing the report and recommendations of the task force – which is due to go public on January 13 – would actually better allow the Assembly to remain neutral.
"It allows us not to be swayed one way or the other by what the task force reports," he said. "It makes it more neutral."
Grieg L. Anderson a council member from Portland, Ore., agreed, saying that, if the council made its decision while looking at the task force report and recommendations, it would appear that "we were putting our thumb on the scale" -- deciding on the margin of vote needed based on how much the council liked or disliked the recommendations.
Meanwhile, the Council members also partook in the ELCA Studies on Sexuality, which is centered on the materials previously developed by the ELCA task force. Council members studied the materials in small-group sessions, then returned to an open plenary session to discuss the study.
After engaging in the study, the Council members approved the timeline presented by the Task Force regarding the release and completion of the report. According to the timeline, the task force report will be presented to the ELCA leaders for a confidential preview on Jan 12, 2005. Then, on Jan 13, the report will go public. Afterwards, the ELCA’s 10,657 congregations will be given a chance to study the report and mark recommendations to change the report through March; the Conference of Bishops will then discuss the report and its recommendations when it meets later that month.
Then, the boards of the ELCA Division for Church and Society and the ELCA Division for Ministry - the two groups in charge of overseeing the task force - will review the task force report and recommendations and forward them to the council with any additional comments from the boards during its March 10-13. The council will meet from April 8 – 11, and will finally transmit the report to the 2005 Churchwide Assembly in August.
