Sexuality Issues Top ELCA Events in 2004
Issues involving sexuality inhabited three of the ten top news slots for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for 2004, alongside natural disasters, obituaries and the revival of two animated characters.
Issues involving sexuality inhabited three of the ten top news slots for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for 2004, alongside natural disasters, obituaries and the revival of two animated characters.
According to a January 7 compilation of the top ten ELCA events by the ELCA news service, the top stories were: natural disasters, a Texas civil case, the ELCA head’s letter to the presidential candidates, membership loss, development on the studies on sexuality, federal marriage amendment, Davey and Goliath, continued talks with the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, changing vespers, meeting with orthodox leaders, and the marking of notable obituaries.
The following is the list of top ten stories- in no particular order- as determined by the ELCA Communication staff:
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+ Natural disasters: Through Lutheran Disaster Response, the ELCA supported relief efforts to widespread disasters including as 19 tornadoes that struck Utica, Ill., April 20, killing eight people. In Iowa, Lutherans responded to 17 tornadoes that damaged at least 1,400 houses in a 14-county area May 25. More than 3,000 homes, businesses and crops in southeastern Minnesota were damaged or destroyed when 11 inches of rain fell there Sept. 14. An unprecedented four hurricanes struck Caribbean islands, Florida and other U.S. states in August and September, resulting in deaths, injuries and some $18 billion in property damage. The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, met ELCA Florida-Bahamas Synod professional and lay leaders in October to thank them for their ministry during and after the storms.
The ELCA, through International Disaster Response, joined several international partners to respond to relief efforts in several coastal nations of the Indian Ocean after a Dec. 26 underwater earthquake created huge waves that claimed as many as 150,000 lives 12 countries. Among the dead was ELCA member Tamara Mendis, Chicago, who perished when the tsunami struck a train she was traveling in along coastal Sri Lanka. This was the seventh ELCA International Disaster Response of 2004.
+ Texas civil case: The ELCA churchwide organization joined Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, the Michigan Multi-Synodical Candidacy Committee, and Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Marshall, Texas, to settle with several plaintiffs in a civil lawsuit stemming from the criminal sexual behavior of a former ELCA pastor, Gerald Thomas, who served at Good Shepherd. Three others defendants -- the ELCA Northern Texas-Northern Louisiana Synod (NT-NL), Dallas, the Rev. Mark B. Herbener, former NT-NL bishop, and Earl H. Eliason, Herbener's former assistant -- defended themselves in a trial that began Apri1 13. Following several days of testimony and deliberations, the jury awarded $37 million to the several plaintiffs April 22 and held five parties liable, including the synod, Herbener and Eliason. Partly as a result of the case, the ELCA Church Council in November updated its procedures which guide the church's candidacy process for ordained ministers. The procedures included new screens for potential pastors and professional lay ministers.
Thomas was convicted in 2003 in state court of 11 counts of multiple sex crimes against children, and was sentenced to serve a 397-year sentence.
+ Presiding bishop's letter to U.S. presidential candidates: Just a few days before their first presidential debate in September, the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop, wrote to President George W. Bush and U.S. Senator John F. Kerry, calling on both to change the tone and content of their campaigns. Hanson challenged both nominees to answer questions on social concerns such as HIV/AIDS, the environment, the growing gap between wealthy and impoverished people, affordable housing, health care, wages and education. Hanson acknowledged that terrorism was an important concern, and terror must be rejected. However, he pleaded with Bush and Kerry that they not "reduce all of the cries of suffering humanity to this single issue."
+ ELCA membership slips below 5 million: In August, the Rev. Lowell G. Almen, ELCA secretary, reported that the baptized membership of the ELCA slipped below 5 million in 2003. Almen announced a reduction of 53,081 baptized members -- a decrease of about 1 percent -- for a total of 4,984,925 baptized members in 10,657 congregations.
+ ELCA Studies on Sexuality task force: The task force met several times in 2004 to learn about and discuss various topics related to homosexuality, culminating in a Dec. 10-12 meeting here at which it made significant decisions about recommendations it will place before the church for possible action in August by the 2005 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. The task force drafted recommendations on how the ELCA should answer two key questions on homosexuality -- whether or not the church should bless same-gender relationships and whether or not it should allow people in such relationships to serve the church as professional lay and ordained ministers. It will release its report and recommendations on Jan. 13, 2005. The task force also began work on a social statement on human sexuality which is expected to be presented to the 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.
+ ELCA opposes federal marriage amendment: In June the Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs (LOGA), the ELCA's federal public policy office, Washington, D.C., joined 25 other religious organizations to urge members of the U.S. Congress to reject a proposed "Federal Marriage Amendment." The religious organizations said the proposal threatened individual civil rights and religious freedom.
+ "Davey and Goliath" return in a big way: "Davey and Goliath," a classic stop-motion animated television series starring Davey Hansen and his talking dog, Goliath, returned to television and publishing. "Davey and Goliath" is a property of the ELCA and aired on commercial television in the 1960s and 1970s. "Davey and Goliath's Snowboard Christmas," the first new television production featuring the characters in 30 years, aired twice in December on Hallmark, a national cable channel. The ELCA and Scholastic, world's largest publisher and distributor of children's books, entered into an agreement to create a series of "Davey and Goliath" books which will be available in early 2005.
Meanwhile, Augsburg Fortress, the ELCA publishing ministry, released "Davey and Goliath's Circus Spectacular," a new Vacation Bible School resource for 2005, a follow-up to its successful 2003 VBS release, "Davey and Goliath's Camp Creation." Augsburg Fortress announced participants in the Camp Creation "mission well" project raised $234,250 in 2004. The project is intended to provide safe drinking water for the people of southern Bangladesh. The ELCA publisher also released a "Davey and Goliath" devotional series.
+ Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod (LCMS) convention agrees to continue cooperative ministries with ELCA: Convention delegates, meeting in July in St. Louis, voted 672-479 to continue discussion between representatives of the two church bodies on a variety of scriptural, theological and church topics. In addition, the LCMS Praesidium -- the Synod's president and five vice presidents -- recommended ELCA-LCMS cooperative arrangements for military chaplaincy be continued. Following the vote, Hanson said in an address to the convention that he is "profoundly grateful" for the decision.
+ Lutheran Vespers changes speakers: The Rev. Walt Wangerin Jr., announced he will leave Lutheran Vespers, the radio ministry of the ELCA, after serving more than 10 years as speaker. Wangerin, an ELCA pastor, professor, author and lecturer, is a faculty member at Valparaiso (Ind.) University. He said he wanted to leave the radio ministry to concentrate on teaching and writing, and be at home with family more. The Rev. Peter W. Marty, senior pastor of St. Paul Lutheran Church, Davenport, Iowa, was named to succeed Wangerin beginning in Feb. 2005. The Rev. Stephen P. Bouman, bishop of the ELCA Metropolitan New York Synod, was named to be interim speaker from Jan. 9 to Feb. 6, 2005.
+ Significant meetings for the ELCA presiding bishop: Hanson traveled to Istanbul, Turkey, to meet with Orthodox leaders in his role as presiding bishop and president of the Lutheran World Federation. Among those he met was His All Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, world Orthodox leader, on Jan. 28. Hanson and the Rev. Munib A. Younan, the Lutheran bishop in Jerusalem, met Feb. 11 in Washington, D.C., with members and staff of the U.S. Congress in an off-the-record session on the Middle East. In May, Hanson and religious leaders met in New York with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan about the United Nations' role in Iraq; and in June, the presiding bishop joined an ecumenical delegation in a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell at the State Department in Washington, to discuss ways to seek peace in the Middle East.
+ Notable obituaries: Jan. 7, Dr. Chester A.N. Myrom, executive director, Lutheran Church in America Foundation; Feb. 17, the Rev. John H. Tietjen, president, Christ Seminary-Seminex, St. Louis, and ELCA synod bishop; March 16, the Rev. Harold H. Lentz, president, Carthage College, Kenosha, Wis.; April 20, the Rev. William H. Weiblen, president, Wartburg Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa; Oct. 20, the Rev. Harold W. Rast, former head, Fortress Press; and Dec. 3, Dr. Jonathan C. Messerli, president, Muhlenberg College, Allentown, Pa.
