March 26, 2003

CHICAGO - The steering committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Commission for Women took its own advice and studied the church's peace statement when it met here March 14-15. It also challenged the ELCA to honor its commitments to women and to its employees while the church makes budget and planning decisions.

When the committee met in October, days after the U.S. Congress gave President Bush authority to take unilateral military action against Iraq if diplomatic efforts failed, it passed a resolution encouraging Lutherans to use resources the ELCA has developed to facilitate conversations about war and peace.

The March meeting, days before President Bush gave Saddam Hussein and his sons 48 hours to leave Iraq, included "peace circles" - small group discussions of the ELCA social statement "For Peace in God's World."

The statement says the church is to be a "disturbing, reconciling, serving and deliberating" presence in society, said the Rev. Janet M. Corpus, Philadelphia, chair of the commission's steering committee. Committee discussions focused on ways the church can be that presence with the various audiences in society, she said.

The steering committee also studied the ELCA social statement on economic life in reaction to several reports - on the church's strategic planning process, on possible budget cuts for the commission and on a staff reduction in the church's women's organization, Women of the ELCA.

Linda Post Bushkofsky, executive director, Women of the ELCA, serves as an advisor to the commission. She reported to the steering committee that the women's organization recently reconfigured, reducing its Chicago staff.

"We are grieved that those positions were cut," said Corpus. The staff reductions "make our concerns about advocacy on behalf of women all the stronger in the ELCA," she said.

Another advisor, the Rev. Charles S. Miller, ELCA executive for administration and executive assistant to the presiding bishop, told the steering committee that the church's "income has fallen short of expectations." As a result, all units of the church, including the Commission for Women, have been asked to "underspend their budgets."

That financial situation coincides with a planning process that the Rev. Mark S. Hanson initiated shortly after he became presiding bishop of the ELCA in November 2001. The process is to develop strategic directions for the churchwide organization by the end of 2003.

"We're concerned that this planning process, which is part of a process of reorganization and fiscal restructuring, be attentive to the needs of those who work in the ELCA," said Corpus. Any process that involves the possibility of cutting budgets and positions should be "a very clear, transparent process that is communicated well to everybody," she said.

The steering committee passed one resolution urging the church's leadership "to ensure full inclusion of all churchwide employees in the process of examining ways to reduce churchwide expenditures, so that adequate opportunity is given for the voices of all employees to be heard in an environment of participatory decision-making."

The ELCA's economic life statement, "Sufficient, Sustainable Livelihood for All," commits the church "to 'cultivate workplaces of participatory decision-making' and to 'counsel and support those who are undergoing job transitions' and acknowledges that 'employers have a responsibility to treat employees with dignity and respect' and that 'our God-given dignity in community means that we are to participate actively in decisions that impact in our lives, rather than only passively accept decisions others make for us,'" said the resolution.

Another resolution called on ELCA's leadership to reaffirm the commission's goals and to "make them a high priority in the church's work."

The steering committee asked that the work of the Rev. E. Larraine Frampton in the ELCA Division for Ministry continue. Until recently Frampton coordinated division and commission programs to prevent clergy sexual misconduct, and that position remains vacant.

In other business, the Commission for Women steering committee elected Agnes S. McClain to become its chair in August. McClain, an ELCA associate in ministry, is an assistant to the bishop of the ELCA Southwest California Synod, Glendale, Calif. The committee will elect other officers when it meets here Oct. 17-19.

The Commission for Women's home page is at http://www.elca.org/cw on the ELCA Web site.

ELCA News Service