September 23, 2009

CHICAGO – In a Sept. 23 letter to professional leaders of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the ELCA presiding bishop urged them to engage each other "with honesty and respect" and asked that they exercise restraint, bear each other's burdens through conversation and be patient as the denomination lives into the churchwide assembly's decisions on human sexuality.

Voting members at the August 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis approved a series of proposals to change the denomination's ministry policies, including a change to allow Lutherans in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA associates in ministry, clergy, deaconesses and diaconal ministers.

The Rev. Mark S. Hanson wrote in his pastoral letter that responses to the assembly's actions on human sexuality included "joy, anger, hope, confusion, ambivalence, perhaps even detachment." He wrote that he's "encouraged by the thoughtful and prayerful conversations of people with diverse perspectives" considering the implications of the assembly decisions.

"My heart rejoices with those who are ready to live into the future of our shared mission. My heart aches as I listen to the pain and distress of those who feel confused or even abandoned by others," the presiding bishop wrote.

Hanson wrote that he is "disappointed" some people are encouraging congregations and members to take actions that "will diminish our capacity for ministry," which could affect planting and renewing congregations, educating leaders, sending missionaries, responding to domestic and international hunger concerns, and rebuilding communities after disasters.

Hanson sent his letter two days before some 1,200 people are expected to meet at the Lutheran Coalition for Reform's (CORE) convocation at Fishers, Ind., to discuss how they will respond to the assembly's decisions. CORE, an organization of ELCA members, opposes the ministry policy changes. CORE's leaders have said they will encourage withholding or redirecting finances versus sharing funds with the ELCA, a move which could affect the church's ministries.

Hanson's letter continued, "Although these actions are promoted as a way to signal opposition to churchwide assembly actions or even to punish the voting members who made them, the result will be wounds that we inflict on ourselves, our shared life, and our mission in Christ." Such actions would be devastating for the ELCA and for global and ecumenical partners, he wrote. But his "greatest sadness" would be missing the opportunity to give "an evangelical and missional witness together to the world."

Hanson asked the church's leaders "to think evangelically and act missionally" about faithfulness, biblical authority, what it means to be Christ's church, leadership, and law and gospel. He asked for "safe places for conversation" and "elasticity rather than rigidity in our ways of supporting and carrying out ministry and mission."

Hanson concluded by repeating his own comments at the end of the assembly: "We finally meet one another not in our agreements or disagreements, but at the foot of the cross, where God is faithful, where Christ is present with us, and where, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are one in Christ."

The full text of Presiding Bishop Hanson's pastoral letter is at http://www.ELCA.org/bishop/messages/, on the ELCA Web site.

ELCA News Service