Response from Solid Rock Lutherans

A Short Response to the Report and Recommendations
from the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality
by
Rev. Roy A. Harrisville III, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Solid Rock Lutherans
1/18/2005

The Task Force for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Studies on Sexuality has released a recommendation concerning the ordination of practicing homosexuals in committed relationships. Unfortunately, this may only make mattersworse and further divide an already splintered Church. The Task Force has recommended that congregations and synods not be disciplined if they ordain and call homosexuals incommitted relationships to serve as pastors. At the same time the Task Force curiously claims that it is calling for no change in the current policies for the ordained ministry.

Yet, in order for this recommendation to be implemented and practiced, it will in fact require sweeping changes in the current policy and practice. It’s like having a speed limit but never ticketing those who exceed it.

For years (and over a million dollars later) the members of the ELCA have awaited this recommendation hoping that it would reflect both the biblical faith of millions and the desire for a clear word from our Church leadership. It does neither. Instead, it weakly asserts that though the ELCA has good policies and scripture has good teachings, it shouldn’t matter if they are followed or not.

The Task Force at the same time calls for unity in the ELCA. But there can be no unity if this recommendation is actually followed by the Church. In fact, this recommendation immediately and necessarily splits the ELCA between those congregations that will and those congregations that will not ordain active homosexuals in committed relationships. There will be those congregations that follow the moral teachings of the Church and those that reject them. What could have been more divisive than a recommendation like this?

Not only will it be divisive, it will not aid in the discussions that the ELCA must now have prior to the Churchwide Assembly in August. Had the Task Force been bold enough to recommend a clear departure from Church teachings or a clear affirmation of those teachings, perhaps the upcoming Synod assemblies and congregational meetings would have been presented with clear alternatives. Such alternatives provide good ground for fruitful discussion. But this recommendation only confuses the issue further and will lead to discussions that get side-tracked on peripheral issues such as procedural questions concerning Bishops and Synod Councils. Such dialog will never address the substance of the issue, which is what this Church still needs to do.

That substance has to do with scripture and its interpretation, health, and sexual boundaries. Most of all it has to do with the transformational love of Jesus Christ. There is no warrant in scripture for following this recommendation from the Task Force. The ELCA already welcomes homosexuals into the Church as much as anyone else. But it does not welcome all behaviors because not all are healthy. Scripture is clear in its condemnation of homosexual activity. Few dispute that. The Bible is replete with praise of marriage between a man and woman, but has only negative comments on samesex behavior. Why then should anyone bless what God does not bless? Why should the Church directly contradict its own scriptures?

There are boundaries in life that should not be crossed, for a variety of reasons. For the most part, those boundaries protect life. Incest is a boundary, as is polygamy, adultery, and polyamory. When we trespass across such boundaries we find ourselves in the realms of infidelity, spiritual slavery, and cause irreparable harm to children. With this recommendation, the Task Force has stated that sexual boundaries do not matter now, if they ever did. The Africans have a saying: “Don’t tear down a fence until you know why it was put up.” Oftentimes boundaries protect us from ourselves and our selfish inclinations. If the Church follows this recommendation from the Task Force it will be tearing down a barrier that has provided protection for millennia.

The Church should not succumb to social pressures, but to our Lord, Christ. He is the one who cast aside his own wishes in order to follow the Father. He sweat blood at the Garden of Gethsemane pleading to escape the torment he knew he was to suffer. In the end, he surrendered to the only will, the only opinion, the only pressure that has any meaning: the Father’s love. For it is within the contours of that love that the horizon of freedom appears most clearly. It is within that slavery to the will of God that liberty shines most brightly. The world does not understand this, will not and cannot understand it. Only when one is touched by the fire of Christ’s love is one’s thirst quenched, hunger satisfied, and life transformed with a delight unimaginable to the human mind. That is what the Task Force should have clearly reaffirmed and recommended.