ELCA NEWS SERVICE
September 8, 2004
LWF Council Appoints Family, Marriage And Sexuality Task Force
04-164-LWI*/JB
CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF)
appointed an eight-person task force to provide federation members with
"helpful background and assistance for discussion within and among member
churches on family, marriage and sexuality," according to a news release
from Lutheran World Information.
The LWF Council is chaired by the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, LWF president
and presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),
an LWF member. The council met Sept. 1-7 in Chavannes-de-Bogis,
Switzerland, near Geneva, where LWF is based.
Members of the Task Force on Family, Marriage and Sexuality are from
the seven LWF regions -- Africa, Asia, Central Eastern Europe, Central
Western Europe, Nordic Countries, Latin America and the Caribbean, and
North America, the release said. The Rev. Kristin P. Tomasdottir,
Evangelical Lutheran Church of Iceland, a member of the LWF Executive
Committee, was named to chair the group.
The task force will assist the LWF Council, to which it reports, by
proposing guidelines and processes by which "respectful discussion might
be pursued among member churches on issues of family, marriage and human
sexuality, where there are agreements and disagreements." The team would
do this by reflecting biblically, theologically, historically and
ethically on the practices and attitudes identified, the release said.
It would also give specific attention to whether and how different
approaches to Scripture and different ethical attitudes, practices and
policies that affect the unity of the Church, could be dealt with.
Responding to questions at a news conference, Hanson said the task
force was not a decision-making body. "We are not going to make decisions
on behalf of the global communion," he said.
"The scope of the task force is to help the communion be in
conversation, not to force it to make decisions that would be divisive for
the life of the communion," Hanson said. The first responsibility of the
task force will be to gather what the member churches are already saying
on these subjects and gather resources, "so that we might understand each
other's contexts, not just our own," he said.
The Rev. Ishmael Noko, LWF general secretary, said the establishment
of the task force would help the communion in its dialogue with other
churches, some of whom have already begun their discussions of these
subjects.
"This is a very significant process that we have started. It will
help Lutheran churches participate in these important issues on the
ecumenical stage," Noko said.
The task force is to conduct its work with attention to the
discussions on similar issues within the World Council of Churches. It is
expected to "familiarize itself with existing complementary work taking
place within the LWF secretariat and member churches," the release said.
The appointment of the task force fulfilled the Message of the 10th
LWF Assembly, which met in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in July 2003. That message
called on LWF "member churches to encourage and support one another in
study and respectful dialogue on issues of marriage, family and human
sexuality, in a manner appropriate to the needs of each member church."
The churches also committed themselves to help each other in
"advocacy for the human rights and the dignity of all persons regardless
of gender or sexual orientation."
In that message, member churches "acknowledged the diversity within
the communion on matters of human sexuality" and emphasized the need to
"enter into dialogue to clarify our understandings and learn from the
Scriptures, contemporary knowledge and our different experiences."
Other members of the Task Force on Family, Marriage and Sexuality are
Prof. Otieno Mallo, Evangelical Lutheran Church in Kenya; Dr. Alicia Lee,
Taiwan Lutheran Church; the Rev. Manuela Tokatli, Evangelical Church of
the Augsburg Confession in Austria; Bishop Mindaugas Sabutis, Evangelical
Lutheran Church of Lithuania; Prof. Jan Olav Henriksen, Church of Norway;
and Kristin Anderson-Ostrom, ELCA, Fremont, Neb. The Latin American and
Caribbean region is expected to nominate its representative.
The LWF general secretary will assign a staff person to assist the
group. The task force will meet in 2005 and 2006, and report on the
process to the council.
The LWF currently has 138 member churches in 77 countries, with
nearly 65 million members all over the world.
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*Information for this report was provided by Lutheran World
Information, Geneva, Switzerland.
Information about the LWF Council and the Lutheran World Federation
is at http://www.lutheranworld.org on the Web.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/news
