ELCA NEWS SERVICE August 16, 2003 ELCA Assembly Declines to Alter Studies on Sexuality Time Line 03-CWA-49-MR MILWAUKEE (ELCA) -- The 2003 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) declined Aug. 16 to alter the time line set for the church's Studies on Sexuality process. The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 11-17 at the Midwest Airlines Center. There are about 2,100 people participating, including 1,031 ELCA voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly is "Making Christ Known: For the Healing of the World." The 2001 ELCA Churchwide Assembly called for a study that would lead to possible recommendations to the 2005 Churchwide Assembly on whether or not to bless same-gender relationships and whether or not people in such relationships should be pastors of the church. The 2001 assembly also asked the ELCA Division for Church in Society to draft and propose a social statement on human sexuality. The ELCA Division for Ministry, which develops standards for the church's pastors and lay ministers, and the Division for Church in Society prepared a time line to conduct a joint churchwide study of issues related to homosexuality to meet the mandates of the 2001 assembly. That study would inform the drafting of a social statement on human sexuality for the 2007 Churchwide Assembly to consider. Seven of the ELCA's 65 synods passed resolutions -- also known as "memorials" -- about that time line. The ELCA Central- Southern Illinois Synod affirmed the time line; the other six synods said topics of human sexuality should be addressed before the church makes policy decisions regarding homosexuality. The Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod said the decisions should be made once a final report on human sexuality is presented; the Lower Susquehanna, Nebraska and Northwestern Pennsylvania Synods said a social statement on human sexuality should be adopted first; and the West Virginia-Western Maryland Synod said policy decisions should be made two churchwide assemblies after the human sexuality study is approved. The 2003 assembly's memorials committee recommended that this assembly commend the current ELCA Studies on Sexuality and decline to alter the time line. With a vote of 687-278, the 2003 assembly accepted that recommendation. The assembly defeated an amendment to "alter the time line established by the 2001 Churchwide Assembly by adopting, in 2007, a social statement on human sexuality prior to the resolution, in 2007, of any specific decisions concerning the blessing of committed same-gender relationships and the ordination of approved candidates in committed same-gender relationships." The Rev. Carol S. Hendrix, bishop of the ELCA Lower Susquehanna Synod, Harrisburg, Pa., presented the amendment to the assembly. Hendrix said the amendment is not designed to rescind the actions of the 2001 assembly, "but to allow the social statement on human sexuality to inform" the church's decisions concerning the blessings of committed same-sex relationships and the ordination of approved candidates in committed same-sex relationships. June C. Ericcson, voting member, ELCA Metropolitan Washington, D.C., Synod, who spoke in opposition of the amendment, said a delay in the time line "would be a serious breach of trust and a betrayal of the promises we have made." Speaking in favor of the amendment, Ron Williamson, voting member, ELCA Minneapolis Area Synod, asked whether or not the task force can complete the work that it has been commissioned to do. In response to Williamson, the Rev. Margaret G. Payne, bishop of the ELCA New England Synod, Worcester, Mass., and chair of the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality, said the task force "is a group of people formed to do the will of the assembly. Therefore, since we began work, we have been on a time line preparing ourselves to produce the recommendations by 2005. That was the task given to us, and that's what we're prepared to do. I think the sense of the conversation is more about whether the church will be ready to do that at that time. The task force will do whatever the assembly directs." In a separate vote, the 2003 assembly defeated a resolution that would suspend the ELCA's full communion relationship with The Episcopal Church until after the conclusion of the ELCA's Studies on Sexuality and until the ELCA has made a decision on whether or not to bless same-gender relationships and whether or not people in such relationships should be pastors or lay ministers of the church. In a news conference hosted by the ELCA News Service, Payne said the ELCA and the Episcopal Church are "totally separate denominations and each one has its own integrity of ways that actions are taken and the way we understand ourselves as church. But there are closer partnerships and the possibility of exchange of clergy and a variety of other ways in which we are in closer ecumenical relationships." She said some people are "concerned that decisions, particularly the Episcopal Church with the election of Bishop Gene Robinson [Diocese of New Hampshire], might have some impact on the ELCA's polity or policies of study. And, that is not true. So, that confusion was cleared up, and I believe people felt more comfortable about the fact that our process is progressing along to make decisions on issues in one way, and the decision of the Episcopal Church really is separate from what [the ELCA] is doing. Once that was cleared up, I think that those who brought [the resolution] to vote was quite overwhelming in support of the continuance of [the church's] study." -- -- -- Information about the ELCA Churchwide Assembly can be found at http://www.elca/org/assembly/03 on the Web. For information contact: John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask] http://www.elca.org/news