ELCA NEWS SERVICE November 17, 2003 ELCA Task Force Sets Timeline for Work, Addresses Child Abuse 03-203-MR CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Studies on Sexuality Task Force of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) identified a preliminary work plan to lay the groundwork for constructing a report with recommendations on the church and homosexuality when it met here Nov. 7-8. The task force also set up a plan for the development of a comprehensive social statement on human sexuality and addressed childhood sexual abuse. The 2001 ELCA Churchwide Assembly took actions to call the ELCA into a process of two studies on sexuality. It called for a final report with recommendations related to homosexuality for presentation to the 2005 Churchwide Assembly and asked the ELCA Division for Church in Society to prepare a social statement on human sexuality for presentation to the 2007 assembly. The churchwide assembly is the chief legislative authority of the ELCA; assemblies are held every other year. Current ELCA policy expects ministers to refrain from all sexual relations outside marriage. The church has no official policy on blessing same-gender relationships. The ELCA Conference of Bishops, an advisory body of the church, stated it does not approve of such ceremonies. The task force is "centered on preparation for 2005 and 2007," said the Rev. James M. Childs Jr., director for the ELCA studies on sexuality. The task force will work in two concurrent "tracks." One track will focus on the report with recommendations for the 2005 Churchwide Assembly. That work will include collecting responses from "Journey Together Faithfully, Part Two: The Church and Homosexuality," a study guide designed to ask members of the ELCA to consider how the church will respond to specific questions about blessing same-gender relationships and accepting lay and ordained ministers in such relationships. The task force identified a "subgroup" to consolidate responses from the study guide. "Members of the task force will go through the study guide in their roles as members of the ELCA and will send their feedback to the subgroup by Jan. 3," Childs said. The subgroup will prepare a final report on initial responses from the study guide for the next task force meeting March 19-21, 2004. It will "provide guidance for an initial discussion on what kinds of rationale would stand behind a variety of possible resolutions that could be offered to the 2005 Churchwide Assembly. We will not be drafting resolutions until the study has reached its conclusion in November 2004," Childs said. A separate track will focus on the development of the social statement due in 2007, Childs said. Members of the task force will "investigate" five primary topics outlined in Journey Together Faithfully, Part One. "Individuals from the task force will prepare brief papers on each of the five areas and suggest what needs to be included in the social statement and what needs to be developed further. Their comments will also pay attention to responses received from Journey Together Faithfully, Part One," Childs said. The writers "will also look at the biblical materials that relate to the subject area, our confessional heritage, statements of predecessor Lutheran church bodies and any outside resources that may seem relevant. They will also work to identify areas that need further development and new ministry initiatives in the life of the church. Once they have done that work in preparation for the March meeting, the work will be turned over to a subgroup, yet to be formed, which will begin to put together a vision of what the social statement will look like," said Childs. "As we focus both on the social statement and on our preparation for 2005 regarding a report and recommendations on homosexuality in the church, we want to continue to pay careful attention to what we believe is the key ethical principle that should drive our thinking about human sexuality and the Christian witness," he said. According to the Rev. Margaret Payne, chair of the task force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality and bishop of the ELCA New England Synod, Worcester, Mass., the task force's meeting served as "a turning point, where we now begin to move into these two tracks." "Our task now is to begin thinking about how we will address the task of writing the resolutions while we are receiving responses from people all over the church. At the same time, we begin preliminary work on developing a social statement. I think the hope that all of us share is that we will be able to craft a strong and relevant word to society about what the church believes about the importance of human sexuality," said Payne. The task force and ELCA Conference of Bishops will meet Oct. 1-3, 2004. Childs said the task force is "accountable to provide the Conference of Bishops the opportunity to review what we're producing." In addition to the 65 synod bishops of the church, the task force will submit "for approval anything that it produces for churchwide assemblies to the boards of the Division for Church in Society, Division for Ministry and the ELCA Church Council," he said. Congregations engaged in Journey Together Faithfully, Part Two, are asked to submit their responses to Child's office by Nov. 1, 2004. That fall, the task force will develop a final draft of the report with recommendations and distribute it to congregations and teaching theologians of the ELCA, the Conference of Bishops, boards of the ELCA Division for Ministry and the Division for Church in Society, and the ELCA Church Council by January 2005. The Church Council -- the board of directors of the ELCA -- will take action on the report with recommendations in preparation for consideration by the 2005 Churchwide Assembly. The crafting of the social statement on human sexuality will continue in 2005 with a preliminary draft of the statement ready in the fall of that year. The preliminary draft of the social statement will be ready for circulation in the church in 2006. TASK FORCE ADDRESSES CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE The church needs to be engaged in truth-telling, according to the Rev. John M. Riggle, St. Paul Lutheran Church, Hull, Iowa. "Not telling the truth is a far more painful and difficult road to travel," he said. "Child abuse can only flourish where there is secrecy and silence, where children are terrorized into a bizarre world of repressed fantasy-like memories. Like an aggressive cancer growing hidden from view, deep within the body, pedophilia can only be dealt with if it is first exposed." Addressing members of task force, Riggle shared suggestions on how the ELCA can actively address child abuse in society. He proposed that the task force "form a smaller, offshoot group to focus exclusively on the epidemic of child molestation in our society and world." Riggle said the task force's challenges would be to find ways to help ELCA members talk openly and honestly about types of incidents of abuse in safe and healthy ways; to foster honest confession and contrition in our churches about sexual abuse and our corporate complicity with it; to develop strategies for talking; and to help educate and increase awareness about what to do both legally and morally. Riggle also proposed that the task force work toward establishing a "center for healing and reflection in sexuality and theology" to be based at one of the 28 colleges and universities of the ELCA, or one of the eight seminaries of the church. Mike Lew, a psychotherapist and group therapy leader, Boston, told the task force that childhood sexual abuse "is about violence. Sexual abuse is done to a person, done to a child. We are not dealing with an issue of sexual attraction or sexual orientation. The issue is abuse and violence." Lew said there is "a lot of confusion about connections between child sexual abuse and homosexuality." When a man sexually abuses a boy, it is often incorrectly seen as a homosexual act. This is a mistake, Lew said. "We are not talking about sex but about sexual child abuse. An adult male who abuses a girl is not engaging in heterosexual behavior. He is sexually abusing a girl. The same is true when the victim is a little boy." In response to Riggle and Lew's presentations, Childs said in an interview, "We had a profound experience of knowing better than we had before how insidious child sexual abuse is and how damaging it is to those who have been victims of it." "There is a need to address issues of sexuality" and the "extraordinary power that sexuality exerts in our lives. Here is a place where we can take bold steps to initiate ministry to people in the church." -- -- -- Information on the ELCA Study on Sexuality is located at http://www.elca.org/faithfuljourney on the Internet. For information contact: John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask] http://www.elca.org/news