ELCA NEWS SERVICE March 3, 2004 ELCA Board for Church in Society Recommends and Reviews 04-033-FI CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The board of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Division for Church in Society (DCS) is recommending the ELCA Church Council address a number of items at its next meeting. The board also reviewed several of the church's current and future projects, when it met here Feb. 26- 28. The ELCA's chief legislative authority, its churchwide assembly, approved a strategic plan in 2003. Based on that plan, the church is now involved in a process to restructure its churchwide organization. The board began its meeting by discussing its responses to a series of questions that will inform that process, said the Rev. James B. Martin-Schramm, DCS board chair and associate professor of religion, Luther College, Decorah, Iowa. The Rev. Rebecca S. Larson, DCS executive director, reported to the board on a number of spending cuts that have been taken and are being considered to cope with income levels below projections. "It is an opportunity for us to realign our budgetary resources around mission," Martin-Schramm said, "but we don't have the resources to really implement our mission the way that we should." "We are cutting budgets when we have this wonderful new strategic plan," he said. "It's frustrating for our division, which sees itself as eager to respond to that strategic plan, to suddenly be faced with a lack of resources to do that." The board also discussed issues surrounding a study on human sexuality that DCS is conducting with the church's Division for Ministry. Churchwide assemblies are held every other year; the next assembly will be Aug. 8-14, 2005, in Orlando, Fla. The 2001 assembly mandated the study in preparation for decisions the 2005 assembly is to make regarding the blessing of committed same- gender relationships and the ministries of people in such relationships. In addition, the study is to develop a proposed social statement on human sexuality for the assembly to consider in 2007. 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. DCS board members talked first about the involvement of their own congregations in the study on sexuality before discussing ways of dealing with disagreements the study is bound to uncover, Martin-Schramm said. "I thought our second question really dealt with how we can have these conversations in such a way that we respect each other," he said. "The third question was: 'At what price do we maintain the unity of the church?'" Martin-Schramm said. The discussion also addressed differences between blessing committed same-gender relationships and the ministries of people in such relationships. Assembly mandates are funded by a budget separate from the divisions' budgets. The church council is the ELCAs board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. The council plans to meet here April 16- 19. The DCS board recommended that the church council: + join with the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) and World Council of Churches (WCC) in calling for an end to construction of the "wall of separation" between the nation of Israel and Palestinians. The DCS resolution asked the council to affirm the LWF statement, "Break Down the Walls," and to ask the ELCA's 65 synods to highlight these concerns, especially during their upcoming meetings. + adopt a message, "Living in a Time of Terrorism." The proposed message said: "In faith we may carry on our lives with the confidence that nothing -- including terrorism -- 'will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord,'" citing the New Testament. The council may accept, edit and accept, or reject the proposal. + adopt the social policy resolution on "The Donation of Organs, Tissue and Whole Blood." The proposed resolution includes 11 affirmations, encouraging ELCA members to consider donating organs, tissue and whole blood "as appropriate means for contributing to the health and well being of other persons." + approve four issue papers on corporate social responsibility: Human Rights, Codes of Conduct, Non- Discrimination in Business Activities, and Violence in Our World. Through an advisory committee, DCS counsels various institutions of the church and shareholders about the social records of corporations in which they hold stock. Issue papers provide "boundaries for voting proxies and filing resolutions." + approve the continuation of the "Stand With Africa" campaign indefinitely. In 2001 the ELCA entered into the three- year campaign with the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod and Lutheran World Relief. Through the campaign, the ELCA World Hunger Program emphasized the church's work in Africa, especially in addressing issues of food security and in responding to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. + forward a request to the ELCA Conference of Bishops, asking the 65 synod bishops to write pastoral letters to the congregations in their synods. The DCS board suggested the letters could invite study of the ELCA's social statement on the environment, "Caring for Creation: Vision, Hope and Justice," and take specific actions described in the statement. + re-appoint Edith M. Lohr, Natick, Mass., and appoint Grace G. El-Yateem, Brooklyn, N.Y., to three-year terms on the board of the Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). + name Chris Anderson, Minneapolis, to the board of Lutheran Services in America (LSA). Both LIRS and LSA are based in Baltimore. The DCS board's nominations of ELCA members to various boards may seem minor, Martin-Schramm said, "but they are important because they maintain the relationships of this church to those other expressions of the Christian community and the Lutheran community. They are a concrete way that we are in relationships with other partners in ministry around the world." The DCS board asked the division's staff to prepare a social policy resolution on genetically modified organisms that it could consider at its October 2004 meeting. The board recognized Mary Nasby Lohre as a staff consultant to the division's task force helping develop a social statement on education. Lohre is executive director of organizational development with Augsburg Fortress, the publishing house of the ELCA, Minneapolis. DCS "celebrated" the work of two pastors who plan to leave the division's staff in 2004: The Rev. Mark B. Brown has served the division as assistant director for public policy, Lutheran Office for Governmental Affairs, Washington, D.C., since June 1991. In April he is to become the representative of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in Jerusalem. The ELCA is a member of the LWF, which is based in Geneva, Switzerland. The Rev. Gilbert B. Furst has directed ELCA Domestic Disaster Response for nearly eight years. He plans to retire at the end of June. -- -- -- The home page of the Division for Church in Society is at http://www.elca.org/dcs/ on the ELCA Web site. For information contact: John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask] http://www.elca.org/news