ELCA NEWS SERVICE

April 20, 2005

Lutheran World Federation Hosts North American Consultation
05-074-FI

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Lutheran World Federation hosted a
consultation, "Deepening the Bonds of Communion," March 31-April 2 here
for its member churches in North America.  Using the churches' current
discussion on matters of human sexuality, 35 participants discussed how
the world's Lutheran churches are interrelated around issues of God's
mission and justice.
     Four Lutheran church bodies in North America are among the LWF's 138
member churches:
+ Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad (Eesti Evangeeliumi
Luteriusu Kirik), Toronto
+ Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Chicago
+ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (Eglise evangelique lutherienne au
Canada), Winnipeg, Manitoba
+ Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Church in Diaspora (Lietuviu Evangeliku
Liuteronu Bažnycia Išeivijoje), Oak Park, Ill.
     The LWF represents nearly 66 million Christians in 77 countries,
including 5.2 million Lutherans in North America.  The LWF is based in
Geneva, Switzerland.
     The stated goals of the consultation were "to engage church leaders
in dialogue that encourages interdependence and sharing of gifts between
and among the LWF member churches in North America, while understanding
themselves to be accountable within the worldwide Lutheran communion" and
"to provide an opportunity for conversation around the topic of human
sexuality and gain understanding of how issues can be addressed in the
global communion."
     LWF General Secretary Ishmael Noko opened the consultation with a
keynote address, "Committed to Walking Together: The LWF as a Communion of
Churches."  He called the consultation "a sign of fellowship of North
American churches."
     Noko said many "streams" -- theological, liturgical and cultural -- 
come together in the LWF, endowed with spiritual and material resources,
to embody God's grace, gospel and mission in the world.  "There are
moments in our life when we must stand up with and for one another," he
said.
     Noko said he is often asked why the churches in the South are growing
while churches in the North are declining in numbers.  He said churches of
the West tend to long for the days when they could influence the course of
world events, while Jesus taught his disciples to be servants and to
"follow Christ into the pain of the world."
     The world is becoming more interdependent, Noko said.  "Every
community claims the right to be heard."  He challenged the audience to
dream of new structures for the LWF that would support it as "a communion
of churches."
     The heads of the four North American churches were invited to
respond:
+ Bishop Hans G. Dumpys, Lithuanian Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Diaspora
+ Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson, Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
(ELCA)
+ Archbishop Udo Petersoo, Estonian Evangelical Lutheran Church Abroad
[unable to attend]
+ National Bishop Raymond L. Schultz, Evangelical Lutheran Church in
Canada (ELCIC)
     Dumpys described the flight of Baltic Lutherans to North America
after World War II to avoid communist rule in their homelands.  The
Lithuanian church is "an ethnic enclave" in the United States, he said.
Worship is distinctively Lithuanian in language and tradition, but pride
in its culture also isolates it from other Lutherans in North America, he
said.
     Hanson said in the United States "walking together" implies agreement
in pursuit of power, but a communion of churches walks together by the
grace of God and the Holy Spirit has the power.  "Accompaniment" has
redefined the way the ELCA relates to Lutherans in other churches and
cultures -- listening, giving and receiving, he said.
     Lutherans are not part of the fabric of Canadian history, Schultz
said.  The ELCIC is an immigrant church, struggling to know itself as a
church in mission for others not just for its own, he said.  While
churches talk about communion and being interrelated, they are being drawn
into the North American culture of individualism, he said.
     The Rev. Karen L. Bloomquist, an ELCA pastor and director of the LWF
Department for Theology and Studies, Geneva, led participants in a Bible
study.
     The Rev. James M. Childs Jr., director of the ELCA Studies on
Sexuality, and the Rev. Margaret G. Payne, chair of the 14-member Studies
on Sexuality task force and bishop of the ELCA New England Synod,
Worcester, Mass., gave a presentation on the work of the task force and
recommendations it made about blessing same-sex relationships and about
allowing people in such relationships to serve the church as ministers.
     Schultz made a similar presentation about decisions the ELCIC is to
make this summer about blessing same-sex relationships.
     A panel of five international guests responded to the reports and
discussed issues facing their churches:
+ The Rev. Alan Eldrid, president, United Evangelical Lutheran Church
(Iglesia Evangelica Luterana Unida), Buenos Aires
+ Dr. Naozumi Eto, president, Japan Lutheran Theological Seminary, Tokyo
+ Prof. Paul J. Isaak, head, Department of Religion and Theology,
University of Namibia, Windhoek
+ Margaret Obaga, women's coordinator, Kenya Evangelical Lutheran Church
(KELC)
Pangani Lutheran Children's Center
+ Dr. Sheila Shyamprasad, coordinator, United Evangelical Lutheran Church
in India (UELCI) HIV/AIDS program
     Eldrid said it seems that Argentineans who are more exposed to media
are more accepting of homosexuality.  The churches are more concerned with
human rights, he said.  "Free trade is unjust trade for us," he said.  "We
will be receiving companies that will be using our people."  American
corporations have a history of pushing Argentineans off their farms to
exploit the land, Eldrid said.
     Eto said the Japanese culture was not inhibited about discussing
matters of sexuality until Christian missionaries arrived.  The church is
working to help society accept minorities, including sexual minorities, he
said.  The Japanese society is aging rapidly, and the Lutheran church
there is challenged to reach out to young people, not only to preserve the
church but because the younger generations are suffering with isolation,
withdrawal, violence and general lack of spiritual guidance, Eto said.
     Isaak said Luther abandoned celibacy but did not address
homosexuality.  The church in Namibia is developing a "theology of
coffins" from its history of death -- slavery, colonialism, wars and AIDS,
he said.  The question for Isaak's church and society is:  "What should we
do to preserve life and prevent unnecessary death?"
     Obaga said homosexuality is a new topic for Kenyans, centered mainly
on the condemnations spoken by the Anglican Church there.  Talking about
sex in public is offensive in Kenyan society, she said.  Obaga described
the KELC's work helping women learn the skills they need to make a living,
speaking out against domestic violence and caring for the orphans that
AIDS has left.
     Shyamprasad said, "Good people don't talk about sex" in India.  It is
difficult to convince the average Indian that sex is not "dirty," she
said, and difficult for Indian churches to participate in the
conversations about sexuality that seem to be consuming other churches in
the North.  The UELCI is active in an HIV/AIDS education program to
address the crisis in India.  She said the church is teaching the ABCs of
prevention -- Abstain, Be faithful and use a Condom -- while caring for
AIDS widows and orphans.
     The Rev. Bonnie L. Jensen, former executive director, ELCA Division
for Global Mission, Apple Valley, Minn., summarized what she heard from
the international guests.  "They asked us to be more sensitive to those in
more conservative settings," she said.  "Their struggles with sexuality
were imposed on them."
     Matters of economic greed and militarism may be more important to
churches in other parts of the world than addressing issues of sexuality,
Jensen said, but they are committed to walking together in addressing all
issues.  Diversity in approaching the issues is a special gift of the
churches when they walk together, she said.
     "There are other priorities that our churches are facing than the
sexuality debate, and discussion that is occurring in the ELCA and in the
ELCIC is not necessarily the driving priority or the main challenge in the
other churches," Bloomquist said after the consultation.  "Yet I think
there was a remarkable spirit of openness from those other voices to say:
'We understand that struggle'" and a sense of willingness to accompany the
churches in that struggle, she said.
     North American churches often dread hearing the concerns of "the
global church," because there's an assumption that "the global church is
at such a different place," Bloomquist said.  "In some ways that may be
true," she said, but there are more issues with which "others in the
global communion can resonate."
     "As a communion of churches coming from various parts of the world,
we are aware that walking together should not be taken for granted and
therefore we have made a commitment that in spite of all the difficulties
that we can anticipate and some which we cannot anticipate, we are
prepared to stay together.  This is very important," Noko said after the
consultation.
     "For the past three years we have contemplated this consultation.
Whom would we bring to the table, and where did we want to end up in terms
of the conversation?" said Kathy J. Magnus, Regional Officer for the LWF
in North America.  Planners wanted "to gather the leaders of these
churches to have substantive conversations about what it means to be in a
communion of churches as the church in North America," she said.
     "The conversation was richer and deeper than any of us had even
hoped," she said.   Magnus said she was impressed by "the ability of our
international participants to challenge us, to be honest about their
situations, and not only tell us what we wanted to hear but to challenge
us."  She added, "We made some major steps toward understanding what we
are called to be here in North America and how we will go about that."
-- -- --
     The home page of the Lutheran World Federation is at
http://www.lutheranworld.org/ on the Web.  Information about the LWF
Regional Office in North America is at http://www.elca.org/lwf on the ELCA
Web site.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/news