ELCA NEWS SERVICE

September 23, 2009  

ELCA Presiding Bishop asks Leaders for Restraint, Conversation and Patience
09-205-JB

     CHICAGO (ELCA) -- In a Sept. 23 letter to professional leaders of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the ELCA presiding
bishop urged them to engage each other "with honesty and respect" and
asked that they exercise restraint, bear each other's burdens through
conversation and be patient as the denomination lives into the churchwide
assembly's decisions on human sexuality.
     Voting members at the August 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in
Minneapolis approved a series of proposals to change the denomination's
ministry policies, including a change to allow Lutherans in publicly
accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as
ELCA associates in ministry, clergy, deaconesses and diaconal ministers.
     The Rev. Mark S. Hanson wrote in his pastoral letter that responses
to the assembly's actions on human sexuality included "joy, anger, hope,
confusion, ambivalence, perhaps even detachment."  He wrote that
he's "encouraged by the thoughtful and prayerful conversations of people
with diverse perspectives" considering the implications of the assembly
decisions.
     "My heart rejoices with those who are ready to live into the future
of our shared mission. My heart aches as I listen to the pain and
distress of those who feel confused or even abandoned by others," the
presiding bishop wrote.
     Hanson wrote that he is "disappointed" some people are encouraging
congregations and members to take actions that "will diminish our
capacity for ministry," which could affect planting and renewing
congregations, educating leaders, sending missionaries, responding to
domestic and international hunger concerns, and rebuilding communities
after disasters.
     Hanson sent his letter two days before some 1,200 people are
expected to meet at the Lutheran Coalition for Reform's (CORE)
convocation at Fishers, Ind., to discuss how they will respond to the
assembly's decisions. CORE, an organization of ELCA members, opposes the
ministry policy changes. CORE's leaders have said they will encourage
withholding or redirecting finances versus sharing funds with the ELCA, a
move which could affect the church's ministries.
     Hanson's letter continued, "Although these actions are promoted as a
way to signal opposition to churchwide assembly actions or even to punish
the voting members who made them, the result will be wounds that we
inflict on ourselves, our shared life, and our mission in Christ."  Such
actions would be devastating for the ELCA and for global and ecumenical
partners, he wrote. But his "greatest sadness" would be missing the
opportunity to give "an evangelical and missional witness together to the
world."
     Hanson asked the church's leaders "to think evangelically and act
missionally" about faithfulness, biblical authority, what it means to be
Christ's church, leadership, and law and gospel.  He asked for "safe
places for conversation" and "elasticity rather than rigidity in our ways
of supporting and carrying out ministry and mission."
     Hanson concluded by repeating his own comments at the end of the
assembly:
"We finally meet one another not in our agreements or disagreements, but
at the foot of the cross, where God is faithful, where Christ is present
with us, and where, by the power of the Holy Spirit, we are one in
Christ."
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     The full text of Presiding Bishop Hanson's pastoral letter is at
http://www.ELCA.org/bishop/messages on the ELCA Web site.

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