Title: Vocations of Gay and Lesbian Lutherans
ELCA NEWS SERVICE
March 17, 1997
VOCATIONS OF GAY AND LESBIAN LUTHERANS
97-09-024-FI
ANN ARBOR, Mich. (ELCA) -- The role of gay, lesbian,
bisexual and transgender Lutherans in the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America was the topic of discussion when Lutheran
Campus Ministry hosted "The Gifts We Offer, The Burdens We Bear:
The Vocation and Ministry of Gay and Lesbian Persons in Church
and Society," at the University of Michigan, March 6-9.
The purpose of the conference was "to provide an opportunity
in which the gifts of gay and lesbian people among us could be
celebrated, could be made visible, but also that the burdens that
they realistically face in our church could be faced," said the
conference organizer, the Rev. John Rollefson, Lord of Light
Lutheran Church, Lutheran Campus Ministry at U.M.
The conference centerpiece was a report, "Pulpit Fiction,"
compiling the stories of 35 ELCA pastors identified through a
"snowball sample" or by "word of mouth." The project was funded
by the event's sponsors: the Philip N. Knutson Endowment Fund,
Lutheran Campus Ministry at the University of Michigan, the Gay
and Lesbian Task Force of the ELCA's Southeast Michigan Synod and
the Great Lakes Chapter of Lutherans Concerned/North America.
ELCA policies say, "Practicing homosexual persons are
precluded from the ordained ministry of this church."
The report identified the pastors not by name but as nine
female and 26 male, ages 29 to 73, living in 16 states and
educated in seven of the eight ELCA seminaries. All 35 have
served in parish ministry at least once, and 24 are currently
doing so. Two are retired, four have non-parish church work, and
five are working in other occupations.
"While our pastors were often anxious about coming out to
other persons, they generally had no such problems with God,"
said Dr. Carolyn J. Riehl, project director and assistant
professor of education at U.M. "They are steeped in the theology
of justification by grace through faith" -- a central doctrine of
the Lutheran church.
Of the 35 pastors, 21 are currently in committed, long-term
relationships. All 21 live with their partners, and six of them
do so in their church parsonages. Four couples have had or are
planning to have commitment ceremonies, according to the report.
"These pastors want to be intimately connected to someone
else, and they want that connection to be with a `mutual, chaste,
and faithful relationship,' as is the vision of the ELCA for its
heterosexual ordained ministers," said Riehl. "They want to
serve the church fully, honestly, and with integrity."
In her keynote address Dr. Elizabeth Bettenhausen, Lutheran
social ethicist and author, Brighton, Mass., said Lutheran
confessions dating back to the 16th century require only that
ordained ministers preach and teach the gospel and properly
administer the sacraments.
"Whenever we as the church decide that a particular human
characteristic is required in order to preach the gospel and
administer the sacraments as means of grace, we have a
theologically serious, weighty decision in need of extensive
discussion among the entire priesthood of all believers before it
is shaped and adopted." Bettenhausen said that discussion has
not been held.
"How do you engage in conversation when you have been
church-defined in such a way that secrecy and silence are
essential, if you want to stay in the pulpit?" she asked. "If
you raise questions ... you are very often defined then by others
in the church as 'suspect.'"
The Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom, Pelican Rapids, Minn., former
presiding bishop of the ELCA, supported the option of being
"loyal opposition" to the church's policies regarding
homosexuality.
Conducting a workshop for the conference, Chilstrom said he
usually poses three questions for predominantly heterosexual
audiences: "Did you choose to be heterosexual? Could you change?
How shall we live?"
Lutherans are changing their attitudes about the nature of
sexuality and its relation to their Christian faith, he said.
"More and more people are saying a committed relationship would
be appropriate."
"The individual is expected to live in accord with whatever
the church thinks," said the Rev. Mark Alan Powell, associate
professor of New Testament, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus,
Ohio.
The church has the authority and duty to determine how
closely or loosely the laws of the Bible apply today to
Christians, he said. The Bible has examples of Jesus forbidding
his followers to borrow money, take each other to court, swear an
oath and save money. The church says those rules apply loosely
today.
The Bible condemns same-sex sexual relations, Powell said,
but the church has the authority to define acceptable homosexual
behavior and to decide whether or not to bless same-sex unions.
It is also the duty of the church's members to live
according to the decisions of the church, he said. If a member
feels the church is wrong, Powell suggested living a life of
"obedience under protest."
"The church should redouble its efforts to keep you in the
community," he said. The protesting member should remain "an
active visitor" if a congregation should try to exclude him or
her.
ELCA churchwide assemblies resolved in 1991 and affirmed in
1995 "that gay and lesbian people ... are welcome to participate
fully in the life of the congregations of the Evangelical
Lutheran Church in America." Joanne Chadwick, executive director
of the ELCA Commission for Women, said that should include the
ordained ministry.
The ELCA "sets forth what we expect of those who are in
positions of trust and responsibility in this church" in a
separate document -- "Vision and Expectations." It says,
"Ordained ministers who are homosexual in their self-
understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual sexual
relationships."
Vision and Expectations is a positive expression of the
church's standards for its clergy, said the Rev. A. Craig
Settlage, associate executive director of the ELCA Division for
Ministry. "As we struggle with the role of gay and lesbian
people in the life of our church" those standards may change.
Settlage said the question of ordaining homosexuals in the
Lutheran church would be resolved, when the church gives same-sex
unions the same status as marriage.
ELCA member Steve Gunderson, McLean, Va., revealed his
homosexuality while a Republican member of Congress from
Wisconsin's third district. "Every day for eight years I prayed
to have this demon removed from me," he said. Then God asked,
"Why are you so unhappy with the person I created?"
"The best gift homosexual, bisexual and transgender people
can give the church and the community is to be honest about who
they are," said the Rev. Thomas J. Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of
the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit.
Speakers referred several times to an open letter the
bishops of the ELCA issued on the subject in March 1996. "The
way we face our differences on the issues surrounding
homosexuality can be an important expression of grace for our
particular church body and for the communities in which we live,"
they wrote. "We invite gay and lesbian persons to join with
other members of this church in mutual prayer and study of the
issues that still divide us, so that we may seek the truth
together."
The meeting was the second Knutson Conference, named for the
Rev. Philip N. Knutson who was assistant director for Lutheran
Campus Ministry in the ELCA Division for Higher Education and
Schools. Shortly before his death in 1994 Knutson revealed his
own homosexuality. He announced he was entering the advanced
stages of AIDS, and he established an endowment that funds
conferences on life issues facing Christians in higher education.
About 25 percent of the 275 registrants were college
students from across the country. Participants came from 26
states and the District of Columbia.
For information contact:
Ann Hafften, Director (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]
http://www.elca.org/co/news/current.html
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