Some years ago the Luther scholar Scott Hendrix published Luther and the Papacy: Stages in a Reformation Conflict, an important study which demonstrated how Luther’s quarrel was never with the catholic faith as such but with “the papists,” modern innovators who had betrayed that faith universally held. Nevertheless, Luther respected the papacy as a pastoral office, according to Hendrix. Indeed, the primary source of his anger was the betrayal of the pope’s universal pastoral duty by Leo X and his successors. Hendrix showed that Luther’s underlying and consistent criterion in judging the papacy is that by divine right the papacy is a pastoral office “of nourishing people in the church with the Word of God.” This pastoral function is “the criterion for claiming legitimate authority in the church.” Luther’s outrage is directed “at the perversion of the pastoral office.” In fact, Luther “was protesting against the usurpation of the church by an unfaithful hierarchy on behalf of the faithful people, not against the church on behalf of the individual” as he was so often falsely understood.

In just the same way I am angered to learn that ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson, who has never attended a meeting of Lutheran CORE, nor answered the repeated requests of myself and other confessional theologians to account for his partisan leadership, will address the annual meeting of ReconcilingWorks — Lutherans for Full Participation (the GLBT PAC in the ELCA) in Washington, DC on July 9-10, 2012. Read the story for yourself here.

Let me be very clear. As I have often said and still maintain: I favor full civic rights for sexual minorities. I favor a church climate which is welcoming of them and on guard against bigotry and bullying. What I do not favor is infidelity to the Lutheran confessional doctrine of marriage or the achievement of the former goals by means of defecting from that normative theology of human sexuality. Moreover, I have no problem with an ELCA presiding bishop attending any meetings with anybody anywhere, if he or she is indeed doing the pastoral work “of nourishing people in the church with the Word of God.”

That is precisely not what appears to be happening with Hanson’s appearance in Washington, DC. Emily Eastwood, executive director of ReconcilingWorks, a life-long Lutheran and lesbian, says so in the above cited news release: “Our primary purpose is always movement building... We gather for personal transformation and support as well as skills building, education and action planning.” Despite the 2009 decision, she says “the group’s work is not done... when policies change, when laws change, that doesn’t mean the practice of it is immediately implemented or that the cultural shifts have occurred... We believe full inclusion will take a period of years, perhaps even the rest of my life, to make sure the new policies become fully practiced within our denomination.” The news release comments: “Members say it’s a huge step for the entire denomination to have Hanson address their group. Moeller says Hanson was always sensitive to their issues but measured in his public stance prior to the 2009 vote. He’s been more unequivocal in his support since then, members say, and his appearance is unprecedented for the 4.2 million-member ELCA.” Another quote from Philip Moeller, convener of the DC ReconcilingWorks chapter since 1991: “This is the first time we’ve ever had a presiding bishop address us and it really says something about the change that’s happening within the church.”

Clearly, what is anticipated is not nourishing the people with the word of God but an endorsement of a political agenda for engineering change in the culture of the church. Of course, I do not at this moment know what Hanson will be saying at this event, but his very presence seems to be making such a statement. If his speech is made public, I will take a look at it to see if he in fact nourished the gathering with the word of God’s law and God’s gospel, and will report back on it. But, I suspect, the news release is right and, as ReconcilingWorks spokespersons say, his talk will amount to an endorsement of their agenda.

In the aftermath of the 2009 decision, I predicted that something like this was inevitable: the radicalization of the ELCA along liberal Protestant lines. Nevertheless, it profoundly saddens me now if this event is the turning point that will prove me right. I have hoped against hope in the interim that the painful cost of the 2009 decision in terms of defections and demoralization (for the evidence, see Prof. Mark Granquist’s article "A Slow Disaster and a Modest Proposal" in the Summer 2012 issue of Lutheran Forum) would cause the presiding bishop and his court theologians to reconsider the wisdom of their actions and to reach out to what remains of the loyal opposition. There is still time for Bishop Hanson to attend the CORE theological conference, August 14-15, in Golden Valley, Minnesota. That would give at least nominal evidence of his pastoral responsibility for all in the ELCA. It would perhaps even strengthen his own understanding of the confessional norm to which he himself is subject and for which he is supremely responsible in his stewardship of the church. And, unlike the uncritical adulation he might anticipate receiving at the Washington meeting, it would manifest the virtue of courage. But we shall see.

Paul R. Hinlicky is the Tise Professor of Lutheran Studies at Roanoke College in Salem, Virginia.