Document Actions
Episcopal Ironies
As you may have already read in our sister publication Forum Letter, Higgins Rd. has released its liturgical guidelines for the reception into ministry of persons who were “ordained” in some sense through the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, barred until last August from ministry in the ELCA because of their not living in accordance with Visions & Expectations. The liturgy is identical to the ordination of any other candidate, save for changing the phrase “Will you serve God’s people?” to “Will you continue to serve God’s people?” (though one hopes that all candidates for ordination are continuing in service, not starting it for the first time), and allowing communities to decide for themselves whether or not they want to call it ordination. Call it what you like; that’s what it is. A rose by any other name…
As you may have already read in our sister publication Forum Letter, Higgins Rd. has released its liturgical guidelines for the reception into ministry of persons who were “ordained” in some sense through the Extraordinary Candidacy Project, barred until last August from ministry in the ELCA because of their not living in accordance with Visions & Expectations. The liturgy is identical to the ordination of any other candidate, save for changing the phrase “Will you serve God’s people?” to “Will you continue to serve God’s people?” (though one hopes that all candidates for ordination are continuing in service, not starting it for the first time), and allowing communities to decide for themselves whether or not they want to call it ordination. Call it what you like; that’s what it is. A rose by any other name…
The curious thing is how exactly this came about. It was not exactly a happy thought to those most in favor of August’s change in policy that these folks would have to be “re-ordained” or even “ordained in the first place,” even though there are plenty of other cases where previously “ordained” ministers joining the ELCA do in fact have to be “re-ordained” (such would be the case, for instance, with a Southern Baptist). But what forced the reality was not anything intrinsic to the ELCA’s own structure or even anything explicitly invoked in the Lutheran Confessions. It was actually due to The Episcopal Church (USA).
You wonder how this can be, given the approval for homosexual ministry in TEC preceding that of the ELCA? It’s actually because of our ecumenical agreement with them, not a moral or confessional position one way or another. We now have to ordain our candidates through the laying-on of hands of bishops consecrated in historic succession; and that definitely did not happen to the ECP candidates. So faithfulness to this much-disputed ecumenical agreement is what necessitated “ordination,” whether re- or for the first time. We can at least be a tiny bit grateful that the problem on our hands is thus not chiefly canonical but moral; a small matter, admittedly, but let’s take what we can get.
On the obverse, this should not be an occasion for anyone to gloat over the wonderfulness of our ecumenical pact with TEC. Just as the ELCA attempts to abide by Called to Common Mission through the laying-on of hands requirement, it has at the same time utterly flouted what episcopal oversight is supposed to mean. The egregious usurpation of our bishops’ guidance last spring, when the ELCA Church Council brazenly ignored their recommendation of a 2/3 approval rate for the ministry policy document, and again more recently ignoring the bishops’ plea to delay the next social statement given the internal unrest, has revealed just where the power lies in the ELCA. It’s certainly not with the conference of bishops, as a truly episcopal ministry would require. The ELCA has effectively done exactly what was feared: we’ve opted for the ritual and external requirements of episcopacy while utterly ignoring the true content of episcopal ministry in the form of firm leadership in faithfulness to apostolic truth.
The ELCA doesn’t work exactly like TEC, and the communion of Lutheran churches in the Lutheran World Federation certainly doesn’t work like the worldwide Anglican communion. All the same, the parallels are striking and well worth American Lutherans’ careful consideration. Take a look at this recent reflection by a particularly fine Episcopal theologian, Ephraim Radner, who has devoted much thought to the problem of the divided church, and you can see the writing on the wall for us too.
Another Episcopal document worth the study is "Same-Sex Relationships in the Life of the Church," which had two teams of four theologians each presenting their respective "conservative" and "liberal" views on same-sex marriage. I have elsewhere proposed that the ELCA undertake the same project; perhaps awareness of TEC's work in that area will increase the chances of it happening among us.
"Re"-ordination.
The debate over "ordination" and "re-ordination" is the difference between a baptism and an affirmation of baptism, or between a wedding and an affirmation of marriage vows. The ELCA has opted for this sense, that those who are ordained need only be recognize by the institutional structure, not "really ordained, for serious." To do such a thing would denegrate every ordination that does not come from the ELCA, or at best simply say that those congregations with pastors who are not ordained currently by the ELCA (I currently attend such a one) have not had a "real" pastor. This is utter bunk. Ordaination is the affirmation of a call which comes from God, echoes through the people, and is affirmed by a rite. Every person ordained and serving under the extraordinary ordination procedures fulfills these things. There is no "magic" in ordination coming from the bishop or the pastors or the hierarchy. That is where the problem and debate lies in my mind.
What the ELCA Conference of Bishops actually said and did.
As ELM wrote on their blog:
“We [ELM] express our gratitude to Bishop Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the ELCA, for his introduction of the proposed rite in which he described his intent by use of three words: “reconciliation, recognize and recognizable.” Bishop Hanson described the ELCA’s desire to be reconciled with the pastors on the ELM roster, the ELCA congregations and ministries they serve, and the community of ELM supporters; a desire to recognize the extraordinary ordinations of ELM pastors; and to do so in a manner that is recognizable to the ELCA’s ecumenical and Lutheran World Federation partners and the denominations with which the ELCA is in full communion partnership.”
See the full blog post here: http://extraordinarylutheranministries.blogspot.com/2010/03/statement-of-extraordinary-lutheran.html
One can also get a better sense of the range of discussion by reading the comments of Rev. Erik Christensen, an ELM pastor serving in Chicago. Pastor Christensen was invited by one of the bishops to speak, and the Conference voted overwhelmingly to hear him. (Indeed, they had been talking ABOUT him and the rest of the ELM pastors for hours already that weekend, so it would seem fair to if ELM were to given a chance to speak.) Read his comments here:
http://extraordinarylutheranministries.blogspot.com/2010/03/remarks-from-rev-erik-christensen-to.html
I also must correct you where you write this: "The egregious usurpation of our bishops’ guidance last spring, when the ELCA Church Council brazenly ignored their recommendation of a 2/3 approval rate for the ministry policy document . . "
No. The Conference of Bishops did not offer a recommendation about the required vote count for the passage of the ministry policy recommendations. So there was no recommendation to be "brazenly ignored," as you charge. Rather, the bishops took a secret straw poll. The poll was intended only for their own use and was never meant to serve as a basis for a recommendation to the Church Council. In fact, depending on who you talked to, the numbers of how many bishops voted for what differed--which is not surprising, since the straw poll was informal, was not meant to be a recommendation, and nobody was actually assigned to count hands, and nobody (to my knowledge) ever came forward as the source of the information. The "vote count" that was publicized was, in fact, leaked, and there were questions as to whether it accurately reflected the poll.
The bottom line: even if a majority of bishops wanted to see a 2/3 majority required, their desire never rose to the level of a recommendation to the Church Council. At the very least, your use of the term "brazen" seems misplaced.
Agreed
The reception of separated clergy being received by the laying on of hands as reconciliation and not being considered (re)ordination dates back to at least the time of Augustine and the reception of Donatist clergy back into the fold.
I also agree that the concern was very much centered around how we are to receive fellow brothers and sisters who have disagreed with previous ELCA policy - yet have done so without resorting to actual schism.
One of Wilson's points is that the move is not intrinsic to the ELCA itself. This is also faulty logic. This was an unprecedented issue for the ELCA in its "local" history. As I have pointed out, the broader Church does have a historical precedent; but it was new for the ELCA.
There are couple of factors involved here - 1) as I mentioned, ELM intentionally sought to not break from the ELCA. ELM pastors were called by expressions of the church and the character of their ordinations reflected anything but being "congregational" (unlike Baptists). 2) Baptists, the denomination cited as an example, share very little in common, theologically, with Lutherans. They are not creedal and they do believe in means of grace, just to name a couple of serious points of divergence. ELM pastors have been examined by a ministry of oversight connected to the ELCA, in some form or another.
The whole sequence of events can be narrated without any reference to the Episcopal Church. What the ELCA was choosing to do what was whether or not it was going to recognizes these ordinations that were done in its midst, as it were, though without its approval. Since the ELCA is seeking reconciliation with ELM pastors, the presence of a bishop becomes a symbol that this church recognizes their ordination. The bishop serves as a symbol of the unity of the church and should be the primary presider at such liturgies whether or not we are in full communion with churches that have historic episcopacies: Episcopal, Church of Sweden (Lutheran), Church of Denmark (Lutheran), Church of Finland (Lutheran), not to mention their daughter churches in Africa.
Minutia
ministry?
1. Who exactly is the "orthodox establishment" to which you refer? It seems pretty clear to me that those of us who would give ourselves the label "orthodox" are not in control of the establishment of the ELCA. Or perhaps you mean something different.
2. Do you mean to imply that those of us who are orthodox have no motivation to serve homosexual persons? The issue is not whether one wishes to serve homosexual persons but rather *how* one serves homosexual persons.
3. What is the "ministry" to which you refer? By "ministry" do you mean a ministry of vague, indiscriminate inclusion (i.e. Richard Niebuhr's "god without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross") or do you mean a ministry that honestly addresses the challenges of life with both law and gospel? There's a big difference.
4. Your snide comment about "country clubs" implies that those of us who would describe ourselves as orthodox are only priveliged individuals. I've never been to a country club, for the record, nor have the vast majority of the membership of the Christian churches representing 99% of the Christian population of the world that do not accept homosexual sexual activity as a legitimate alternative to heterosexual expression.
Country clubs
I have only been inside a country club once that I can remember, and that is because my wife's workplace was paying for our dinner.
My sister spent a lot of time at a country club, though...as a bartender.
I was not permitted to go to Air Force Officer's Clubs...no enlisted/NCO's allowed, unless it's an all-ranks open mess.
Believe me, I did not grow up privileged. Anything but.
Far be it for a poor, unordained schmuck like me who has never been to seminary to make judgement calls on "ministry," but it seems to me that those who are in control of the ELCA consider "ministry" to homosexual people to be an either/or fallacy: either take the LC/NA "all is permissible" stance or the Fred "God Hates F***" Phelps stance.
The LCMS has what I believe to be a very good ministry to homosexuals and their families. It is as theologically sound as my layperson's judgement can say, and from a behavioural sciences point of view it is also valid.
http://www.lcms.org/graphics/assets/media/CIC/minhomfam.pdf
Here is a succinct and well-stated position from the Lutheran Church of Australia:
http://www.lca.org.au/resources/csbq/homosexuality2.pdf
Both of those state the issue better than I can.
grounded in a mistranslation
The fatal flaws that destroy the LCMS document are the twin incorrect assumptions that the church can correctly identify "orders of creation" and even the mistranslation: "orders of creation". Slavery should be clear enough proof of what happens when the church tries to identify a timeless order of creation. The other problem is that the phrase is more properly "Creator's ordainings". God is not a blind watchmaker that lays down a few rules for creation and then walks away. God is here, present in our lives, and continually placing us in an evolving set of rules and customs.
Disturbing and prescient
Really, it was almost a dead cert that the ELCA would go the way of TEC (and UCC). The company you keep is nearly certain to influence your behaviour, whether individually or corporately. Given the fact that same-sex blessings/ordination have been not just de facto, but de jure, in UCC for quite some time, and in TEC officially since V. Gene Robinson, it really couldn't have gone any other way for the ELCA.
OK, you might say, what's Pross blabbering on about, given that he bugged out of the ELCA for the LCMS some months ago? I became a Lutheran in the ELCA. I knew a lot of pastors and laity in the ELCA who held to the authority of Scripture and the Lutheran Confessions. I also know that there are still a fair bit of people in the ELCA hoping to turn the ship around, but I fear they are fooling themselves. CWA '09 was just the formalisation of what had been de facto for quite some time, and there was really no way that the gay lobby would have allowed it to go any other way. Leaving the ELCA was not an easy decision for my wife and I, given that we were involved in the life of the church. We certainly weren't looking forward to bugging out. I remember well the dismay we both felt during the week of CWA '09.
My experience with TEC has been limited to attending services with my Episcopal then-girlfriend almost 25 years ago (at a parish which would very likely be shocked at today's goings-on) and reading some of John Shelby Spong's writings. It escapes me how one who virtually professes no belief in God beyond symbolism maintains ordination...but I suppose that's "tolerance."
The writing by Dr Radner was disturbing, and unfortunately prescient.
Perhaps I'm missing the point on ordination, but individuals like Anita C Hill were still performing pastoral duties at their congregations. The non-recognition at the national level was mostly a slap on the wrist attempting to pay lip service to then-extant policies. The fact that the "Extraordinary Candidacy" thing was allowed to exist and "ordain" before the policy was actually changed is and always will be a bit incomprehensible to me, though the "encouragement" to "not enforce" restrictions in 2007 spoke volumes.
Now the policy's changed on paper to match the existing situation, and the ELCA has a full-communion partner following much the same way on homosexuality, so I don't see where the problem of "ordination" v. "re-ordination" lies. Mostly semantics?