Trust is the driving theme of the new ELCA Sexuality Statement. It is not a bad way to approach the issue, but in the context of the ELCA (and mainline American Christianity generally), there could hardly have been a more ironic choice.

Footnote 2 of the document states: “Some social scientists have begun to identify social trust as an indispensable feature of healthy organizations, institutions, and whole societies, and social distrust as one  of the destructive forces at work in the breakdown and dissolution of organized social arrangements. Such reflections operate in the background of this statement.” Indeed!

And yet the very situation of this document, its dissemination, and its upcoming consideration at the assembly, is situated in the most profound ecclesial distrust. Our church is already wildly factionalized, each side amassing its resources and connections to sway the vote one way or another. We are witnessing the “breakdown and dissolution” already.

Among other things, this is tragic because there is a great deal of value in this statement—though because it is not controversial, it’s not getting any attention. Many genuine evils are deplored. Many goods are upheld. There is a great deal of depth and texture to much of what is said. And yet it in a situation of such profound distrust, it is hard to read the document except with an eye to to what it’s “really” saying. I ended up feeling like I was reading two documents at once: the one I could trust and the one I couldn’t.

For instance, in a later footnote, we come across this explanation: “Especially in the nineteenth century, Lutherans began to emphasize sola Scriptura, although the Confessions rarely used that phrase. Luther more often spoke of the Word of God alone (soli Verbo), by which he meant fundamentally the oral proclamation of the Gospel.” As I see it, that could mean two things. On the trustful reading, the note on soli Verbo points to the communal, proclamatory, living, apostolic quality of the faith. On a distrustful reading, it means don’t get too hung up on the letter of the Scripture—it’s the proclamation that counts; which of course could lead to some highly convenient conclusions.

Or this one: “Lutherans understand that God’s law, in its civil use, permeates and undergirds basic structures of human society to support life and protect all people in a world that remains under the sway of sin. Such social structures, as the Lutheran Confessions identify them, include ministry, marriage and family, civil authority, and daily work. Because these structures are temporal, anticipating the arrival of God’s promised future, they must respond continually to human needs for protection and flourishing.” On a trustful reading, I would assume this refers to how humans have historically taken these God-given orders and striven to make them better reflect God’s desires for our world: say in directing our governments away from absolute monarchies and towards democracies, or altering marriage laws that allow private contracts of marriage, thereby leaving the woman prey to an unfaithful husband (Luther objected to this medieval practice). But on a distrustful reading, I’d suspect that this historical observation is license to retrofit anything and everything to our own current cultural taste with little regard for God’s strictures or forms at all. Which is the correct reading?

One more: “Promiscuity and sexual activity without a spirit of mutuality and commitment are sinful because of their destructive consequences for individuals, relationships, and the community.” Certainly destructive consequences are a good indicator that sin is at work. In a trustful reading, this has my wholehearted agreement. But in my distrustful mode, I wonder: are they saying something is a sin only when it has destructive consequences? Can something be sinful and yet hide its true colors from the eyes of the world? For some time I have noticed that malice and violence are the only real content of sin in American mainline religiosity. Yet idolatry is the single most offensive sin in Scripture, something which not infrequently has no negative social effects at all. One need not intend evil or conduct oneself violently to be in massive contradiction to God’s will. We Americans still succumb to the gospel of sincerity. (And if anyone still doubts that the God of Sincerity is a cruel and harsh taskmaster, look no further than Linus’s Great Pumpkin: the god who always promises and never delivers, perpetually condemning the not-quite-sincere-enough penitent.)

Enough examples. There is much obviously good in this document, and some troublingly bad. A great deal more lies in the shady area in between. I don’t know how it is intended, and I cannot do as the 8th commandment would have me do, put the best construction on it, because I cannot trust it. The almost complete void of Scriptural interpretation on the difficult issues—hidden under the poor excuse that everyone thinks their position is scripturally justified—proves to me that this is not a teaching document worthy of my trust. It is an attempt to buy trust for an already broken church. I can appreciate the desire to recreate trust and promote trust, but this was not the way to make it happen.