Synod Council Acts

No news has been released from last weekend’s meeting of the ELCA Church Council in relation to the revision of Vision and Expectations and the candidacy process, with the exception of a news release on reinstatement procedures. One presumes something will be forthcoming, almost certainly saying that the Council followed the lead of the bishops and will not act on these matters until next spring at the earliest. In the meantime, the Northeast Iowa Synod Council adopted the resolutions posted to the right (here) declaring their intent to exercise their bound conscience and directing the synod not to abide by the Assembly action. They also call for a recognition that the actions were unconstitutional.
All very interesting. More comment to follow.

An Alternative Path

The way forward embodied in the proposed revisions to the candidacy process that will be considered this weekend by the ELCA Church Council is a ‘preserve the status quo’ option. It maintains, at least officially, the unity of the ELCA ministerium and treats the crisis created by the action of the Churchwide Assembly as a passing cloud. The concessions to bound conscience are less even than those granted to opponents of the agreement with the Episcopal Church that committed the ELCA to enter episcopal succession. Candidates opposed to episcopal succession can, in certain cases, be ordained in a way that contradicts Assembly-adopted policy. In our present case, individuals involved in decision making within the candidacy process can remove themselves from participation, but no decision is to utilize sexuality standards other than those approved by national policy.

What would an alternative look like, an alternative that embodies the promise of the Task Force to respect the consciences of synods, bishops, candidacy committees, etc.? It would not be pretty. It would severely compromise the unity of the ELCA ministerium; the ELCA would cease to be a single church in the traditional sense. But that result was built into the Report and Recommendations of the Task Force, as is discussed in the paper to the right (here). That Report was never repudiated by the church leadership. It is late in the day now to say “Oh, those results would be too radical.”

An alternative that avoids chaos as much as possible might look like this:

1. Synods are ‘church’ in the ELCA ecclesiology. They have ecclesial standing and can make corporate decisions. The synod assembly is the appropriate place for that to happen. Synod assemblies should be permitted to pass, by a simple majority, a resolution that would:
a. direct the synodical candidacy committee not to entrance, endorse, or approve for rostering any person in a same-sex relationship,
b. direct the bishop not to sign the attestation of call to any pastor or rostered person in a same-sex relationship.
c. direct the synod staff not to receive the mobility papers of any rostered person in a same-sex relationship.
Without such an action, the acceptance of persons in such relations would be the default policy, but individuals with responsibilities in the candidacy and call process are expected to act out of their own consciences, whether to accept or reject persons in such relations.

2. No congregation or pastor should be expected to register the candidacy of a person in a same-sex relationship if that candidacy violates their conscience.

3. Seminary faculty members would be expected to vote in line with their consciences on the approval of partnered gay or lesbian candidates for ordination or rostering. No one is expected to abstain simply because their conscience is not in line with the Assembly action.

4. Seminary Boards can make a decision not to rent campus housing to gay or lesbian couples. Without such a decision, the default position is that campus housing is open to such students.

I am not a canon or civil lawyer and this alternative is only a suggestion. The details would need to be worked out. If the Report and Recommendations that the Assembly had in its hands are taken seriously, however, something along these lines needs to be on the table.

Michael Root

Apologies

I have been absent from this blog for some time, due to travel and the press of other responsibilities. Unfortunately (?) that situation is likely to continue for a week or so. Thanks to all who have commented on my posts.

David S. Yeago

What Was Decided? The April ‘Clarifications’ and Keeping Faith

I wanted to summarize my thoughts on the recent discussions about the changes made in April to the sexuality resolutions and their present implications for the policy revisions. The result was far too long for a post, so it is a posted as a page to the right (or just click here). Thanks to Prs. Keith Hunsinger and Marshall Hahn for very helpful comments. They helped clarify my thinking and made me go back and look at the texts again more closely. (When all else fails, see what was actually said).

Michael Root

Important Comment

The comment of Pastor Keith Hunsinger (here), a member of the ELCA Church Council, deserves notice.

Policy Revisions: The Incoherence of our Decisions

Now that the proposals for policy revision following from the Assembly have been released, we can get a clearer picture of what has happened and where we now are. This is my sense, based on an examination of the texts, not on any insider knowledge.

The Task Force documents had within them a basic incoherence. On the one hand, the argument from bound conscience could not justify any particular national policy on same-sex blessings or the ordination of partnered gay or lesbian clergy. At most, it could justify allowing all – synods, bishops, candidacy committees, seminary faculties, congregations – to act as conscience dictated. And the Task Force proposed just such a policy in their Step Four, which related to ‘structured flexibility’. On the other hand, their Step Two on ordained ministry sounded more like the adoption of a national policy that would accept the ordination of partnered gay and lesbian persons. Because the Task Force had decided that the substantive question about homosexuality was insoluble in this church at this time, it made no comprehensive theological and biblical argument for such a national policy. I would guess that the Task Force itself was not clear on how all that it was arguing and proposing hung together

The proposals of the Task Force for widespread freedom to follow conscience may have been unworkable. In April, the Church Council removed the incoherence and altered the proposals. Because the changes were labeled merely editorial, their importance was not noticed. The listing of who got to follow conscience was removed from the structured flexibility resolutions. The proposal was now clearly oriented to the adoption of a uniform national policy on the ordination of partnered gay and lesbian persons, with the bound conscience argument becoming a limited provision for individuals who disagreed. The difficulty was that the Task Force had not made any argument that would justify such a uniform national policy. The ministry proposals had now floated free from the Task Force Report. One reason the debate at the Assembly was so unfocused is that the Task Force Report and its argument from bound conscience were mostly beside the point to what was actually on the floor. When the time came for decision, the Task Force Report was a misleading distraction.

Our situation now is that we have a set of policy decisions on a churchwide set of ordination standards that have no foundation in the Sexuality Social Statement, which declared the church at an impasse on the question of homosexuality. If anything, the Social Statement would justify a much broader set of provisions for bound conscience.

Policy Revisions: Toleration, if You Don’t Get in the Way

The proposed policies to implement the decisions of the Churchwide Assembly have been placed on the ELCA website with no fanfare. There was no news release or email informing all rostered leaders. If you go to the ELCA website without knowing where to look, you will have great trouble finding the texts. (They can be found here). Some first thoughts.

What is being proposed?
1. The revision of Vision and Expectations, which states expectations for clergy behavior, treats marriage and “publicly accountable, life-long, monogamous, same-gender relationships” as functionally equivalent. Whatever difference may be asserted elsewhere between marriage and such relations, none exists here.
2. The more significant document relates to revisions to the call process. Here is where the ‘bound conscience’ promises must be kept. How is this to be done?:
a. As many decisions as possible are defined as strictly procedural: a congregation’s registration of a candidate for ministry; a synod’s release of a candidate for transfer to another synod, a bishop’s signature of a letter attesting a call. As merely procedural, these actions are held to be outside the area in which appeals to conscience are appropriate.
b. Synods and candidacy committees can “state openly their diverse convictions” and “express its general understanding of what will best serve the mission of Christ in the places and times for which they have decision making responsibility.” Candidates who did not fit that understanding would be urged to transfer to a synod where they would be more welcome.
c. A synod cannot, however, turn down a candidate simply on the grounds of being in a same-sex relationship.

What does this mean?
1. By insisting that the bishop’s signature on a call letter is merely procedural, the proposal eliminates any synodical action that would block calls to pastors in same-sex relations. Every synod must be open to all such pastors.
2. A synodical candidacy committee can only urge a candidate to transfer. If a candidate refuses to do so, the committee must ignore their consciences and overlook the sexuality question. One might ask: what candidate would refuse to transfer? It is easy to imagine situations in which a candidate would be reluctant to transfer. Candidates may not want to leave their home congregations, which might be supporting their seminary education, to take up membership in a new synod that would accept them. Or candidates may discover their orientation far into the process and not want to begin with a new candidacy committee. Or a candidate may just want to make a point.

What is missing?
1 Nothing is said about protection of diversity of opinion in the candidacy process. Can a candidacy committee refuse a candidate who expresses strong judgments on these questions? Nothing is said. A statement that a candidate is not to be refused because of their bound conscience on such matters will not stop a committee from resorting to a standard euphemism, such as ‘rigidity,’ to reject the candidate, but the candidate would at least have a published standard to which to appeal.
2 Most notably, nothing is said about what would happen if some, out of bound conscience, refuse to cooperate. If a synod passes a resolution instructing its bishop to refuse to sign letters of call to pastors in same-sex relations or if a candidacy committee denies a student who refuses to transfer, what then happens?

What is being proposed is toleration of dissenters, but only as long as they do not get in the way.

The New Roman-Anglican Initiative: Significant for Lutherans?

The initiative of Rome to receive bodies of Anglicans, priests and laity, and permit them a ongoing corporate existence as “personal ordinariates” with distinct traditions may be of great significance for Lutherans and for all Western Christians – or it may not. (For details, go to the source and read the Vatican statement). In short, structures will be set up within the Catholic Church whereby parishes and priests would be under an ‘ordinary’ (the Vatican statement says a priest or a bishop) from the Anglican tradition. Such ordinariates would preserve Anglican liturgy and spirituality. Their priests could be married, but not the bishops. Anglicans could thus enter communion with Rome, while preserving many aspects of Anglican worship and spiritual life.

The apostolic constitution that will set the details for how such personal ordinariates will function has not yet been made public, which accounts for some of the present uncertainty. The term ‘personal ordinariate’ is not in the Code of Canon Law. Just how much independence will the personal ordinariates have? Larger uncertainties about the significance of this new move, however, can only be clarified by time and further developments. Will large groups of catholic-minded Anglicans who so far have not left their churches now move in this direction or will the ordinariates remain small? Will such personal ordinariates be intellectually and spiritually lively or will they become museums of Anglo-Catholicism of a particular date? Will these ordinariates be strong only in a few countries (perhaps England) or will they gain a foothold in the US and, more importantly, Africa? There is no way of answering these questions now.

Some see this initiative as anti-ecumenical, but that is by no means clear. The personal ordinariates could be a testing ground for just what the slogan ‘united, but not absorbed’ (used in the Vatican statement) might mean as a description of unity with Rome. Of great significance in the Vatican statement is the comment that the ordinariates might set up houses of study within Catholic seminaries so that their future priests would be schooled in the Anglican tradition. The ordinariates are thus potentially permanent. At the very least, these structures will be a sign of Rome’s willingness to accept diversity in its own ranks. The Anglican liturgical and spiritual traditions are being accepted as legitimately Catholic. At best, they could be a bridge between the Anglican and Catholic traditions, keeping up a conversation with the rest of Anglicanism and mediating aspects of the Anglican tradition to other Catholics.

Might there be a model here for catholic-minded Lutherans? Maybe. There is not at present a sizable body of interested Lutherans as there is a body of interested Anglicans, so the question is somewhat moot. (The Vatican statement refers to requests from twenty to thirty bishops – presumably Anglican bishops – for something like the new provision.) More significantly, Lutheran dissent from Rome has been essentially theological and doctrinal. The Vatican statement notes that the Anglicans seeking communion with Rome “share the common Catholic faith as it is expressed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church and accept the Petrine primacy as something Christ willed for the Church.” Some, but not so many, Lutherans would be willing to go this far. And among Lutherans who would go that far, how many would prefer a ‘personal ordinariate’ to an integration into the wider Catholic Church, with a greater opportunity to witness to what is of permanent Catholic value in the Lutheran tradition?

So, the Anglican ‘personal ordinariates’ may be having their fifteen minutes of fame, or we may be seeing the start of an ecumenical re-arrangement of possibilities. Time will tell.

The Way Forward (3): The Bible in the Church

According to the Formula of Concord, the “Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments” are “the pure clear fountain of Israel, which is the only true norm by which all teachers and teaching are to be judged” (Solid Declaration, Rule and Norm). Our attention easily locks onto the description of Scripture as the “only true norm” in doctrinal controversy. That’s the contested Protestant bit, the “Scripture-principle.” It’s been endlessly discussed since the Reformation, and entered deeply into Protestant identity.

It has also been viewed with increasing skepticism since the Enlightenment, not without reason. It just doesn’t seem to have worked out very well. Conflicts don’t actually seem to be resolved by biblical interpretation in the Protestant churches; controversies seem more likely to generate schism or else the formation of ongoing opposed parties within ecclesiastical communities. Hasn’t any unity Protestants have enjoyed really been brought about by state-church regimes or capacious denominational structures, rather than a meeting of the minds over Scripture?

Notice, though, that the Formula does not present Scripture only as a norm to be appealed to in controversy. Before Scripture is norm, it is the “pure, clear fountain of Israel,” the source of the water of life. A fountain is different from a norm; its work is prior to any outbreak of controversy, any pressing need for judgment. A fountain gives life and provides cleansing. Its waters sustain travelers, clear dust from human eyes, and turn deserts into fruitful fields. Unless the church is constantly being enlivened and formed by Scripture in this way, appeals to the Bible as norm and judge will be operating in a vacuum.

No method of resolving disputes within the church can function without the support of an underlying sensus fidelium, a common mind among the faithful. Even a teaching office on Roman Catholic lines can only settle disputes successfully if there is a shared perception that the office deserves respect. This can never be wholly a matter of recognizing the formal authority of the bishop or the Pope, as in the slogan “Rome has spoken – case closed.” It has to include a perception that the actual decisions made by the teaching office reliably cohere with central Christian beliefs and practices. Only so can a sense be maintained that obedience to the teaching office is an authentic form of discipleship. But for that to be the case, the teachers and the faithful must share a common formation in faith and life. They can only meet, so to speak, if they live in the same Christian universe.

The root of our problems with authority in the ELCA, I would suggest, is the confusion, weakening, and consequent fragmentation of the sensus fidelium, the common mind of the faithful. This confusion and weakness are by no means all on one side. We’ve all been affected by the biblical illiteracy, thin catechesis, clueless educational programs, and unfocused preaching that are widespread (I’m not saying universal) in our denomination. Seeking scriptural resolution to a passionate controversy on top of such weakness, confusion, and fragmentation is like trying to ride up the glass mountain in the fairy tale: no matter how strong your theological horse or how well you ride it, you’re never going to get traction.

This is one reason I’ve been suggesting that the way forward has to be a renewed formative engagement with Scripture as pure, clear fountain. We need to set the Bible loose in the ELCA; we need to uncap the hydrant and let the waters pour where they will. We need to do this not defensively, nor simply in a new round of argument about sexual ethics, but with the air of people discovering treasure in a field. The new mantra in the ELCA is that our unity is in Christ, not in theology or moral teaching. A confused mantra – but why not respond: “Good – then let’s go looking for him. Let’s dig up the field of the Scriptures to find him.”

I heard a couple of words in church last Sunday that encouraged me: “The word of God is living and active” (Heb 4:12) and “With human beings it is impossible, but not with God; for all things are possible with God” (Mk 10:27). When we let the Bible loose, we don’t really know what’s going to happen next. But it’s not just our own power we have to reckon with. And we’ve just about run out of other things to try.

On ‘Heresy’

A small dust-up has occurred over the word ‘heresy.’ The word was used at the Lutheran CORE meeting by Bp, Paull Spring (here) and such talk has been criticized here by Gettysburg Seminary president Michael Cooper-White. Both men seek to be faithful leaders in the church and my contacts with both have attested to that intent. I wish to cast aspersions on neither, though I am closer to Bp. Spring’s outlook than President Cooper-White’s.

There is a problem with the word ‘heresy.’ The classical definition of heresy is ‘obstinate error,’ error maintained in the face of authoritative correction. This is the definition in the present Catholic Code of Canon Law (c. 751) and the definition elaborated in the 17th century by the greatest of the Lutheran scholastics, John Gerhard. To be a heretic, Gerhard said, a person must not only hold an error that “directly conflicts [impingat] with the very foundation of the faith,” but must join to the error “wickedness and obstinacy, through which, though frequently admonished, he obstinately defends his error” (references below).

The concept ‘heresy’ presupposes beliefs about the faith ‘once and for all delivered to the saints’ (Jude 3), about the church as bound to that deposit of the faith, and about the role of rightly constituted doctrinal authority. Those beliefs become effective only in connection with a set of practices of pastoral admonition and obedience. (Gerhard takes up ‘heresy’ under the topic: De pugnantibus cum ministerio - Of those doing battle with the ministry).

Are these assumptions and practices to be found in the ELCA at present? If a pastor or professor avoids explicitly denying a few central doctrines and uses some standard Lutheran shibboleths, is there anything that would call down doctrinal admonition from a bishop? Does the ELCA as a church body understand itself as ‘bound’ to the deposit of teaching on faith and morals? If so, how could the unanimous consensus of the tradition on a foundational matter of Christian ethics be overturned by 55% of one Assembly?

More fundamental than the question whether the ELCA has fallen into heresy is the question whether the ELCA has become a church in which heresy has become an unusable concept. Heresy as obstinate error requires authoritative teaching and correction against which to be obstinate. The presence of heresy is a serious problem; the impossibility of heresy is catastrophe.

Michael Root

English for Gerhard quotations in Heinrich Schmid, The Doctrinal Theology of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. 3rd ed. Trans. Charles A. Hay and Henry E. Jacobs. (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1961), p. 615.
Latin for these passages, Johann Gerhard, Loci Theolgici , marginal reference XIII, 214, 222.