Last weeks's UCC vote truly bad news for ELCA

Pay attention to the last two quotes

"Religions Not Likely To Accept Gay Rule
Some might have wondered if it was like the "shot heard 'round the world."

By KEVIN ECKSTROM
Religion News Service

Members of the United Church of Christ, like their freedom-loving forebears in New England, cherish their local sovereignty and penchant for independent thinking.

Their ancestors, for example, were among the first to work against slavery, and in 1773 helped spark the Boston Tea Party. They were the first U.S. denomination to ordain a black man, in 1785. They also were first to ordain a woman, in 1853, and an openly gay man, in 1972.

So when UCC delegates in Atlanta voted on Monday -- Independence Day -- to become the first mainline Protestant church to support civil marriage for gay couples, some might have wondered if it was something like the "shot heard 'round the world" that sparked the American Revolution.

Are other mainline churches likely to follow the UCC's independent example? The answer, for a number of reasons, is probably not.

Demographics: For one, the UCC rank-and-file tend to be more liberal than U.S. Christianity in general. The "marriage equality" resolution at the UCC's General Synod meeting passed overwhelmingly, while most other churches are sharply divided, if not more conservative, on gay issues.

The Episcopal Church, for example, voted in 2003 to approve an openly gay bishop in New Hampshire and the fallout has been bitter and divisive. An unofficial policy that recognizes that some dioceses bless gay unions (but not civil marriages) has also provoked controversy. Other churches saw the acrimony and simply said, "No thanks."

Most other churches simply don't have the kind of liberal support that would be necessary to endorse gay marriage, either as religious rites or as civil rights.

"It's pretty clear . . . that most of those denominations are pretty split on the issue of homosexuality in general and the same-sex marriage stuff is probably even less supported," said Scott Thumma, a sociologist of religion at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn., and co-editor of the anthology "Gay Religion."

Decentralization: The beauty -- and frustration -- of the UCC is that any statement made by the national church is simply advisory. The 1,600 autonomous UCC congregations are fully independent, and are not compelled to abide by any policy or statement issued by the national church. The gay-marriage resolution will likely spark a backlash among the UCC's small conservative wing, who are as free to reject it as others are to embrace it, activists said.

"This decision will force many congregations to disassociate (from the UCC) and will cause the further decline of this historic denomination that is already a loss-leader among Protestants," said the Rev. David RunnionBareford, director of the UCC's conservative Biblical Witness Fellowship.

Other churches with more centralized authority -- Lutherans, Methodists and Presbyterians, for example -- can approve only policies that would be embraced on the local level. In short, a national policy would need nationwide approval, and currently the support just doesn't exist in other churches for a UCC-style statement.

Deliberation: While many American churches closely monitor what other churches do, at the end of the day they insist on making their own decisions, in their own way, on their own timetable.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, for example, shares a "full communion" agreement with the UCC that allows the churches to swap clergy and share ministry. ELCA delegates are scheduled to debate both gay ordination and same-sex unions when they gather in Orlando in August.

Emily Eastwood, the director of Lutherans Concerned North America, the ELCA's gay and lesbian caucus, hailed the UCC vote but was skeptical it will have much impact when Lutherans take up the issue this summer.

"ELCA voting members are fiercely independent," Eastwood said. "I think the (UCC resolution) comes as a message. Will it be definitive? Only time will tell what impact it will have."

However, Nancy Ammerman, a sociologist at Boston University who has studied mainline churches, said churches often experience an "imitation effect" in which it takes only one church to "open the door" and others soon follow. That's what happened with women's ordination, she said.

"This provides ever-so-subtle pressure or permission -- depending on how you want to see it -- for other churches" to follow, she said.

Whatever the long-term impact, gay rights activists say the UCC vote may have another less tangible effect. The Rev. Mel White, a former evangelical ghostwriter who now directs the gay rights group Soulforce, said the UCC resolution sends a powerful message about "courage" to other churches that may be hesitant to tackle the issue.

"If they had not done it, it would have been a disaster," White said. "It would have sent the worst kind of signal (to other churches). But now that they've done it, it sends the best kind of signal."