Christianity Today: ELCA Punts

Christianity Today, using the Religious News Service story:

Seven Years in the Making, Draft ELCA Statement on Sexuality Punts

"This church does not have consensus," committee says.

A long-awaited draft statement by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America shies from taking a position on homosexuality, saying the church has yet to reach consensus on the matter.

Current ELCA policies, which bar non-celibate homosexual clergy, are not discussed in the draft released Thursday, March 13.
And while the church "recognizes the historic origin of the term 'marriage' as … between a man and a woman," the statement also notes that some ELCA pastors and congregations support same-sex unions.

"After many years of study and conversation, this church does not have consensus regarding loving and committed same-gender relationships," the statement reads.

Nearly seven years in the making, "Journey Together Faithfully" is intended as a framework for future ELCA debates on sexuality.

Compiled by a 15-member committee of bishops, pastors, psychologists, professors and a homemaker, the draft now begins an eight-month comment period within the ELCA, the nation's largest Lutheran body. A second draft will be produced after the comment period.

If approved by a two-thirds majority at the ELCA's Churchwide Assembly next year, the statement will be used to guide church policy for its 4.8 million members.

Like other mainline Protestant denominations, the ELCA has been torn by how open the church should be to gay and lesbian clergy and laity.

But efforts to liberalize the church's gay policies have stalled.

At last year's Churchwide Assembly, delegates voted to uphold a ban on sexually active gay and lesbian clergy but cautioned bishops against applying the ban too strictly.

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