One vote. That was the margin Wednesday by which the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America churchwide assembly approved a social statement that, among other things, acknowledges the validity of same-sex relationships that are “chaste, monogamous and lifelong.”
The margin was so close that Bishop Mark Hanson, the ELCA leader who presided over the vote, hesitated before announcing the outcome. Rules required the social statement to pass by a two-thirds vote; the final result was 66.67 percent.
“I thought it was going to be close, but I doubted very much that it would come out at exactly two-thirds,” said the Rev. Peter Strommen, chairman of the task force that drew up the social statement and pastor of Shepherd of the Lake Lutheran Church in Prior Lake.
I don’t think we could have asked for a better result. Well, the best result would have been the ELCA not going down the road of apostasy, but that was not in the cards.
In this case, every single person who voted for the statement knows their vote counted. As the ELCA loses congregations, they will know their vote counted. As the finances tank, they will know their voted counted. As they are rejected by Lutherans in Africa and Asia, they will know their vote did it.
And when they make it before the feet of Jesus for judgment, they will remember their vote counted…
[blockquote]”…chaste, monogamous and lifelong.”[/blockquote]
Where in scripture are SS relationships required to be thus? They are really just making things up. And if they make things up about [i]this[/i], then their entire body of teaching comes into question… Golf anyone?
🙄
A chaste, lifelong same sex relationship sounds to me like a good friendship. Certainly a few treasured friendships that I have had since boyhood would fit those two prongs of the description. The same could be said with lifelong friendships with women. How one works “monogamous” into that mix eludes me (my wife is puzzled also).
So they’ve adopted the compromise the Church of England officially has for its clergy?
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NoVa Scout – “chaste” does not mean “celibate” – I am married and I am chaste – meaning I follow God’s desire that I have sexual relations only with my husband (no adultery) and in a loving way.
A very sad day for Lutheranism. But after all, it’s hardly unexpected. Or unprecedented, the avant garde Church of Sweden compromised on this point years ago.
I’m sorry, Brian (#1), that you’re now going to experience the kind of confusion and turmoil that so many of us who were in TEC have had to go through in recent years. But God is still sovereign and is able to work all things for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose, which is not that we be happy and comfortable but that we be fully conformed to the likeness of Jesus.
So the ELCA has, like TEC, fatefully drifted along with our permissive, relativist culture right over a waterfall, and now it too will break up on the rocks below. But maybe, just maybe, now orthodox Lutherans and orthodox Anglicans can really engage in “common mission” together.
The New Reformation just gained momentum, as the collapse of the ELCA gives it a huge boost.
[i]”Let goods and kindred go…”[/i]
David Handy+
Wonder if my neighbor has heard yet? He is an elderly gentlemen (and wife), who has been very concerned that his beloved Lutheran denomination was going to do this….Just can’t bring myself to walk next door and break the sad news…..when next we meet, if he doesn’t mention it, neither will I. Its just too painful a subject. If he does mention it, we can cry together….
Predictable. I remember clearly being warned, back when ELCA first formed, that their teaching relative to Holy scripture (“It doesn’t have to be factual in order to be true.”) would someday lead them into false doctrine and soul endangering actions. My teacher was not a prophet, just a very clear, logical thinker. Frances Scott
I had a same-sex best (chaste) friend in high school. We haven’t talked for years. I suppose I fail the test of “life-long?
The whole idea sounds like it came out of a strongly divided committee.
Don
Now that you’ve dumped the verses specifying a man and woman, what support is there in scripture for monogamous? Sounds discriminatory to me.
FSS: the “doesn’t have to be factual to be true” concept saves and protects scripture’s force, it doesn’t undermine it. If only factual passages items in scripture were Truth, much of it would fall away, and even small inconsistencies or incongruities would be fatal to the utility and validity of the Gospels. Whatever problems the Lutherans and others are having within their churches, your quoted phrase has nothing to do with them.
Jesus once asked the question, “Nevertheless, when the Son of Man returns, will He even find faith on the earth?”
I used to assume that was a rhetorical question, asked to somehow instill a desire into His disciples to always remain faithful to His teachings and leadership. Now I understand – – He really didn’t know the answer to that question, and He asked it because it worried Him. I wonder what He thinks of our answers to that question, now?!
Actually, Branford, chaste does mean celibate. Check out Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary. It lists the second definition of chaste as celibate. Chastity for those who are unmarried means being celibate.
Hmmm. This thread, and others like it, seems to reflect a widespread misunderstanding of the meaning of [i]celibacy[/i] and [i]chastity.[/i] I’m afraid I must disagree with SJT (#13); I don’t think chastity for the unmarried simply equates to being celibate, for the latter term carries the implication of a firm commitment to stay single and sexually pure for life as a religious calling. I know plenty of chaste Christian singles who don’t consider themselves celibate in the proper sense, because they’d love to get married someday.
But I think it’s very revealing that the words “chaste” and “chastity” have almost disappeared from common usage. I frequently hear people use the term “celibate” in conversation, when the context shows they really mean “chaste” or sexually pure. And I’ve long suspected that the virtual disappearance of the word “chaste” is symptomatic of the virtual disappearance of the reality conveyed by that great word. It almost seems like a Freudian slip at times, as if many people simply can’t imagine people abstaining from sex in our culture, unless they’ve made a religious vow never to marry.
Sorry if that seems like being nit-picky.
David Handy+
If one of the criteria is “lifelong”, do you have to wait until one of the partners is dead to affirm the relationship? Makes sense to me.