Sexuality may not be the gospel, but it is a big deal””and we ignore that at our peril. Sexuality is bound up with the question of the human future””the begetting and the rearing of the next generation. Sexuality furnishes the most pungent similes and metaphors in Scripture for describing the intimate, self-giving love of God for the human family. Relationships grounded in human sexuality””husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons””are woven throughout the biblical story. How our church, how any church, treats marriage and family life will either enhance or detract from our service in God’s mission in the world. Make no mistake: sex is a big deal!
So, I ask, how have we in the ELCA done in formulating a social statement on human sexuality? Has our great church produced a great document that does justice to the gravity and grace of human sexuality? Have we in the ELCA addressed as powerfully and as richly as possible the real social issues that arise from our life as sexually-differentiated human beings? Are we now poised to be a church that has something powerful to say to our society in the early 21st century about the wonder of human sexuality and the tremendous possibilities of well-ordered sexual lives, for the sake of our human future? Are we ready to speak confidently, compellingly to our society as a church that still believes that “the Lord God in his goodness created us male and female, and by the gift of marriage founded human community in a joy that begins now and is brought to perfection in the life to come?”[2]
Alas, as I read Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, I cannot honestly say that we have done our best to plumb the heights and depths of human sexuality so as to say something meaningful and compelling to the society in which we live. As a colleague in ministry put it, only we Lutherans could take something as exciting as sex and write about it in such a pedestrian way.
Let me name three deep concerns that I have about Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.
1. Framing the Issue. Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, although proposed to us as a theological teaching document consistently fails to exhibit a deep engagement with and thoughtful appropriation of the Lutheran theological treasury. The rich law-gospel dialectic for which Lutherans are known is not the “operating system” in this teaching document. The document sets aside””in a footnote, no less![3]””our time-honored understanding of “orders of creation” as deep, dynamic, caring structures that God has built into the Creation to bring forth and sustain human life in all its multi-form abundance. In the place of such profound theological and ethical categories, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust sees everything sexual through the sociological lens of “trust in relationships” or “social trust.” (The word “trust” shows up nearly two hundred times in the document!) Now, to be sure, social trust is a very good thing! Even thoughtful pagans will agree to that. But “social trust” is scarcely a suitable “lens” for a distinctively Christian or churchly word about human sexuality.
While very long and somewhat repetitious, this pastorally sensitive article by the ELCA bishop of NW MN is also refreshingly clear and forthright. I think Wohlrabe was actually overly nice and generous to those who drafted this denominational position paper. It seems much more like the irenic Melancthon than the fiery Luther.
Still, Wohlrabe is unambiguous in his opposition to the unbiblical (and unLutheran) theology of sex and marriage found in the proposed theological paper. And that’s always welcome and to be commended. I wish there were more like him in TEC.
David Handy+
Bp. Wohlrabe is one of the last great orthodox bishops in the ELCA. In today’s debate on the ordination of non-chaste gays, he was the only bishop who spoke in opposition. (A handful spoke in support.)