Some Thoughts on the Synodical Convention

Pastor Foss, Vernon and Dolores Herbst, and I were your delegates to the Southern California (West) Synod’s 1998 Convention, held in Woodland Hills.  Many thanks to the Herbsts for sharing their time and energy with us in this important task.

Synod Conventions are good times to connect with other pastors and friends in the church, and provide interesting opportunities to hear what’s going on in the larger church.  Speaking of friends, Pastor Keith Banwart (our intern here for the year before I came as pastor) was elected as Synod Secretary.  Keith is moving up in the church.  I’m sure he will enjoy the experience.

There were four resolutions voted on at the Saturday session of the convention.  The first was a holdover from the 1996 Convention, dealing with the location of the Synod office.  It has been at Angelica Lutheran Church in Los Angeles.  There were numerous accessibility problems (handicapped and otherwise), space concerns, parking issues, and a (usually not mentioned) concern about going into inner city LA for meetings.  A Task Force was given responsibility to sort out the issue, and from a group of four sites, First Lutheran Church in Glendale was selected as the Task Force’s choice to be the new location.  To complicate the issue, a $500,000 gift was received from the sale of Trinity Lutheran in Pomona that is to go to developing a retreat/conference center at the site of the new offices.  The new site would need to have space for such a facility to be built.

After much debate the vote was taken.  The Task Force’s recommendation received the approval of the convention, and I’m told that as the new site is prepared (throughout the summer) the Synod offices will begin moving.  Fall of ‘98 was mentioned as a time frame for the relocation.

Another resolution, “A Call for a Balanced Lutheran-Episcopal Concordat,” seemed to be “going against the grain” of the ecumenical fervor that has gripped the church lately.  Some of you may have read that at the 1997 Churchwide Assembly last summer, a proposal for full communion with the Episcopal Church failed by six votes to achieve a two-thirds majority.  This narrow loss caused incredible grief on the part of those for the proposal, and incredible joy on the part of those not wanting to throw out most things Lutheran with the fervor to “mate with other churches” (just a figure of speech!).

Against the arguments of those who are working on such issues in our synod and seem to be in favor of full communion with anyone no matter what doctrinal differences may be glossed over, the resolution asks that the 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly respect the traditions of not only the Episcopal church, but of our own, especially in the matter of adopting the “Historic Episcopate” (which recognizes the pastor’s/priest’s/bishop’s authority as derived through a succession of bishops going back to the Apostles themselves) as mandatory for Lutherans even as it is for Episcopal churches now.  This resolution was passed, but almost seems to have been unnecessary in view of the revisions made in the proposal.  The revisions, last I checked, require us to recognize the Episcopal form of bishops and clergy, but not to adopt it wholesale.

The other two resolutions voted on had to do with gay/lesbian issues in the church.  Unbelievably, only twenty minutes was allowed for the debate on each of these resolutions (I was the VERY NEXT person to speak against it and wasn’t allowed to speak!).  The first one, “A Resolution Concerning Ordination of Lesbian and Gay Clergy,” came at the issue it raises from a unique point of view.  Referring to Martin Luther’s Augsburg Confession (article 23), in which he states that clergy should not remain celibate, the authors imply that Luther was recommending that clergy not only marry between sexes, but that he would have condoned homosexual relationships.  Never mind that even a quick reading of this same quoted portion of the Augsburg Confession (and its explanation/apology) shows that Luther is concerned about marriage between men and women and the abuses of power of the church over priests.  Their twisting and misquoting of Luther shows a real disdain for the theological foundations of the Lutheran church, making these writings subservient to their own social agenda.

This first resolution on gay/lesbian issues asks that the prohibition against homosexual sexual relationships contained in the document, “Vision and Expectations: Ordained Ministers in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America,” be removed and that in the “Guidelines for Discipline” of clergy, the statement that reads “practicing homosexual persons are precluded from the ordained ministry of this church” be deleted.

It is almost unbelievable to me that this issue was even allowed to come before a convention, and even more unbelievable that it came close to passing (179 against, 121 for, 21 abstaining).  Theologians and biblical scholars should struggle with and debate such things.  To ask pastors and uninformed laypeople to make these kinds of choices dooms the church to follow the sways of culture and special interest groups.  The incredible disregard for Scripture and Luther’s writings, as well as a synodical procedure that places such matters before a biblically and theologically uninformed laypeople, makes it evident to me that for many, a social agenda is what governs and drives our church, not Scripture and certainly not theology.  All it would take to inform the laity, by the way, would be to bring in scholars through the national church who are expert on biblical interpretation and Lutheran theology to conventions to deal directly with the questions at hand.  I have seen this done well (in Nebraska), and when so informed, the assembly voted down the nonsense presented to them.

The church CERTAINLY needs to stand for HUMAN RIGHTS for all, regardless of sexual orientation, race or even religion.  But in matters of the church itself, we need to be bound by Scripture and instructed by the writings of Martin Luther.  Scripture and these writings are quite plain in their stance on such things: they are sin, and those who practice them are in need of repentance, forgiveness, healing and love.  To simply accept these people and their behavior without calling them to repentance condemns them to lives of idolatry and brokenness.  At least, that is what the scriptures say!

Continuing in the national church’s current direction, we are simply renaming this particular sin (the homosexual life-style) a “gift from God,” which not only DOES NOT require repentance and forgiveness, but is for some a cause for rejoicing and thanksgiving.  It is an abomination and a tragedy.

The second resolution dealing with the gay/lesbian issues, seems mild in comparison to the first, but is in reality more insidious.  It causes our synod to be affiliated as a “Reconciled in Christ” synod with the group Lutherans Concerned/North America, an organization promoting the gay/lesbian agenda within the Lutheran Church.  Because of the assembly’s positive vote on this resolution, Bishop Egertson may now feel he has a mandate to pursue the gay/lesbian agenda, something he promised not to make an issue in his tenure as bishop.  I hope not, but this may not be necessary for him.  There seems to be plenty of people ready to take up the cause, and, under his leadership, feel empowered to do so.

The biblical witness is clear.  Romans 1:18-23 identifies the sin of idolatry (worshipping one’s self or other things as God) and Romans 1:24-32 describes the punishment: “God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts,” to the sins of homosexuality, men with men, women with women.  Those who approve of such practices also fall under judgment.

As a pastor, I know that there are many things in the Bible that are not the most clear.  For example, questions like, “What will heaven be like?  When will Jesus return?  When was the world created?  Do all dogs go to heaven?” are difficult to answer with any concrete certainty.  On some issues, especially regarding the place and status of women, children, and slaves, the Bible often reflects the culture of the day in which it was written.  Fortunately, our culture has developed to the point (at least in our country) where oppression is no longer the rule but the exception (yet one which is still present to a degree).  We can see that God’s will is that these no longer continue.

However, on the question of homosexuality among God’s people, the scriptures are clear and NOT culturally colored at all.  Some have tried to diffuse the Old Testament texts prohibiting homosexuality as speaking only about child sexual abuse or cult prostitution (which are certainly sinful, at least in today’s church).  But the New Testament witness, especially Paul’s writing in Romans, could not be clearer.  It is unequivocally condemned, and those who practice such things are called to repentance and healing.  Rather than promote it as an alternative, genetically predisposed life-style, it should be put away from the church.

Please pray for your pastors and for the Church as we struggle to be faithful to God’s Word and his call to be his witnesses in the world.

In Christ,

The Extraordinarily Politically Incorrect
Pastor Larry Becker