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Review Process Underway

Information about the Addressing Social Concerns Review Task Force

 
A task force is currently addressing how we as a church will respond to social concerns. Voting members at the 2011 ELCA Churchwide Assembly requested this review based on the recommendations of the Living into the Future Together task force and a desire to find the best way to understand what God is calling the church to do in the world. The review will be completed and brought to the fall 2012 Church Council meeting, with a report to the 2013 ELCA Churchwide Assembly.

Read the full charter and ELCA news about the task force’s progress.

During this review, the process for developing the criminal justice social statement and the justice for women social statement will continue. There are no plans to alter the process already under way for the criminal justice statement which is to be completed and reported at the 2013 Churchwide Assembly.

Throughout its work, the task force will be in conversation with many groups and individuals. They will clarify the purpose and goals for addressing social concerns and evaluate the current procedures in light of the concerns and criticisms expressed. The task force intends to look at not only the process for developing social statements, but also how the church addresses social concerns in general. They will engage in how members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America live out our faith through giving, action and advocacy both locally and as a larger church.

Task force members were appointed in December 2011 by the Executive Committee of the Church Council, and membership is consistent with the ELCA’s representational principles for racial, ethnic and generational participation in this church’s life and work.

Members of the task force are:
  • the Rev. Kathryn A. Kleinhans, Waverly, Iowa, chair of Addressing Social Concerns Review Task Force and teaching theologian at Wartburg College
  • Per Anderson, Moorhead, Minn., professor and associate dean at Concordia College, ethicist
  • Paul G. Archer, Dearborn, Mich., ELCA Church Council member
  • Linda Bobbitt, Thornton, Colo., ELCA Rocky Mountain Synod vice president and former member of the Living into the Future Together task force
  • the Rev. Wm. Chris Boerger, Everett, Wash., bishop of Northwest Washington Synod
  • Rebecca J. Brakke, Dallas, ELCA Church Council member
  • Sylvia Bull, Princeton, N.J., member of First English Lutheran Church in Great Falls, Mont. and seminarian
  • the Rev. Margaret E. Herz-Lane, Baltimore, pastor of St. Luke Lutheran Church
  • Christopher Meade, Geneva, Ill., member of Geneva Lutheran Church
  • Arthur Norman, Valdosta, Ga., member of Salem Evangelical Lutheran Church in Houston, Texas and attending St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Mobile, Ala.
  • the Rev. Fred S. Opalinski, Reading, Pa., pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church
  • Rosemarie Stephens-Booker, Arlington, Va., First Lutheran Church in Norfolk, Va.
  • Suzanne G. Wise, Siler City, N.C., chair of the Communal Discernment Task Force
  • the Rev. David B. Zellmer, Sioux Falls, S.D., bishop of ELCA South Dakota Synod
Timeline    
August 2011 Churchwide Assembly request for review


November 2011 Church Council adoption of charter and formation of task force


December 2011 Executive Committee task force members appointed


January 2012 Addressing Social
Concerns Review		 first meeting of the task force


March 2012 Addressing Social
Concerns Review		 second meeting of task force; working groups formed


April – August 2012   working groups will meet and ongoing work continues


August 2012   task force will meet to finalize findings


October 2012 Conference Of Bishops Final report shared with bishops


November 2012 Church Council Final report presented to the council


August 2013 Churchwide Assembly Final report to the assembly

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