Vocations of Gay and Lesbian Lutherans

     ANN ARBOR, Mich. (ELCA) -- The role of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Lutherans in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America was the topic of discussion when Lutheran Campus Ministry hosted "The Gifts We Offer, The Burdens We Bear: The Vocation and Ministry of Gay and Lesbian Persons in Church and Society," at the University of Michigan, March 6-9.
     The purpose of the conference was "to provide an opportunity in which the gifts of gay and lesbian people among us could be celebrated, could be made visible, but also that the burdens that they realistically face in our church could be faced," said the conference organizer, the Rev. John Rollefson, Lord of Light Lutheran Church, Lutheran Campus Ministry at U.M.
     The conference centerpiece was a report, "Pulpit Fiction," compiling the stories of 35 ELCA pastors identified through a "snowball sample" or by "word of mouth."  The project was funded by the event's sponsors: the Philip N. Knutson Endowment Fund, Lutheran Campus Ministry at the University of Michigan, the Gay and Lesbian Task Force of the ELCA's Southeast Michigan Synod and the Great Lakes Chapter of Lutherans Concerned/North America.
     ELCA policies say, "Practicing homosexual persons are precluded from the ordained ministry of this church."
     The report identified the pastors not by name but as nine female and 26 male, ages 29 to 73, living in 16 states and educated in seven of the eight ELCA seminaries.  All 35 have served in parish ministry at least once, and 24 are currently doing so.  Two are retired, four have non-parish church work, and five are working in other occupations.
     "While our pastors were often anxious about coming out to other persons, they generally had no such problems with God," said Dr. Carolyn J. Riehl, project director and assistant professor of education at U.M.  "They are steeped in the theology of justification by grace through faith" -- a central doctrine of the Lutheran church.
     Of the 35 pastors, 21 are currently in committed, long-term relationships.  All 21 live with their partners, and six of them do so in their church parsonages.  Four couples have had or are planning to have commitment ceremonies, according to the report.
     "These pastors want to be intimately connected to someone else, and they want that connection to be with a `mutual, chaste, and faithful relationship,' as is the vision of the ELCA for its heterosexual ordained ministers," said Riehl.  "They want to serve the church fully, honestly, and with integrity."
     In her keynote address Dr. Elizabeth Bettenhausen, Lutheran social ethicist and author, Brighton, Mass., said Lutheran confessions dating back to the 16th century require only that ordained ministers preach and teach the gospel and properly administer the sacraments.
     "Whenever we as the church decide that a particular human characteristic is required in order to preach the gospel and administer the sacraments as means of grace, we have a theologically serious, weighty decision in need of extensive discussion among the entire priesthood of all believers before it is shaped and adopted."  Bettenhausen said that discussion has not been held.
     "How do you engage in conversation when you have been church-defined in such a way that secrecy and silence are essential, if you want to stay in the pulpit?" she asked.  "If you raise questions ... you are very often defined then by others in the church as 'suspect.'"
     The Rev. Herbert W. Chilstrom, Pelican Rapids, Minn., former presiding bishop of the ELCA, supported the option of being "loyal opposition" to the church's policies regarding homosexuality.
     Conducting a workshop for the conference, Chilstrom said he usually poses three questions for predominantly heterosexual audiences: "Did you choose to be heterosexual?  Could you change? How shall we live?"
     Lutherans are changing their attitudes about the nature of sexuality and its relation to their Christian faith, he said. "More and more people are saying a committed relationship would be appropriate."
     "The individual is expected to live in accord with whatever the church thinks," said the Rev. Mark Alan Powell, associate professor of New Testament, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio.
     The church has the authority and duty to determine how closely or loosely the laws of the Bible apply today to Christians, he said.  The Bible has examples of Jesus forbidding his followers to borrow money, take each other to court, swear an oath and save money.  The church says those rules apply loosely today.
     The Bible condemns same-sex sexual relations, Powell said, but the church has the authority to define acceptable homosexual behavior and to decide whether or not to bless same-sex unions.
     It is also the duty of the church's members to live according to the decisions of the church, he said.  If a member feels the church is wrong, Powell suggested living a life of "obedience under protest."
     "The church should redouble its efforts to keep you in the community," he said.  The protesting member should remain "an active visitor" if a congregation should try to exclude him or her.
     ELCA churchwide assemblies resolved in 1991 and affirmed in 1995 "that gay and lesbian people ... are welcome to participate fully in the life of the congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America."  Joanne Chadwick, executive director of the ELCA Commission for Women, said that should include the ordained ministry.
     The ELCA "sets forth what we expect of those who are in positions of trust and responsibility in this church" in a separate document -- "Vision and Expectations."  It says, "Ordained ministers who are homosexual in their self- understanding are expected to abstain from homosexual sexual relationships."
     Vision and Expectations is a positive expression of the church's standards for its clergy, said the Rev. A. Craig Settlage, associate executive director of the ELCA Division for Ministry.  "As we struggle with the role of gay and lesbian people in the life of our church" those standards may change.
     Settlage said the question of ordaining homosexuals in the Lutheran church would be resolved, when the church gives same-sex unions the same status as marriage.
     ELCA member Steve Gunderson, McLean, Va., revealed his homosexuality while a Republican member of Congress from Wisconsin's third district.  "Every day for eight years I prayed to have this demon removed from me," he said.  Then God asked, "Why are you so unhappy with the person I created?"
     "The best gift homosexual, bisexual and transgender people can give the church and the community is to be honest about who they are," said the Rev. Thomas J. Gumbleton, auxiliary bishop of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit.
     Speakers referred several times to an open letter the bishops of the ELCA issued on the subject in March 1996.  "The way we face our differences on the issues surrounding homosexuality can be an important expression of grace for our particular church body and for the communities in which we live," they wrote.  "We invite gay and lesbian persons to join with other members of this church in mutual prayer and study of the issues that still divide us, so that we may seek the truth together."
     The meeting was the second Knutson Conference, named for the Rev. Philip N. Knutson who was assistant director for Lutheran Campus Ministry in the ELCA Division for Higher Education and Schools.  Shortly before his death in 1994 Knutson revealed his own homosexuality.  He announced he was entering the advanced stages of AIDS, and he established an endowment that funds conferences on life issues facing Christians in higher education.
     About 25 percent of the 275 registrants were college students from across the country.  Participants came from 26 states and the District of Columbia.

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