Professor Calls for Rejection of "Milwaukee Proposals"

CHICAGO (ELCA)-- A member of the Lutheran drafting team that wrote the current proposal for full communion between the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and the Episcopal Church called for immediate rejection of proposals that could modify its implementation.
Dr. Michael Root, professor of systematic theology, Trinity Lutheran Seminary, Columbus, Ohio, made his views known in a strongly worded Feb. 28 letter titled, "A Comment for the Bishops and Church Council of the ELCA." The letter was shared with ecumenical officers of the ELCA and The Episcopal Church, and ELCA News and Information.
Roots' comments were directed at the "Common Ground Resolution" that emerged from a meeting of 18 people in Milwaukee, Feb. 16-18. Some who attended favor the full communion proposal, "Called to Common Mission" (CCM), and some oppose it. Seventeen of 18 supported the resolution, which suggested "a possible path" in implementing CCM. The suggestions, if incorporated in the ELCA constitution, may provide for full participation in the ELCA for those who cannot accept the terms of CCM. The full communion proposal, "Called to Common Mission (CCM)," was adopted 716-317 at the 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Denver. CCM has generated controversy in the ELCA, mostly over the ELCA's adoption of the historic episcopate, a succession of bishops back to the earliest days of the Christian church. Opponents of CCM say it changes the role of bishops in the church and threatens Lutheran identity.
"The alleged 'Common Ground' proposals coming before the Conference of Bishops and the Church Council are inherently misleading and would both undermine the constitution of the ELCA and destroy our ecumenical relations with the Episcopal Church," Root said. "It is of utmost importance that they be rejected immediately." The Milwaukee resolution's suggestions included: + the possibility that the ELCA Church Council consider a delay in implementing CCM until after the 2001 ELCA Churchwide Assembly, to allow for certain constitutional changes; + the possibility that ELCA pastors be recognized fully as pastors even if their ordinations are constitutionally "irregular" because a synodical bishop was not present; + the possibility that ELCA bishops be fully recognized as bishops even if their installations are irregular under CCM, or + the possibility that the churchwide assembly create a non-geographic synod within the ELCA "which may be out of conformity with certain provisions of full communion agreements," the resolution said. The Common Ground Resolution was sent for possible consideration to the ELCA Conference of Bishops, the ELCA Church Council, ELCA Presiding Bishop H. George Anderson and the WordAlone Network -- an interim organization that serves CCM opponents. Root said the balance of participants and their views in the Milwaukee dialogue did not reflect the views of the ELCA as a whole.
"The impression cannot be avoided that what the opposition to CCM could not achieve in an open debate, despite hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on mailings and a sophisticated Internet campaign, they are now seeking to achieve by clandestine maneuvers," Root's letter said. Discussing changes in CCM will "justifiably upset" our ecumenical partners, Root said. To adopt the resolutions on ordination and installation of bishops-elect "would be to say that every ordinand and bishop-elect could specify whether or not they will be ordained or installed by the rites approved by this church as a part of our ecumenical commitments," he said. Root also said that giving ordinands the right to dictate whether the bishop presides or doesn't preside abandons the essential notion that it is the church's ordination. Root expressed particular concern about the possibility of creating a non-geographic synod which may not conform to certain provisions of full communion agreements. Presently, the ELCA has full communion agreements with the Presbyterian Church U.S.A., the United Church of Christ, the Reformed Church in America and the Moravian Church. "On what grounds would one then resist the inevitable calls for other such synods for non-geographical synods which do, or do not, ordain active gays and lesbians; for synods not in communion with some or all of the Reformed churches; for synods which do not ordain women?" Root asked in his letter. "Once we start down that road, where do we stop? Are we a church or a federation of theologically defined interest groups?" Root also pointed out that CCM is a compromise proposal, the result of revisions from the earlier Concordat of Agreement with the Episcopal Church which failed at the ELCA's 1997 Churchwide Assembly. CCM opposition leaders, including some participants in the Milwaukee dialogue, "were explicit in their determination not to enter into discussions of amendments to CCM prior to the Denver vote because they thought they had sufficient votes to defeat it," Root said. "They cannot now seek to amend CCM after its adoption." Means should be found for an "amicable parting of the ways" if opponents of CCM cannot live with the decision of the churchwide assembly, he said. "What should not be permitted is the implicit dismantling of the ELCA," Root's letter concluded.

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