ELCA Faculty Criticizes 'Planned Exceptions' to Full Communion

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The faculty of Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, Columbia, S.C., issued a statement April 20 criticizing suggestions of "planned exceptions" to "Called to Common Mission" (CCM), a proposal of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) for "full communion" with The Episcopal Church. Southern is one of the ELCA's eight seminaries.
"Contrary to those who believe that 'planned exceptions' offer a way both to uphold CCM and to preserve the unity of the ELCA, we would hold that such a course would undermine both full communion with the Episcopal Church and the communion we prize within the ELCA," said the faculty members.
CCM was adopted 716-317 by the 1999 ELCA Churchwide Assembly. A general convention of the Episcopal Church will consider CCM this July in Denver. Among other things, full communion would make it possible for the ELCA and Episcopal Church to exchange clergy and commits them to work together on future mission and service projects.
Some Lutherans continue to oppose the proposal because the ELCA would accept the historic episcopate, which is a requirement in the Episcopal Church for the exchange of clergy. ELCA bishops would be installed by bishops who stand in a succession of bishops reaching back to the earliest days of the Christian Church. For Lutheran pastors to enter the historic episcopate, they must be ordained by a bishop.
"We have watched with great concern and sadness the bitter controversy that has continued in our church," said the Southern faculty members. They noted that the ELCA assembly approved CCM according to the church's constitution. "In the midst of this controversy, we believe that it is necessary to maintain the constitutional order of our church," they said.
While hoping to care for "those who are angry or uncertain about its meaning and implications," the faculty warned against implementing CCM in "steps which might seem to alleviate controversy in the short run, but in the long run would damage our own communion, as well as our communion with the Episcopal Church, in serious and lasting ways."
One such step being discussed in the public debate would allow Lutheran pastors to be ordained outside the historic episcopate with the understanding they would never be involved in a clergy exchange with the Episcopal Church. "This would in effect allow individual ordinands under some circumstances to decide whether or not they would be ordained by a bishop," said the Southern faculty.
"We can, to be sure, understand the attractiveness of such a suggestion. In a consumer society which exalts individual choice it almost seems an obvious course of action. Nevertheless, we believe that for many different reasons this would be a destructive path for our church to take," the statement said.
The faculty statement offered five reasons: + To allow planned exceptions to CCM would call into question the right and competence of the ELCA as a corporate body to order its ecumenical relations in a normative way; + To allow planned exceptions to CCM would establish a precedent that persons who meet a minimum doctrinal standard but will not agree to follow the policies and practices of this church nevertheless have an entitlement to ordination; + To allow planned exceptions to CCM would mean renunciation of the goal of full communion with the Episcopal Church ... to create an alternate path of entry into ordained ministry in the ELCA with the sole purpose of allowing some ordinands to avoid a sign of unity with the Episcopal Church; + To allow planned exceptions to CCM would not only preclude the formation of one ministry common to the ELCA and the Episcopal Church, it would divide the ministry within the ELCA as well; and + To allow planned exceptions to CCM would inevitably give the appearance of acknowledging that the most vocal Lutheran opponents of CCM present a credible interpretation of the agreement and its theological implications.
If the Episcopal Church approves CCM, the two churches will establish a consultative commission to facilitate joint planning. The Southern faculty proposed that this commission develop "a brief theological commentary on CCM."
The faculty said the text of CCM is "already sufficiently clear," but it asked that the commentary "state in the plainest manner possible" that the Christian gospel and sacraments are sufficient for the unity of the two churches, and that the historic episcopate is not an alternative to the gospel and sacraments but a strengthening sign of Christian unity.
The statement acknowledged "deep fractures which this controversy has revealed in our own unity as a Lutheran church body. These fault lines were not created by CCM, and they will not go away should CCM drop out of the picture altogether. They would simply reemerge in some other guise at some other difficult juncture of our life together." It recommended "patient theological dialogue on crucial issues of faith" and avoiding "easy fixes."
The faculty approved the statement at an April 14 meeting. The Rev. H. Frederick Reisz Jr., Southern president, said four absent faculty members added their approval to make it unanimous.
"This statement was unanimously approved by the Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary Faculty: President H. Frederick Reisz, Jr., Dean Thomas E. Ridenhour, Dr. Phillip Baker, Dr. Agneta Enermalm, Dr. Tony S. Everett, Dr. Lynn A. Feider, Dr. Mary B. Havens, Dr. Robert D. Hawkins, Dr. W. Arthur Lewis, Dr. Lamontte M. Luker, Dr. Nicholas K. Mays, Dr. Susan Wilds McArver, Dr. Brian K. Peterson, and Dr. David S. Yeago," it concluded.
In April 1999 the Southern faculty issued a statement urging the ELCA Churchwide Assembly to approve CCM. "The reasons to approve the document are numerous, and to our thinking, outweigh reasons for rejection," it said. -- -- --
The full text of the faculty statement will be available on the World Wide Web from the seminary's home page at http://www.ltss.edu/.

EDITORS: A copy of the text can also be obtained by writing to
President's Office, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary, 4202 N. Main
St., Columbia, SC 29203. The seminary's phone number is (803) 786-5150
and fax number is (803) 786-6499.

For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or NEWS@ELCA.ORG
http://listserv.elca.org/archives/elcanews.html