The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) took their first steps to developing a social statement on human sexuality for the 5-million member denomination by 2007, on 18-20 February 2005. The meeting, held at the church's Chicago headquarters, brought together the 14-member task force that earlier in the year released a report on homosexuality that took three years to draft.

According to ELCA news, the task force "expressed serious concerns" about the quality of a proposed social statement on human sexuality on such a brief period of time; the statement, if it is to be ready for consideration in 2007, must be drafted and distributed by January 2006.

"We are very aware of the brief timeline," said the Rev. Margaret G. Payne, chair of the task force of the ELCA Studies on Sexuality and bishop of the ELCA New England Synod, Worcester, Mass. "One of the things we wrestled mightily with at this meeting was the question of whether or not we can in fact do the quality of work and the kind of study needed to produce a social statement for that timeline."

According to Payne, the taskforce is not even sure of how deep the statement needs to be in its relation to human sexuality and homosexuality.

Through the studies "we had asked people to recommend what they think should be included [in the social statement], and there was just an enormous list of issues and topics. Therefore, we did some serious thinking about what the scope of a social statement needs to be and whether or not it can in fact be completed in the given timeline," said Payne.

"At this point, we are bringing to the board of the ELCA Division for Church in Society and to the Church Council a proposal to see if there might not be some more flexibility to do the kind of work we feel we need to do to get it done," Payne said. The council set the 2007 date for the completion of the social statement, "so that's the body that will decide whether or not they feel this actually can be done," she said to ELCA news.

During their mid-February meeting, the 14 member group discussed the nature of sexuality in relation to society, and discussed ways the church can protect the vulnerable. They also talked about the systems of society that turns people into "objects for abuse and for sale as sexual commodities."

The next meeting of the task force will be at the Chicago headquarter in Sept. 23-25.


For more information, visit: http://www.elca.org/faithfuljourney/




Pauline J. Chang
Ecumenical Press