Friday, April 25, 2008

Independent Commissions

I'm sitting in on the Independent Commissions LC this morning. They haven't broken into sub-committees yet, and are dealing as a whole with a petition and resolution regarding the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). The petition states that the ELCA and the UMC would establish a joint committee to discuss how the two churches would work together. The resolution talks about the communion between the two, that we would basically work together in our Christian work, acknowledging the sacraments and ordination of the other.

My question is...so what if the ELCA recognizes homosexual ordination? (I kinda doubt it, just because of the name, Evangelical, I assume they take the more conservative position). But, if the ELCA chose to accept the ordination of homosexuals, as a result of this resolution, we would be forced to regognize the validity of that ordination.

Pretty cool. Again, doubting it will be an issue, certainly not this year, but still, pretty cool.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

First, thanks so much for blogging so regularly - it's extremely helpful for those of us unable to be at GC. Additionally, I imagine that it should be helpful for other GC delegates who can only be in one LC meeting at a time!

Secondly, I wanted to clarify the "evangelical" in ELCA, which is actually the most "mainline" of all Lutheran bodies. Those in the Lutheran tradition - since the Reformation - have generally used the E-word to distinguish themselves from Catholics, Reformed (i.e. Calvinist & Zwinglian), and other traditions...and not as an ideological position contra the so-called "mainline."

Secondly, that is insightful of you to consider the future implications of "full communion," i.e. recognition of ELCA clergy. This is indeed a key issue...the Roman Catholic "Pastoral Provision" actually allows for married priests who come from the Episcopal Church. Yet, interestingly, this does not apply to women clergy from the Episcopal Church!

Lastly, I would like to encourage you to support the two petitions regarding full communion with the ELCA. This is a historic opportunity for us to work in the Spirit to heal the brokenness within the Body of Christ.

Again, thanks for blogging!

Rachel said...

Thanks for clarifying! I knew I was only speaking from my limited knowledge of the conotation of the word - so i appreciate you letting me know the truth behind the name.

It is interesting how we pick and choose the issues we want to adopt regarding groups of people we like, and refuse the same issues with groups of people we don't.

I'm not a voting delegate, but I do support the full communion with the ELCA. I think it's another step to creating a union in the Christian faith that currently doesn't exist.