August 19, 2009
ELCA Assembly Adopts 'Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust'
MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) -- The 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) adopted "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust" Aug. 19 with a vote of 676 (66.67 percent) to 338 (33.33 percent). The passing of the social statement on human sexuality required a two-thirds vote.
The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 17-23 at the Minneapolis Convention Center. About 2,000 people are participating, including 1,045 ELC voting members. The theme for the biennial assembly is "God's work. Our hands."
Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust is the denomination's 10th social statement. Social statements assist Lutherans in their moral deliberation, govern the ELCA's institutional policies and guide the church's advocacy work. The statement addresses a spectrum of topics relevant to human sexuality from a Lutheran perspective.
More details to follow.
Information about the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly can be found at http://www.elca.org/assembly on the Web.
For information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news
ELCA News Blog: http://www.elca.org/news/blog
4 comments:
Cool! Wow, that was about as close as you can get to 2/3! So is there as big a feeding frenzy set to be let loose in the ELCA as we had in the Episcopal Church?
Doug
Doug,
There ARE those who are talking of leaving, but their polity allows them to do that. A congregation can vote to leave the ELCA and either be an independant Lutheran church or join another Lutheran Synod like the Missouri Synod or the Wisconson Synod.
The parish next to mine has left already. There might be a couple more in our area who will, but the nastiness is not supported financially the way our neo-cons were.
Good. Now the press can go pick on the ELCA Lutherans for a while. As an expatriate LCMS, my prediction is, "Watch for LCMS and WELS to get a BUNCH of air time."
Woo Hoo, indeed.
Although I somehow doubt that the press finds Lutherans as "sexy" as Episcopalians. And I am QUITE happy with being sexy.
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