Defeat

269 yes, 145 no.  423 were registered.  That comes to around 63.6% – 4% short of the 67%.  The motion to allow both the ordination of women and men was defeated.  (67% being needed as this was deemed to a significant theological matter.)  Someone calculated that it failed by 13 votes.

We are now in the position where 37% of the church (extrapolating from the number of delegates) have authority over the other 63%. The LCA has shot itself in the foot.  Further women and men will be unable to remain in this Church, the pain being too great to continue.  Reports are that laity voted strongly in favour of women’s ordination while the clergy were not as supportive.  The clergy (many of them) are the problem in our Church.

Ex-President Mike Semmler, broke with convention and spoke from the floor, against women’s ordination.  Well, there’s no surprises there, despite his statement from previous years that people will be surprised when they learn his position.  He wanted speakers to be given more time to speak, to be able to speak again and he questioned the authority of the Chair, Bishop John Henderson.  His proposals, though time consuming, were roundly dismissed.

Thus far, there have been no initiatives from Bishop John Henderson to resolve this impasse.   (The following may contradict this earlier statement if the initiative has come from the Bishop. ) Ironically he is versed in the process of consensus making.  A motion was passed asking CTICR to prepare a theological case for the ordination of women (strange – they’ve done it twice before haven’t they?) for the 2018 Synod.  Can you believe it?  2018!  Another three years?  Already too many women and men have passed away waiting for women’s ordination.  This has been on the agenda of Synod since 2000 and another three years is unreasonable for many.

The following was tweeted by the #lcasynod folk:

“We resolved to enter into a period of careful theological reflection and pastoral work to assist in maintaining unity and harmony”.

We have had generations to work on this and certainly since ‘Ordination, We’re Listening’ was established after Bishop Henderson’s installation.  Unity and harmony cannot be maintained when the minority have sway – thjs is aptly described as oppression.  Such lack of preparation is disappointing, given the open conversation we have all been encouraged to enter into.

Life in our Church does not continue as usual.  We must all consider our response.

 

The Day of the Vote

This day, God willing, will change the face of our Lutheran Church.  Our national convention votes on the ordination of women again.  In previous votes it has been close but in the reign of President Semmler, convention delegates were harangued to be very careful with the threat of schism.  This time around, under Bishop John Henderson, the conversation and Bible studies have been lengthy and open.  The last two days have seen round tables discussion and the debate.  The vote happens today.

We pray that women will be accepted as the pastoral leaders that they already are.  We pray when women’s ordination is rolled out that very quickly they will be accepted by those who struggle with the idea of women as pastors.  We do know that in other churches most of that resistance has faded away, especially in times of grief, when people have experienced the pastoral care that women provide.

The vote will happen any time in the next few hours.  Pray for us.

 

Prayer Vigil for Women’s Ordination at St Stephen’s

St Stephen’s Lutheran Church, 152 Wakefield Street, Adelaide, has a prayer vigil on the day of the debate on women’s ordination (Friday 2nd October, 2015).  Sorry for the late notice.  It will be held from 9am until 7pm.  Consider joining the vigil to pray for our Church, for our women, for our leadership and for delegates from around Australia and New Zealand. Thanks to St Stephen’s Working Party on Women’s Ordination for organising the day.

Further news, (thanks, Jeff): Doctor Andrew Pfeiffer has been elected Assistant Bishop.  The politics of that is interesting.  Doctor Pfeiffer went to Concordia Seminary, Fort Wayne, IN, USA (a seminary of the Lutheran Church – MIssouri Synod), to study for his doctorate.  Ever since, he has strongly opposed women’s ordination.  While at this stage he does not exercise much influence on this matter, in our opinion it is not healthy to sit too close to the LC-MS, which has removed clergy from their role of pastors for publicly supporting the ordination of women. Matthew Becker example  (Type “LCMS” into the search field of this blog – top right – for more on LCMS.)

Then there’s this official tweet today: “#lcasynod requested that CTICR study the scriptural and theological understanding of subordination and the role of male headship in marriage”.  Sigh!  Male headship?  Are we really that out of touch with our world?   What a huge waste of energy!   CTICR studies its subject matter in fine detail and there will be months and months of discussion and debate.  It would seem more appropriate to be discussing how the LCA might offer leadership against the obscenity of The Coalition and Labor’s common platform of stopping the boats, or on climate change.

Synod has agreed to commit more resources to keeping children safe – a good initiative against domestic violence!   We understand that some people are maintaining that it’s still okay to hit children.  Ah, well!  Change comes slowly, but you knew that, especially if you are a woman in the LCA.

The #lcasynod Twitter feed today has mostly been official updates.  If you are at Synod your perspectives via Twitter would be appreciated.  Just include the following: “#lcasynod”  (without the quotation marks)