The issues in the LCA are similar to that of UK Anglicans and their debate over women bishops. Women’s ordination, of course, is inevitable in the LCA, but will Synod have clarity and strength enough to be clear that there cannot be a ‘church within a church’ where women are not recognised. The following article describes how those opposed to women bishops were intent on non-recognition, non-collaboration, non-acceptance, and in some cases non-communion.
One of our challenges is for women to even be included in the coming debate at Pastors’ Conference in 2015, which will discuss the issue and make recommendations to Synod. It is an absurd situation to be in, equal to male parliamentarians 100 years ago voting on whether women should have the vote.
The presence of women, to ensure accountability, is essential to the integrity of any debate that decides the future of women’s participation in the LCA. It is far too easy to ‘other’ women (used as a verb) without consulting them.
The Christian message is at heart about reconciliation. But the church which is supposed to proclaim and live that message has often failed to do so in its own life and example, sometimes spectacularly.
The row over women bishops in the Church of England will be seen by many as another example of this, which is why Archbishop of Canterbury designate Justin Welby – no stranger to conflict zones – was so keen to emphasise at General Synod this afternoon that the vocation of the C of E ought to be “how to develop the mission of the church in a way that demonstrates that we can manage diversity of view without division; diversity in amity, not diversity in enmity.”
That is a right, bridge-building note to strike. But it did not work with the hardened minority. For the reality is that it takes two sides to build a bridge, and one of the difficulties of the current situation is that some opponents of full women’s ministry in the Church of England clearly want to be able to maintain a ‘church within a church’ based on non-recognition, non-collaboration, non-acceptance, and in some cases non-communion.
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Tags: Archbishop of Canterbury, Canterbury, Church, Church of England, England, General Synod, Justin Welby, LCA, Ordination of women
Yesterday, at General Synod, the President again imposed his will on the LCA. He has been true to his word that women’s ordination would not occur on his shift.
After the recommendation coming from General Pastors’ Conference that women’s ordination should be discussed at General Convention, that is exactly what occurred. Pr Semmler had to allow discussion because of this resolution, but that’s all it was – a discussion.
To begin with, he gave the floor to a couple of men from the Dialogue Group on forming consensus to report on their progress, but they offered nothing to help delegates in their deliberations. The main thing they reported was that they had to learn to listen to each other.
In the ‘discussion’ conservative pastors knew that they didn’t need to speak. This is also attested to by the fact that a conservative pastor commented to a youth on Sunday at NOVO (youth camp) that they (conservative pastors) had figured out a way to get around the women’s ordination issue. Around 18 people spoke in favour and 3 or 4 spoke against.
After Pr Semmler distributed one of his epistles to the Church against women’s ordination, the ‘discussion’ was brought to an end with the declaration that Pr John Henderson was the successful candidate for the position of bishop (nomenclature voted on earlier in the afternoon). (Tues morning, Greg Pietsch was announced as the new Assistant Bishop.)
The following now need to be considered as we discern how the Holy Spirit would have us act:
- the disregard for laity,
- the lack of transparency,
- the refusal to debate St Stephen’s motion,
- the refusal to allow a vote,
- the refusal to facilitate the will of delegates,
- the dishonest claim that “in effect it is the people in the pews, rather than church leaders, who determine the direction of our church”,
- the duplicitous communication from Pr Semmler,
- the sly sidelining of an issue that is important to the vast majority of members (not just delegates), and
- the hypocritical use of Where Love Comes to Life as a General Convention theme.
The manipulation by Pr Semmler is so similar to that of Pres. Robert Preuss in the LCMS who took control of the St Louis seminary that used historical-biblical research to inform their thinking. (You can guess that the conservatives wanted to use Scriptural literalism as their only source of inspiration.) That piece of history, which led to Seminex (seminary in exile) is reported in Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod: A Conflict That Changed American Christianity by James Burkee. The following is a review from Amazon.com
Power, Politics, and the Missouri Synod follows the rise of two Lutheran clergymen – Herman Otten and J. A. O. Preus – who led different wings of a conservative movement that seized control of a theologically conservative but socially and politically moderate church denomination (LCMS) and drove “moderates” from the church in the 1970s. The schism within what was then one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States ultimately reshaped the landscape of American Lutheranism and fostered the polarization that characterizes today’s Lutheran churches.Burkee’s story, supported by personal interviews with key players and church archives sealed for over twenty years, is about more than Lutheranism. The remaking of this one Lutheran denomination reflects a broader movement toward theological and political conservatism in American churches – a movement that began in the 1970s and culminated in the formation of the “Religious Right.”
In closing we note how the resistance to women’s participation in the LCA is dominated by clergy. The following comment from
Burkee about the LCMS equally applies to the LCA, “Through (their) inability to draw lay support to the conservative movement’s delegate- and convention-focussed strategy, the movement’s Pyrrhic victory had little to do with lay support.”
Tags: dialogue group, General Convention, General Synod, James Burkee, LCMS, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Lutheranism, Pr Mike Semmler, Semmler, theology, women's ordination
For today just the bones.
General Pastors’ Conference last week discussed the topic of women’s ordination. There was a small majority vote that Pastors Conference recommends to General Convention that women’s ordination be discussed.
Today, Monday 22nd April, at approximately 3:30pm Adelaide time, women’s ordination will be discussed.
Your prayers are appreciated for a transparent and forward looking debate ‘where loves come to life’.
Tags: 2013, Concordia College, current-events, General Convention, General Synod, human-rights, Immanuel College, LCA, Lutheranism, politics, religion, SA, theology, women's ordination
Ah, don’t you love the intrigue!
The president’s newsletter just received advice that the GCC resolution on the ordination of women has been changed:
(from the President’s Page 10th April)
It has been noted that a draft proposal for Synod agenda item 2.4 Report from the Consensus on Women’s Ordination Dialogue Group was incorrectly printed on pg 28 of the Book of Reports. Please replace this with the correct proposal as follows:
2.4 BE IT RESOLVED that the Church:
- receive the progress report of the Ordination Dialogue Group;
- supports continued study of the matter of hermeneutics (the interpretation of scripture) arising from the October 2011 symposium on this topic;
- supports study of what consensus means, for the sake of unity in the LCA as a confessional church
- request GCC to ensure that a report with recommendations be presented to both GPC and the next Synod
Here is what the earlier version said:
2.4 BE IT RESOLVED that the church adopt the following approach to the question of the ordination of both genders:
- Receive the interim report of the Dialogue Group studying consensus on this issue
- Request the Dialogue Group continue their work
- Address the hermeneutic question arising from the a symposium convened by the Church in October 2011
- Study and present to the Church what ‘consensus’ means in our confessional church.
- On completion of the above, place the matter before either the Commission on Theology and Inter-church Relations, or another group of theologians of the Church as appointed by the College of Presidents in agreement with the General Church Council, for study by the pastorate and the laity of the church and as per the Syndocal process place it back on the agenda of synod if that is the wish of the Church.
The revised motion seems to indicate, amongst other things, that the Dialogue Group is to be terminated and that the side-stepping of CTICR is to end. Note how the reference to CTICR or another group of theologians has been deleted. Pr Mike Semmler for some years has side-lined CTICR when it does not bring down recommendations that he supports. He has therefore done his best to minimise their impact.
It seems to us that the President’s advisors have pulled him into line. Perhaps the time has come for them when enough is enough. Who knows?
Tags: Church, College of Presidents, dialogue group, General Synod, LCA, Ordination, Ordination of women, Pr Mike Semmler, Synod, theology, women's ordination
Parish worker, Sophie Louise, shares her disillusion with the way female workers are treated within the Church.
… There is one thing in particular that has always confused me about the fact that the LCA does not ordain women. In human development studies I was taught that childhood and adolescence are the formative years. If this is true then what children and youth learn about God during these years is of the utmost importance. I have always found it strange that I and many other women are allowed to teach God’s Word to children and young people at this critical time in life and yet once they turn 18 it’s as if we no longer have a right to continue to teach them. It just does not make sense to me. …
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Tags: Australia, General Synod, God, Jesus, LCA, Lutheranism, Sophie Louise, women's ordination, Youth
Katie and Martin's Blog on the Lutheran Church in Australia 