Director’s Note: Many thanks to Bob Benne, esteemed NALC theologian and friend of Lutheran CORE, for his review of the history of the whole issue of “Bound Conscience.”

The 2022 ELCA Churchwide Assembly passed two resolutions that called for reconsideration of
the 2009 social statement, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.”

• Reconsideration #1 called for a review of specific text references in light of the 2015
  Supreme Court ruling regarding same sex marriage and “public acceptance of marriage of
  same-gender and gender-non-conforming couples.”
  
• Reconsideration #2 called for a reconsideration of the “church’s current concept of the
  four positions of bound conscience” found on pages 19-21 of “Human Sexuality: Gift and
  Trust.”

The task force that was appointed to work on these reconsiderations had recommendations for
the 2025 Churchwide Assembly regarding Reconsideration # 1. They described these
recommendations as “simply editorial,” even though they amounted to no less than a complete
embrace of every form of sexual orientation and gender identity.

The task force is now working on its recommendations for Reconsideration # 2, which will be
voted on at the 2028 Churchwide Assembly. Given everything that is happening and the
direction in which everything is going, it is hard to imagine that providing a place of dignity,
belonging, and respect for traditional views and those who hold them will survive.

Most Lutherans know of Martin Luther’s famous appeal to “bound conscience” at the Diet of Worms in 1521.  He insisted: “Unless I am convinced by the testimony of the Scriptures or by clear reason… my conscience is captive to the Word of God.”  His appeal to “bound conscience” meant that his theological and inner moral compass were not free but held captive by the authority of Scripture and clear reason.  For Luther, this wasn’t about subjective feeling but about obedience to God’s revealed truth, a profound conviction that led him to refuse to recant his writings, seeing it as right and safe only to follow God’s Word.   

There are no doubt many uses of the phrase in the history of Lutheranism since the 16^th century, but the use we want to examine is its use in the midst of a controversy in the ELCA over the nature of marriage and its attendant sexual ethics.  While we will focus on the ELCA since 1989, it is important to note that agitation to change traditional teachings on those subjects was already present in the merging churches—the American Lutheran Church, the Lutheran Church in America, and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches—especially in their youth divisions, as well as in their seminaries.

The Past

In the first Assembly of the ELCA in 1989, I roomed with a Virginia pastor who later became the Bishop of Virginia. He was assigned to attend the newly emerging youth organization. Every evening he would sorrowfully recount to me the ways that the adult leaders were propagandizing the youth into accepting practicing homosexual pastors and homosexual marriage.  We could already see what was to come in the new church.

Soon thereafter there were theological gatherings to resist the revisionism pushed by the new church and its Bishop, especially the Called to Faithfulness Conferences held in Northfield, Minnesota. By the turn of the century the newly organized Word Alone led many congregations out of the ELCA as a protest against its agreement with the Episcopal Church that all ordinations must be in the “apostolic succession,” which generally meant that Lutheran ordinations had to have an Episcopal Bishop among the presiders.  Those churches then became Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ.

Word Alone also sponsored the emergence of a protest movement against the moral revisionism of the ELCA.    I was present at its first gathering at St. Olaf College in 2003, which was organized and led by retired ELCA Bishop, Paull Spring.  Soon it took the name of Solid Rock and began organizing resistance to proposed changes in sexual ethics that would come about in the Churchwide Assembly of 2003. Solid Rock morphed into Coalition for Reform (CORE) with Roy Harrisville, Jr., as its executive.  Enough resistance was organized in both 2003 and 2005 that the revisionists did not get their way.  In 2005 a report noted that  “When Christians disagree about an ethical issue of this magnitude, one important category for determining the policy of the church may be the recognition that participants in this debate are disagreeing not out of pride or selfish desires, but because their consciences are bound to particular interpretations of Scripture and tradition. The careful way Luther approached moral dilemmas (e.g., in The Estate of Marriage [Luther’s Works 45: 17-49] or Whether Soldiers, Too, Can Be Saved [Luther’s Works 46: 93-137]) showed a genuine concern for the integrity of disputants.”  This report would become the groundwork for the “bound conscience” clause of 2009.

The Assembly of 2007 was supposed to be a truce concerning these issues, but at the end of the Assembly a Bishop proposed a successful amendment that no discipline should be used against those who were already disobeying church rules on sexual ethics.

After much work by a rather loaded task force on those issues, it proposed a social statement entitled Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, The statement turned out to be ambiguous about every crucial issue and passed by a single vote at 666.  The Assembly also passed provisions for allowing partnered gay pastors and gay marriage.

Though the task force that drafted Human Sexuality was loaded with revisionists, there was enough resistance that the “bound conscience” provision was inserted as a concession to the traditionalists and as a defensive move to prevent a wholesale rebellion in the ELCA.  It recognized four “conscience-bound” positions that Lutherans could faithfully hold on the matter of same-sex relationships, ranging from full opposition to full affirmation of same-sex marriage and the ordination of LGBTQ+ clergy.

When hearings were held about the provision during the Assembly of 2009, I attended one and posed the question about whether it was simply a sop to traditionalist pastors and congregations at the local level to prevent wholesale losses, but that it would not protect traditionalists in any other facet of the church.  That has turned out to be true.  The upper levels of the church have been purged of recalcitrants.

The provision has been crucial for maintaining a painful compromise within the ELCA amid diverse views on human sexuality at the local level. Though hundreds of congregations left after 2009, those traditionalist pastors and congregations that stayed sheltered under the bound conscience provision. I have taught a number of such pastors at the Lutheran Institute of Theology, but they are worried about the future.  One has already transferred to the NALC.

The Present

What is going on to make such pastors and their congregations apprehensive?  The ELCA has already edited the statement and its rules to allow for same sex marriage language and is contemplating a more systematic application of the diversity, equity, and inclusivity ideology, which would definitely not include those traditionalists who cannot agree with the LGBT gender agenda. They are the oppressors and should be silenced or expelled.  Further, the elite of the ELCA have committed themselves to new fervid anti-racist policies that signal panic about the loss of black members even after decades of affirmative action, including the election of a black man as Presiding Bishop.

Those moves certainly signal that the bound conscience provisions are in grave danger.  Further, the task force that has been organized to examine and propose future policy has a majority of “progressives” that are likely to favor a withdrawal of the bound conscience provision.  But it seems that such a proposal is some distance in the future.  Meanwhile, traditionalist pastors and congregations are in uneasy limbo.

The Future

My hunch is that the bound conscience clause will go. There are certainly many level-headed members of the ELCA who prudentially see what will happen:  lots of losses of pastors and congregation with no gains.  More perceptive folks will see the further accommodation of the ELCA to secular progressive culture, much like sister liberal mainline denominations have done. Such accommodation means continued decline.

However, I think the “commanding heights” of the ELCA will push forward with their agenda, including the abolishment of the bound conscience clause.  The ELCA will continue down the slippery slope of accommodation.  When we in CORE were defeated decisively in 2009, we wagered that the ELCA would be unable to say “no” to anything in the sexual revolution. To confirm that wager, it has even made the grave error of propagandizing for transgenderism for children.

There is a long shot chance that the elite themselves will not push their agenda so quickly, or that synod representatives at the ELCA Assembly of 2028 will rebel and resist. But it is more likely that the Assembly will be managed well by the dominant elite, as it has been in most of them. They will make sure that their agenda will prevail.  And there will be one more step away from the Lutheranism whose teachings on marriage and sexuality are clearly grounded in Scripture and Tradition, to which our bound consciences yet cling.

 

The 2022 ELCA Churchwide Assembly passed two resolutions that called for reconsideration of the 2009 social statement, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.”

• Reconsideration #1: A review of specific text references that “would consider the import that marriage legally is now a covenant between individuals;” review specific wording “in light of public acceptance of marriage of same-gender and gender-non-conforming couples;” and “consider references to diversity of family configurations.”
• Reconsideration #2: A fresh consideration of the “church’s current concept of the four positions of bound conscience” found on pages 19-21 of “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.”

The task force that has been appointed to work on these reconsiderations will have recommendations for the 2025 Churchwide Assembly regarding Reconsideration # 1.  They describe these recommendations as “simply editorial.”  After the 2025 Assembly the task force will begin work on Reconsideration # 2.  This work will include recommendations which have been described as substantive.

The task force has released draft edits related to the first reconsideration, and the public comment period on these draft edits is open until January 31.  The following resources can be found on www.elca.org/Reconsiderations.

• A copy of the entire social statement with draft edits underlined and highlighted
• A document with Explanations of the Draft Edits, which helps connect each draft edit to the authorization from the 2022 Churchwide Assembly
• A conversation guide for groups
• A survey for people to submit their feedback on the draft edits

The task force has also updated the FAQs on the webpage.  Most of the resources are available in Spanish and large-print.

The task force will review the feedback at its next meeting in mid-February.  You can email comments or questions directly to the task force at [email protected], but they would prefer that people fill out the survey at https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/8PMDXQM.

I am very grateful for the two opportunities I was given to have conversation via zoom with the two churchwide staff members who are working with the task force.  I found them very easy to talk with and very respectful of my views and concerns.  When I was asked what hopes I had for the process, I told them that I have no hopes for the process.  Rather it is obvious that from the beginning there have been powerful and preferred voices who have been working relentlessly to eliminate the provision for bound conscience and that if they do not succeed this time they will not stop until they eventually succeed.  Also I believe that when the ELCA does finally eliminate the provision for bound conscience, it will be committing a massive breach of trust. 

Please join with me in praying for the friend of Lutheran CORE who is a member of the task force.  Pray that he will be bold in his witness and clear, articulate, effective, and compelling in his contributions to the discussion.

I encourage friends of Lutheran CORE who are still in the ELCA to participate in this feedback process.  There are basically two things that I have to say about changes being recommended as part of Reconsideration # 1.  I have sent this communication to the leaders of the task force as my response.

Comment # 1

The original 2009 social statement was 48 pages in length.  The document containing recommendations related to Reconsideration # 1 is 51 pages in length.  True, the recommended changes are clearly highlighted and the “Explanation of the Draft Edits” is only 11 pages in length.  But why are ELCA social statements always so long, convoluted, and complex?  How many people – what percentage of people – do they really think will thoroughly and carefully read, analyze, and evaluate all those pages?  It is easy to wonder whether the reason for so much verbiage is to include things in all those words and pages that people will not catch.

Comment # 2 

I do not believe that the task force is being accurate when it calls the recommended changes in Reconsideration # 1 “simply editorial.”  Nor was a January 7 communication from the Theological Ethics Staff of the Office of the Presiding Bishop accurate when it described them as “small word changes that update the text without changing its meaning.”        

To support that claim I would point to the resolution’s calling for changes “in light of public acceptance of marriage of same-gender and gender-non-conforming couples.”  The key phrase is “gender non-conforming couples.”  The 2009 social statement affirmed publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same sex relationships.  The new wording being recommended goes beyond that as it considers “lifelong, monogamous relationships of same-gender or gender-diverse couples” (page 19 of the “Human Sexuality Social Statement Draft Edits”).  On the same page it speaks of “life-long, monogamous relationships between individuals of diverse sexes, genders, or sexualities.”  A footnote on that page defines “gender diverse” as encompassing “a wide diversity of identities and expressions in relationships between individuals, including gender non-conforming, non-binary, genderqueer, and transgender persons.”  That kind of change is far more than “simply editorial” and “small word changes” that do not change the meaning.    True, the recommended revised version still says, “The predominant historic Christian tradition has recognized marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman, reflecting Mark 10: 6–9” (page 15).  It also states, “The Lutheran Confessions assume and reflect this understanding of marriage” (pages 15-16).  But it is neither the Scriptures nor the Confessions that inform the recommended changes, but “public acceptance of marriage of same-gender and gender-non-conforming couples.”  Those with traditional views knew that the ELCA would not stop with what was approved in 2009.  Nor will it stop with what is now being recommended in this revised social statement.         

 

In the January 2022 issue of CORE Voice and the February 2022 letter from the director I had a two-part article entitled, “How Did It Happen?”, in which I explained how groups such as ReconcilingWorks have made use of the principles of community organizing so that they have been able to completely take over the ELCA with their LGBTQ+ values, priorities, and agenda.  A link to the article in the newsletter can be found here.  A link to the letter from the director can be found here. 

At the end of the second part I described the need for resources for parents, church leaders, and LGBTQ+ identified persons which are Biblically sound, scientifically based, and compassionate in their approach to matters pertaining to same-sex attraction and gender identity, and more broadly relating to sexuality and gender.   

Next month – June – the LGBTQ+ community will be celebrating Pride Month.  In anticipation of that event Lutheran CORE has gathered a list of resources that will provide Biblically sound and compassionate answers to such questions as, “What do I do if I am gay?” and “What should I do now that my child or friend has come out as gay?” 

We began the task of developing this list with the clear understanding that the Bible does not allow for same-sex sexual activity and/or misrepresenting one’s biological sex.  No resource that takes an LGBTQ+ affirming point of view would be included unless in that resource the LGBTQ+ affirming point of view is in dialogue with the traditional point of view regarding sexuality.

The goal in providing this list is to reach LGBTQ+ persons for Christ, to acknowledge their struggles with same-sex attraction and/or gender dysphoria, and to help them find a healthy way forward and assist them in their efforts to live biblically.

We do not believe that the Bible promises that same-sex attraction and/or gender dysphoria will disappear if only we will _____.   Rather we are reminded of how God did not remove Paul’s thorn in the flesh (whatever it might have been) in spite of his fervent prayers (2 Corinthians 12: 7-10), and we understand that the Christian life – this side of heaven – is a constant struggle between the flesh and the spirit, as Paul describes in Romans 7.  

The goal is to help same-sex attracted persons live according to a Biblical sexual ethic.  We acknowledge that some will choose to live a celibate life.  Some will marry a person of the opposite sex even though they still struggle with same-sex attractions. 

When working with transgender identified persons, regardless of the initial stance taken on identity markers, the end goal is to help them accept their biological sex. 

We commend these resources to you, and we pray that they will help all of us live in the spirit of what the apostle Paul wrote to the Romans –

“I appeal to you, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.”  (Romans 12: 1-2)

I find that usually I can anticipate fairly accurately with whom I will agree or disagree.  However, there are times when I am caught by surprise.  Such was the case with a public letter written by a member of the board of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM).  

On its website this organization describes its mission in this way: “Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries organizes queer seminarians and rostered ministers, confronts barriers and systemic oppression, and activates queer ideas and movements within the Lutheran Church.”

This is not the kind of organization that I would expect myself to find something to agree on with.  So how did that come about?

A few months ago in celebration of Pride Month (June) the ELCA posted a link to the document, A Lutheran Introduction to SOGIE by ReconcilingWorks.  SOGIE stands for Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Gender Expression.

Pastor Suzannah Porter, an ELCA pastor and member of the board of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, responded by commenting with concern that the ELCA was giving the impression that the whole church body is LGBTQ+ affirming, when in fact it is not, since there are congregations which hold to traditional sexual ethics with the church’s sanction.  Pastor Porter supported her statement by quoting the Bound Conscience policy which is a prominent part of the 2009 social statement, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.  That document described four different positions regarding same gender relationships, which it acknowledged that people within “this church” hold “with conviction and integrity.”  On the basis of “the bound conscience,” it said, “We . . . believe that this church . . . will include these different understandings and practices within its life as it seeks to live out its mission and ministry in the world.”  In other words, traditional views of human sexuality have the full endorsement and sanction of a social statement that was approved by no less an authority than an ELCA Churchwide Assembly. 

What happened after Pastor Porter sought to expose the ELCA’s dishonesty by revealing that the ELCA actually sanctions traditional views when it tries to give the impression that it is LGBTQ+ affirming?  Several things.

First, others replied to Pastor Porter’s comment with stories of lack of LGBTQ+ acceptance at various ELCA congregations.

Second, the ELCA deleted Pastor Porter’s comment – the only one, to her knowledge, that cited the Bound Conscience policy.  

Third, Pastor Porter responded in an angry public letter condemning the ELCA’s action.  She said, “It is Pride 2021 month, and I cannot be deleted today.” 

Here is more of what she said:

“ELCA, get back here and answer for yourself. On the post listing Reconciling Works SOGI resources (found here: http://bit.ly/elcasogipost) you deleted my comment clearly stating that projecting the image that the ELCA is welcoming and affirming of queer people without clearly stating that it is also our policy that the church can call queer people to repentance and refuse to recognize same sex marriage is misrepresentation.

“After now hundreds of people think the whole denomination is affirming, you deleted the only comment that clarified your policy. And erased the testimony of the replies of people who labored to tell their stories. But you seem to keep the reattempt when I stated my position on the board and council. This leads me to believe that misrepresentation was not just an accident, it was the goal.”

What is going on here?  A lot.

First, the ELCA sought to silence a leader in the LGBTQ+ community, in the name of being LGBTQ+ affirming.

Second, Lutheran CORE and ELM agree that honesty, integrity, and transparency are important.  What is actually done in the church needs to match what public statements say will be done and what official policy says should be done.

Third, the ELCA’s misrepresentation, as Pastor Porter calls it, is dishonest and unhelpful both to people seeking LGBTQ+ affirming communities and to those who hold to traditional sexual ethics.  It would be far better for the ELCA to be truthful and honest and consistent all across the board. 

Now, to be sure, Lutheran CORE and Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries would have totally opposite purposes for raising these issues.

Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries would want the ELCA to eliminate language that sanctions traditional views, while Lutheran CORE would want the ELCA to keep its promise and live up to its commitment to also honor and provide a place for traditional views. 

Nevertheless, Pastor Porter’s point stands, and we agree.  The ELCA’s actions were dishonest and unhelpful.    

Click here to read the ELCA’s original post.

Click here to read Pastor Porter’s original post.