Erring On The Side Of Grace

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's Annual Churchwide Assembly met in Minneapolis the week of August 17-23, 2009. One of the most stirring and controversial topics that was discussed and taken to vote was the ordination of gay and lesbian Christians.

During the week, the ELCA's voting members adopted, after much debate, proposals to direct changes in the ELCA's ministry policies, making it possible for people in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships to serve as ELCA associates in ministry, clergy, deaconesses and diaconal ministers.

While the language used is certainly a lot of hard-to-decipher church jargon, it's a huge decision that has the potential to split the Lutheran Church.

Of course the arguments for and against this change in policy are numerous. Some say it's clear that homosexuality is a sin, according to the Bible. Therefore, churches that ordain gays and lesbians are, in a sense, condoning sin. Others will say that the big picture of the Gospel is acceptance and respect for one another. Still others will point out that Jesus spoke out against divorce, yet churches allow divorced persons to serve as clergy.

As a Lutheran, I take an ironic stance on the subject. Bill Maher, in his recent documentary, Religulous, stated that he, when it came to belief in God, was on the side of, "I don't know." He found it very troubling that so many Christians hold a without-a-doubt certainty in regards to God and the afterlife. Though he's an atheist and I'm a Christian, I very much agree with his viewpoint. I believe in God, but I very much don't know where to place my feet on controversial religious issues.

And I'm perfectly okay with that.

We are all fooling ourselves if we believe that everyone we worship with on Sunday mornings has the same views as us. We all interpret Scripture differently and that's a good thing. That's the beauty of the Bible. In his epistles, Paul says multiple times to live in harmony with one another. We can worship side by side, regardless of our differing viewpoints.

Some will undoubtedly say that Scripture gives clear instructions on the type of person that can preside over a church. This is true, but is the apostle Paul's list exhaustive? After all, Paul writes that "the overseer must be...the husband of but one wife." Does this mean that single men (or women) are disqualified? There are many ways to examine the subject. At times I wonder if we take guidelines that Paul gave in the New Testament and turn them into inflexible laws. Jesus respected the law, but didn't want it to cause people to stumble and miss the point of God's love.

While some will choose to leave the Evangelical branch of the Lutheran Church, I hope that they will think further into the implication of such a decision. For instance, all believers identify themselves as "Christians." Still, all "Christians" will interpret the Bible differently and live out their life in ways that can contradict Christ's teachings. Do we then, therefore, break away from this group known as "Christians"? Of course not. We hold on. We stay the course. Just because some Lutherans believe in the ordination of homosexuals doesn't mean that all Lutherans have to agree to this. That's why the decision included a term called bound conscience. Reverend Dr. Timothy Wengert described bound conscience to the 2009 ELCA Assembly in this way:

"Respect for the bound conscience does not mean that one can simply declare one’s conscience to be bound to a particular interpretation of Scripture, and then make everybody else deal with it. Respecting bound conscience is not a form of selfishness or an excuse to sin. Instead, it means that the very people who hold different, opposing viewpoints on a particular moral issue based upon their understanding of Scripture, tradition and reason must recognize the bound conscience of the other, of their neighbor who disagrees with them, and then work in such ways as not to cause that other person to reject the faith and fellowship in Word and Sacrament."

Again, I don't know where I stand. My typical modus operandi in these situations is to err on the side of grace. We are all sinners, yet Christ died for us. We're all bastards, yet Christ loves us. This love is bigger than we can imagine. In trying to obey the Bible's teachings, we sometimes get entangled in the law and forget to simply love one another. Who is right and who is wrong? A better question might be, "am I showing love by my attitudes and actions or are my actions not showing love?"