Lutherans Propose Delay in Consideration of Full Communion with Episcopal Church
Episcopal News Service. April 29, 1991 [91103]
Lutherans and Episcopalians in America may still move toward full communion, but it is going to take a bit more time.
The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) voted at its April meeting in Chicago to adopt a recommendation from the church's bishops to delay official consideration of proposals for full communion until 1993.
The proposals, contained in a Concordat of Agreement and released in January, stem from two decades of dialogues with the Episcopal Church, and would provide interchangeability of clergy and broad cooperation between the churches in their ministry.
The ELCA said it needed time to resolve serious internal issues -- including a major study on ministry -- before officially endorsing study of the proposals throughout the church. Since it was formed a few years ago, the ELCA has been reviewing its public statements on a wide range of social issues. It also faces a severe financial crisis that has prompted a restructure and reduction in national staff and programs.
The Church Council resolution, which now goes to the ELCA's Churchwide Assembly this summer, said there are "confessional matters of fundamental magnitude that require investigation of doctrine and practice."
Early response to the proposals has included some sharp criticism from Lutherans, who contend that adopting the proposals might compromise Lutheran theological positions, especially those on the role of bishops. The proposals require incorporation of future Lutheran bishops into the historic episcopate.
ELCA Bishop Herbert Chilstrom shared with the council a letter he wrote recently to the Episcopal Church's Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning. In the letter, Chilstrom told Browning that he has received substantial reaction and "almost all of it has been quite negative."
In a statement released after the ELCA bishops recommended delay, Browning said that "it is understandable" that the ELCA "must focus on the ordering of its institutional life." Browning said that he recognized the need for Lutherans to have "an appropriate time to give undivided attention to these important matters."
Browning urged a joint meeting between the Episcopal Church's Standing Commission on Ecumenical Relations and the ELCA's Standing Committee for Ecumenical Affairs. A meeting has subsequently been scheduled for June. Browning and Chilstrom will meet in mid-May to plan a strategy.
Ecumenical officers of the two churches said that they are not discouraged by a prospective delay. "A change in the timetable does not alter our commitment to seek a closer relationship," said the Rev. Dr. William Norgren of the Episcopal Church at a recent meeting of the National Workshop on Christian Unity.
Norgren told Lutheran and Episcopal ecumenical officers that it was important to remember why the churches had been in dialogue all those years -- to strengthen the church. Instead of eroding the identity of the two churches, Norgren pointed out, each church will emerge stronger.
Dr. William Rusch, the ELCA's ecumenical officer, told participants at the workshop that study of the proposals has already begun and will pick up some momentum as soon as they are published, in the next few weeks. "The genie is already out of the bottle," he said.
Rusch even held out some hope that the Churchwide Assembly could still approve formal study. "The convention is independent-minded and can do what it wants to do." Even if a delay is approved, Rusch said the extra time could improve the climate and make it somewhat easier to deal with the proposals later.