In a move that should surprise no one these days, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has voted to allow sexually active gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy. While this may sound like a ground-moving decision it is in reality only a minor shift from their previous stance of allowing gay and lesbian clergy who are celibate. So congratulations are in order to those Lutheran clergy who are now officially allowed by their denomination to have sex.
While this topic is ripe for discussion I am going to avoid it for a more distressing topic… the authority of Scripture and the interpretation thereof.
“For us, this isn’t about sex,” said Ryan Schwarz, a lay leader in a conservative group within the ECLA that opposed the proposal to allow gay clergy in same-sex relationships. “It is a matter of the authority of the Word. The entire expanse of the Bible witnesses to God’s plan . . . which is the lifelong marriage of a man and a woman.”
“There’s no question about the authority of Scripture” in the Lutheran Church, said Phil Soucy, a spokesman for Lutherans Concerned, a pro-gay-rights group within the ECLA. “But we certainly can debate the interpretation of Scripture… The very idea that questioning someone else’s interpretation of Scripture constitutes an assault on the authority of Scripture is nonsense.”
While well said, I believe Mr. Soucy is well-mistaken. They are two sides of the same coin.
One would be remiss to believe that clergy do not recognize that fact.
USA Today writes that “The Rev. Katrina Foster, a pastor in the Metropolitan New York Synod, pointed out that the [ELCA] church has ordained woman and divorced people in violation of a literal interpretation of scripture.”
So it comes down to your method of interpretation of Scripture, the basic building blocks that define one’s entire belief system. Whether you interpret the Bible literally, figuratively, allegorically, or otherwise, it DOES matter.
In discussing the issue, USAToday’s Faith and Reason blogger Cathy Lynn Grossman says, “No matter how the ELCA votes… it’s always about the Bible. The Lutherans, after all, take their name from the man who rallied the Reformation under the cry of Solo Scriptura (the Bible alone) in his break from the Catholic Church.”
I wonder if someone should remind the Lutherans that Luther believed in a literal interpretation of the Bible…