I did the bullet treatment on Braaten's critique:
• “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust” and “Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies,” A Critique by Carl E. Braaten
• Familiar Lutheran language may dispose Lutherans to accept it, but they are mostly an ornamental covering that hides its egregious departure from the biblical, doctrinal, and ethical teachings. . .would constitute a radical departure from the overwhelming consensus that has prevailed in historic Christianity.
• No real theology in this social statement [only] descriptive statements.
• We must demonstrate that what we assert is true on the basis of Holy Scripture in continuity with the classical creeds and confessions which the ELCA accepts in its Constitution.
• There is no biblical exegesis in this. . .For example, the statement refers to the “seven texts” in the Bible that specifically address the issue of homosexual behavior. No effort is made to explain or interpret these texts. They are not identified or quoted, let alone exegeted or interpreted. . .This social statement does not take Scripture seriously, and does not even try. Nor does it take church tradition seriously. . .This is the kind of evidence a sister Lutheran Church can use to bolster its nasty accusation that the ELCA is heterodox.
• It is difficult to have any confidence in the theological competence of this Task Force that shows such utter confusion on theological method.
• This social statement is not reluctant to talk about sin. . .But it depicts a God without wrath and without judgment. . . God is a prisoner of his own love. . .This document no doubt represents the idea of God held by the Task Force; it most certainly does not faithfully reflect the Lutheran understanding of God.
• In Lutheran theology the Word of God meets us in two forms, as law and as gospel. And it is important to make the proper distinction. The summary of the law is love to God and neighbor. This summary, however, does not nullify the force of the individual laws and commandments of God. They are binding on the people of God, the church of Jesus Christ. In our first critique we accused the social statement of repeating the typical “Lutheran heresy” that reared its ugly head at the time of the Reformation and against which Luther fought with all his might and mane. That is the heresy of antinomianism. This social statement never brings it up, never mentions the word, and the charge is never refuted. Why? The answer is that this social statement collapses the three uses of the law into two, admitting that it “streamlines its discussion of law by focusing solely on the two uses.” (“Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” p. 6, n. 8 ) Since it is the third use of the law that is at stake when the church discusses ordaining clergy involved in homosexual behavior, this use of the law should have been treated at length, and not swallowed up into the first two, neither of which lies at the center of the churchwide controversy.
• But there is an even more serious misinterpretation of the law that bears upon the unity of the church. The statement makes a number of questionable assertions, such as: “We believe that the way we order our lives in matters of sexuality, although important for us as people of faith, is not central to the Gospel itself.” (“Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” line 300) Here is another: “Thus, we realize that this church’s deliberations related to human sexuality do not threaten the center of our faith.” (line 326) And another: “The task force recognizes the deep love that all hold for this church and the shared commitment to remaining together in spite of differences on these matters.” (“Report and ecommendation,” line 225) And another: “In this regard the task force believes that, as this is a matter of God’s civil realm, ‘God’s left hand,’ this church is free to live with a diversity of opinions in this matter.” (“Report and Recommendation,” line 465) What the task force is asserting in these statements is that matters having to do with the laws and commandments of God, and not with the core principles of the gospel, cannot be church-dividing and are not basic to church unity. Matters that fall under the rubric of the “left hand of God,” namely, the will and rule of God in the orders of creation (political, economic, and social structures, including marriage, family, and sexuality), are not central to the gospel as such and therefore cannot be foundational for church unity. The Task Force is mistaken. The church is founded upon the Word of God, which includes what it believes about God’s activity in both creation and redemption, both law and gospel, both the kingdom on the left and on the right. The church is not founded on only one half of the Word of God. Consider this: the Lutheran World Federation raised the task of resisting apartheid in South Africa to a matter of status confessionis. This meant that opposing apartheid becomes a necessary implication of the church’s confession of faith. The white Lutheran congregations protested that the racial struggles in South Africa had nothing to do with the gospel, but only with the kingdom of God on the left hand. Ergo, the struggle for racial justice, whatever side one takes on the issue, cannot constitute a status confessionis for church fellowship. If the LWF was right in its declaration, it shows that the gospel cannot be separated from the law, the kingdom on the right from the kingdom on the left. Lutheran Churches in the United States faced the same issue in the struggle for civil rights when the system of racial segregation meant that Blacks and Whites were not welcome to celebrate Holy Communion together. The Lutheran Churches in Germany under Hitler were confronted by the same problem. The theologians supporting National Socialism declared that its anti-Semitic policies regarding the Jews have nothing to do with the gospel, therefore they have no bearing on church unity and fellowship. The Lutherans in Chile under General Pinochet faced the same kind of issue. The Task Force is unrealistic to believe that the majority of members in the ELCA will so easily separate the law and the gospel, the left hand and the right hand kingdoms of God. Separating the law and the gospel, the two integral forms of the Word of God, is as pernicious in church life as confusing or equating them.
• The Task Force nowhere acknowledges that many pastors and congregations, anticipating that the ELCA was heading in the direction of ordaining same-gendered pastors, have already left the ELCA, and many others are lining up at the door ready to make their exit.. .many pastors and congregations will choose not to leave, but to remain and protest as a confessing movement.
• The historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions have recognized marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman [but] they do more than that. They define marriage not merely as a human institution that has evolved through the centuries but as an institution ordained by God. God is the author of marriage. Should not that be the first thing that the church says about marriage?
• The church has always taught that, like their many heterosexual brothers and sisters who happen not to have found the right person to marry, homosexual persons are called to a vocation of celibacy. Many have responded and lived faithfully according to that call. The Task Force is now proposing that a life of sexual relations with persons of the same gender is open to the ordained clergy of the ELCA. [However] the issue is not orientation but behavior. . .What do those qualifications for the ordination of homosexuals mean? What does “publicly accountable” mean? This is a desideratum that has proved to be unworkable even among heterosexual pastors? Pastors by the hundreds up and leave their spouses with virtual impunity. Where is the “public accountability?” None to speak of. What would it mean to hold practicing homosexuals publicly accountable? What does “lifelong” mean? The marriage vow used to mean “as long as life shall last.” Now it has become “as long as love shall last.” How long is “lifelong?” [The] category of ordained clergy who are supposed to enter into a “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender, committed relationship” is an arbitrary concoction of the Task Force. On close inspection its criteria do not even hold for heterosexual clergy.
• The Task Force is correct in observing numerous times that there is no consensus in the ELCA on the rostering of homosexual persons in same-gender relationships. The Task Force postulates that the difference between the traditionalists and revisionists is a matter of conscience. The statement asserts that there are “differing and conscience-bound understandings about the place of such relationships within the Christian community.” (“Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” lines 607 ff). This is a specious non-theological appeal to conscience. Of course, when facing a critical moral decision, it goes without saying that persons should follow their conscience. What else should they do? But that does not mean that one’s subjective conscience is right. I have my conscience, you have yours. So what? The question is, what is right in the sight of God? Has God not said anything about sex, marriage, and family, so that we are left in the dark to follow our own subjective feelings? For the church private personal conscience does not have the last word. It needs to be instructed and illuminated by the Word and Spirit of God. Luther said he was bound by his conscience; it was bound by the Word of God. It is the church’s responsibility to enlighten conscience, to teach the Word of God. This social statement fails to be a teaching document of the church. It professes not to know the difference between right and wrong on crucial matters of human sexuality. If reflects the cultural Zeitgeist, the spirit of the age. The church has spent a million dollars to be informed by this Task Force that there is no consensus in the church on human sexuality. Since there is no consensus in the church, why not keep the status quo? Why not follow the sage advice, when in doubt, stick with the tradition?
• The recommendation of this Task Force to accept practicing homosexuals for ordination does not necessarily follow from the social statement, “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust.” This statement states that all of us in the ELCA should show deep respect for the conscience-bound beliefs of those with whom we disagree. Luther showed little respect for the beliefs of Erasmus of Rotterdam when he wrote his diatribe, The Bondage of the Will. . . Athanasius showed little respect for Arius who denied the divinity of Christ. Augustine show little respect for Pelagius who taught that the human will is free in relation to God and the offer of salvation. . .Every heretic in the church was convinced by his conscience that his doctrine was true, even biblical.
• Amazingly this Task Force claims that those who advocate for changing the ELCA policy regarding practicing homosexuals “affirm the same biblical and confessional doctrines as the advocates for present policies.” (“Report and Recommendation,” line 151) No they don’t. Otherwise, the proposed social statement and its appended recommendation would not have set loose such an avalanche of negative criticisms throughout the church, including this one.
• The ELCA is at the crossroads. The Task Force has not helped to enlighten the church as to what is right or wrong.. . .There is an authority crisis in the Lutheran Church glaringly exposed by the fiasco of having to deal with the report and recommendations of another theologically challenged Task Force.
• The acceptance of the Task Force’s “Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies” would return the ELCA to the kind of individualistic congregationalism that characterized American Lutheranism during the 1900’s. . .the ELCA was moving toward a higher ecclesiology that aims to manifest the Church as one, apostolic, catholic, and holy. . .The doctrine of the church reflected in this social statement is perhaps the worst that has ever appeared in the history of Lutheranism in America. Congregations and synods are invited to go their own way and to reach their own decisions with respect to the ordained ministry, based not on what is essential to the church’s witness and proclamation as a whole, but on what seems relevant to the cultural vision of a new age. That kind of individualistic mindset puts the ELCA adrift in the ever-changing tides of culture. The people of the ELCA will then merit the epitaph applied to the people of Israel in the Book of Judges: “EVERY MAN DID WHAT WAS RIGHT IN HIS OWN EYES.” (17:6)
