LCMS Convention Workbook St. Louis, Missouri — 2013, Page 391

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THEOLOGICAL DOCUMENTS­­—COMMISSION ON THEOLOGY AND CHURCH RELATIONS
Response to Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust1

391

should not impair church unity and mission.4 Even though it was advertised as representing both
sides of the debate, Faithful Conversations: Christian Perspectives on Homosexuality, edited by
James M. Childs, Jr., included only one essay that is reflective of the classical Lutheran position
on homosexuality.5

A Report of the Commission on Theology and Church Relations
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod
April 2012
Introduction
The 2010 Convention of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS) adopted Resolution 305 directing “That the Commission on Theology and Church Relations, in consultation with the
faculties of our seminaries, develop a thorough, biblical, and confessional analysis of and
response to Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust with particular attention to the concept of ‘bound
conscience.’” (2010 Convention Proceedings, 117). This document is offered as the response
called for by the convention’s resolution. Given the fact that Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust
(hereafter HSGT) was developed as the theological rationale for the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA) to change its practice to allow for the liturgical blessing of same
gender couples and the ordination of practicing homosexuals, the necessity of a careful and
critical response was recognized by the LCMS. The implications of the ELCA’s actions for its
own internal life, its ecumenical partners throughout Christianity, and its connections with the
LCMS in recognized social ministry organizations and military chaplaincies are immense and far
reaching. It is hoped that this document will provide a basis for an evaluation of HSGT in
keeping with the Holy Scriptures and the Lutheran Confessions.
1. Foundational and Methodological Considerations
Debates over sexuality, inherited from its predecessor bodies, have been present in the ELCA
from its inception. Christian Batalden Scharen’s Married in the Sight of God: Theology, Ethics
and Church Debates Over Homosexuality documents the broad contours of the debate even as
the author takes a strong partisan stance in advocating for a revised theology of marriage,
expanded to embrace same-gender unions.2 HSGT itself is the product of a nearly decade-long
process of study, deliberation, and debate. Clearly the ELCA was tilted toward change.
Numerous ELCA teaching theologians were speaking and writing on behalf of changes that
would be adopted in 2009 on the basis of HSGT. Paul Jersild, a professor of ethics at Lutheran
Theological Southern Seminary in Columbia, South Carolina, advanced the case against an
“excessively physicalist” approach to homosexuality, suggesting instead attention to the more
personal dimensions of a committed relationship.3 Jersild’s book, Spirit Ethics: Scripture and the
Moral Life, provides a more detailed account of the approach to ethics which is realized in
HSGT. In his 2004 book, Many Members, Yet One Body, Craig Nessan of Wartburg Theological
Seminary argued that committed, same-gender relationships do not impact core doctrines and

The brief introduction in HSGT begins with Jesus’ great “love commandment” in Matthew
22:36-40, understood by the document as his “invitation to love God and our neighbor” (HSGT,
1). It is the aim of HSGT to set the discussion of sexuality within the context of this twofold
command to love. From the standpoint of theological methodology, this starting point is
immediately problematic on a number of levels. A definition of love is perhaps assumed but not
given, thus leaving the way open for what might be called “disembodied love,” love
disconnected from the reality of created, bodily existence and without historical form. Starting
with the command to love God and the neighbor also avoids the Holy Scriptures own
understanding of sexuality as God’s gift instituted in the creation of our first parents and
distorted by their fall into sin.
HSGT claims to offer a “distinctively Lutheran approach” (HSGT, 1) grounded in a
Christological reading of Holy Scriptures and centered in justification by grace through faith,
with its corollary of vocation in the world for the neighbor’s sake. The application of this
hermeneutic in HSGT is uneven at best, however, often tending toward a reduction of ethical
considerations to variable options that are open to the Christian who lives “by faith alone.” The
language of Lutheranism has been disconnected from its historical origin in Scripture, Luther,
and the Lutheran Confessions. It has been rendered symbolic,6 so that it can be employed to
support conclusions previously drawn to advocate a particular agenda.
Several critical issues emerge that will become foundational for the remainder of HSGT. The
document is marked by an eschatological enthusiasm7 when it asserts
As Lutherans, understanding that God’s promised future is the transformation of the
whole creation, we believe that the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is engaged

1
This “social teaching statement” of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA) was adopted by a twothirds vote (676-338) by the eleventh biennial Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA on August 19, 2009 at
Minneapolis, Minnesota. The statement can be found online at
http://www.elca.org/~/media/Files/What%20We%20Believe/Social%20Issues/sexuality/Human%20Sexuality%20S
ocial%20Statement.pdf.
2
Christian Batalden Scharen, Married in the Sight of God: Theology, Ethics and Church Debates Over
Homosexuality (Landham: University Press of America, 2000).
3
Paul Jersild, Spirit Ethics: Scripture and the Moral Life (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 139.

4
Craig Nessan, Many Members Yet One Body: Committed Same-Gender Relationships and the Mission of the
Church (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2004).
5
Faithful Conversations: Christian Perspectives on Homosexuality, edited by James M. Childs, Jr. (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 2003). Only the chapter by James Arne Nestingen, “The Lutheran Reformation and Homosexual
Practice” defends the traditional reading of the biblical evidence.
6
James Nestingen, in private correspondence, has described HSGT’s approach to creeds and the Lutheran
Confessions as merely “symbolic.” This contrasts with the historic description of such works as “symbols,” a term
which indicated their full and continuing authority as standards for doctrine and practice.
7
As it emerged in the Reformation, ‘enthusiasm’—literally “God-within-ism”—disjoined God’s Spirit from God’s
Word incarnate in Christ and revealed in Holy Scripture. When this separation occurs, the future sets aside the past,
leaving it without value; the inspiration claimed by the individual or community devalues the inspiration of the
Word; the resurrection annuls the cross; the historical realities of life and death dissolve into mere concepts to be
arranged at will by theologians, bishops, or church assemblies. “Eschatological enthusiasm” here refers to the
tendency to make assertions about life in this present, fallen world as though the arrival of the new age of God’s
kingdom invalidates the created structures which govern created life and curb sin. While it is true that eschatology
(the doctrine of the last things) has a “now and not yet” character, this teaching does not mean that God’s creation is
restructured. Rather the Triune God has promised to restore His fallen creation to His original purpose. The
eschatological emphasis in HSGT is described here as “enthusiasm” in the theological sense of that word, namely
seeking the will of God in one’s own imagination rather than His revealed will, in one’s internal speculation rather
than in God’s external Word.

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deeply and relationally in the continuing creation of the world. We anticipate and live out
the values of this promised future concretely in the present. It is therefore in the midst of
daily life in the world that we are given the vocational task of serving the neighbor.
(HSGT, 2.)

According to HSGT, Scripture alone is not sufficient for adjudicating ethical questions which
emerge in regard to sexuality. It is asserted that “we look to the Scriptures and Lutheran
Confessions,” but also “to the social and physical sciences, and to human reason, mercy, and
compassion” (HSGT, 14) in seeking to determine a moral path. The document does not at all
reflect the strong assertion of the Formula of Concord that the prophetic and apostolic writings of
the Old and New Testaments alone are “the only rule and guiding principle according to which
all teachings and teachers are to be evaluated and judged.”10 Set alongside other authorities and
put in dialogue with other disciplines, the Holy Scripture is no longer seen as normative for a
sexual ethic. Failing to distinguish between the Scriptures’ magisterial authority for all matters of
faith and life in the church, the domains of psychological and social sciences are assumed by
HSGT to function in something other than a ministerial manner. It is difficult to avoid the
conclusion that sources other than Holy Scripture are normative for the ethic promoted by
HSGT.11 While HSGT often calls for the church to be attentive to contemporary scientific
studies that might impact Christian moral deliberation, it fails to provide any critical hermeneutic
for the analysis of the data yielded from these studies.12

The language of this paragraph seems to echo ELCA theologian Ted Peters’ description of
Christian ethics as a “proleptic ethic,” which he describes as the evangelical emancipation of
human beings from legalistic oppression so that they may engage in the expression of co-creative
love. This love is said to produce new forms of human community marked by reconciliation.8
While the promise of a new heaven and new earth (see Isaiah 11:1-16, Isaiah 65: 17-25; II Peter
3:13) has always been embraced in Christian hope and confession, it would be wrong to suppose
that the “the transformation of the whole creation” includes the establishment of a new ethic that
is in conflict with God’s original creation instituted by His Word. The language of relationship,
so prominent in HSGT, becomes abstract and overrides categories of nature and history.9 The
future promised in Scripture, however, is not the sort of transformation that would render God’s
original creation obsolete, displacing His good design of humanity as male and female. It is
instead a restoration of His human creatures to live before Him in righteousness and holiness
forever.
HSGT is dependent on the vocabulary of “trust.” There is a curious turn away from the language
of fidelity, so prominent in classical Lutheran treatments of marriage, to the vocabulary of trust.
So the document claims “Central to our vocation, in relation to human sexuality, is the building
and protection of trust in relationships” (HSGT, 2). These relationships remain undefined in
terms of the gender or the number of the participants. This nebulous language is unsuited for a
concrete discussion of sexual ethics.
Attempting to orient the discussion of the ethics of sexuality by the centrality of justification by
grace through faith, three of the Reformation solas are invoked: solus Christus, sola gratia, and
sola fide. It is noteworthy that sola scriptura is not mentioned. In fact, the document avoids any
exegetical engagement with specific biblical texts that speak to sexual behavior. Instead the
document speaks vaguely of the Scriptures as “the living Word” (HSGT, 2) asserting that
“Scripture is to be interpreted through the lens of Christ’s death and resurrection for the salvation
of all” (HSGT, 2) but without giving any indication as to how this hermeneutic might actually
function in regard to a Christian ethic of sexuality.

The observation of Gerhard Forde is to the point:
The attempt to marshal so-called scientific evidence to prove that homosexuality is an
orientation and not a choice and to call Paul’s indictment into question on this score, is, it
seems to me, not a proper or careful way to argue. In the first place, the evidence is still
eminently doubtable. There is no agreement in the scientific community, and even if
there were, most true scientists would be more modest. But in the second place it hardly
seems appropriate for those who seek to honor the normative character of Scripture to
call it into question on such a slim basis.13
Justification by grace through faith alone is essential for a Lutheran ethic, but it can never be
used as a principle that negates ethical discernment. The doctrine is misused when it is taken as a
justification for sin rather than the justification of the sinner. Lacking Luther’s clarity that God’s
forensic work of justification entails death to the old man and the bringing forth of the new man
10

8
This language has become popular in the ELCA. See Ted Peters, God–The World’s Future: Systematic Theology
for a Postmodern Era (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1992), 357-377. “Having been freed from the tyranny of the law
and having received the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, Christians can develop an ethic that seeks to give co-creative
expression to the power of love” (357). On the language of human participation in the continuing creation, i.e.
human beings as co-creators, see Philip Hefner, The Human Factor: Evolution, Culture, and Religion (Minneapolis:
Fortress Press, 1993). Also see Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, translated by Margaret
Kohl (New York: Harper & Row, 1977), 176-1996. Moltmann’s thought seems to inform this conceptualization.
9
Here see Christian Batalden Scharen, “Gay Christians: Symbols of God’s New Creation,” The Lutheran (March
2003), 22-23. Scharten writes “Could God be speaking a new word to the church, in effect saying that gay
Christians, through their efforts to live in faithful covenant partnerships, witness to God’s covenantal purposes for
sexuality and marriage? In so doing, God would be claiming them as symbols among us of the new creation” (23).

Formula of Concord, Epitome 1, 1 in The Book of Concord, edited by Robert Kolb and Timothy Wengert
(hereafter KW followed by page number) (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2000), 486.
Here see Craig Nessan, “Three Theses on the Theological Discussion of Homosexuality in the Global Lutheran
Community” Currents in Theology and Mission (June 2010): 191-197. Writing in an attempt to address the negative
reaction from Lutheran World Federation churches in the global south to the move of the ELCA to endorse the
blessing of same-gender couples and the ordination of practicing homosexuals, Nessan attempts to minimize the
controversy by arguing that “[t]he discussion of homosexuality is about matters of biblical interpretation, not
biblical authority” (193) and as long as there is agreement “in the right preaching of the gospel” (194) matters of
sexuality are penultimate. He further argues that because “[m]arriage is a ‘worldly thing’ whose structure is
conditioned by history, culture, and context and whose value is to be measured by how it contributes to the common
good” (196) its configuration is open to readjustment and need not be the same from place to place.
12
Here see Stanton L. Jones and Mark A. Yarhouse, The Use, Misuse, and Abuse of Science in the Ecclesiastical
Homosexuality Debates (Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 2000); Also see Stanton L. Jones, “Same Sex
Science” First Things (February 2012), 27-33.
13
Gerhard Forde, “Human Sexuality and Romans, Chapter One” in The Preached God: Proclamation in Word and
Sacrament, edited by Mark C. Mattes and Steven D. Paulson (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007), 213. Also note the
comment of Oliver O’Donovan that “Light and lazy talk about ‘development’ and ‘new insights’ may often do no
more than announce a change of fashion.” See “Homosexuality in the Church: Can There be a Fruitful Theological
Debate?” in The Way Forward: Christian Voices on Homosexuality and the Church, edited by Timothy Bradshaw
(Grand Rapids: Eerdmans 2003), 23.

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