Authority and Role of Scripture in Decision Making in the ELCA

1. Authority and Role of Scripture in Decision Making in the ELCA II. Some Test Cases

2. The Unity of the Church • And it is enough for the true unity of the church to agree concerning the teaching of the gospel and the administration of the sacraments. Article VII of the Augsburg Confession

3. The unity of the church remains • Some Lutherans are more “conservative,” some more “liberal” • All agree that the authority of Scripture has to do with its central saving message—yet some recognize or emphasize the human limitations of the scriptural authors more than others • The ELCA is not the Democratic Party (or the Republican Party) at prayer • The ELCA is a church body, united by the Gospel, in which sisters and brothers disagree on important issues—we have a unity in reconciled diversity.

4. “Sola scriptura” • This term does not appear in the Lutheran Confessions • Is Sola scriptura another way of saying Soluschristus? • Popes, councils, churchwide assemblies, pastors, and especially seminary professors may err • Have the Scriptures ever been alone? • The words of Jesus were preserved in tradition before they were cited in the gospels • The ongoing role of Tradition in formulating the doctrine of the trinity, two natures of Christ, ordination, etc. • The assumptions and presuppositions of the biblical authors • The assumptions and presuppositions of biblical interpreters

5. The Bible’s Main Claim • I know that finally the Bible is forceful and consistent in its main theological claim. It expresses the conviction that the God who created the world in love redeems the world in suffering and will consummate the world in joyous well-being. Walter Brueggemann

6. The humanity of biblical authors • The Word of God in the biblical text is refracted through many authors who were not disembodied voices of revealed truth but circumstance-situated men and women of faith who said what their circumstances permitted and required them to say. It is this human refraction that makes the hard work of critical study inescapable, so that every text is given a suspicious scrutiny whereby we may consider the ways in which bodied humanness has succeeded or not succeeded in bearing truthful and faithful witness. Walter Brueggemann

7. The biblical writes put our own efforts to shame • Their passion for justice • The significance of the beloved community • Advocacy of living righteously • Focus on the gospel

8. This second presentation • At times the church has fallen well short of an appropriate reading of the biblical text • At other times the church has correctly contradicted what the biblical text seems to affirm • At still other times the church has moved beyond where our ancient biblical colleagues were ready to go • How we might proceed when issues posed by contemporary society are not directly normed by the Bible

9. The social locations of the interpreter • We are all committed to the high practice of subjective extrapolations because we have figured out that a cold, reiterative objectivity has no missional energy or moral force. We do it, and will not stop doing it. It is, however, surely healing and humbling for us to have enough self-knowledge to concede that what we are doing will not carry the freight of absoluteness. Spirit-filled interpretation is given us by and through

10. Social locations (cont.) • bodied authors who must make their way in the world—and in making our way, we humans do not see so clearly or love so dearly or follow so nearly as we might imagine. Walter Brueggemann

11. What some Christians said about slavery On the basis of the Bible

13. The Curse of “Ham” • Ham’s seeing the nakedness of his father = some kind of overt sexual act of incest • The curse • Canaan would be a slave of Shem (Israel) • God would enlarge the tents of Japheth (Philistines) in shared territory with Israel • Canaan would also be a slave of the Philistines • Why should one people be enslaved by another? • How should nations or faiths relate to each other?

14. Exegesis on behalf of slavery • “God himself had inaugurated the institution of human bondage since Noah spoke under the impulse and dictation of Heaven. His words were the words of God himself, and by them was slavery ordained.” The Rev. Alexander McCaine • “It is generally believed that the Africans or Negroes are descendants of Ham. The judicial curse of Noah under the posterity of Ham seems yet to rest upon them.” The Rev. Samuel Dunwoody

15. A 19th century Lutheran Pastor • A slaveholder himself • The institution of human bondage had been initiated by God in the decree of Noah • “Nature had stamped on the African race the permanent marks of inferiority.”

16. Wrong-headed, perverse exegesis • Did these 19th century clergymen realize how their biases dictated their exegesis? • And how do our biases affect our exegesis?

17. Slavery in the Ten Commandments • You shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave. 3rd commandment • You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave. 10th commandment

18. St. Paul • Paul again and again admonished masters and slaves to fulfill their respective duties to one another without ever so much as intimating that a human being had no right to enslave his or her fellow human being. • H. Sheldon Smith, In His Image, but…

19. Gal 3:28 and its effect in NT times • There can be no doubt that the New Testament shows no urgency in the matter of emancipation of slaves. • Does the New Testament contain elements, glimpses which point beyond and even “against” the prevailing view of the New Testament church? Krister Stendahl

20. Biblical passages against slavery • Amos: The Israelites sell the righteous for silver and the needy for a pair of shoes. • Nehemiah was outraged at the enslavement of fellow Israelites. • All human beings are created in the image and likeness of God. • Both slaves and free people are sinners for whom Christ died

21. American documents • We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people (actually men) are created equal • And how did that work out in the U.S. Constitution?

22. The Bible and Slavery • The moral imperative of antislavery forced many evangelical Christians away from Biblicism into a less literal reading of Scripture. • The study of slavery in the Bible teaches theology that biblical criticism is seldom able to settle Christian moral debate, but Christian moral debate can and does shape broad and influential trends in biblical criticism. J. Albert Harrill, writing on slavery in NIDB.

23. God’s Laws Change within the Bible • Deuteronomy 15:13-14 versus Exodus 21:1-11 • Women as well as men are to be freed from slavery after seven years • The master is not to send the slave away empty-handed lest he or she fall back immediately into debt-slavery • Deuteronomy 15 is at least two centuries later than Exodus 21

24. The Ordination of Women in the Lutheran Church Recalling the process

25. 1 Cor 11:3, 5, 11- What is Paul’s position? • But I want you to understand that Christ is the head of every man, and the husband is the head of his wife, and God is the head of Christ • Any woman who prays or prophesies with her head unveiled disgraces her head—it is one and the same thing as having her head shaved. • Nevertheless, in the Lord woman is not independent of man or man independent of woman. For just as woman came from man, so man comes through woman; but all things come from God.

26. 1 Cor 14:33b-36 • (As in all the churches of the saints, • 34 women should be silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be subordinate, as the law also says. • 35 If there is anything they desire to know, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. • 36 Or did the word of God originate with you? Or are you the only ones it has reached?)

27. Responses to 1 Corinthians 14 • Note parenthesis in NRSV • An editor inserted it to bring it into conformity with the practices regarding women in his own time • Conflicts with earlier passages in Corinthians • Paul’s followers felt increasing pressure to accommodate to the social structures and practices of their unbelieving neighbors. • What if we could not agree this was an insertion? Would we not still discount it as time and situation bound?

28. 1 Tim 2:11-15 • Let a woman learn in silence with full submission. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she is to keep silent. For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor. Yet she will be saved through childbearing….

29. Adam or Eve as first to be created or first to sin In Genesis 2, man is created at the beginning of the chapter and woman toward the end of the chapter—both are favored positions. Ring composition. The woman at least carried on an adult conversation with the snake

30. Conditioning factors in reading the Bible when the ordination of women was being debated in the Lutheran Churches of the US. • Lutheran women ordained in Denmark 1967, Czechoslovakia 1953, Sweden 1959, Norway 1961, Germany 1968 • Changing role of women in wider society • Voice vote in LCA • 57% approval in ALC

31. Scripture against Scripture • If we are right in describing the statements of I Corinthians 11:11-12 and Galatians 3:28 as pointing beyond what is actually implemented in the New Testament church, then they must be allowed their freedom; and the tension which they constitute must not be absorbed or neutralized in a comprehensive and hence harmonized “biblical view.” Krister Stendahl

32. How should the Bible guide ELCA decision-making when the Bible is relatively silent?

33. Statement on Genetics (cont.) • The ELCA social statement on genetics focuses on fundamental affirmations, general analysis, overarching values, directives and principles for teaching, deliberation, policy advocacy and pastoral guidance rather than providing ethical prescriptions for a multitude of specific issues. • It thereby recognizes that decisions on particular issues may not be governed by Scripture.

34. ELCA Statement on cloning • We stand with the faith claim that to be human is to be mortal and believe we should not seek to circumvent mortality through reproductive cloning. • Should reproductive cloning “progress,” this church would honor the God-given dignity of cloned individuals and would welcome each to the baptismal font like any other child of God.

35. Final statement on cloning • If individuals are cloned despite societal and ELCA rejection, this church will respect their God-given dignity and will welcome them to the baptismal font, like any other child of God.

36. Stem cell research • Many in this church believe that the practice of regenerative medicine (based on stem cell research) could benefit millions of people whose lives are burdened, if not threatened, by a host of serious diseases. • Others in this society and this church believe, however, that only those forms of stem cell research should be pursued that do not require the destruction of viable human embryos.

37. Stem cell research • In the meantime [this church] accepts the use of surplus frozen embryos that were created for infertility treatment but are no longer needed. • Topic dropped in final document.

38. A Lutheran quadrilateral? • The Scriptures • Church tradition • Gains in human knowledge • Personal experience

39. The journey taken today • None of us comes to the Scriptures as an empty slate • The Spirit has sometimes led the church beyond the plain sense of Scripture to reject all slavery and to recognize the full equality of women • In countless biblical words we hear the authoritative voice of the author and finisher of our faith • We need to live boldly and faithfully in paths uncertain and on ventures of which we cannot see the ending.

40. Biblical authority • The authority of Scripture, for Luther and his followers, was affirmed with respect to its chief purpose of declaring the gospel of Christ for faith and salvation. Carl Braaten