Council opposes ELCA decision to allow homosexual clergy

A northeast Iowa synod council is the first in the nation to defy the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's decision to allow clergy to be in committed same-gender relationships.

A resolution passed last month by the council of the Northeastern Iowa Synod, based in Waverly, seeks to circumvent the controversial August decision by the ELCA's churchwide assembly. The denomination currently requires that homosexual clergy remain celibate, and the council wants to maintain the existing regulations.

If successful, the move could ultimately restrict how churches call pastors in the future because it sets a policy where none existed.

The resolution was introduced by the Rev. Marshall Hahn, pastor of ELCA churches in St. Olaf and Gunder and secretary of the synod council. The council resolution passed Nov. 14 with a 10-5 ballot vote with one abstention and is believed to be the first to formally oppose the assembly of the world's largest Lutheran denomination.

“What we're saying is that we don't want to change the rules that have been in effect for the last 22 years,” Hahn said. “The decisions at the churchwide assembly allowed for change. We're saying we don't want that change.”

If approved by the Northeastern Iowa Synod's full assembly in June, any of the 181 synod churches that would hire, or “call,” a pastor involved in a same-gender relationship would be in violation of policy, Hahn said.

That could change how the denomination's constitution is viewed, said the Rev. Steven Ullestad, bishop of the Northeastern Iowa Synod. Currently, churches have sole authority to hire pastors they want as long as the pastors are on the ELCA roster.

Hahn said he doesn't see the resolution as restricting congregational calls but, instead, reflecting a prominent belief within the synod.

Responsibility for enforcing church policy falls to the main ELCA assembly, not individual synods. So it's not clear what the ramifications of the Iowa synod's move could be.

Ullestad has been criticized for not addressing the resolution. He said he doesn't believe he should voice an opinion.

“I'm the pastor to the 100 percent, not the 60 percent who favor the resolution or who favor the assembly,” Ullestad said. “My role as the spiritual parent is to have the family have the conversation without me making some kind of fiat or encyclical.”