28 February 2005, from Pastor Amandus J. Derr

For a long time and for several reasons, I have been reluctant to directly engage in the theological debate regarding the church's full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the life of the Church. Because of the now public nature of the trialogue between Pastor Gregory Fryer, Bishop Bouman and Professor Jenson, and because these matters touch so many members of the parish I serve, I can no longer avoid a more public engagement. Before I do that, however, I want to clearly state the reasons for my relative (for me, anyway) disengagement.

First, I have been reluctant to be further engaged in this debate because of the pastoral colleague I respect and trust most in my life and who serves this parish with me is married to one of the conversants. For the sake of this parish and for my own sake, I have wanted nothing to disrupt that relationship. It is too important to Saint Peter's life together.

Second, I have been reluctant to be further engaged in order to preserve some semblance of good order as the now six-time chair of the synod assembly's Reference and Counsel Committee. I have tried to the best of my ability, to be properly objective and fulfill my constitutional role as we deal with these matters in memorials and resolutions. The ELCA and Synodical constitution mandates that, the Committee present-on-time resolutions to the Assembly without allowing their (sic) prejudice to affect the resolution and that the order of resolutions be the same as the order in which they were received. This calls for some "rightly dividing" of roles and, unless I read the constitution wrongly, a somewhat neutral stance in presenting resolutions and the committee's recommendations, to the assembly. It is clear from this three-part correspondence ? which did not include me until now ? that this constitutionally mandated role has been completely (and I fear, deliberately) misunderstood. In the 17-year history of the ELCA, the Reference and Counsel committee has never been allowed to do more than this: To refer resolutions to the Assembly and counsel the assembly with recommendations. Reference and Counsel cannot determine on its own the constitutionality or even the appropriateness of a resolution. It can counsel the assembly as to what the committee thinks. It can not tell the assembly what it must do or arrogate to itself authority given to the assembly. Since its formation, the ELCA has trusted that the Holy Spirit will guide lay and clergy members of the assembly to right decisions. We can not do otherwise. So, in dealing with Pastor Gregory Fryer's memorial thus far and through the assembly process, it is my intention to maintain that constitutionally-mandated neutrality. Don't expect the Reference and Counsel Committee to do more than make a recommendation on this or any other resolution. I have learned to trust the lay and clergy members, gathered under the guidance of the Holy Spirit in congregational, synodical and Churchwide assemblies and to understand their respective roles. No authority has been given in this church to do otherwise. The authority belongs to the whole church, gathered in congregational, Synodical or Churchwide assemblies. Bishops, pastors and theologians can make recommendations. That is the limit of their authority.

Finally, I have been reluctant to engage in this debate because I have not wanted to take the time from what I believe my calling is: namely to serve Saint Peter's Church. Frankly, I have believed it is more important for me to give my time and energy to the people of this parish and to assist in keeping Saint Peter's a place where all can be reconciled in Christ with one another than in engaging in what seems to me to be a debate that consistently has failed to connect with the very people we are supposed to be serving. It now seems clear, however, that the only way to continue to serve them is to speak with and for them.

It is, therefore, with these deep reservations that I reluctantly enter into this debate with prayer to the Holy Spirit to inspire, guide and direct the words that I now commit to electronic disposition. These prayers, the Prayers of the Day for this past Sunday, the Third Sunday in Lent, are the prayers I am praying as I begin:

Almighty God, your Son once welcomed an outcast woman because of her faith. Give us faith like hers, that we also may trust only in your love for us and may accept one another as we have been accepted by you; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Almighty and ever-living God, you hate nothing you have made and you forgive the sins of all who are penitent. Create in us new and honest hearts, so that, truly repenting of our sins, we may obtain from you, the God of all mercy, full pardon and forgiveness; through your Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

I find it necessary to address three matters raised in the Bouman-Fryer-Jenson correspondence and in what is now Resolution 2 for the 2005 Metropolitan New York Synod Assembly from Pastor Gregory Fryer.

1. The use of the term "homoerotic."

How dare you? How dare you reduce to eros the complexity that faces faithful baptized children of God who are, not by their choice (who would choose to live like this?), gay or lesbian? How dare you be so arrogant to even propose to define reality for thousands of faithful, baptized children of God by reducing their struggle to a "feeling," a "disposition," and, more insidiously, a recognizably "dirty" connotation? How dare you trivialize their daily reality? Would you characterize yourself or any of the rest of us, or your or our behavior as merely heteroerotic? Of course not! You would recognize the complexity that is the human being. I expect the three of you, of all people, to raise the level of discourse. In sinking to such trivializing caricature and labeling, you reduce the conversation to sloganeering, a successful but demeaning tactic most often used by the Right, but not unheard of from the Left. Do we really want to bring this down to that puerile level? This use of this tactic eliminates from the conversation the very people you are (presumably) seeking to bring to the Gospel, by placing them, without reference to their baptism or their otherwise faithful lives, outside the community of faith. Such trivialization of people is unworthy of you, of Christ's Church, and of the Lord to profess to love and it deserves not respect or polite neutrality, but contempt. (Galatians 1:6-17; 3:1-5; 5:12). I believe you are better than this! Yet with this one word, and with all this one word leaves out, you have demeaned, not only faithful, baptized gay and lesbian, not only those like me who support their full inclusion into the Church, but you demean yourselves. I expect better.

2. The understanding of Law and Gospel.

"The ?law is the way in which we should walk that we might live a life pleasing to God,' or ?the law is the will of our loving God for us.'" Where is Jesus Christ in this statement? I am incredulous that, somehow you have managed to write 35 pages without one reference to the grace of God, incarnate in Jesus Christ, made accessible to us through Word and Sacraments, transforming us by the power of the Holy Spirit who guides us into all truth not by legislation but by action within the community ? contemporary as well as historic ? of the faithful. From a Lutheran point of view, I find this statement to be incredulous. 16^th Century and 21^st Century Roman Catholics might (I emphasize "might") say this. A whole raft of 19^th to 21^st Century Fundamentalists might say this. But this statement is, within the entire 35 page trialogue, devoid of faith, unless of course, faith means something more than it does in the Scriptures and Confessions of the Church. I write this deliberately and with trepidation, for I know its import. I believe, pray for and have spent my whole adult life working for the complete reconciliation and unity of the one holy catholic and apostolic Church. Yet in that one Church, we must never give up the sheer brilliance and usefulness (Melanchthon's word as much as mine) of the Lutheran hermeneutic that distinguishes between Lex and Promissio and, in reference to Lex asserts (Melanchthon, following Luther, here) "the Law always accuses." Always means always. Therefore, Bishop Bouman is entirely correct and you, Pastor Fryer, and you, Professor Jenson, are in error. The theological use of the Law is always the use of the Law, even with respect to its other use(s). What makes a person and a person's acts "pleasing to God"? Faith in God's Promise, not adherence to the Law (Romans 4:14-15). Law-keeping is never pleasing to God unless it is a response (which can not be legislated or coerced) to faith in God's Promise.

Analogy may be useful here. My two sons know exactly what I expect of them. They know what the law is in our family. But they do not norm their behavior by what we expect. They norm their behavior by trusting their parents' love for and trust in them. Likewise, my wife and I are faithful to one another and act for and on behalf of one another, not because of law, not because there is some prescription that defines how we will relate, but because we trust ? and therefore love ? one another. In both cases, my sons, my wife, and I know one another's "heart." All respond to that "heart" by trying not to break it, even though it sometimes means and even requires the breaking of law. That is the risk factor, if you will, in living in trust. So it was for the patriarchs and for the children of Israel. So it must be for us.

I am personally offended when anyone dares to use my dear friend and teacher, Arthur Carl Piepkorn, in defense of a legalistic interpretation of both scripture and catholic tradition. Piepkorn regularly used Lutheran hermeneutics in their fullest sense (not just the Law-Gospel reductionism of some of us) and was not un-critical of the entirety of that tradition. Piepkorn was an evangelical-catholic. He used Lutheran hermeneutical principles, albeit less stringently than I would, on all of the catholic tradition. He read neither Scripture nor tradition un-hermeneutically. He may not be used to support positions he would most likely not support and about which he made no comment. To use him as some have demeans his memory and his legacy. I count Bishop Bouman and myself as part of that legacy.

For Luther, Melanchthon, Piepkorn and others who follow directly in their train, Bishop Bouman's statement that "the law is the sound of approaching death" is not just and academic or theological theory, it is a hermeneutical fact, and it is definitive. Far from making he and I and others like us antinomian, as you, Pastor Fryer, so sadly charge, we take the Law in all its deadly power with utmost seriousness! The Law in all its forms and in all its uses (I care not whether you subscribe to two or three uses here) brings death. Faith in God's Promise, lived out "as our best reverent guess," (Franklin Drewes Fry) always trumps the Law (not in arrogant self-definition of the Gospel but in humble trust). It seems to me that Pastor Fryer and Professor Jenson believe that the Law is the highest expression of God's will. I believe it is the Gospel. At least one great 20^th Century theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, would agree. I think Paul of Tarsus does also.

The more I read Pastor Fryer and Professor Jenson, the more I am convinced that they so elevate tradition over contemporary experience that they would have trouble agreeing to two other major changes in the "tradition" that have come in the last two hundred or so years. The changes are the abolition of slavery (clearly affirmed in both Scripture and Tradition) and, more recently, the ordination of women. Most of us, maybe all of us, would agree that slavery is and always has been incompatible with the Gospel. Many of us, though certainly not all of us, would agree that the exclusion of women from ordained ministry is also incompatible with the Gospel. Yet these are part of the tradition that, under the Holy Spirit's guidance, some of the Church has seen fit to change.

Unlike some, I am willing to concede that homosexuality and homosexual behavior is prohibited in the Holy Scriptures and in the traditions of the Church, although I am also not sure that contemporary biblical exegesis has not helped us understand the core of those prohibitions to be something other than the sexual relationship itself, I'm not going to debate the meaning here. As I have lived and worked with faithful, baptized gay and lesbian people of God, I have come to the conclusion that this prohibition in Scripture and Tradition has been trumped by the Gospel. I and those like me who support the same-sex unions and the ordination of gays and lesbians in committed relationships do not do so lightly, but we have come to the conclusion that it is our best reverent guess that this part of the Tradition also come to an end.

This is not an invitation to promiscuity! This is not a blanket acceptance of all kinds of behavior! Here, as in so many other "reverent best guesses," we walk a narrow line. We do so trusting that God, who has made us righteous through the death of Christ, will sustain us and uphold us in our teaching, preaching and leading. We do this in faith, not in arrogance.

As he describes himself in his letter to the Galatians, Paul says "I was far more zealous for the traditions of my ancestors" (Galatians 1:14). Then he goes on to defend his decision to contradict those very traditions for the sake of the inclusion of uncircumcised Gentiles into the fullness of the People of God. No less a saint than James of Jerusalem and probably, more than we would admit, Peter disagreed. Yet that act of inclusion, blessed by God to this day, is far more radical than any of the ones we are contemplating today.

Pastor Fryer and Professor Jenson, and to some degree, Bishop Bouman, are also "zealous for the traditions of [the] ancestors." For this they are to be commended. But, standing on the legacy of Paul, Luther and Melanchthon, I vehemently disagreed. On these matters, the Road to Damascus is visible to me in the people I serve, and I hear Christ's voice in theirs, almost every day. It cries out, "Why do you persecute me?" and summons the church to change.

3. Finally, on the central purpose of Lutheran theology.

I have been disappointed in all of this correspondence and in much of the debate on homosexuality because we continue to fail the most basic Lutheran theological test, namely, that all Lutheran theology is pastoral theology. It is rigorously academic, profoundly systematic and, occasionally theoretical. Yet its goal is to "comfort troubled consciences." As a result it is by nature messily practical, messily functional and ? you will of course disagree ? messily subjective. In all thirty-five pages of this trialogue, I find that dimension most lacking precisely because not one of the conversants has managed to "include in" a faithful, baptized child of God who is homosexual. Not once do I find in any of this an intimate pastoral conversation with those whose faith and life you so blithely discuss. The writers are more conversant with Augustine, Luther and with one another than with the faithful baptized people of God whom we are called to serve and to whom we are expected to proclaim the Gospel. It is that missing dimension that most disappoints me in this trialogue. I am frankly astonished that two of the participants, a parish pastor and an extremely active bishop in a very needy synod even have the time to engage in this protracted discussion without the inclusion of gay and lesbian Christians who are part of our Synodical, and maybe parochial community. That Professor Jenson sees no need for the inclusion of these faithful people only further supports my growing prejudice that those who would be teachers of the Church must spend more time in regularly called parish ministry dealing with the very people their theology is meant to address. It is only when the objective certainty of systematic theology meets God's people who gather with us around Word and Sacrament, that real theology happens. Why are we not learning that? Why are we concluding that often self-isolating "theological experts" can dialogue with Word, Tradition and each other but not with those who are in their charge? Who made us more competent than the very people who must live the faith ? in far less isolation than we ? every day of their lives? With all its faults, when the ELCA is at its best, it is inclusive in its decision-making, that is, it includes all who practice the faith. Sadly, the conversation that has provoked this response has failed to take them seriously.

I have said enough. Whatever happens, I continue to place my trust in Jesus Christ alone, who by his dying and rising has made us acceptable to God, and who, by the continuing presence of the Holy Spirit through Word and Sacraments and in holy conversation with the people of Christ's Church makes us all worthy of the Gospel. Loving the Law and generally ordering my life with respect to it, I intend to teach that only trust in God's Promise enables us to walk in a way that pleases God. Asserting the definitive Lutheran hermeneutic and rightly dividing between Law and Gospel, within Scriptures, the Church's Tradition, the Church's struggle with contemporary issues and with my colleagues and those and with my clergy and lay colleagues this is what I will continue to do for all those placed in my pastoral care.

� I will continue to call them to trust alone in God's indelible promise made sure to them when they were baptized into Jesus Christ and Christ's Church.

� I will continue to offer them all of the ministries of Christ's Church, including presiding whenever they make life long commitments of love and care to their partners.

� I will continue to encourage all in whom the gifts of the Holy Spirit are clearly manifest to seek ordination to the ministry of Word and Sacraments.

� And I will continue, as God gives me wisdom and strength, to oppose those who would distract Christ's people from faith in Christ alone with any notion that suggests that they can please God by following God's Law. Such teaching undermines the glorious truth of the Gospel, makes Christ useless, faith null and God's Promise void.

On these grounds I stand before all of you, just as I full intend to stand before God and our Lord Jesus Christ and give account.

Peace and Joy,

Amandus J. Derr