First Things: A Sexual Ethic for Teletubbies, or Lutherans Embrace a Formless World

By Robert Benne
Monday, April 14, 2008

In mid-March, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) Task Force on Sexuality released a draft of what is supposed to become a Social Statement—a basis for internal church policy and a platform for advocacy in society. Millions of dollars and thousands of hours of effort have been put into an unending series of studies that have wrestled with the vexing problems of assessing the morality of homosexual relations, and from that assessment making further judgments about the blessing of gay unions and the rostering of homosexual clergy who are in committed partnerships. The basic theological/ethical challenge to assess homosexual conduct has never been addressed adequately in any preceding document. This draft Social Statement is no different in spite of expectations: It simply says that the church is divided on that issue. The kind of theological/ethical argument in this current document, however, is precisely the kind that will set the stage for a revision of Lutheran teaching on sexual ethics in the future. Such a revision would mean that the ELCA is no longer a church following in the footsteps of the Lutheran Reformation.

One of the noticeably odd features of the new draft is its absence of “males and females,” “women and men,” “husbands and wives,” “boys and girls,” and “mothers and fathers.” Instead, one reads of “couples,” “partners,” “engendered persons,” “parents,” and “children.” The subjects of the statement seem to have no distinct features, a bit like the amorphous Teletubbies of children’s television. This reluctance to affirm definite forms extends to the statement’s posture toward marriage and the family, commandments and law, guiding principles, and especially toward rules. In fact, this aversion to specific forms seems to be the fatal flaw of the document, leading to a vagueness and fluidity that undermines its capacity for genuine guidance in the church.
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