A Pastoral Letter on Upcoming Council Action on Same-Gender Marriage: Part 1

Pastor Chris Smith
Senior Pastor

This is the first of a four part series. Please also read Part 2, Part 3 and Part 4. Council will vote on its proposed resolution on Thursday, November 21, 2013 at 6:30 p.m. All council meetings are open to the public. If you wish to communicate with council prior to the vote, please e-mail council@sotv.org.

Background
During the first two weeks of October this fall, the Shepherd of the Valley Church Council led three congregation dialogues on the question of whether or not SOTV pastors may officiate for same-gender marriages. Thank you to all who participated. The Council is currently reviewing your comments from those dialogues in preparation for a vote at its next meeting on Thursday November 21, 2013. Read the proposed resolution. All Council meetings are open to the public. In the meantime, I sense that it would be helpful to share some thoughts from a pastoral perspective about this process. My thoughts here are deeply informed by many conversations with my pastoral colleagues at SOTV.

With that in mind, for the next four weeks I will address four areas related to SOTV pastors and same-gender marriage, one topic each week:

1.    Why pastoral staff have not spoken publicly about same-gender marriage.
2.    How same-gender marriage is a matter of pastoral practice.
3.    Some personal perspectives on same-gender marriage.
4.    Two foundational ways of understanding the Bible and how they can make same-gender marriage such a polarizing issue.

Part 1:  Why pastoral staff have not spoken publicly about same-gender marriage.

During and after the congregation dialogues I heard from many people who asked why members of the pastoral staff were not addressing the question of same-gender marriage publicly in worship and in their teaching. Here are three key reasons.

1. Such communication tends to divide and polarize more than unite us in our mission. This is the case especially if pastors advocate for one perspective. Since the ELCA first approved its social statement on human sexuality back in 2009, many pastors in the ELCA have chosen to speak publicly in worship and other venues about human sexuality and same-gender marriage. Their comments have usually divided congregations and created a sense of opposition among church members with differing perspectives. The outcomes often look like the way things have worked recently in our nation’s legislative system: polarized and unproductive. It makes me sad to think about the number of churches I know of that have divided. The results have been misused resources, and years of lack of focus on the real mission of the church. When pastors publicly and divisively speak about same-gender marriage, they place at center stage an issue which, though important, is by no means central to our life in Christ and the mission we share in Him. Doing so also makes pastoral staff the key drivers of policy decisions in congregations, which leads me to the second reason.

2. Pastors aren’t permanent residents in a congregation. Think about it this way: If I, as your senior pastor, stood before the congregation and advocated a particular viewpoint on same-gender marriage and that resulted in the church council choosing to go in a particular direction with its policy, what happens when your next senior leader arrives? Will that person’s viewpoint on the matter then result in a different policy approach for SOTV? The bottom line is that developing and communicating policy regarding any question or concern at SOTV is a matter for the Church Council. That is the role of the Council: gather information from the congregation (including the pastoral staff as appropriate), deliberate with the information it receives, develop the best policy it can for the time, and direct and support the pastoral staff in their work. All this helps pastors give proper attention to the work that should be their focus, which leads me to my third reason.

3. The preaching and teaching of your pastors should not be driven primarily by polarizing, controversial topics. Make no mistake: these topics are important and very personal. But when you come to worship or a bible study, you should not expect topics like same-gender marriage or abortion or capital punishment or war to be featured week after week in the pastors’ preaching and teaching. The Bible certainly has something to say about each of these topics, but none of them holds a key role in the central witness of the Bible in Jesus Christ. I’ll say more about this in part 4 when I write about interpreting the Bible. For now, I will simply say that the message of Jesus – his death and resurrection and the life and forgiveness he gives us – governs how your pastors preach and teach. These gifts from Jesus also enable us to be part of a community of faith in which controversial topics can be discussed with respect and caring, even if we disagree. Our unity is in Christ.

Three additional points in closing:

First, even though pastors are not permanent residents, let me assure you that your pastors do not intend to base their tenure at SOTV on the question and the vote your council faces regarding same-gender marriage. Your pastors, who have a combined 70+ years of service just here at SOTV, love the people of this congregation and appreciate serving here. That said, even a pastor who has been serving a congregation for 20 years or more cannot claim to be a permanent resident. Through the work of the church and the Holy Spirit, on whom the church relies to choose its leaders, pastors are subject to what we call “mobility.” The reasons pastors come and go are not predictable and are personal and complex, and are an attempt to seek faithfulness to God’s calling.

Second, I think your pastors do have a place in the conversation about same-gender marriage, but we can’t drive policy; that is the church council’s job. This four-part letter is a witness that we are not trying to avoid the question. However, we must provide a shepherding and unifying voice for Christian community in a culture that lately seems to be stuck in a divisive and polarizing way of talking.

Finally, one of the things I really appreciated about the recent congregation dialogues is that discussions among people with differing perspectives on same-gender marriage were, for the most part, respectful and caring. This tells me that as a community of faith, we have the capacity to deal with the question of same-gender marriage well. I believe that, even if we differ in our views, we can still be one church, precisely because same-gender marriage is not the main thing in our mission. Instead, it is one aspect of pastoral practice, which I’ll talk about next week.

See You in Church,
Pastor Chris Smith

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