Pacific Lutheran seminary approves RIC “Welcome.”

April 28, 2009 by Pastor Dan.

After a 5-month process, Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California appears poised to become the first Reconciling in Christ seminary in the Lutheran church in the United States.

On Sunday, April 26, the Board of Directors released notice of its vote (PLTS Reaffirms Welcoming Statement) to seek designation as an RIC Seminary and implement a “welcoming” resolution that includes sexual minorities. The Statement said in part:

We eagerly learn from and welcome one another’s diversity, including, but not limited to, theological perspective, race, ethnicity, nationality, gender identity, relationship status, age, physical ability, social and economic status and sexual orientation.The Board did its homework, gathering input from a variety of sources, including faculty and staff, student and alumni. And at its March 26 meeting the Executive Committee paced the April action by providing for discussion over two days.

The decision was not precipitous. The previous Board meeting last November heard reports of the Community Life and Academic Affairs Committee, which asked the board “to begin preliminary conversation” about PLTS becoming an RIC community.

More than 350 local Lutheran congregations have joined the RIC Program, which is sponsored by Lutherans Concerned/North America, by adopting an “affirmation of welcome” that specifically invites lesbian/gay, bisexual and transgender persons to participate fully in the life of the local church. The procedures and requirements are somewhat different for educational institutions of the church, and must include a non-discrimination policy for hiring employees and for degree requirements.

Apparently the PLTS Board has found a way to meet these requirements, even though acceptance into the Master of Divinity program includes approval by a separate synodical candidacy committee, indicating that the individual, in addition to being educated, is also psychologically and spiritually prepared to serve in the ordained ministry of the Lutheran church. In recent years, background checks have also become a standard part of this process.

This coming summer, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America biennial Assembly will again have opportunity to change its current ordination standard which precludes sexually-active gay and lesbian candidates from entering the ordained ministry. (A distinct action was taken by the ELCA’s Assembly in 2007 to allow individual bishops not to enforce that standard.)

But this gate-keeping function of the denomination need not prevent potential students who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender from enrolling in the M. Div. program, if PLTS is admitted to the Reconciling in Christ program.

Several individual regional jurisdictions or Synods of what is now the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America founded the seminary nearly 60 years ago and continue to fund it. At least two, the Sierra Pacific Synod and the Southwest California Synod, have also joined the Reconciling in Christ program, indicating their unqualified support for ministry with and on behalf of sexual minorities.

In 1996 the Council of Bishops of the ELCA declared that all persons, regardless of sexual orientation, are welcome in the national church, although that is not always a reality at the local level. The Bishops’ letter echoed earlier supportive and hospitable actions: 

We also call attention to the action of the 1991 Churchwide Assembly that declared “gay and lesbian people, as individuals created by God, are welcome to participate fully in the life of the congregations of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.” At the 1993 assembly, that declaration was extended to express “strong opposition to all forms of verbal or physical harassment or assault of persons because of their sexual orientation,” and support for the civil rights of all persons, regardless of their sexual orientation.”

— Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles

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