ReconcilingWorks's mission statement reads: "Working at the intersection of oppressions, ReconcilingWorks embodies, inspires, advocates and organizes for the acceptance and full participation of people of all sexual orientations and gender identities within the Lutheran communion and its ecumenical and global partners."
ReconcilingWorks's headquarters is located in the Twin Cities metro area of Minnesota.
Early history
On June 16 and 17, 1974, five people gathered at the invitation of Pastor Jim Siefkes at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.[1] Rev. Siefkes, a straight ally, then Director for Discovering Ministries in the American Lutheran Church (ALC), had been given a grant by the ALC to hold a national meeting of homosexual persons and resource persons for the purpose of discussing their sexual orientation and its effect on their relationship with society and the church. The ALC’s purpose was to open a dialogue so that the church would become "less a source of oppression," according to Siefkes.[citation needed]
By the end of the meeting, the group had founded Lutherans Concerned for Gay People (LCGP), run by a steering committee under bylaws typed out ad hoc in twenty minutes by Erickson on a typewriter he found in the next room. The organization’s name was Blaich’s idea. The first two Coordinators were Blaich and Fraser. Marie Kent became the Treasurer. Dues were three dollars. There would be a newsletter, The Gay Lutheran, that Erickson would edit, of which the current quarterly, Concord, is the latter-day descendant.[citation needed]
Shortly thereafter, as the ALC intended, representatives of LCGP found themselves in dialogue with officials in the church. LCGP had an information table and provided hospitality at the ALC Convention in Detroit in October 1974.[citation needed]
And just as quickly, LCGP came under persistent and vociferous attack from conservatives, particularly the Lutheran News run by Herman Otten, founder of the current Christian News. The effect of his attacks was somewhat contrary to his presumed intent, like the proverbial increase of sales resulting from "banning a book in Boston." Membership in LCGP rose partly because of the wide distribution given by Otten’s publication and the fact that he re-published the entire LCGP newsletter in order to foment about it, including the cut-out coupon for joining LCGP.[citation needed]
At the 1978 LCGP Assembly the decision was made to shorten the name to Lutherans Concerned because, among other reasons, some thought the longer name was cumbersome. Late in 1978, the United States Post Office granted non-profit status to Lutherans Concerned.[citation needed]
The name of the organization was further changed in 1980 to Lutherans Concerned/North America (LC/NA), to make visible the continental reach Lutherans Concerned had achieved through its programs and influence. The shortened name, Lutherans Concerned, continued to be used as the working name except in more formal documents and press releases.[citation needed]
The 1980 name change reflected the international nature of the organization, with members, chapters and movement building within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC). Lutherans Concerned in Canada (LCIC) is independently led, with its own board and officers, and also, continuing to the present, voting representation on the main board of ReconcilingWorks.[citation needed]
The "fish" logo was created by Steve Broin and adopted by LC/NA in 1982 to replace the Lutheran rose. Elements of this logo are incorporated in the current logo of ReconcilingWorks. Steve also created the logo for the RIC program.[citation needed]
In 1983, the Internal Revenue Service recognized LC/NA as a Section 501(c)(3) non-profit organization.
ELCA social statement 2009, "Human Sexuality, Gift and Trust"
A January 2005 report[2] issued by the ELCA's Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality suggests that the group's stance represents a minority position among those who responded to a survey, but one that garners a sizable constituency in support. After collecting opinions from primarily lay members in 2004 (using non-scientific, non-random sampling methods), the Task Force concluded that "a majority of the respondents to the study do not wish to change our traditional position," while noting that "a significant minority wants us to either 1) bless same-sex unions and admit people in such unions into the rostered ministries of the ELCA or 2) allow for pastoral discretion in the blessing of same-sex unions and make an accommodation by allowing for some form of exception or local option to admit people in such unions to the rostered ministries of the ELCA."
Out of approximately 4,000 respondents, 57 percent opposed blessing and rostering, 22.1 percent favored blessing and rostering, and 20.8 percent favored either an (unspecified) alternative, a delay in decision, or expressed no opinion. The results varied widely by age: younger respondents were more likely than older respondents to support blessing and rostering, with 42.7 percent in favor and 27 percent opposed among respondents 24 and under, and 17.7 percent in favor and 65.5 percent opposed among respondents age 65 or older. The approximately 4,000 respondents represented 0.08 percent of the total population of the ELCA, which stood at about 4.8 million at the time of the survey.
History 2000–2012
At the ELCA's churchwide assembly held in Chicago in August 2007, about 44% of the assembly's voting members voted to consider a resolution calling for the ELCA to revise its policies to allow for the rostering of ministers in same-gender relationships.[3]
On June 12, 2012, Lutherans Concerned/North America changed its name to ReconcilingWorks.
Reconciling in Christ program
Through its Reconciling in Christ (RIC) program, the organization recognizes congregations and Lutheran organizations that declare themselves welcoming to all people, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity. As of January 2023, the RIC roster[4] exceeds 1,002 settings, including congregations, synods, campus ministries, colleges, and other organizations, in the ELCA, ELCIC, and independent Lutheran.
Augsburg University is a private university in Minneapolis, Minnesota. It is affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It was founded in 1869 as a Norwegian-American Lutheran seminary known as Augsburg Seminarium. Today, the university enrolls approximately 3,000 undergraduate students and 800 graduate students. The university is known for its emphasis on service learning; volunteering in the community is both an instructional strategy and a required part of a student's coursework.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is a mainline Protestant Lutheran church headquartered in Chicago, Illinois. The ELCA was officially formed on January 1, 1988, by the merging of three Lutheran church bodies. As of 2021, it has approximately 3.04 million baptized members in 8,724 congregations.
The Confessing Movement is a largely lay-led theologically conservative Christian movement that opposes the influence of theological liberalism and theological progressivism currently within several mainline Protestant denominations and seeks to return them to its view of orthodox doctrine, or form a new denomination and disfellowship (excommunicate) them if the situation becomes untenable. Those who eventually deem dealing with theological liberalism and theological progressivism within their churches and denominations as not being tenable anymore would later join or start Confessional Churches and/or Evangelical Churches that continue with the traditions of their respective denominations and maintaining orthodox doctrine while being ecclesiastically separate from the Mainline Protestant denominations.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada is Canada's largest Lutheran denomination, with 95,000 baptized members in 519 congregations, with the second largest, the Lutheran Church–Canada, having 53,165 baptized members. Together with the LCC and the Canadian Association of Lutheran Congregations, it is one of only three all-Canadian Lutheran denominations. It is a member of the Lutheran World Federation, the Canadian Council of Churches, the World Council of Churches, and the Anglican-Lutheran North American grouping Churches Beyond Borders. According to the 2011 Canadian census, a larger number of 478,185 adherents identify as Lutheran.
The blessing or wedding of same-sex marriages and same-sex unions is an issue about which leaders of Christian churches are in ongoing disagreement. Traditionally, Christianity teaches that homosexual acts are sinful and that holy matrimony can only exist between two persons of the opposite sex. These disagreements are primarily centered on the interpretation of various scripture passages related to homosexuality, sacred tradition, and in some churches on varying understandings of homosexuality in terms of psychology, genetics and other scientific data. While various church bodies have widely varying practices and teachings, individual Christians of every major tradition are involved in practical (orthopraxy) discussions about how to respond to the issue.
The Lutheran Ministerium and Synod – USA (LMS-USA) is a small Lutheran Christian denomination based in the United States. Its congregations are mostly located in the Upper Midwest, and the church body maintains its official headquarters in Indianapolis, Indiana.
The Lutheran Church in America (LCA) was an American and Canadian Lutheran church body that existed from 1962 to 1987. It was headquartered in New York City and its publishing house was Fortress Press.
WordAlone is a Lutheran grassroots network of congregations and individuals within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), the largest Lutheran denomination in the United States. According to its website, WordAlone advocates reform and renewal of the church, representative governance, theological integrity, and freedom from a mandated historic episcopate. The group is generally considered theologically and socially conservative. As of 2005, approximately 215 congregations have officially joined the organization.
Solid Rock Lutherans was a Minnesota-based group of Lutheran clergy and laity within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) who opposed liberalizing that church's position on the ordination of non-celibate gay and lesbian persons on the basis of scriptural authority.
Elizabeth Alvina Platz is an American Lutheran pastor and was the first woman in North America ordained by a Lutheran church body. She was ordained in November 1970 into the Lutheran Church in America (LCA). The ordination of women, approved earlier that year by both the LCA and The American Lutheran Church (ALC) was controversial. The ALC ordained its first woman as a pastor, Barbara Andrews, in December of the same year. The ALC and LCA merged in 1988 with the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches to form the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
The Lutheran Student Movement - United States of America (LSM-USA) is a student-led organization of Lutheran college students. The movement's staff and resources are housed at the Churchwide Office of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Chicago, Illinois.
Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary (PLTS) is a private Lutheran seminary in Berkeley, California. It is affiliated with California Lutheran University and is a member school of the Graduate Theological Union.
Herbert W. Chilstrom was an American religious leader, who served as the first Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). He was re-elected to a four-year term at the 1991 ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Orlando, Florida. He served as bishop of the Minnesota Synod of the Lutheran Church in America, one of the three church bodies which merged to form the ELCA on Jan. 1, 1988.
The Service Book and Hymnal (SBH) was used by most of the Lutheran church bodies in the United States that today compose the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) prior to the publishing of the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW) of 1978. In ELCA circles, historically, the Service Book and Hymnal has been called the "red book" while the Lutheran Book of Worship has been called the "green book." The newest ELCA hymnal, Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) is also red in color, and has apparently been dubbed "the cranberry book".
Lutheran viewpoints concerning homosexuality are diverse because there is no one worldwide body which represents all Lutherans. The Lutheran World Federation, a worldwide 'communion of churches' and the largest global body of Lutherans, contains member churches on both sides of the issue. However, other Lutherans, including the Confessional Evangelical Lutheran Conference and International Lutheran Council, completely reject homosexuality.
The 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly was the eleventh biennial Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. It convened in the city of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from August 17–23, 2009. The Churchwide Assembly is the 'highest legislative authority' of the ELCA.
Lutheran CORE, or Coalition for Renewal, is a community of confessing Lutherans spanning several Lutheran church bodies, like the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ and the North American Lutheran Church.
St. John's Lutheran Church is a member congregation of the American Association of Lutheran Churches (AALC) in Pocahontas, Missouri.
References
↑ Janson, Jeannine (2008). Lutherans Concerned for Gay People: The Beginning. San Francisco: Lutherans Concerned/North America. pp.4–5.
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