In keeping with the Lutheran Confessions, St Stephen’s congregation believes that the Lutheran church calls and ordains pastors for one reason only, and that is to ensure that the gospel is proclaimed and the sacraments are administered. Through these ‘means of grace’ the Holy Spirit continues to create and sustain saving faith in people’s hearts (Augsburg Confession 5 and 14). By withholding the pastoral ministry from women, the LCA/NZ has injected a prohibition into its body of teachings that lacks support from the Bible and the Confessions and strikes at the heart of the gospel.
You are invited to dip into the following documents that spell out the conviction of St Stephen’s members regarding the ordination of women. The first is a letter that the congregation wrote to the College of Bishops in 2019, a ‘Here we stand’ kind of letter, in which we make our conviction public for the sake of total transparency. The second is the video that introduced the congregational proposal to the SA-NT District Synod in May 2021, asking delegates to refer to the next Church-wide convention a proposal that the paragraph in the Theses of Agreement that prohibits the ordination of women be deleted (TA 6.11). The proposal, the third document, was carried by a majority of delegates at the District Synod and therefore will be tabled at the next Church-wide General Convention, now deferred until October 2022. Two short papers follow that spell out from different perspectives the congregation’s rationale for the ordination of women, and the final entry is a video of the second of these short papers, Why ordain women? recorded at a conference of the Church-wide Women’s Ministry Network.
You are invited to dip into the following documents that spell out the conviction of St Stephen’s members regarding the ordination of women. The first is a letter that the congregation wrote to the College of Bishops in 2019, a ‘Here we stand’ kind of letter, in which we make our conviction public for the sake of total transparency. The second is the video that introduced the congregational proposal to the SA-NT District Synod in May 2021, asking delegates to refer to the next Church-wide convention a proposal that the paragraph in the Theses of Agreement that prohibits the ordination of women be deleted (TA 6.11). The proposal, the third document, was carried by a majority of delegates at the District Synod and therefore will be tabled at the next Church-wide General Convention, now deferred until October 2022. Two short papers follow that spell out from different perspectives the congregation’s rationale for the ordination of women, and the final entry is a video of the second of these short papers, Why ordain women? recorded at a conference of the Church-wide Women’s Ministry Network.
Letter to the College of Bishops, ‘Here we stand’Why St Stephen’s cannot uphold the LCA’s teaching on male-only ordination, 31 March 2019
Dear members of the College of Bishops: John Henderson, Andrew Pfeiffer, David Altus, Lester Priebbenow, Robert Bartholomaeus, Paul Smith, Mike Fulwood, and Mark Whitfield The members of St Stephen’s congregation can no longer uphold the LCA’s teaching and practice of male-only ordination. We firmly believe that the teaching has no basis in the Scriptures or the Confessions, but it has come to be regarded as an unshakeable law in our Church through successive votes at synod. With Lutherans world-wide, we confess that the ordering (structuring) of the ministry, including the gender of the pastor, has no bearing on the doctrine of the ministry, and that women pastors should be permitted to serve in places where they would be well received. In this letter the congregation sets out the theological reasons for our disagreement with the Church’s teaching and practice, it proposes a way of arranging the ministry that would also honour those who cannot accept the ordination of women, and it calls on the College of Bishops to put in place the steps that would lead to such an arrangement. |
A better way forward for the LCANZ |
Wording of St Stephen’s proposal: Amendment to the LCA Theses of Agreement
Be it resolved that in the interests of good order and the unity and well-being of the Church, the SA-NT District recommend to the 2021 LCA/NZ general convention that Theses of Agreement 6.11, be removed from the Theses of Agreement
Submitted by St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, Adelaide
The LCANZ teaches that ‘the Theses of Agreement are always under the authority of the Word of God, and therefore there must always be a readiness to submit them to the critical scrutiny of God’s Word and accordingly confirm them, or amend or repudiate them when further study of God’s Word shows them to be inadequate or in error’. This statement has given the Church the freedom to study closely the teaching that only men may be ordained during the past three decades.
However, the protracted period of theological reflection regarding ordination, on the basis of the Scriptures, has failed to resolve the differences in teaching that are all too evident in the Church. In the Theses of Agreement (Theses of Agreement 1, ‘Principles governing Church Fellowship’ (DSTO, page A2, 4.c), the Church clearly states that ‘there are some things hard to be understood in Holy Writ (2 Peter 3:16); and no doctrine can be based on Scripture passages that are not clear, especially if no light is thrown on them by clear passages’.
Those who formulated the Church’s foundational documents agreed in advance how to deal with doctrinal differences that might emerge in the new Church. They stipulated that if the Church fails to reach ‘agreement on the basis of God’s Word’ on a doctrinal matter after ‘combined, prayerful examination of the passage or passages in question’, neither of the ‘divergent views’ may be ‘promulgated as the publica doctrina (public teaching) of the Lutheran Church, as laid down in the Confessions’, if it lacks clear scriptural support, if it violates the central Lutheran teaching of justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ, or if it runs counter to the Church’s public teaching on the doctrine in question, in this case the ministry.
Submitted by St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church, Adelaide
The LCANZ teaches that ‘the Theses of Agreement are always under the authority of the Word of God, and therefore there must always be a readiness to submit them to the critical scrutiny of God’s Word and accordingly confirm them, or amend or repudiate them when further study of God’s Word shows them to be inadequate or in error’. This statement has given the Church the freedom to study closely the teaching that only men may be ordained during the past three decades.
However, the protracted period of theological reflection regarding ordination, on the basis of the Scriptures, has failed to resolve the differences in teaching that are all too evident in the Church. In the Theses of Agreement (Theses of Agreement 1, ‘Principles governing Church Fellowship’ (DSTO, page A2, 4.c), the Church clearly states that ‘there are some things hard to be understood in Holy Writ (2 Peter 3:16); and no doctrine can be based on Scripture passages that are not clear, especially if no light is thrown on them by clear passages’.
Those who formulated the Church’s foundational documents agreed in advance how to deal with doctrinal differences that might emerge in the new Church. They stipulated that if the Church fails to reach ‘agreement on the basis of God’s Word’ on a doctrinal matter after ‘combined, prayerful examination of the passage or passages in question’, neither of the ‘divergent views’ may be ‘promulgated as the publica doctrina (public teaching) of the Lutheran Church, as laid down in the Confessions’, if it lacks clear scriptural support, if it violates the central Lutheran teaching of justification by God’s grace through faith in Christ, or if it runs counter to the Church’s public teaching on the doctrine in question, in this case the ministry.
Why St Stephen’s congregation supports the ordination of womenSt Stephen’s has supported the ordination of women from the time the debate first arose in the LCA/NZ, based on the congregation’s understanding of the Scriptures and the Confessions, and it has written to the College of Bishops to formalise its position that the pastoral office be open to women and to men.
The Scriptures Christ has built the church on the foundation of the apostles and prophets (Eph. 2:20), and the Bible gives clear evidence that women served in both of these offices, among others (e.g. Ex. 15:20; Judg. 4:4; 2 Kgs. 22:14; Isa. 8:3; John 20:17,18; Acts 2:17–21; 18:26; 21:9; Rom. 16:1,3,7; 1 Cor. 11:5). This continued in the early church until the church started to exclude women from the ministry in the fourth century. Texts used previously in the LCA/NZ to exclude women from such activities as leading Bible studies, lay reading, voting at congregational meetings, serving as synod delegates, and chairing congregations (1 Cor. 14:33–36 and 1 Tim. 2:11–15) are now used only to exclude women from the public ministry. A contextual understanding of these passages, however, shows they have to do with none of these matters. Rather, they express Paul’s sincere concern that the Lord’s command to love God and one another (Matt. 22:34–40; 1 Cor. 14:37) was to govern all worship practices (1 Cor. 8:1; 13:1–13; 14:1). For the sake of the proclamation of the gospel and the conversion of outsiders and unbelievers (1 Cor. 14:23–25), Paul called on those who were using worship to make a proud display of their spiritual giftedness (1 Cor. 14:1–33), or the group of wives who were proving disruptive (14:34–36), to show deference to one another so that worship could be conducted decently and in good order (1 Cor. 14:40). In that way the message of the gospel could be proclaimed clearly, and people would be drawn to Christ and built up in faith, hope and love (1 Cor. 13:13). |
Why ordain women?
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