Two years into sexuality study, Lutheran losses are increasing
By John H. Adams, The Layman Online, August 18, 2004
Of the mainline Protestant denominations in the United States, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America seemed to be doing the best job of retaining members.
But now, in the wake of two years of debate over a sexuality study, including the possibility of ordaining practicing homosexuals, ELCA membership has taken a plunge.
On August 13, the denomination’s press reported that the ELCA lost 53,081 members in 2003, the second highest exodus in its history. The highest was in 2002 when membership declined by 61,871.
Those losses followed the action of the ECLA’s 2001 Churchwide Assembly, which mandated a study process in preparation for decisions the 2005 assembly is to make on whether people in committed homosexual relationships should be ordained and whether the ELCA should develop a rite for blessing committed same-gender relationships.
After paring its rolls in 2002-03, the ELCA dropped below 5 million members to 4,984,925. Since 1990, when the head count was 5,240,739 the denomination has lost 255,814 members – 4.8 percent.
Meanwhile, the Presbyterian Church (USA), a sister denomination to the ELCA in mainline Protestantism, has lost 760,739 members since 1990 – 26.6 percent. But the PCUSA has been at the business of debating the ordination of homosexuals for decades while the ELCA has gone full tilt on the issue only the last two years.
Current ELCA policy requires professional ministers to refrain from all sexual relations outside marriage.
The official news release about its 2003 membership loss did not spell out the reasons, just as the PCUSA officially has not acknowledged that issues about sexuality may be driving its membership losses.
The ECLA release summed up the loss by saying, “Parochial reports showed the loss was due to a decrease in the number of new members, the disbanding of 36 congregations and ‘roll cleaning’ in many remaining congregations.”
However, in another story, the ECLA reported that Lutheran synods were sharply divided on a wide range of options on homosexuality, ranging from continuing the current policy to changing church law to allow the ordination of practicing homosexuals and blessing homosexual couples.