50 Years of Clouded History. . .

Now 50 years ago the American Lutheran Church and the Lutheran Church in America, the predecessors of the 1988 merger into the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) ordained the first Lutheran women in the USA.  The Rev. Elizabeth A. Platz, was ordained Nov. 22, 1970, by the Lutheran Church in America, following the approval of the LCA in June of that year.  Within a month the American Lutheran Church had ordained the Rev. Barbara Andrews, having given approval to women's ordination in as recently as October.  Although this was not a rash action -- it had been debated and discussed for some time and in official publications of those church bodies -- it was not given clear theological justification.  The theology fell in line because for those church bodies the time had come and culture was pressing upon them to act.  In neither church was there a theological study to given cover the decision but in both bodies there were voices of the emerging feminist movement as well as the actions of European bodies which had acted as early as two decades before the Americans.  These were followed 10 years later by the ordination of the first women of color and then 40 years later by the ordination of the first transgender people as pastors.

Now well over a third of the active clergy in the ELCA are women and nearly half of all candidates for ordination were female in the last year for which statistics are available.  But women clergy are said to lag behind men in pay and in acceptance in the parish.  This dispute the fact that there are a significant number of women bishops in the ELCA.  At least 17 of the ELCA's 65 synod bishops are female but women still lag behind mind in holding the title of senior pastor.  So for many in the ELCA the struggle is not over.  But for others, women pastors remain controversial at best and a scandal at worst.  I knew two female LCA pastors who have a long fight to justify their ordination theologically, renounced their ordination and were received as lay members of the Roman Catholic Church.  For them, this failure to justify their ordination became a shadow that would not go away.  One might wonder if there will ever be a theological justification for the breech in history and theology with even our recent Lutheran past.  Or perhaps it is either too late or not necessary to give theological cover for a decision which is now seen as a done deal.  After all, when the NALC and LCMC left the ELCA, both continued the practice of women's ordination.  It has become a non-negotiable.  The same is true for the Episcopalians who left to form the Anglican Church in North America.

For the ELCA, the decision to ordain women eventually led to decisions to accept homosexuality and transgender clergy.  While it is not necessary to link the two or to judge the ordination to be the causal event for this choice, it is impossible to deny that the other would not have happened if women had not been ordained.  So the anniversary will be celebrated with great fanfare among those who favor this decision but it cannot be denied that it is an lex still in search of a ratio.  That would seem to have put a damper on the 50th anniversary but it does not look like anyone still cares.  Just a few thoughts as we approach the 50th anniversary of the ordination of an ALC woman while that body was technically in fellowship with the LCMS.  Now isn't that ironic!!