Steps in Australia. . .

After repeatedly failing to achieve the required majority to change the practice of the Lutheran Church of Australia and ordain women, the 21-23 Way Forward set a plan in motion to be one church but with two different practices of ordination.

RESOLVED: That General Synod direct the LCANZ General Church Board and the College of Bishops to:

a) Work through the theological, constitutional, and governance requirements to operate as one church with two different practices of ordination and establish a detailed framework through which this could be accomplished, such as one or more existing LCANZ Districts becoming Districts that teach and practice the ordination of both women and men to the office of the public ministry or by establishing a non-geographical LCANZ ‘District’ that does so.

b) Submit the fruit of this work in the form of a proposal that should be discussed by the LCANZ General Pastors Conference for Convention of General Synod 2024.

c) It is the expectation of this General Convention of Synod that both women and men will be ordained in a District of the LCANZ during the 2024-2027 synodical period.

You can read the summary of the Way Forward plan here. 

Now that movement to ordain women has created a separate Lutheran Church body in Australia -- those who reject the change:

On Monday 22 July, the General Church Board (GCB) and the College of Bishops (CoB) notified LCANZ pastors and congregational leaders that a new Lutheran church body called Lutheran Mission – Australia (LM-A) has been established.

Pastor Matt Anker, who has been serving the LCANZ as Assistant to the Bishop – International Mission, has accepted a call from LM-A to be its inaugural pastor-president.

At their 19 July meeting, CoB and GCB received Pastor Anker’s resignation from the LCANZ and granted him a peaceful dismissal from the Roll of Pastors, effective from 24 July 2024.

LM-A President-elect Anker’s call was not issued under the oversight of the LCANZ or by any of its bishops. This means that LM-A expresses itself as a new Lutheran church, and Pastor Anker has acknowledged that this is correct.

The GCB-CoB letter states: ‘The LCANZ receives LM-A as sisters and brothers in Christ who are faithful to the Scriptures with us, and who preach, teach and confess the doctrine of the Lutheran Confessions with us, but who are now a separate Lutheran church body.’

LCANZ Bishop Paul Smith and LM-A President-elect Anker met together on 15 July with respectful engagement for the establishment of a proper relationship between the LCANZ and LM-A.

Since late April, representatives of the LCANZ have been in discussions with LM-A President-elect Anker and other representatives of LM-A, formerly known as Lutherans Confessing Christ. These conversations are continuing and will need to address the steps for recognising a relationship between church bodies, as prescribed in our LCANZ statements.

‘As in any separation, we work through the pastoral and respectful processes for peaceful dismissal and pathways for any who might seek to depart from the LCANZ to join LM-A’, the GCB-CoB letter says.

LM-A President-elect Anker said, ‘I am grateful for the way in which Bishop Smith and other LCA leaders have assisted me during this time of transition and for their commitment to peaceful and godly engagement with LM-A into the future’.

A key matter for LM-A President-elect Anker and those who have formed LM-A is the Way Forward resolution of the 2021-23 General Synod, which has been the focus of work across the LCANZ since the Convention. LM-A has stated in its confession as a new church that the pastoral office is for ‘men who fulfil the biblical requirements for the office’.  (Emphasis Added)

In its letter, GCB-CoB said it was praying for ‘all our sisters and brothers in Christ of the LCANZ and for those who have formed the LM-A’, and was asking ‘the Lord of the church to join our voices as one, that together we might glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the witness of the gospel to the ends of the earth’.

All of this is a solemn reminder that the decision to ordain women is not a change in practice but in doctrine and that it is impossible for one church to have two understandings of ordination and who is to be ordained.  Pray for our brothers and sisters in Australia who have made this move in an effort to preserve their theological integrity and pray that this new groups comprises the majority of Lutherans in Australia and New Zealand.