ELCA NEWS SERVICE
August 9, 2005

ELCA Assembly Hears Presiding Bishop's Report
CWA-08-05-TW

     ORLANDO, Fla. (ELCA) --  ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson engaged voting members and guests in reflecting on the church's identity and mission in his report Aug. 9 at the 2005 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
     The churchwide assembly, the chief legislative authority of the ELCA, is meeting here Aug. 8-14 at the World Center Marriott and Convention Center.  About 2,300 people are participating, including 1,018 ELCA voting members.  The theme for the biennial assembly is "Marked with the Cross of Christ Forever."
     Four times, the presiding bishop asked voting members and guests to discuss among themselves the aspects of the current state of the church.
     "The state of the ELCA is really inseparable from how all 5 million baptized members would answer these questions," said Hanson.  "How is it with your soul?  Your walk with Jesus?  How do you live out your baptism?"
     Suggesting that "this church has a strong name that reveals a great deal about who we are," Hanson framed his report on the church's name.

'Evangelical'
       He began by challenging members to "claim boldly, humbly and clearly that we are evangelicals," proclaiming and believing "the good news of Jesus Christ."
       Yet "amidst all the competing gospels today, what good news do we announce?" Hanson asked voting members.
       "In our culture, everything presses us in a different direction than this good news" of justification by faith through God's grace, Hanson said. "In this culture we are valued for what we accomplish and for what we accumulate."
       Living in such a culture is living "in a mission field," said the presiding bishop.  "As long as there is one unchurched or dechurched person who does not know the story of Jesus in our townships or workplaces, our classrooms or car pools or families, we are called to invite that person as the Samaritan woman left the well to invite her friends to come and see Jesus."

'Lutheran'
     Hanson went on to describe being Lutheran as being "always evangelical, ecumenical and reforming."
     He drew applause when he stated that the challenge "is to build upon the strong foundational themes of the ongoing Lutheran Reformation and be sure that they, rather than the ethnic identities of European immigrant ancestors, become that which shapes our identity as a reforming movement in the church catholic, a church engaged in God's mission for the life of the world."

'Church'
     Quoting German pastor and author Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Hanson reminded the assembly that "the unity of the church as the Body of Christ is not a goal to be attained, but a fact to be recognized.  According to this image, the church is not to achieve unity, but to act as the unified body that we already are … so that the world might believe."
     In that regard, Hanson referenced the ecumenical work of the ELCA in establishing five full communion partnerships and the recommendation for an interim Eucharistic Sharing agreement with the United Methodist Church that will come before the assembly Aug. 11.  He then suggested that the ELCA "explore the possibility of a joint declaration on the Eucharist" with Roman Catholics "as one way of celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation in 2017."
     "Now is the time for Pope Benedict [XVI], the Ecumenical Patriarch in Istanbul, and the Anglican and Lutheran Communions to convene a global, ecumenical council on the Christian interpretation of Scripture" in order to address "a global identity crisis ... due to the dominance today of a fundamentialist-millenialist-apacolypticist reading of Scripture," Hanson said.
     Speaking more specifically to the ELCA itself, the presiding bishop described the commitment to church unity expressed in the constituting documents of the ELCA that describes an "interdependence" of congregations, synods and the churchwide organization.
     "But I suspect that there are many factors and forces -- cultural, ecclesial, financial, and relational -- that seek to undermine that commitment to interdependence in the ELCA.  We struggle with that," he said.
     Yet the bishop also stated that his experience of the church in the past four years is that each segment "wants to strengthen their relationship in and with this church and their identity as Lutherans engaged in God's mission for the life of the world."

'In America'
     In addressing the final part of the church's name, Hanson acknowledged that "we are a public church." 
       He asked the assembly, "Can we as a church convene and be participants in public conversations of moral deliberation?  We must acknowledge the complexity of issues, and call for civility in our discourse.  But we must also recognize that categories of morality apply not only to the behavior of individuals, but to the actions of nations or corporations, and, yes, churches as well."
       He further exhorted ordained ministers "to be witnesses to and instruments of God's peace and reconciliation for the world" and "committed to justice in the life of the church and society and in the world."
       Hanson closed his report by asking voting members and guests to lay hands upon one another as he prayed that the Holy Spirit "confirm their faith, guide their lives, empower them in their serving, give them patience in suffering, and bring them to everlasting life."

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     Information about the ELCA Churchwide Assembly is at http://www.elca.org/assembly/05 on the Web.

For more information contact:
John Brooks, Director (773) 380-2958 or news@elca.org
http://www.elca.org/news