[Spanish Translation]

The perspectives outlined below are intended to help guide this church’s understanding, development, consideration, and use of social statements.

1. Social statements are theological documents.
These documents arise from and address the changing circumstances of our world in light of God’s living word of Law and Gospel. With the aid of contemporary experience and knowledge, they bring this church’s understanding of its faith to bear on social issues. Because they view issues from the perspective of the Church’s faith, social statements are clearly rooted in the biblical and confessional witness of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. They are subject again and again to the testing of whether they are faithful to Scriptures as “the authoritative source and norm of [this church’s] proclamation, faith, and life” (ELCA 2.03.) and to its creeds and confessions (ELCA 2.04, 2.05, and 2.06.). They themselves are not new creeds or confessions.

2. Social statements are teaching documents.
In their preparation, content, and use, these documents bring together the realities of our world, the experience of Christians living their vocation, and the convictions of faith. Social statements give voice to the prophetic mandate of this church, its calling to care for God’s world, and its commitment to reason together on social concerns. In so doing, they inform, guide, and challenge this church and its members. They are intended “for the equipment of the saints, for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12).

Church members are called upon to give social statements serious consideration as they form their own judgments. In their use as teaching documents, their authority is persuasive, not coercive. Their teaching function builds upon and seeks to nurture the freedom of Christians to decide and act responsibly. Social statements help shape the conscience of Christians by appealing to their faith, moral convictions, and reason. The respect they evoke comes from the truth and wisdom they embody, which has stood the testing of various forums within this church and to which testing they always continue to be subject. Their effective teaching significance is determined by the intrinsic quality of their content and by their use in the church.

3. Social statements involve this church in the ongoing task of theological ethics.
In these documents, this church addresses the question: “What ought we as Christians and the Church think and do about this social issue?” Social statements seek to discern God’s will for today, offering insight and direction on how people should view an issue and act justly in relation to it. Their focus is most commonly on those ethical guidelines that mediate between very general moral affirmations and the detailed requirements of a particular situation.

Social statements hope to reflect the qualities of a community of forgiven sinners called to do God’s will. They probe for shared convictions and the boundaries of faithful action; within this framework, they acknowledge diversity. These documents recognize the complexity of society and the power of sin as well as the responsibility of this church to speak and to act with hope and boldness. They appeal to theology, ethics, secular knowledge, history, and contemporary experience to offer coherent and plausible reasons for their judgments. As the work of a community that stands under God’s judgment and grace, social statements exhibit openness to the Holy Spirit’s further guidance.

Social statements are meant to foster the art of ethical reflection and discussion in congregations and other expressions of this church. They depend on a vision of the Church as a community of moral deliberation in which serious communication on matters of society and faith is vital to its being. United by baptism, members are free to discuss and disagree, knowing that they are ultimately bound together in the body of Christ by the Gospel and not by their moral judgments.

4. Social statements result from an extensive, inclusive, and accepted process of deliberation throughout this church.
They are shaped by careful and critical listening to this church and to society, as well as to other church bodies and ecumenical organizations, both in this country and around the world. The Department for Studies of the Division for Church in Society works with representative and diverse groups of this church to develop social statements through careful and thorough research and study. In order to explore adequately the issue, these groups include persons with needed specialized knowledge and persons directly affected by the issue. Broad participation by congregations and synods, as well as by other churchwide units, are to be encouraged and facilitated in the study process. The Conference of Bishops provides one forum for discussing major social statements (ELCA 15.41.A91.h.). Their development is guided by the constitutional mandate to “provide structures and decision-making processes for this church that foster mutuality and interdependence and that involve people in making decisions that affect them” (ELCA 4.03.o.).

5. Social statements guide the institutional life of this church.
They set forth the principles and directions that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America considers necessary to govern the internal and external practices of its social responsibility in accordance with its understanding of God’s will. They express mutual expectations and provide for mutual accountability in this church.

Social statements establish policy for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s work in the areas of advocacy and corporate social responsibility (ELCA 11.21.i., j., and m.; 16.11.E91.i., and j.), enabling, limiting, and directing these activities.

Social statements include in their implementing resolutions instructions and recommendations on how their governing principles and directives are to be carried out by different parts of this church.

It is expected that ELCA-affiliated agencies and institutions will develop policies and practices consistent with the principles and directives of social statements.

Those who represent this church are expected to present the positions of the social statements as those of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. This understanding recognizes their freedom to disagree with these positions.

6. Social statements, intended to be used widely in the life and mission of this church, reflect awareness of the various audiences and ministries which they are to serve.
To help stimulate consideration of social issues in congregations, their language is clear and appropriate for congregational life. They are a helpful resource for pastors, bishops, theologians, and other teachers and leaders in our church. Social statements offer individual members guidance and support for their participation in society. They address the broader society in ways fitting for public discussion of social issues. Social statements offer faithful and viable policy directives that have the support of the legislative authority of this church.

The 1997 Churchwide Assembly acted in August 1997 to affirm the adoption by the Church Council of this document, as a revision of the former document, "Social Statements of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America--Principles and Procedures," which was adopted by the first Churchwide Assembly on August 28, 1989; and to authorize the Church Council to make appropriate adjustments in these policies and procedures as further experience would indicate.