Tag: Marriage

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A Theological Rebuttal to the ELCA’s Reconsideration of Human Sexuality

Photo by Anna Shvets

The Quiet Revolution in Phoenix

The 2025 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), held in Phoenix, Arizona, has now officially adopted what it describes as “editorial” changes to its 2009 social statement Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust. But contrary to this official framing, these changes are not minor word swaps or clarifications. They are, in substance and effect, a comprehensive revision of the Church’s understanding of marriage, family, and human embodiment—one that capitulates to the spirit of the age and redefines long-standing Christian doctrine in light of evolving civil law and cultural norms.

What follows is a rebuttal—not only to the changes themselves but to the misleading narrative that they are somehow neutral or non-theological. They are a redefinition of the Church’s public witness on marriage, sexuality, and the nature of family.

From 2009 to 2025: A Timeline of Theological Drift

  • 2009: Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust is adopted, controversially, by a narrow two-thirds majority—the minimum required for passage. While it affirms marriage as between a man and a woman, it also introduces the concept of “bound conscience,” allowing for differing positions on same-sex relationships within the ELCA. This marked a historic shift in Lutheran teaching and ignited deep theological conflict. A substantial percentage of members and pastors maintained that same-sex sexual relationships were incompatible with Scripture and the Church’s long-standing moral tradition. Many saw the decision as a departure from biblical authority and confessional integrity. The controversy led to widespread disillusionment, the formation of breakaway associations, and the departure of hundreds of congregations in the years that followed.
  • 2022: The Churchwide Assembly passes Memorial C3 and Motion K, authorizing two reconsiderations:
    • Reconsideration #1: Language changes in light of civil law, church policy, and public acceptance.
    • Reconsideration #2: A future substantive review of the “bound conscience” framework (scheduled for 2028).
  • 2025: The ELCA adopts the “editorial” changes recommended by its task force—changes which redefine terms, introduce new theological categories, and shift the center of moral authority from Scripture and Church Tradition to civil law and cultural sentiment.

Changing Words, Changing Doctrine

Let’s consider several before-and-after comparisons to highlight the depth of these so-called “editorial” revisions:

2009 Original: “Marriage is a covenant of mutual promises, commitment, and hope authorized legally by the state and blessed by God. The historic Christian tradition and the Lutheran Confessions have recognized marriage as a covenant between a man and a woman…”

2025 Revision: “In the United States, individual states determine the legal status and definition of marriage… Within Christianity, marriage is often understood as a covenant of mutual promises, commitment, and hope between two individuals...”

The theological center of gravity has shifted. The 2009 statement rooted marriage in Christian tradition and Scripture (Mark 10:6–9)1But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female.’ ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.”. The 2025 edit centers marriage in state law and replaces sexed-specificity with generalized individualism.

Another:

2009 Original: “Lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.”

2025 Revision: “Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Marriage.”

The 2009 phrasing, while itself a significant departure from previous Lutheran and ecumenical consensus, at least retained a specific and limited scope. It acknowledged that the matter was controversial and that such relationships were considered by some within the ELCA to be acceptable only under certain conditions. The new framing—“Sex, Gender, and Sexuality in Marriage”—broadens the subject dramatically. It signals a shift from constrained moral categories to an expansive and ideologically freighted framework that no longer clearly defines the theological boundaries of Christian sexual ethics.

And finally:

2009 Original: “We in the ELCA recognize that many of our sisters and brothers in same-gender relationships…”

2025 Revision: “We in the ELCA recognize that many of our siblings of diverse sexual orientations in relationships…”

The use of “siblings” is not just inclusive. It is ideologically loaded—an erasure of the creational significance of male and female as part of our shared human identity.

The Collapse of a Compromise: What Was Warned in 2009 Is Unfolding Now

The 2009 social statement affirmed “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same sex relationships”—a compromise that was hotly contested at the time and viewed by many as the beginning of a theological rupture. While presented as a way to honor differing convictions through the concept of “bound conscience,” the move was seen by a significant portion of the ELCA as a departure from Scripture and a rejection of the Church’s historic teaching. The new 2025 wording expands this compromise dramatically, now referring to “life-long, monogamous relationships between individuals of diverse sexes, genders, or sexualities.” A footnote defines “gender diverse” as encompassing “a wide diversity of identities and expressions in relationships between individuals, including gender non-conforming, non-binary, genderqueer, and transgender persons.”

This shift is more than semantic; it signals a full theological reorientation. It also confirms the trajectory long anticipated by those who opposed the 2009 compromise—namely, that the so-called bound conscience framework would prove to be a temporary measure, soon to be dismantled entirely in the 2028 Reconsideration #2 process.

What was once a disputed accommodation has become a blanket affirmation, and the Church’s distinctive voice is being absorbed into the ambient culture. Looking ahead, the evolving definition of “diverse family configurations” will almost certainly include not only same-sex couples but also throuples, polyamorous networks, and other arrangements increasingly recognized by secular norms. For instance, the city of Somerville, Massachusetts, in 2020 officially recognized polyamorous domestic partnerships in its municipal policy—an indication of how quickly the definition of family is expanding in civic life. Similarly, legal scholars and advocacy groups are increasingly calling for recognition of non-traditional relationship structures, framing them as a matter of equity and inclusion.

This trajectory reveals a breach—not only of doctrinal continuity but of the trust once promised to those who were told their traditional convictions would remain respected under the so-called bound conscience framework. It is also likely to accelerate membership and parish decline. As the Church’s moral vision becomes indistinguishable from the secular world, those seeking clarity, conviction, and creedal faith will continue to look elsewhere. The ELCA’s compromise has not preserved unity—it has diluted witness and driven away both confessional Lutherans and seekers alike.

A Mirror of the Nationalism You Decry

Here lies one of the greatest ironies of this shift. The ELCA frequently denounces what it calls Christian Nationalism—typically defined as the fusion of Christian identity with American political and cultural power, especially on the right. But this very reconsideration is itself a form of Christian Nationalism in reverse:

  • It aligns the Church’s moral witness not with the Kingdom of God but with the legal and cultural standards of the United States.
  • It canonizes Supreme Court decisions as theological turning points.
  • It treats public opinion and civil law not as areas to be evangelized or critiqued, but as authorities to be mirrored.

In short, this is a progressive version of what the ELCA claims to oppose: a Church conformed to the image of the nation. While the ELCA regularly challenges the political establishment on economic and immigration policies—often casting itself in a prophetic role—it nevertheless conforms to cultural consensus on matters of sexuality and identity. This inconsistency reveals a troubling pattern: resistance to the state when convenient, but capitulation when the culture demands it most. When the Church speaks boldly to Caesar in matters of justice but passively follows him in matters of sexual ethics, it reveals not prophetic courage, but selective conformity.

Public Sentiment as Theological Standard

The Executive Summary and Task Force materials confirm the real authority behind these changes:

“The edits… respond to the assembly’s authorization to update or clarify wording from the original social statement in light of: (1) the import that marriage legally is now a covenant between two individuals, (2) public acceptance of marriage of same-gender and gender non-conforming couples, and (3) the diversity of family configurations.”

There is no appeal to:

  • Biblical anthropology
  • Natural law
  • The history of Christian moral reflection
  • The creational structure of male and female as image-bearers

Instead, the guiding lights are public acceptance, legal precedent, and evolving definitions.

This is not Christian discernment. It is theological surrender.

A Bleak Forecast for Christian Witness

The consequences are plain:

  1. The ELCA’s public witness will become indistinguishable from progressive secularism.
    • It will no longer have the credibility to speak prophetically to the culture.
  2. The 2009-bound conscience framework will be dismantled in 2028.
    • Already, 37% of survey respondents said the section on differing views should be scrapped entirely. The direction is clear.
  3. Those holding to traditional Christian views will find themselves further marginalized within the ELCA.
    • I predict that powerful and preferred voices will not stop until they succeed in eliminating all dissent.
  4. The ELCA will accelerate its numerical and spiritual decline.
    • Churches that abandon creedal identity and biblical authority become indistinct, confused, and ultimately irrelevant.

Conclusion: Return to the Word, Not the World

The Church does not bear witness to the gospel by conforming itself to the laws of the land or the moods of the culture. It does so by proclaiming Christ crucified, risen, and reigning—not just in liturgy, but in moral teaching, in embodied discipleship, and in familial vocation.

The changes just approved in Phoenix are not cosmetic. They are catechetical. They re-educate the Church away from Scripture and toward the world.

Those who care about the integrity of the gospel and the created goodness of the body must say so clearly: these revisions are not simply editorial. They are ecclesial apostasy dressed in the language of inclusion.

Let the ELCA return to the Word—not to the world—for its hope, its witness, and its standard.

ELCA Sources:

Sexual Orientation of Survey Participants

  1. Heterosexual/straight – 61/1%
  2. No answer – 7.5 %
  3. Gay – 7.1 %
  4. Queer – 6.3%
  5. Bisexual – 5.0%
  6. Lesbian – 4.2%
  7. Other – 4.2%
  8. Asexual – 3.3%
  9. Pansexual – 1.3%

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Grace & Truth

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What is Sex?

As a Christian I outlined some basic theology in my “Big Picture” post. One very important creational concept may be summarized by the word ‘integration.’ God’s bi-natured world was originally designed to be an integrated whole with the Living God residing at the center point of that integration. God designed Heaven and Earth to interlock and overlap in the temple garden. Temple theology in both the Jewish and Christian sense teaches that the life giving God powerfully dwells at the place where Heaven and Earth meet. Analogous to this, God created “fruit-producing” Male and Female imagers as God’s creative representatives on Earth. But for this to work as designed, Female and Male must act as God’s imagers (representatives) and live according to God’s Triune likeness, which is to say, as a loving community of equal persons. (This is where Christian Theology branches off from Jewish Monotheism).

Integration of God’s bi-natured world is key. Marriage, in other words, is vital to God’s creational project. It is a creational necessity. But as we all know, the world is out of joint, broken. At the personal level, our minds and bodies are often disconnected in practice. Promise made is not promise kept. We may know the right thing, but not do the right thing. Intention and Action are often divorced. To be God’s Wholly People, mind and body must work harmoniously to extend God’s purposes. The good news is God’s eschatological1Eschatology is the study of God’s future for the Creation. goal through Christ to put this fractured “world organism” back together again. The two halves of God’s created order will retain their difference and yet be united in the purposes of God. As originally intended. Unity with diversity. Spirit and Matter, Soul and Body will coexist in loving, fruitful harmony. Heaven and Earth with be joined. That’s Christian Creation Theology. What God has purposed to be joined, let no one seek to separate.

***

Morning Sun, Blue Ridge Parkway
blueridgemountain_man

***

Now let’s discuss some science.

I’ll need to bring up something surprisingly controversial these days, the male – female binary. But first let’s briefly discuss organisms.

The most salient feature of an organism is its organization. The various parts must integrate for the good of the whole or the organism will have a very short life, if at all.

As a complex organism, humans have a variety of systems all designed for the purpose of promoting & sustaining life. For example, we have a cardio-vascular system, each part of which must work cooperatively to supply the rest of the body with a much needed resource, oxygenated blood. If one part of the system breaks down because of disease, we don’t call it a difference, we call it a problem. But when the system is working as designed the different parts interact for the welfare of the organism as a whole. The cardio-vascular system works in concert with the oxygen gathering respiratory system to bring about human well-being.

Like many of God’s creatures, humans are dimorphic, which means morphologically we exist in two distinct forms. We have little difficulty speaking about other dimorphic species. Farmers and breeders easily distinguish male and female bovines or canines. But recently some of us get tongue tied when it comes to human morphology rendering them incapable of stating the obvious; we were created male and female.

Why the different forms? In a word, reproduction.

Each half of the female-male binary makes up just one half of a total reproductive system. When the scripture writers say, the two become one flesh, that’s what they are referring to. The two halves of one reproductive whole come together sexually for the purpose of making more imagers of God. Not to be entered into lightly, this creative act is an awesome and noble responsibility! In the modern world, the casualness with which we regard this noble God-like creative responsibility is surely a symptom of a deeper malady.

You can’t explain maleness or femaleness without reference to the other. They are inter-defined. And you won’t have a species without reproduction. These integrated parts must operate for the sake of the whole or the reproductive system breaks down and the species doesn’t replicate.

***

Ok. Let me bring in the experts here. Lawrence Mayer, scholar-in-residence in the Department of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University and Paul McHugh, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine who was for 25 years the psychiatrist-in-chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital and the man called by the editor of the New Atlantis, “the most important American psychiatrist of the last half-century” reviewed the scientific literature on sexuality and gender identity and wrote the following:

The underlying basis of maleness and femaleness is the distinction between the reproductive roles of the sexes; in mammals such as humans, the female gestates offspring and the male impregnates the female.  More universally, the male of the species fertilizes the egg cells provided by the female of the species.  This conceptual basis for sex roles is binary and stable, and allows us to distinguish males from females on the grounds of their reproductive systems, even when these individuals exhibit behaviors that are not typical of males or females.2“Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D., and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., “Sexuality and Gender Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” Special Report, New Atlantis 50 (Fall 2016): 89.”

There is no other rational, objective way of classifying the two sexes than this. 

In biology, an organism is male or female if it is structured to perform one of the respective roles in reproduction.  This definition does not require any arbitrary measurable or quantifiable physical characteristics or behaviors; it requires understanding the reproductive system and the reproductive process.  Different animals have different reproductive systems, but sexual reproduction occurs when the sex cells from the male and female of the species come together to form newly fertilized embryos.  It is these reproductive roles that provide the conceptual basis for the differentiation of animals into biological categories of male and female.  There is no other widely accepted biological classification for the sexes.3“Lawrence S. Mayer, M.B., M.S., Ph.D., and Paul R. McHugh, M.D., “Sexuality and Gender Findings from the Biological, Psychological, and Social Sciences,” Special Report, New Atlantis 50 (Fall 2016): 90.”

Males donate genetic material. Females receive that material and gestate the resulting offspring. Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner could never produce an unfertilized egg or gestate offspring and so was never a female. Nor ever could be. Bodies organized to perform specific reproductive tasks reveal what sex you are. Not your mind. Or your deepest desires. Your sex is not assigned. With rare exceptions, every cell in your body is “sexed” with either an XX chromosomal structure or XY. Biological processes “sexed” you. And, as a Christian I would add, those processes were guided by God, mediated of course through your biological parents. For as I’ve said many times during weekly bible study at the church I attend, “God does not dance alone.” Humans participate in the unfolding purposes of God.

For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Psalm 139:13 (NRSV)

The male gamete (sperm) is either a Y sperm or X sperm and at fertilization the female gamete (egg) receives an XX (female) chromosomal composition if it was fertilized by an X sperm or an XY (male) chromosomal composition if it was fertilized by a Y sperm. Only in rare cases, due to a chromosomal or hormonal defect, does this finely tuned system break down.

Assuming normal development about six weeks later the human embryo starts to develop gonads. If the embryo has an XX genetic structure, gonads called ovaries develop. If the embryo has an XY genetic structure, gonads called testes develop and begin the male/female differentiation process in earnest. There is no third gonad. Only two. One set takes the human down the female development path. The other set takes the human down the male development path. These are the only two biological “regulators” of sexual differentiation. Ovaries and Testes secrete sex-specific hormones that further differentiate female from male. The creation of sex-specific reproductive organs come next. Then what is known as “secondary sex differences” begin to develop through birth and on to puberty where differences of size, shape, bone length and density, fat distribution, musculature, etc., become pronounced. Men and women are different from the cellular and molecular level up to the most obvious physiological level.

And it’s a beautiful thing.

***

Unfortunately some people are born with less than 10 fingers. Or with muscular dystrophy. Or any of a number of birth defects due to genetic mutations, or prenatal environment abnormalities. We don’t say these are merely differences, but we say these outcomes resulted from a breakdown in human development. We don’t have a problem saying so in these areas, but somehow today when it comes to sex or gender we have a huge problem stating the obvious.

We should respect and care for those who have these disorders but let’s not ignore the obvious. We should embrace them and recognize their often heroic efforts and celebrate the tenacity with which many of them live their lives, but we should not lie to them or pretend that they don’t have a problem. Any common sense understanding of human flourishing tells us that a person with 6 fingers or someone confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their life will live, however heroically, with many more difficulties than normal.

Correspondingly, the rare person with a Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD) for example, someone born with malformed or ambiguous genitalia, should not be told this is just a difference. And to use those disorders as evidence to justify a Gender Fluid, Non-Binary “Queer” philosophical agenda masquerading as a civil rights crusade, a crusade that leads you to shout “smash heteronormativity” is beyond absurd.

A physical inability to accomplish an essential reproductive task is not a difference. It is a biological disorder of the reproductive system. And now speaking as a Christian, an unwillingness to acknowledge God’s bi-natured creational design is a spiritual disorder. All of us are unaligned with God’s purposes to some extent, which is to say we are all spiritually disordered, but some disorders are more obvious than others. An unwillingness to recognize maleness and femaleness as normal, as part of God’s original design, is one of them.

***

Many years ago I was listening to a radio talk show when an elderly man called in to ask a question. For some reason the host asked the guy how old he was and he said “87 years old” at which point the host sidekick, a young woman of maybe 25, interjected with typical youthful exuberance: “you’re 87 years young!” Without hesitation the old curmudgeon responded: “kiss my ass.” Now that wasn’t very nice of him. Especially when speaking to a woman. But it was honest. He knew he was no longer young and vibrant. No matter what he desired or how he might express that desire, every passing day, every sudden movement, every memory, every forgetful moment, told him who he was. He wasn’t buying the “you can create your own reality” the giddy sidekick was selling. Trying to make him feel better she only revealed youthful naivety and perhaps a shallow subjectivism. But he knew better. The undeniable disorder we call death was crouching at the door.

Life happens. And then life breaks down. Disorders develop, sometimes slowly over a long life, sometimes quickly, as in the womb. And death happens. If not physical death, death of possibilities, death of a fully formed human life where an integrated body and mind operate at peak efficiency, at least for many seasons. Ignoring this reality is unhelpful, unhealthy and delusional.

***

So what is “sex”? Sex is the biological classification of an organism according to its reproductive role. There are only two, male and female. Sex is determined at conception and recognized not “assigned” at birth. We distinguish between the sexes based on the bodies we were given by our parents (and God). It is not just certain parts, like genitalia, but every cell in our body is “sexed” either male or female and cannot be changed by hormone therapy or surgery. Swapping out a body part doesn’t change who you are. We are who we were created to be. We ignore that reality at our peril.

Gender Ideology is in direct conflict with biology & Christian anthropology.

So why do Gender Activists and astonishingly some medical organizations say that “sex is assigned at birth?” I’ll take a closer look at their rationale in an upcoming post.

***

I’m a Classic Christian and think Gender Ideology is anti-creational to the core. This blog is about “God’s Good Creation.” That’s why I’m writing about Gender Ideology. And “speaking up” as I’m confident Jesus would.

"Have you not read that the one who made them at the beginning 'made them male and female.'" [Matt 19:4]

If you would like more detail on how my Christian worldview informs my understanding of Sex and today’s Gender Ideology please read the following posts.

The Natchez by Delacroix – 1835
Oil on Canvas
Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Love refuses to affirm confusion.

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The Case for Marriage

This is a needed followup to the previous post.

Fra Filippo Lippi (Italian, Florence ca. 1406–1469 Spoleto) Portrait of a Woman with a Man at a Casement, ca. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Brad Wilcox’s new book, Get Married, emphasizes the benefits of marriage, including more sex, less loneliness, greater happiness, better-adjusted kids, and more meaning in life.

Wilcox teaches at the University of Virginia and he argues that a good marriage surpasses money, education, or job satisfaction in contributing to happiness. The article also explores the “Two-Parent Privilege,” highlighting the increased resources and commitment benefiting children in such households. The “Soulmate Trap” report from BYU’s Wheatley Institute critiques the notion of predestined soulmates, advocating instead for marriages built on agency, commitment, and intentional actions to foster flourishing relationships.

Many more details in this piece by DeseretNews.

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