Losing The Ball On The One Yard Line

By Dr. Robert Benne

The San Francisco 49ers arc engaged in an elegant, effective beautifully coordinated drive toward the goal. Their momentum almost guarantees that they will reach the end zone.

However, an astounding thing happens. They reach the one yard line and then – one of three very odd things occurs. They fumble, they punt w they call a long time-out. The first possibility is tragic; they've done everything well, but lost the ball when they were close to completing the drive.

The second possibility is irrational; the 49ers punt to the opposing team when they have every chance of scoring a touchdown. Now the punted ball sails into the stands but is returned to the Twenty yard line. The opposing team regains the ball and also recovers lost ground as the result of the crazy decision to punt only one yard from the goal line.

The third scenario is about as strange as the second. The team calls a time-out that effectively destroys the momentum built un on the long drive. The opposition and their fans are given relief but the 49ers and their fans are frustrated and angry. Even more strangely, the 49er’s announce that the lime-out will last for the foreseeable future. They are tired of conflict and they fear that if they press ahead with the drive the opposition will leave. They assume that their own frustrated fans won’t leave or withdraw their support.

The working Draft

The football game i.s an analogy for the new sexuality working dial! iifnmdn Sexuality, Oct. 1994) oiTeicd by the tiLCA's Division Im Chnn.lt inSuciely. Bach football .scenario Mjg.sesis ;in interpretation for what happened in the . new draft. The first doesn't wash. There wasn't any tragic fumbling of the ball. But I can't deeide whether the second or the third makes more sense out of the ELCA' s behavior.

My best hunch is that the Church intended to call a long time-out (the third scenario) but as in the second possibility, actually punted to the opposition.

Before reflecting on what should have been done, it is important to affirm what has been done. Areal theological argument was made in this second draft. Obviously Lutheran theologians were ;it work. The contrast was marked between this second draft, and the first which was vigorously challenged by ELCA members. The second draft contains a sustained and coherent argument instead of the series of choppy, sporadic interventions of interest-group concerns found in the first.

The second represents a seriously Lutheran proposal instead of one that is marginally Lutheran and non-confessional. It operates out of theological and biblical sources instead of bowing time and again io the Zeitgeist. It flows from a living religious tradition instead of repeatedly committing itself to social science. This is not to say there are no weaknesses or problems.

While immeasurably stronger in its teachings on marriage, the draft doesn't mount a strong positive argument for sexual intercourse being kept within marriage. Nor does it highlight the sexual delight that properly can be a part of married life.

It avoids Lutheran doctrinal "Orders of Creation" language, though it does recognize the orderly complementarity of male and female. lt lapses into the prevalent feminist ideology that insists that all sexual misconduct is an exercise of power and therefore is presumed to be the man's fault.

It does not explain why we need a secular set of principles out of that ideology in order to prohibit what traditional Christian ethics has always called sin. And, ofcour.se. the draft's recommendations forsocial policy are stridently liberal. For example, the Church should support an end to all discrimination based on sexual orientation This presumably means that the Church is to the left of the Clinton administration when it comes to gays in the military.

Let's Punt!

The major problem, of course, is the loss of nerve to press the argument in the documentto its consistent conclusion with regard to gay and lesbian sexual activity. Indeed, the draft is accurate and eloquent when it states the classical ethical position ontheseissues(p. 19). The overwhelming momentum of the document should lead to the traditional conclusion on gay and lesbian issues, but it stops short. It calls a lime-out, which, in fact, is a punt.

My own experience of this may be interesting. I was reluctant even to read the statement, but when I finally did, I read with delight. I began at the beginning and got moreexcited as I went. The ELCA has finally made a coherent, orthodox argument, I thought to myself. But then came the jolt of page 21, where the statement simply lists the counterarguments to the traditional perspective, and then says we cannot or ought not decide at this time. What a shock! Such hesitation just didn't fit.

Is it because of the highly contested nature of the issue in the ELCA? The Church has had many contentious issues it has toughed out, some would say, with great arrogance. Quotas, inclusive language (now expanded to exclude masculine pronouns for God!), the ban on investment in South Africa, the use of pension funds for political purposes, etc., were all pressed on a resistant grass-roots. And these were not "core" issues, that is, issues thai ought to occupy the center of mission for Lutherans.

Core Confusion

Now that we are at a core issue – the issue of the divinely willed sexual complementarity fulfilled in marriage – we get hesitant. We refuse to press the argument forward. In so doing we. again manifest one of the characteristics of a declining religious tradition: we become dogmatic about peripheral issues and confused about core issues.

Can anyone believe that the classical Lutheran teaching on these matters will ever be forthrightly reaffirmed by the ELCA? That is very unlikely. The dissenters now have time to marshal their forces and persuade an already theologically confused and declining Church that it is "unenlightened" to refuse to legitimate homosexual sex. We now have seminary professors writing books about the sin of "heterosexism." Soon that will enter the litany of sins to be forgiven in various avant-guard liturgies and confessions.

So, under the cloak of calling time-out for reflection, we have really punted the ball to the opponents, and they will get the ball at the twenty yard line sometime in the future. And, given the composition of leadership in the ELCA, the drive will move in earnest in the opposite direction.

What would I like? I would like to see the argument brought to its consistent conclusion. The classic Christian teaching on sexual morality should be clearly and confidently articulated. We should not compromise the ideals which have been handed down to us from the apostles. Let's be clear and uncompromising on normative ethical matters.

But then we can be subtle, nuanced and generous with regard to those persons who don't live up to the ideal. In short, we can be genuinely pastoral. A good deal of time should be spent in the draft precisely on the pastoral strategies that would be most helpful in dealing with persons who straggle with the church's teaching. We are all sinners and fall short of what the will of God commands. But let's not alter our standards because some fall short and want to change the standards.

* Dr. Benne is Jordan-Trexler Professor of Religion, Roanoke College, Salem, VA., and author of the new Fortress volume: THE PARADOXICAL VISION: A Public Theology for the 2lst Century.