By Dr. James A. Bergquist

One irritating fact was lost in the emotional dustcloud stirred up when the ELCA Assembly turned back the resolution for Lutheran-Episcopal "full communion," known as The Concordat. That fact was: Lutherans did not reject it! a public affirmation of unity with the Episcopal Church. in the Assembly's! ! negative action. Rather, It was the Episcopal Church which said, "We won't dance with you unless you pipe our tune."! That Church's insistence on "apostolic succession"via the historic ! I episcopate-or no Concordat!- made unity possible only on its terms. "Agree” with us that our church structure is the only finally authentic form of the Church, a form with life-long bishops who get their orders from the consecrating hand of a predecessor bishop in an unbroken link back to the apostles ("apostolic succession") and who alone can ordain priests and deacons into the ministry.
That is our price for establishing unity. Otherwise, no deal! "We'll quit playing hard to get,and we'll even issue a 'temporary waiver' acknowledging the validity of Lutheran eucharistic services and present Lutheran ordinations, if you are willing to promise that our tune, and ours only, will be played when all the present pipers have died off."
If there is a question as to who pants for relationships, and who coyly but adamantinely demurs, remember only how that same ELCA Assembly adopted ecumenical commitments in every direction (except of course, with the Lutheran ChurchMissouri Synod, which seems to be beyond the pale for the ELCA)-with three Reformed denominations and the Roman Catholic Church to boot.
What kind of revised Concordat would be acceptable to both Lutherans and Episcopalians? How could "full communion" be achieved without giving up our treasured Lutheran doctrine of the Church as the priesthood of all believers? One answer to how interchangeability of clergy: could happen-given the intransigency of the Episcopal position-is simply to let the Episcopalian bishops bless (or re-ordain) any Lutheran clergy who are called to serve an Episcopal parish .. This is a solution suggested by Professor Joseph Everson, at California Lutheran University:
We include as an example of such a solution, a synod resolution to be offered at the California West Synod, sent to us by Everson on the internet. He says of its practicality: "We will need to be big enough to allow Lutherans serving I Episcopal parishes to be "re-ordained' or 'episcopally blest;' by an Episcopal bishop. They on the other hand, need to acknowledge the validity of Lutheran eucharistic services and our present Lutheran ordinations, without making it a 'temporary waiver' recognition." The proposed resolution:

A Call for a Balanced Lutheran-Episcopal Concordat
WHEREAS churches and synods of the ELCA have been asked to offer suggestions and proposals for a revised Lutheran-Episcopal Concordat, and WHEREAS the first Lutheran Episcopal Concordat proposal was unbalanced, requiring that the ELCA become episcopal in terms of ministry structures (adopting the Episcopalian historic episcopate, adopting an understanding of the office of bishop as a separate lifetime order and status, and accepting a commitment that "the three fold ministry of bishops, presbyters, and deacons in historic succession will be the future pattern of the one ordained ministry"), while requiring no permanent changes in ministry structures within the Episcopal Church),
and WHEREAS the ELCA in its 1993 Churchwide Assembly formally rejected the threefold understanding of ministry, and affirmed that in our Lutheran tradition we have one order of ordained clergy who serve in various ways as servants of the church, be that as pastors, teachers, administrators or bishops,
and WHEREAS the ELCA has repeatedly affirmed the centrality of the gospel celebrated in Word and Sacrament in the local congregation, and an understanding of professional ministry that arises from the needs and the affirmation of local congregations who constitute "the priesthood of all believers,"
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the California West Synod memorialize the 1999 Churchwide Assembly of the ELCA to affirm a Lutheran Episcopal Concordat that is mutually respectful of both traditions of the Christian family of which we are all a part, and that does not require the ELCA to adopt the Historic Episcopacy as it is understood in the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.