Modern American Church Needs No Scarlet Letter : Lutherans: The ordination of practicing homosexuals has been met with an intolerance that ignores the role religion must play in today’s society.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is disturbed by the ordination in San Francisco last week of a lesbian couple and a gay man who will not vow celibacy. No institution should shrink from controversy and the church is no exception. Martin Luther’s 95 Theses in 1517 marking the beginning of German Protestantism were greeted with neither mildness nor acceptance.

What is peculiar is that in a church body traditionally and primarily regulated by elected, ordained pastors, there is widespread concern among the laity on this issue. Martin Marty, foremost American church historian and a Lutheran himself, suggests that the majority of Lutheran laity side with the official church policy--that practicing homosexuals should not be ordained.

The basis for the policy is that sexual activity should be permitted only within the traditional marriage bond of women and men. Biblical admonitions are found in Leviticus in the Old Testament and in Paul’s condemnation of homosexuality in the New Testament. The fact that most contemporary parishioners agree with the current policy is not surprising, since the Lutheran Church in the United States has been characterized and influenced by the conservatism of Northern European immigrants.

But the church’s views reflect pervasive and intolerant social mores. Social judgment and hypocrisy of the kind that Nathaniel Hawthorne described in “The Scarlet Letter”--centered around a Puritan community that rejected an otherwise heroic woman for her single act of adultery--need to be recognized and avoided by the modern church.

Yet even in my lifetime, the church’s code of behavior has become less judgmental and more accepting. I grew up in a Lutheran parsonage and recall when I could not attend a theologically innocuous Ma and Pa Kettle movie on Sundays and had to remove my colored nail polish for the sabbath. I also remember--only 15 years ago--a Midwestern woman of the Missouri Synod stating that she was showing disrespect to God by not wearing a hat to services. More significant is the example of a Lutheran pastor 30 years ago who was defrocked and disallowed from serving in any type of parish role because he was divorced. Today, such “improprieties” are overlooked.

But how long will it take for the church to accept practicing homosexuals among its clergy?

While its people move--too slowly--toward greater tolerance, the fundamental beliefs of love and brotherhood that the church espouses are diluted and become less credible. When this wrenching controversy within the church is resolved, the church can become a stronger force in the world. Here is an occasion where people can resist harsh and narrow judgment and accept clergy no matter what their human sexual practices. The church needs to return to more important concerns of salvation and redemption.

The ordination of practicing homosexuals is not an issue of good and evil, or really a fundamental theological concern at all. It is an issue of individual choice and social acceptance, a point most Lutherans refuse to acknowledge.

What the Evangelical Luthern Church in America--and all Christians--should practice is the Greek ideal of koinonia --unequivocal love of God and fellow humans. If the church is going to flourish and survive in a modern world, authentic love needs to extend beyond the bounds of current social mores. That love is inclusive, unrestricted, tolerant and generous.