Resolutions Spark Debate During Closing Session

ROSEMONT, IL (June 28, 2003) - Two proposed resolutions - one addressing local church dissent on the matter of allowing women to serve in all area of ministry and one addressing human sexuality - sparked animated debated during the closing business session of the 118th Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church.

The session began with a report on the Covenant's work in international relief and development through Covenant World Relief (CWR) from director Jim Sundholm. Sundholm reported that CWR received approximately $1.1 million in donations from 438 churches and individuals in 2002.

Some of those funds have been used for emergency relief in the Philippines, Ecuador, Congo, Bangladesh, South Sudan, Ethiopia (and in early 2003, Colombia), with $18,000 being designated for work in Iraq. CWR also supports medical work in Congo, Ethiopia, Tajikistan and Kenya; economic programs in Thailand, Laos, Colombia, and Central African Republic; and AIDS/HIV ministry in Malawi, Mozambique, Haiti and Thailand. About 70 percent of relief grants were done in partnership with Covenant World Mission projects.

Sundholm noted that after a fire left 3,500 people displaced in Medellin, Colombia, CWR funds were used to renovate three Colombian Covenant churches - adding showers and kitchens so those churches could be used to feed and house people. And in South Sudan, after the Sudanese government announced that all the countries' schools would become Islamic schools, South Sudanese Covenanters started an alternative school of their own, which serves 2,500 students.

When the government threatened to close the Covenant school because students didn't have uniforms, CWR sent foot-powered sewing machines and cloth to Sudan to provide uniforms for the students.

After approving a five-year extension for the Covenant World Relief Commission, delegates took up two resolutions from the Christian Action Commission The first, entitled "Our Relationship to the Poor," urged local churches to become involved in ministry to the poor in their local communities and provided resources for Covenanters looking to become more involved in serving their neighbors in poor communities. That resolution was overwhelming approved by delegates. A second proposed resolution on bioethics was accepted by delegates for discussion at the 2004 annual meeting.

But it was the final two resolutions - one from a church and one from the floor - that met with animated and sometimes emotional responses from delegates. The first, entitled "Resolution on Covenant Freedom & Women in Ministry," came from Graham (Washington) Evangelical Church. Graham pastor Alan Eagle introduced the resolution, which stated that "conformity to a particular view of women in ministry" not be used as "grounds for exclusion of any church, new or existing, from association with the Evangelical Covenant Church or exclusion of any qualified applicant for ministerial license, ordination, or commissioning."

Eagle said that his church brought the resolution because they "want to see the Covenant continue to be a fellowship that welcomes people with opposing views." While his congregation supports the right of local churches to call women as pastor under an egalitarian model, Eagle said a number of Covenant congregations hold an equally valid complementarian view in which "some restriction to ministries of authority in the church are based on gender."

In recent years, the Covenant church has become "egalitarian in its common agenda," he said. "We are close to making this vision (of women in ministry) a litmus test." That, Eagle argued, was a violation of the Covenant's ideal of freedom on Christ.

Brad Boydston, president of the Covenant ministerium, spoke in opposition to the amendment, saying that the Covenant's constitution requires that pastors and congregations support the denomination's policies. And ordaining women without restriction "is a policy of the Evangelical Covenant Church," he said, also noting that "the ministerium voted overwhelmingly to oppose this resolution."

David Kersten, executive minister of the Department of the Ordered Ministry, also opposed the resolution, saying that the Covenant has a "broad and deep biblical theology" for ordaining women. "We are equal in creation - we are equal in the fall," he said. "We are equal in redemption - both men and women are fully saved - and we are equal in the kingdom."

Delegate Marilyn Moore of Lexington, Massachusetts, also opposed the resolution. One of the things she said she appreciates most about the Covenant church is "its validation of women in ministry." To move away from that would take away freedom "from all the women in this meeting," she said.

Covenant President Glenn Palmberg spoke in opposition to the resolution, "but not in opposition to the Graham church," and its pastor, whom he came to know while serving as superintendent of the North Pacific Conference. "This is not a litmus test," Palmberg said. "No issue of doctrine is a litmus test." He added that some of the people ordained during the Annual Meeting held differing views on women ministry, yet they were still ordained.

But at least one delegate "respectfully disagreed with President Palmberg," saying he is troubled by a growing "political correctness culture" in the Covenant, "where only one view is accepted" on women in ministry. "I have been on the (Great Lakes) conference board of ministry," he said. "I think we really did see this as a litmus test - I think there may be too much pressure on this issue."

After reaching the 30-minute limit of debate outlined in the standing rules of the Annual Meeting, the proposed resolution was defeated.

Delegate Jeremy Males of the Evangelical Covenant Church of Evanston (Illinois) then rose with a floor resolution on "Sexual Morality." Males said he is concerned that the Covenant Church does not have a binding policy on sexual morality and specifically homosexuality. He proposed that three documents-a 1996 Annual Meeting resolution on human sexuality, North Park Theological Seminary Professor Linda Belleville's paper entitled "A Biblical Perspective on Sexuality," and a "Questions and Answers" paper on sexuality be adopted as the official policies of the Covenant church.

"Some day (the issue of homosexuality) is going to come our way, whether we like it or not," he said, "and to (adopt a policy) later would make it more difficult." After some discussion, Males then proposed that his resolution be referred for discussion to the Board of the Ordered Ministry, which would then report back to the 2004 Annual Meeting.

Donn Engebretson, executive vice president of the Covenant and former executive director of the Ordered Ministry, spoke against the motion to refer, noting that Board of the Ordered Ministry had already completed a two-year study of the issue. That study concluded that the Covenant already has clear Biblical teaching in place on this issue in the 1996 resolution, the Rules of the Ordered Ministry, the application for licensing and the ethical guidelines for Covenant pastors. (The 1996 Resolution on Human Sexuality, the Rules of the Ordered Ministry and the ethical guidelines for Covenant ministers are all available at www.covchurch.org).

Delegate Don Ostrom spoke in favor of the motion to refer. "I think we have been dancing around this issue and have been unwilling to talk about it," he said. After further discussion, delegates approved the motion to refer.

In other business:

• Delegates approved a constitutional amendment on the makeup of the Board of the Ordered Ministry, which had been referred to the board during the morning session. The amendment added two lay people as members of theBoard of the Ordered Ministry.
• Delegates recognized the efforts of Annual Meeting officers Kristine Strand (moderator), John Martz (vice moderator), Mary Jane Graham(secretary) and Daniel Ferguson (vice secretary), along with parliamentarian Duane Aschenbrenner.
• Annual Meeting coordinator Eric Palmquist announced that the 119th Annual Meeting will be held June 20-22, 2004, at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He encouraged delegates to make plans to attend the 2004 meeting, noting "it is an honor to come together in community as an act of faith to discern the will of God for the church."

The Annual Meeting closed with Mary Miller, vice president for administration, reading the names of Covenant pastors, missionaries and pastors' spouses who died during the previous year and offering a quiet thankfulness for their lives of service. "Peace to their memory," said Miller, "and joy to their eternal life."

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