
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, December 10, 1993                   TAG: 9312100087
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-12   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

BIBLE, CONFESSIONS TO BE SEX STATEMENT'S BASIS

The nation's largest Lutheran group has vowed to keep closer tabs on a task force that provoked widespread protests for supporting homosexual unions, but the church is not backing off from the sex wars.

The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to appoint an 11-member consulting panel to work with the task force to make sure any official policy on human sexuality would stand on biblical foundations and the confessional tradition of the church.

Church officials also announced Thursday that the council has decided to hire up to three people to replace the Rev. Karen L. Bloomquist, who was removed as the director of the sexuality study after the first draft was released.

"We do have a crisis," said head Bishop Herbert Chilstrom.

The church is in the middle of its first attempt to grapple with sexuality since it was formed in 1988 by the merger of the Lutheran Church in America, the American Lutheran Church and the Association of Evangelical Lutheran Churches.

A 21-page draft report released in October, "The Church and Human Sexuality: A Lutheran Perspective," urged members to challenge traditional biblical condemnations of homosexuality, and argued that supporting and even moving toward a practice of blessing committed same-sex unions are practices "strongly supported by responsible biblical interpretation."

The reaction from the pews was immediate, and largely negative.

by CNB