The Lutheran Church of Australia New Zealand General Synod (church parliament) has voted to allow women to be ordained as pastors. Technically, they have removed one clause from the church’s “Theses of Agreement” that prohibited women’s ordination.
“In effect, this means that the teaching of the Church on the office of the public ministry remains unchanged apart from the requirement of the ordination of men only”, according to an official Lutheran church of Australia announcement.
“The proposal included the expectation that [the] Commission on Theology and Inter-Church Relations (CTICR), together with the Church’s Pastors Conferences and Districts, will finalise a doctrinal statement on ordination in 2025, to be approved by an online General Pastors Conference and online Convention of General Synod.”
The proposal to have women pastors in the Lutheran Church of Australia has had a long history, involving five successive defeats at general synods. Previous attempts have failed to get the two-thirds vote needed to change the Theses of Agreement. The vote in this year’s synod has not yet been released.
A “Way Forward” team set up by the last General Synod was charged with bringing proposals to this Synod. They held meetings attended by thousands of Lutherans across the church. The detailed proposals include a provision that parishes do not have to have a woman on their call list and that if a woman bishop is appointed, a parish may request male oversight.
A proposal to have a conference for churches supporting male-only pastors was dropped earlier this year
The previous statement in the theses of agreement:
Though women prophets were used by the Spirit of God in the Old as well as in the New
Testament, 1 Cor 14:34,35 and I Tim 2:11–14 prohibit a woman from being called into the
office of the public ministry for the proclamation of the Word and the administration of
the Sacraments. This apostolic rule is binding on all Christendom; hereby her rights as a
member of the spiritual priesthood are in no wise impaired.
The new statement, as proposed in the Way Forward documents:
A baptised person who is duly called (Luke 10:16; AC Apology 7 and 8,28; TA VI:7,8)
thereby enters the office of the public ministry for the proclamation of the Word and
administration of the Sacraments. Scripture that underpins the Church’s teaching on the
office of the ministry and the rite of ordination (John 20:21-23; Matt. 28:18-20; 1 Cor.
11:23-26) applies to duly qualified called baptised persons although some understand
that 1 Corinthians 14:34,35 and 1 Timothy 2:11–14 prohibit baptised women from being
called into the office of the public ministry.
In other Lutheran news, following the $50m sale of the Lutheran College property in North Adelaide, a five-story office block in the Adelaide CBD has been purchased as the new home of the college and Lutheran HQ.
