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If you're the Task Force for Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Studies on Sexuality, you cry "Havoc" and let slip the dogs of war with one hand—while signaling for peace with another. You neglect your duty as referee and send the matter off to Thunderdome.

"We do not have general agreement or what we call consensus," the task force says in its eagerly awaited report today. "Consequently, the task force believes that this church must first decide, before all else, if it is committed to living and working together with our differences for the sake of our common mission and our God-given unity in Christ."

Consequently, the panel said, it is "not proposing any changes. Rather it is suggesting that this church allow for pastoral response in all these matters as a way of respecting each other's consciences while seeking to remain engaged in mission together as the ELCA."

In short, the task force recommends keeping the prohibitions against same-sex ceremonies and non-celibate homosexual clergy (celibate clergy attracted to members of the same sex are allowed)—and keeping the debate alive. But while the rules should stay on the books, the task force recommends that they should stay in the books—and not be taken out for use in church discipline, conforming church members to the image of Christ, or other such matters. "This church may choose to refrain from disciplining those who in good conscience, and for the sake of outreach, ministry, and the commitment to continuing dialogue, call or approve partnered gay or lesbian candidates whom they believe to be otherwise in compliance with Vision and Expectations and to refrain from disciplining those rostered people so approved and called."

It's worth noting that a recommendation on the flip side —that churches may choose to discipline (albeit "with all humility in the knowledge that we see through the glass darkly") — appears only in the "dissenting opinions," section of the document, suggesting that churches should only choose not to discipline.

In fact, one of the only boldfaced sections in the document highlights this sentence: "We are and remain a welcoming church in which all are invited to participate fully in the life of our congregations." That seems to suggest that discipline against any individual member, whether for unrepentant sin, denying core doctrines of the faith, or other matters, is off limits.

There actually is much to praise in this document. Even better than its affirming "the biblical teaching of God's gift of marriage as 'a lifelong covenant of faithfulness between a man and a woman'" is its affirmation of Scripture as authoritative. "Though there are differences among task force members regarding the interpretation of the Bible for the present circumstances, all accept the Bible as the inspired Word of God and the authoritative source and norm of its proclamation, faith, and life." You don't see that language in most mainline statements these days.

But the overall note sounded by the statement is that church is first and foremost a place where we get together for "dialogue," not a body being made—sometimes painfully so—into the image of Christ. "Here I stand" has become "let's sit and talk."

(Media coverage so far: Associated Press, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, St. Paul Pioneer Press, ELCA News Service. First conservative response is from Word Alone, a Lutheran renewal group.)

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January (Web-only) 2005, Vol. 49