2010 South Dakota Synod Assembly

The South Dakota Synod Assembly showed that our synod is very divided. That is a new reality. This synod has passed a number of resolutions in recent years upholding biblical teaching on sexuality by significant margins. The significant news from this year's assembly is that South Dakota is no longer the traditional stronghold that it once was.

The synod assembly both approved (Friday) and rejected (Saturday) resolutions expressing the "conviction of the synod" that the ELCA decisions "violate the ELCA Confession of Faith." The resolutions were based on and very similar to the original resolution from the NE Iowa Synod. Our bishop had asked conference assemblies to address the social statement and the ministry policies separately, so the NE Iowa resolution was split in half with one addressing the social statement and one the ministry policies. (There was some tinkering with the resolutions by the assembly's resolutions committee so the form they came to the assembly was a bit different).

On Friday, the synod assembly narrowly approved a resolution (#6) asking the 2011 CWA to "reconsider and remove" the social statement on human sexuality 251-243, with 10 abstaining,

There was much discussion of the first resolved which read:

RESOLVED, that the South Dakota Synod, in Assembly, expresses its conviction that the decisions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly in adopting the social statement “Human Sexuality:Gift and Trust” violate the confession of Faith, of the ELCA;

The discussion started with Bishop Zellmer stating the ELCA Secretary David Swartling will rule this resolved out of order. Something about us not being able to interpret the constitution -- only Swartling can do that. Many speakers were concerned that the ELCA Secretary had such sweeping authority that he could rule out of order the "conviction" of a synod assembly.

On Saturday, the results were just the opposite. Two resolutions asking for rescinding the changes in ministry policies failed. The assembly rejected a resolution based on the Swartling template anti-ministry policies resolution 256-246 with five abstentions. A second resolution nearly identical to the one approved on Friday except that it addressed the ministry policies was rejected 283-207 with 15 abstentions.

It must be noted that the synod's double-mindedness was the result of only a few people changing their position from Friday to Saturday. But the new reality that South Dakota can no longer uphold traditional teaching on sexuality is very significant.

Another significant resolution was passed by the assembly (#10) expressing the synod's "grief that the actions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly on sexuality have led to division among individuals and congregations in the South Dakota Synod;" and "its desire to maintain whatever unity and shared ministry might be possible with individuals and congregations that choose to end their affiliation with the ELCA as an expression of this synod’s commitment to 'manifest the unity given to the people of God by living together in the love of Christ and by joining with other Christians in prayer and action to express and preserve the unity which the Spirit gives;'"

This resolution was amended to add an additional resolved asking for "restraint in discipline" of congregations and individuals as they discern their relationship with the ELCA. You will remember that 4 congregations in South Dakota were "censured" by Bishop Zellmer for joining LCMC without leaving the ELCA. As you might imagine, the bishop did not seem very happy with this addition.

The amended resolution was approved 232-165 (58% voting to adopt).

Here is a link to the resolutions in their pre-assembly form:

Here are links to Friday's and Saturday's coverage from the Rapid City Journal: