This past weekend the bishops of the ELCA gathered in Chicago for one of their semi-annual conferences. As part of that gathering, they apparently took enough time to get out and experience some of the better dining in the Windy City.
I don’t blame them. When I’m in Chicago I do the same!
Many of our bishops are on social media these days, so of course there were a few posts from bishops checking into ELCA Headquarters, plus some photos announcing, “I’m here for the ‘baby bishops’ training!” (a special track for first time and new bishops, it seems).
Those of us out here in the hinterlands of the mid-South get to, by means of modern technology, experience a bit more of what our bishops are doing in conference than we might have prior to the advent of the Internet.
This time around, I found myself somewhat startled by a series of posts, first from my bishop and then from two other bishops who I know collegially, all of which mentioned or depicted going out to get a drink.
This is where things got dicey given my own personal history with alcohol. I’ll try to describe that here briefly. I started drinking about the time I entered seminary. During seminary, I became increasingly enamored of drink. I brewed beer. I lived in Slovakia as a missionary and drank a lot in many contexts. It was a ubiquitous part of that culture.
Somewhere along the way, I started drinking way too much, especially in the evenings. In the early 2000s, having just started on an anti-depressant, I told my therapist about the drinking, and he (quite prophetically) asked me if I was ready for the day prior to have been my last drink.
I was. I quit. And then stayed sober for almost fifteen years. About five years ago, quite to my surprise (because I had not found sobriety difficult) I found myself drinking again. I excused the first drink as a coping mechanism after having gone through multiple grief situations in our parish, but then kept drinking until again, sitting down with a doctor and realizing I was in a cycle I couldn’t break out of, I quit a second time, and have been sober since.
I’m so thankful for this sobriety.
Because I do not find it super difficult on a daily basis to maintain it, I don’t center my story around addiction as much as some other alcoholics do, but I also try to be transparent that I am in fact an alcoholic.
I have found, especially in this second round of sobriety, that it is wise to simply put some guardrails around alcohol in my life, if for no other reason than redundancy. So… I don’t have alcohol around the house, I mostly don’t go to bars or places where alcohol is prevalent, and I try to keep drinking culture out of my social media feed and entertainment.
I will also add, I find the introduction of alcohol into religious contexts especially triggering for me, maybe because I started or increased my drinking specifically in religious contexts. So when clergy conferences include events that focus on liquor, or when the bishops make posts about going out for a drink, well, those are even harder to see than some other alcohol posts.
All of this got me wondering: do our bishops think about addiction much in relationship to their function as bishops? What has our denomination done to address addiction or teach about it, especially in a theological or ecclesiological sense?
The answer, it turns out is: Not much.
The ELCA has never published a social statement or a social message on addiction. We have all kinds of social messages on all kinds of things, but apparently have never commissioned ourselves to publish anything on addiction, the war on drugs, the modern opioid crisis or even anything on the campaign to legalize marijuana in the United States.
It’s a rather glaring omission if you think about it, given the broad range of topics on which the ELCA has published social statements. It’s almost like “addiction” doesn’t want attention drawn to itself in our denomination.
In fact I could only find one official statement from the ELCA related to alcohol. In a corporate responsibility screen (an official document adopted by the ELCA to screen investments, guide shareholder advocacy and create sustainable communities) we actually screen for alcohol. Since it is, as far as I can tell, the only document in our denomination related to alcohol, I quote it here in full.
Authority: The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has laid out
its concern for health in a social statement “Caring for Health: Our Shared
Endeavor” [2003], acknowledging that health is central to our wellbeing, caring
for it is a matter of shared stewardship and adequate support for public health is
a critical advocacy priority. Given its inordinate effect on life expectancy, alcohol
abuse represents a public health issue. Historically, the ELCA’s predecessors have
expressed concern about the widespread misuse of alcohol. In the present, the
ELCA’s social statement on criminal justice and the messages on gender-based
violence, suicide prevention, and commercial sexual exploitation all recognize
alcohol addiction as a catalyst for social ills.
Wording of screen: The ELCA shall not knowingly make any investment in
firms which are involved in (e.g. 10% or more of revenue is derived from) the
production or marketing of alcohol products for human consumption.
Definition of Problem: Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths
and 2.5 million years of potential life lost (YPLL) each year in the United States
from 2006 - 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30
years. Alcohol impairment accounted for nearly 30% of all traffic-related deaths
in 2016 and alcohol use factors into numerous social ills such as violent crime
and domestic violence.
So here’s my question: why doesn’t our denomination have a clearer statement on addiction? Given that we believe it’s an important enough matter to guide our investing, wouldn’t it also inform our social messaging?
Returning to the bishops. Top of mind to me is the tragic fact that the bishops have good reason to be intentional about teaching and modeling healthy practices addiction and alcohol in particular. My previous bishop in Wisconsin was involved in a fatal DWI accident about a decade ago. The very next year an Episcopal bishop killed a cyclist while under the influence. And back in 2010 the bishop of the German Lutheran church resigned early after their election because of a DWI.
The impact of alcohol on the role of bishops comes very close and apparently fairly prevalent and deadly.
I just don’t think the old saw that “Martin Luther and his wife Katie brewed beer” cuts it here. So what if they did? Luther also wrote a bunch of anti-Semitic screeds. Does that justify writing such screeds today?
The more important question would be: When the bishops gather in conference, are they thinking carefully about how they communicate about that gathering and what it teaches about the church? Do they know that what they model matters?
Is the gathering of bishops a fun, expensive junket1 those elected to the office get to engage in on the church’s dime? What’s the larger purpose of them gathering?2 What does it do within the church of Christ? How does it connect to local parish ministry?
Some of this is addressable with greater communications intentionality: if the bishops would use social media as a means to teach their social media followers about the content of the gathering and their role as bishops and how it relates to the work and life of the church, that would go a long way.
But when multiple bishops post booze photos as some of their main communication content, this tells me there’s a deeper issue perhaps at work. I mean, are we really this much at cross purposes that the ELCA won’t invest in companies that produce alcohol but our bishops will invest in alcohol while gathered AND apparently the ELCA will invest in church mission starts that are “Beer Churches”?
I simply do not believe that intentionally connecting the work of the church to addictive substances is helpful for the body of Christ, whether that substance is alcohol or marijuana or opioids or sugar. In a culture like ours so tethered to many types of addiction, the church is called more to the business of creating space for “good clean fun.”
Call me straight edge or pietistic if you want, but that’s my perspective. Speaking as an addict, I just think you create unnecessary barriers for those of us who struggle with addiction. And if we’re just talking alcohol, in addition to the harm it clearly causes as outlined in the ELCA corporate responsibility screening, it’s also just increasingly been shown that alcohol just isn’t very good for you. Period. Not even that one glass of wine at dinner they used to champion.
If I estimate flights, hotel, food, plus salary and other ancillary expenses for 65 bishops gathering in conference for four days, I’m estimating the church spends a quarter of a million dollars each time the bishops gather.
Bishops would be far less lonely, and far more useful, if they’d remain in the parish and serve as bishop in a part-time fashion.
I’m an ELCA pastor in the St. Paul area synod and I am member of the Fellowship of Recovering Lutheran Clergy which has been around for almost 30 years. It was developed to support those pastors in recovery and those seeking. We have reached out to Bishops all aver the country. Unfortunately Bishops are busy, forget and leave. This group of Lutheran clergy meet weekly on Zoom for a 12 Step recovery meeting and we just had a transformational retreat this week. To look at the website (low budget) www.FRLC.org.
Now we are gathered in Minneapolis at the Addiction and Faith conference. It is the fifth year to gather discussing the problems of addiction in our country and world and how church can make a difference. Monthly webinars are available monthly.
Pastor Ed Treat, an ordained ELCA pastor started the Center of Addiction and Faith at the start of the pandemic. It is more necessary now than 5 years ago.
To contact him go to centerofaddictionandfaith.com. Or email pastored@addictionandfaith.com.
Thank-you for the conversation. Share with your colleagues.
Amazing that we have the statement and policy we do have and still have so much negative reaction among leaders to the suggestion that alcohol might be a barrier to participation in community worship and events for some. I don’t mind bishops choosing to socialize over a drink but I wonder who has to choose not to take conversation when they do, and how that affects decisions they make in their subsequent official business. Definitely needs further conversation and sober reflection.