(AgapePress) - A task force for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America is in the midst of a four-year study on homosexuality. It appears the 14-member team may eventually recommend the denomination officially ordain homosexuals and bless same-sex unions.

The current policy of the ELCA on ordination, sexuality, and sexual conduct states that married clergy are expected to be faithful to their spouses and single pastors are expected to remain chaste. It also specifies that homosexuals in a same-sex relationship are precluded from ordination, but that celibate self-identified homosexuals may be and remain ordained. Now the 5.2-million-member denomination has established the "Task Force on Human Sexuality" to study the issue of homosexuality and human sexuality.

The task force has scheduled consultations with representatives of the homosexual community in the ELCA, as well as meetings with behavioral and social scientists. Study director Dr. James Childs says the task force will consider the views of those who contend that in the first chapter of the Book of Romans, the apostle Paul was not condemning "loving and committed" same-sex relationships.

"It's not a question of questioning biblical authority, it's a question of asking whether or not we are having some experiences and insights that the biblical writers did not have in mind at that time," Childs says.

"Is it really speaking to some of the experiences that gay and lesbian Christians are claiming to have in our own time?" he asks. "Namely, a sense that homosexuality is not a choice or a deliberate orientation, but something that is a given through a complex process."

Theologian Joel Lehenbauer, with the more conservative Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, says the task force could be beneficial.

"If these are very public, kind of 'burning' questions in the ELCA -- which I think probably in some circles of the ELCA they are -- it might be helpful to issue some statement reaffirming or giving additional guidance or clarifications," he says.

Many evangelical Christians view homosexuality as an abomination, and say the four-year study by the ELCA is unnecessary.

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