Page 3
Ten years out, what’s happening?
Lutheran bishops still aren’t kosher enough. CCM required the ELCA to add elements of ordination to the rite for installation[8] of a bishop to make the rite equivalent to an Episcopal ordination into the office of bishop.[9]
Since 2001 all newly-elected ELCA bishops have been so ordained. Nevertheless, as far as is known, no ELCA bishop has participated in the laying-on-of-hands of an Episcopal bishop until June 2010.[10]
It doesn’t count for ELCA bishops to participate in an Episcopal ordination by reading, raising their hands, signing a book, and the like.[11] The only thing that counts is the laying-on-of-hands. It has to be the chain of hands, the pipeline.
[8] The ELCA “amended the rite for ‘Installation of a Bishop’ to include a prayer for the gift of the Holy Spirit and the laying-one-of-hands by three bishops already installed in the historic episcopate,” from the official Commentary on “Called to Common Mission,” p. 20 regarding CCM ¶18 (emphasis added).
See also the commentary on CCM ¶12 (p.16) which states that the required added elements of prayer for the Holy Spirit and the laying-on-of-hands are “the traditional means by which the historic succession of bishops has been observed from the time of the early church.” The official Commentary was adopted by the Lutheran-Episcopal Coordinating Committee, February 5, 2002.
[9] The ELCA employs a verbal trick by keeping the term “installation” but adding the traditional elements of ordination and making the rite non-repeatable like an ordination, not an installation, which is a repeated rite. Many Lutherans were misled by this verbal trick, as the exchange between Huffman and Epting below shows:
“Those Lutherans whom Huffman perceives ‘were not told the whole truth about the implications of CCM’ apparently did not bother to read material produced by the ecumenical office of their church or the document itself, which make clear that traditional elements of ordination (i.e. the laying on of hands and invocation of the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a bishop) are indeed employed,”The Rt. Rev. C. Christopher Epting, Deputy for Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations of the Episcopal Church, The Living Church, p.15 (March 3, 2002; emphasis added). Read it here.
[10] ELCA Metro-Washington Bishop Richard Graham participated in the laying-on-of-hands at the June 19, 2010, ordination of the Rev. Dr. James Magness, bishop suffragan for federal ministries (military chaplaincy) for The Episcopal Church.