CHICAGO, USA - The Rev. James M. Childs Jr. starts work Feb. 1 as director of a four-year study of homosexuality ordered last year by an assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
The study will produce a sexuality statement and shape future policy. Liberal Lutherans have been advocating ordination of openly homosexual pastors and blessings for same-sex couples.
Childs is a theology and ethics professor and former academic dean at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio. He is taking a leave, since the job at Chicago church headquarters is full time.
Childs said the process ``will be attentive to God's Word, open, fair, rigorous, and as representative and participatory as possible.''