More than a dozen Lutheran congregations in Minnesota have vowed to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) after a vote in Minneapolis this summer to allow gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships to serve as clergy . The fifteen churches will join a new denomination called Lutheran CORE and leave the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the world.
The leaders of Lutheran CORE say the ELCA has moved too far away from the Bible.
“Many ELCA members and... Read Full Story
Members of America's largest Lutheran denomination announced that they are splitting from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America after the ELCA voted to ordain partnered gay clergy. Read Full Story
A decision by the country's largest Lutheran denomination to allow gay pastors to serve as clergy is leading a conservative opposition group to try to form an alternate Lutheran church body. Leaders of Lutheran CORE said at a news conference in a Minneapolis suburb on Wednesday that they disagree with this August's decision on gay pastors by Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. They say they have heard from congregations and churchgoers from around the country who feel the same way... Read Full Story
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has about 10,000 congregations. The key churchwide assembly vote to roster practicing homosexuals passed 55-45. With the formation of a competing denomination opposed to those changes, those advocating for schism ought to be able to peel away a sizeable portion of those 10,000 congregations--at least 10% one would think, which would be 1000 congregations. At least some in Lutheran Core expect that many or more.
Frankly, anything less... Read Full Story
Lutheran Core is leading the charge to start a new denomination for those congregations that will leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) because it will no longer discriminate against homosexual persons who want to serve as a pastor in the church.
What will the new denomination be named? Almost all combinations of "Lutheran", "Church," "Evangelical", "America" are either already in use or have been used historically. One suggestion--Not in My Lutheran Church (NIMLC... Read Full Story
It is sad that closed minded homophobes within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (" ELCA ") are so insecure with their own sexuality and biased against those who are not just like themselves that they are leaving the ELCA and now organizing a new Lutheran organization that will embrace their bigotry and super selective anti-gay reading of the Bible while utterly ignoring the larger Gospel message and those inconvenient passages that they routinely violate themselves. One can only... Read Full Story
By PATRICK CONDON Associated Press Writer
NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. (AP) – The split over gay clergy within the country’s largest Lutheran denomination has prompted a conservative faction to begin forming a new Lutheran church body separate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Leaders of Lutheran CORE said Wednesday that a working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by... Read Full Story
By PATRICK CONDON Associated Press Writer
NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. (AP) – The split over gay clergy within the country’s largest Lutheran denomination has prompted a conservative faction to begin forming a new Lutheranchurch body separate from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
Leaders of Lutheran CORE said Wednesday that a working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the denomination, with hopes to have it off the ground by... Read Full Story
I have previously written about St. John's Lutheran Church in Roanoke, Virginia, which is moving towards leaving the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (" ELCA ") over the issue of partnered gay clergy. These folks insist on blindly literally applying a handful of Bible passages construed to condemn modern day same sex relationships while ignoring a host of other Bible passages which, if applied literally, would disturb their self-centered little lives. Now the hypocrisy and bigotry has... Read Full Story
BERLIN (Reuters) - German Protestants on Wednesday elected Margot Kaessmann, a divorcee and the Lutheran bishop of Hanover, to lead their Church, the first woman to take the post and only the third woman to head a major Christian denomination. Kaessmann, 51, a regular on television talk shows and known in the media as the "pop bishop," was considered something of a controversial candidate to lead Germany's roughly 25 million Protestants because she is divorced. But she won 132 of 142 votes... Read Full Story
