The presiding bishop of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination warns that withholding financial support to protest a recent gay clergy vote would be "devastating" to the church. Bishop Mark Hanson lays out his concerns in a letter Wednesday to leaders of the 4.7 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA voted last month to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, dropping a requirement that gay clergy remain celibate. Hanson's letter... Read Full Story
The Uber -Christians at OneNewsNow - a Christianist faux news website - have their panties in a wad over the statements by the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Mark Hanson. His "sin"? His recognition that the Bible cannot be applied literally and giving room for God to continue further revelations. The obvious truth of the statements are evident to anyone who knows true history and the manner in which the Bible was first compiled and subsequently manipulated by... Read Full Story
LUTHERANS SPLITTING FROM LIBERAL DENOMINATION
(Friday Church News Notes, December 4, 2009, www.wayoflife.org fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
The liberal Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is splitting over the issue of the ordination of homosexuals. On November 18 a group of Lutherans called CORE (Coalition for Renewal) voted to form a new Lutheran denomination in response to the decision this summer by the ELCA to allow “openly practicing homosexuals... Read Full Story
A Minnesota pastor says his church is incorrectly listed on the website of a conservative splinter group that’s breaking away from the Evangelical Church in America (ELCA) over the church’s recent votes on homosexuality , but that group is refusing to rectify the error.
Pastor Arthur Sharot of Urland Lutheran Church in Cannon Falls has asked Lutheran CORE to remove his church’s name from the group’s CORE Congregations page — a list of churches that support its “Common Confession” — but... Read Full Story
A look at where the largest Protestant churches stand on the issue of gay clergy: _ UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: 7.9 million U.S. members. The most conservative of the largest mainline denominations on gay clergy. An effort to repeal a ban on non-celibate gay clergy failed at the church's last General Conference, in 2008. _ EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA: 4.7 million U.S. members. The church voted Friday to strike down a policy that required celibacy of gay clergy, becoming the largest U... Read Full Story
Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis is bucking a trend among Minnesota’s Lutheran congregations — it decided to increase “benevolence” payments to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America because of an August vote to allow the rostering of gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships.
The move bucks the trend of churches leaving the ELCA over the gay clergy issue. More than a dozen churches in Minnesota have either left the ELCA or have announced their intention to do... 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
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
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
