Lutherans seeing fallout from gay clergy issue
While the Anglican church has gotten much of the attention relating to differences over gay clergy, questions of embracing or condemning homosexuality are roiling many Protestant denominations. The Associated Press has a story about the debate within the nation's largest Lutheran denomination:
Until a few weeks ago, the Rev. Gail Sowell was pastor at two Lutheran churches in the small Wisconsin town of Edgar. That was before members of both congregations jumped headfirst into the simmering debate over gay clergy in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America."It was pretty gruesome," Sowell said, recalling shouting matches inside the sanctuary; the mass resignation of one church's council, save one member; even whispers around town that she was a lesbian. "For the record, I'm not," she said.
When the smoke cleared, the congregation at St. John Lutheran Church narrowly voted to not leave the ELCA. Across town at Peace Lutheran, they voted to leave and fired Sowell. "Fortunately, I'm thick-skinned," she said.
Not all ELCA congregations have seen that level of turbulence over the ELCA's decision last August to allow pastors in committed same-sex relationships to serve openly. But by most accounts, it has been a confusing and murky time in the nation's largest Lutheran denomination.
Several hundred congregations are moving toward a permanent split with the ELCA and more will likely come, but the number is still a small portion of the 10,000-church denomination.
Last week, a conservative Lutheran group announced its plans to establish the North American Lutheran Church, a new denomination that will recruit dissident congregations. Rather than setting up a clear-cut choice, though, even some critics of the ELCA's new policy say the move could further confuse already splintered Lutherans at a time when Protestantism in general seems to be moving away from a denominational model.
"It just feels like we're stepping off a sinking ship, and I'm not inclined to get on another boat," said the Rev. Bill Bohline, lead pastor at Hosanna! in Lakeville, Minn., which had been the state's second largest ELCA church until its members voted overwhelmingly in January to sever ties with the denomination. "That's not where the spirit is moving."
Comments
If, at the end of the day, the American Protestant community has reordered itself along lines being drawn on this issue, is this such a bad thing?
Similar ruptures occurred over the issues of slavery and temperance in the past. There will be pain in the process, but like-minded people will eventually find spiritual homes where their values are most and best reflected.
And some will find the whole discussion so distasteful, they will leave organized religion altogether.
Posted by: BankStreet | February 25, 2010 2:35 PM
The ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America), the church body in which I was baptized & confirmed, has for the past generation acted as a mirror for the political and social views of the Liberal Establishment. They parrot all the secular clichés, assumptions and PC vocabulary to which our culture is continually and toxically exposed. Sometimes, I could not distinguish their views from the Democratic National Committee’s handbook, save for the “Christian” veneer with which they anoint their leftist agenda. I have had enough. That the ELCA shall career down the same fatal trail blazed by the apostate Episcopal Church there is no doubt. Neither is it any consolation.
“We know that the church is a community of the believers, not an institution or limited by institutional boundaries. The institution is the reflection of the believers’ vision and ought operate as a tool to serve the faith, rather than the institution being the central idol or purpose for the elite pampering their own agendas. Every church community has this potential to blindside themselves into thinking that they are the only ones left on earth with faith.” --comment excerpted from The Wittenberg Door magazine
Posted by: Requiescat in pace | March 22, 2010 3:22 PM
Having women as clergy is enough trouble in itself. Women are very important to the church but they are not to lead services. Any church that finds itself straying from God's rules finds itself being punished.
Posted by: Clay | March 22, 2010 4:09 PM
Yeah...I hate it when Christianity gets all "liberal" ... you know, treatin' all sorts of folk with respect 'n' all.... You just know they're gonna fry in hell for that! After all, WWJD?
Posted by: BankStreet | March 22, 2010 6:55 PM
Wow, Clay, you really do make it too easy.
Posted by: Monty | March 22, 2010 7:23 PM
God makes it easy, with simple commands for us to follow. Those who dont want to listen make it complicated.
Posted by: Clay | March 23, 2010 6:26 AM
So, Clay, let me get this straight....
God ... as revealed in innumerable succesive translations, countless compilations (each undertaken by men with a particular axe to grind), and the pronouncements of an infinite number of preachers, popes, and other interpreters (each with his own agenda) ... "makes it easy," while my own conscience, informed by my own experience and my own reading, is "complicated"?
I don't think so.
Posted by: BankStreet | March 23, 2010 11:31 AM
Whats the big deal? Men and woman are both very different. Can we deny this? Therefore, the roles to be played by both, respectively, can and should be different. Just because an organization has set roles for each gender does not, by any means, merit a cry for "discrimination" or "unfairness". Cheese and crackers! I think some people need to do a little growing up.
Posted by: Pattycakers 2K10 | March 23, 2010 1:15 PM
When I said you make it easy, Clay, I wasn't referring to translating Jebus' will from the bable. I merely implied that you are easily identified as a fool, a stooge, a turkey, a ninny and a loon.
Posted by: Monty | March 23, 2010 7:41 PM
How you are any better Monty? Wait Clay's post at least have an intention of being helpful while your intend appears to be simply to mock and belittle. Sorry to break it to you but you come out looking far worse than Clay.
Posted by: Tony | March 24, 2010 11:55 AM
Glad you could join our fallen party, Tony. There is no way to deny that your post is intended to degrade me. Now we're all a happy bunch together!
But go on and wiggle, worm. Justify yourself with righteousness. "Oh I was just" this or "I merely intended" that.
Posted by: Monty | March 24, 2010 2:56 PM
What makes you think I would deny or justify pointing out the obvious Monty.
Posted by: Tony | March 24, 2010 5:10 PM