Associated Press correspondent Kathy Matheson reports:

One of the hottest college campuses in the U.S. for Jewish students is also one of the unlikeliest: a small Lutheran school erected around a soaring stone chapel with a cross on top.

In what is being called a testament to word of mouth in the Jewish community, approximately 34 percent of Muhlenberg College's 2,200 students are Jewish. And the biggest gains have come in the past five years or so.

Perhaps equally noteworthy is how Muhlenberg has responded: offering a kosher menu at the student union, creating a partnership with the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, and expanding its Hillel House, a social hub for Jews.

"What makes us stand out is that we actually enjoy our diversity," said Randy Helm, the college's president, an Episcopalian. "Our close-knit community has embraced differences rather than pulling into its shell or fracturing along religious, ethnic or other lines."

Many major universities — including some of the country's most highly selective schools — have large proportions of Jewish students, far bigger than the 2 percent of the U.S. population that is Jewish. But how, one might ask, did this come to pass at Muhlenberg, a liberal arts school little known outside Pennsylvania?

Muhlenberg graduate Ben David, now a rabbi on New York's Long Island, said it is a question worthy of Malcolm Gladwell's best-selling book "The Tipping Point," which analyzes how trends develop.

"Jews are like nothing else in terms of word of mouth," said Patti Mittleman, director of Muhlenberg's Hillel House. "There are so many Jews at Muhlenberg who are having a positive experience at Muhlenberg. That gets talked about in the synagogue and in youth group and in summer camp and in all of those ways that Jews meet each other and talk to each other."

Continue reading "Lutheran college hot among Jewish students" »

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Richard Mahan and Anita Hill are both Lutheran pastors who were inside a Minneapolis convention hall last summer when delegates for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to allow non-celibate gay and lesbian pastors.

Afterward, the Associated Press reports, each cried for different reasons.

Mahan, lead pastor at St. Timothy in Charleston, W.Va., said he cried because he realized he would likely leave the denomination in which he had invested 42 years of ministry. For Hill, the openly gay lead pastor at St. Paul-Reformation in St. Paul, they were tears of "joy and relief."

A year later, the ELCA is moving gay pastors into its fold — it's now the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. to allow noncelibate gays into its ranks — even as the most visible dissidents strike out on their own.

Mahan and other critics of the decision plan to gather this week in Columbus, Ohio, for another Lutheran convention. Leaders of 18 former ELCA churches are expected to be among more than 1,000 Lutherans voting Friday to create a brand new Lutheran denomination that they claim will follow the Scriptures more faithfully: the North American Lutheran Church.

"The issue is departure from the word of God," Mahan said. His church has already voted twice to end its longtime identity as a ELCA church, also ending an annual $36,000 in tithing to the denomination.

Meanwhile, Hill will finally join the official roster of ELCA pastors. She was ordained in 2001, but she had been kept off the roster because she lived openly with her lesbian partner, with whom she'd shared a commitment ceremony in 1996. That meant she was not eligible for the full housing allowance and retirement benefits and could not be a voting delegate to churchwide assemblies.

Continue reading "New Lutheran group likely to arise from discord" »

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A Lutheran pastor in Minneapolis who opposes homosexuals being allowed to lead congregations said Monday he is attracted to men, but that he's not a hypocrite because he never acted on his urges, the Associated Press reports.

The Rev. Tom Brock told The Associated Press he has known for years he is sexually attracted to men, but doesn't consider himself gay because he never acted on it.

In June, the Minnesota gay magazine Lavender reported that Brock was a member of a support group for Christians who struggle with same-sex attraction. Brock's church, the Hope Lutheran Church, placed him on leave while a task force looked into the matter. The Rev. Tom Parrish, the church's executive pastor, said the investigation determined Brock's story checked out.

"I am a 57-year-old virgin," Brock told the Hope Lutheran congregation during services upon returning to the pulpit on Sunday.

Brock and Parrish would not share the full task force report, but Parrish said its members could find no evidence Brock ever had sex with men. They confirmed that Brock sought counseling and enlisted another minister as an "accountability partner" with whom he frequently discussed his struggles.

Brock said he intends to step down as senior pastor at Hope Lutheran, but will retain his affiliation with the church and still preach there from time to time. Having preached on Twin Cities cable access for about 20 years, he told the AP he hopes to take his broadcasts to a wider national audience with a new message: "You can have this struggle with same-sex attraction, say no to it, and still follow Christ."

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Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the nation's largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination, the Associated Press reports.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service.

The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy.

Churches can now hire noncelibate gay clergy who are in committed relationships.

"It's going to be an extremely glorious and festive ceremony because it's the culmination of decades of work to welcome LGBT people into the ELCA," said Amalia Vagts, executive director of the Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, a nonprofit that credentials openly gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people for ministry.

Continue reading "ELCA welcomes back banned gay pastors" »

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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."

Read the rest of the Associated Press story.

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Members of a Virginia church are the latest to vote to leave the country's largest Lutheran denomination over its policy to allow gay clergy, the Associated Press reports.

The Rev. Mark Graham, pastor of St. John Lutheran in Roanoke, told the AP that church members voted 350-104 Sunday to break away from the national Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Church rules required a two-thirds majority for reaffiliation.

The votes comes after ELCA delegates lifted a ban last year that had prohibited sexually active gay and lesbian pastors from serving as clergy. The new policy, expected to take effect in April, will allow such individuals to lead ELCA churches as long as they can show that they are in committed, lifelong relationships.

Sunday's vote affirmed a ballot held in September that called for St. John to join the smaller Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, the AP reports.

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In the months since we started In Good Faith, we've attracted readers and commenters from all over the world. Ties to the Baltimore area will be helpful in spotting some familiar faces in the video above (the list appears at the end).

I wanted to take a moment to say a sincere thank you to all who have stopped by, and particularly to those who have joined in the spirited debate taking shape on these pages. During this holiday season, we wish the very best to everyone of every faith, and no faith at all.

I expect to be posting only lightly over the next few days as I take time off to spend with my family. As my father would say: Talk amongst yourselves.

Best,
Matt

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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has become the latest Christian denomination to spawn a breakaway church over differing interpretations of homosexuality, the Associated Press is reporting.

Leaders of Lutheran CORE, which opposed the decision of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination in August to welcome gay clergy, told reporters on Wednesday that they planned form an alternate Lutheran church body.

Lutheran CORE members believe the Bible condemns homosexuality. Other Lutherans, and Christians in other denonimations, have called for what some describe as a more inclusive reading of scripture.

Lutheran CORE leaders said they had heard from like-minded Lutherans and congregations from around the country, the AP reports. They said they didn't know how many ELCA congregations might join the new denomination, which they hope to start by August 2010.

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Conservative members of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination will decide in a year whether to remain or form a new denomination after the church voted to affirm gay clergy, the Associated Press reports.

Some 1,200 people attended a meeting of Lutheran CORE over the weekend. The group comprises members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America who are unhappy with the churchwide assembly vote last month to allow gay men and women in committed relationships to serve as clergy.

Lutheran CORE leaders have urged members to withhold financial support for the Chicago-based denomination of 4.7 million members. ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson has warned that such a boycott would devastate the mission of the church.

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Categories: Lutheranism
        

The leader of the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination warned members that withholding financial support to protest a recent vote to accept gay clergy would be “devastating” to the church, the Associated Press is reporting.

e 4.7 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted last month to allow gay men and women in committed relationships to serve as clergy. The vote at a churchwide assembly has provoked a backlash among some ELCA members, with the conservative group Lutheran CORE urging supporters to direct funding away from the national church.

In a letter to church leaders this week, the AP is reporting, Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson warned that withholding would damage the mission of the Chicago-based denomination.

"Although these actions are promoted as a way to signal opposition to churchwide assembly actions or even to punish the voting members who made them, the result will be wounds that we inflict on ourselves, our shared life, and our mission in Christ," he wrote.

The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, told the AP that the gay clergy vote was the devastating event — "a departure from God's clear word." He called Hanson's letter "an attempt to shift the responsibility of this devastation and crisis within the ELCA away from the people who presided over it and are responsible for it."

Lutheran CORE says 1,200 people have registered for a conference this weekend, which organizers say will start the process of forming an "alternative church fellowship" for traditionalists within the ELCA.

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The Rev. H. Gerard "Jerry" Knoche, bishop of the Delaware-Maryland Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since 2000, is retiring in October, three years before his second term was to have expired.

I interviewed the bishop for my first story for The Baltimore Sun, four years ago next week, about the ELCA's grappling with same-sex marriage and ordaining gay men and women. We had lunch some time after that. Turned out to have been a college classmate of my father. Struck me as a genuine and decent fellow. I wish him and his family all the best.

Following is the announcement.

The Rev. H. Gerard "Jerry" Knoche, bishop of the Delaware-Maryland Synod ELCA, has announced his retirement for health reasons as of Oct. 31, 2009. Elected to his first six-year term as bishop at the Synod Assembly in June 2000, he was elected to a second term at the 2006 assembly, a term which would have run until 2012.

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Categories: Lutheranism, People
        

A trio of Lutheran pastors from West Virginia will be wheeling their bamboo bicycle-built-for-three into Baltimore next week to talk about hunger here and around the world.

Baltimore is one of 65 cities that the Revs. Reinold “Ron” Schlak Jr., Frederick A. “Fred” Soltow Jr. and David A. Twedt are planning to visit during their 100-day, 13,000-mile Tour de Revs. The riders are hoping to raise $5 million for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America World Hunger and Disaster Appeal.

“We will be encouraging people to make giving to the [appeal] a regular part of their stewardship, not just contributing when a special offering is collected,” Twedt said in a release. “Beyond that, I would hope and expect that this church will continue to increase its support of those who, through no fault of their own, can not support themselves. Jesus is saying that to me in Matthew 25.”

Matthew 25:40 includes the injunction: “Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me.”

Schlak, Soltow and Twedt, who describe their goals as “revelation, revolution and revenue,” will enter Baltimore on Monday via the Gwynns Falls Bike Trail. They are to be received at the Lutheran Center by Bishop H. Gerard Knoche, the Rev. John Nunes of Lutheran World Relief, Ralston Deffenbaugh of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Services and Jill Schumann from Lutheran Services in America.

Continue reading "'Tour de Revs' pastors riding to fight world hunger" »

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Local Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders will come together on Wednesday to discuss a new plan to promote peace in the city this summer.

The group, to be hosted by Catholic Archbishop Edwin F. O’Brien at St. Mary’s Seminary and University, will include Arthur Abramson of the Baltimore Jewish Council, Imam Earl El-Amin of the Muslim Community Cultural Center, Bishop John Rabb, suffragan bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland, the Rev. Frank M. Reid, III, pastor of Bethel AME Church, and the Rev. Johnny Golden of New Unity Church Ministries and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance.

The group plans to meet with interim Health Commissioner Olivia Farrow, and then hold a press conference to announce a summer peace initiative. Watch here for more details.

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