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.

Posted by Matthew Hay Brown at 1:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)
        

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.

Continue reading "Knoche to step down from Lutheran post" »

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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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