Conservatives Mull Future after ELCA Lifts Gay Ban

It amazes me how people can now easily ignore the passages in the Bible that support slavery, forbid divorce, justify the murder of women and children, yet that cannot get past the few passages that are used to justify homophobia - regardless of modern mental health knowledge about sexual orientation. In my view, these folks are like the Biblical Pharisees and to be blunt, hypocrites - particularly those who have divorced and remarried. In some cases, I surprised that these Neanderthals don't argue that the Sun still revolves around the earth. Already some of the "conservatives" in the ELCA are threatening to break with the national church after 68% of the voting delegates at the Churchwide Assembly approved dropping the ban on partner clergy in same sex relationships, thereby giving LGBT Lutherans full membership at long last in the Church. As I have argued before, in my view it is those with fragile faith that cling to ignorant, antiquated passages in the Bible in order to proclaim themselves better than others. Here are some highlights from the Virginian Pilot:

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) -- Even though the Rev. Mark Chavez believes the leaders of his church made a decision in direct contradiction of the Bible by lifting a ban on sexually active, monogamous gays and lesbians as clergy, he said he's staying with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. . . . Chavez, of Landisville, Pa., is director of Lutheran CORE, a conservative group within the ELCA that fought the gay clergy policy. The group will hold a convention in Indianapolis in September to review its next steps, but Chavez said he thinks some ELCA clergy, congregations and individual members will walk away from the nation's largest Lutheran denomination.

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The change to gay clergy policy passed with the support of 68 percent of about 1,000 delegates at the ELCA's national assembly. It makes the group, with about 4.7 million members in the U.S., one of the largest U.S. Christian denominations yet to take a more gay-friendly stance.
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"I have seen these same-gender relationships function in the same way as heterosexual relationships - bringing joy and blessings as well as trials and hardships," the Rev. Leslie Williamson, associate pastor at Trinity Lutheran Church in Des Plaines, Ill., said during the hours of debate. "The same-gender couples I know live in love and faithfulness and are called to proclaim the word of God as are all of us."

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"This will cause an ever greater loss in members and finances. I can't believe the church I loved and served for 40 years can condone what God condemns," said the Rev. Richard Mahan, pastor at St. Timothy Lutheran Church in Charleston, W.Va. "Nowhere in Scripture does it say homosexuality and same-sex marriage is acceptable to God. Instead, it says it is immoral and perverted." Mahan said he believed a majority of his congregation would want to now break away from the ELCA.

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Other leaders indicated they might leave as well. The Rev. Tim Housholder, pastor of St. Luke's Lutheran Church in Cottage Grove, Minn., described himself during the debate as a rostered ELCA pastor "at least for a few more hours."

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The Rev. Katrina Foster, pastor at Fordham Evangelical Lutheran Church in The Bronx, N.Y., said Lutherans heard similar warnings about flouting Scripture when they made past changes that are now seen as successful - chiefly, the ordination of women. "We can learn not to define ourselves by negation," said Foster, a lesbian. "By not only saying what we are against, which always seems to be the same - against gay people. We should be against poverty. I wish we were as zealous about that."

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Rev. Foster has it right - these homophobes should stop living merely to condemn gays and start living the Gospel message to feed the hungry, cloth the poor and treat the sick.