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 hope that posterity lumps these folks in with racists, anti-Semites and others who place the hatred of others above living a truly Christian life. Personally, I do not understand what they find so frightening about gay clergy - like the Roman Catholic Church, I suspect they already have countless closet cases within the ranks of the break away clergy. Indeed, some of the clergy leading the break away movement are most probably self-loathing closet cases who adopt an anti-gay stance as the best way of denying their own situation just like the most hysterically anti-gay mouth pieces of the professional Christian organizations. Here are some highlights from a Washington Post story on these modern day Pharisees:*
NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. -- 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 next August.
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John Brooks, spokesman at the ELCA's Chicago-based headquarters, said Lutheran CORE's move was not unexpected. He expressed hope that church members would ultimately opt to stay in the denomination as it strives to be "a place for all people despite any differences we might have on any issues."
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Neither Brooks nor Lutheran CORE leaders would guess what kind of numbers a new denomination might attract. Lutheran CORE leaders believe there is deep opposition to the new policy among rank-and-file churchgoers, but said some may not be willing to actually depart the ELCA over it. So far, he said, five congregations nationwide have voted to leave the ELCA. More have started the process, with 87 taking a first vote to leave the denomination. Of those, 28 did not achieve the two-thirds vote necessary to leave the ELCA. In all, there are 10,300 ELCA churches in the country with about 4.7 million members.
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If a congregation passes the two-thirds bar on its first vote, it must then wait 90 days before taking a second, final vote that also requires a two-thirds majority. . . . In addition to helping birth a new Lutheran church body, Lutheran CORE leaders said their organization would continue its recent move toward creating a free-floating synod within the ELCA for congregations opposed to the liberalized policy but who don't want to leave the denomination.
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NEW BRIGHTON, Minn. -- 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 next August.
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John Brooks, spokesman at the ELCA's Chicago-based headquarters, said Lutheran CORE's move was not unexpected. He expressed hope that church members would ultimately opt to stay in the denomination as it strives to be "a place for all people despite any differences we might have on any issues."
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Neither Brooks nor Lutheran CORE leaders would guess what kind of numbers a new denomination might attract. Lutheran CORE leaders believe there is deep opposition to the new policy among rank-and-file churchgoers, but said some may not be willing to actually depart the ELCA over it. So far, he said, five congregations nationwide have voted to leave the ELCA. More have started the process, with 87 taking a first vote to leave the denomination. Of those, 28 did not achieve the two-thirds vote necessary to leave the ELCA. In all, there are 10,300 ELCA churches in the country with about 4.7 million members.
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If a congregation passes the two-thirds bar on its first vote, it must then wait 90 days before taking a second, final vote that also requires a two-thirds majority. . . . In addition to helping birth a new Lutheran church body, Lutheran CORE leaders said their organization would continue its recent move toward creating a free-floating synod within the ELCA for congregations opposed to the liberalized policy but who don't want to leave the denomination.
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So much effort, time and money that could be better spent on feeding the hungry and clothing the poor rather than taking closed minded, anti-modernity bigotry to a higher level. WWJD?
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