ELCA To Consider Gay Clergy At Mpls. Convention

Source: WCCO-TV (CBS)

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) ― The ELCA will be deciding on major changes to its policies on gay and lesbian clergy. It's a controversy that's been brewing for years.

"It's been very heated, it's been very heated," said Bruce Arnevik, Interim Pastor of Crown of Glory Lutheran Church in Chaska.

This week the issue finally comes to a head, as the ELCA National Assembly votes on a proposal to allow non-celibate gays and lesbians to be ordained.

"I think above all, that I'm hoping for clarity. I think at this point clarity is even more important than agreement," explained David Glesne, Senior Pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church in Fridley. Glesne is also a voting member of the assembly.

Read more: http://wcco.com/local/elca.convention.minneapolis.2.1130814.html

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ELCA: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 4.70 million baptized members; largest of all the Lutheran denominations in the United States and the fourth-largest Protestant denomination.
Wikipedia link to ELCA
ELCA website

of Iraq as not being exactly in line with Christian teachings.

The ELCA church I attended in Walnut Creek, CA was probably mostly liberal.

ELCA was basically formed over the ordination of women with conservatives on that position becoming LCMS back in the late 1970's. The more liberal point of view was mostly what was left to go ELCA.

I'm sure that many in the ELCA were out there marching against the war, right along side you.

But I fear that the ELCA will chicken out again. The issue has come up several times previously and they've moved closer, but always in baby steps in hopes of not offending anyone. IMHO, of course. I think now the stance is that it is up to individual churches, but I'm not positive.

The sad thing is that the ELCA is one of the most liberal protestant denominations in the country. Even the most conservative ELCA churches I've worshipped in will welcome gay members and I've attended a gay "blessing ceremony" - where the church recognized the couple's relationship before God (a marriage without any legal power, essentially).

In fact, after said blessing ceremony, an older member of the congregation went and nailed a protest letter to the church door!

Honestly, I believe if they vote to allow non-celibate gay clergy it will split the synod. I've been at meetings in Phoenix that got quite heated and we have several gay-friendly churches and pro-ordination pastors in the area. But there are also quite a few which, in the words of one of the pastors at those meetings "Can't go that far." And if they can't go that far in a large metropolitan area, I can't imagine that rural congregations in red states will go that far either.

But I'm also not sure that splitting the synod would be a bad thing.

The east coast, west coast, and metropolitan midwest synods
tend to be more liberal; the southern and rural midwestern
and western synods more conservative.

The most active membership tends to be over 60,
and they tend to be conservative theologically.

Most of my clergy colleagues tend to be more liberal than
the congregations they serve, but most lay leadership
in the congregations tend to be more conservative.

As an insider, I tend to believe it will pass,
and hopefully we can move on.

But the conversatives in the church, like conservatives
in the political arena, are the screamers...

Look for lots of Glen Beck type of emoting in the media.

And as I say: if welcoming gays (and immigrants, that's another
issue fomenting underneath) means I'm condemned to hell,
so be it. I'll take that risk..

At my mom's ELCA church in Wisconsin, the generational gap is vast. The average age of the congregation member is 65+ but now many new, very young families are joining. My mom is so pleased to have young people in their early twenties joining. For many years, they didn't have a youth group, because there weren't enough kids.

There are very conservative, blustery people in her church, who are in the lay leadership positions, but for the most part, the congregation is red letter and Christ based. If this passes, I could see about 10% of the congregation storming out - and marching to a Missouri synod, but the rest of the congregation, while some may be uncomfortable, wouldn't leave the church.

I'd love to read your thoughts about this as it progresses.

As an openly gay member of an ELCA congregation in greater Atlanta I fear the Convention will end in a stalemate, the governing rules notwithstanding.

Lutherans, at least the ELCA, don't like controversy or confrontation. My fear is that a Yes or No vote on the issue will project the church into an era of confrontation similar to what has befallen the Episcopal Church in the U.S. As another poster has observed, the modern ELCA is mostly the product of division within the former ALC (American Lutheran Church). The more liberal congregations that supported the ordination of women, a more liberal view of eligibility for the sacraments (belief in salvation and the holy nature of the bread and wine sufficient - church confirmation not required), became the ELCA. Some more conservative ALC congregations merged with LCMS congregations (the synod in which I grew up) or affiliated themselves with the LCMS.

So I fear some kind of backdoor negotiations to once again push this can down the road into the future again; another "study", another 3 years of waiting and waiting.

I hope I'm wrong but I fear inertia again.

If the Church once again turns it back on its LGBT members by treating us differently I will seek out a community of faith among my Anglican brethren in the Episcopal Church.

(this seems consensus amongst peers...)

Is that the anti-gay opposition is so worn down by the truth,
and 'tired of fighting' that it will finally pass,
and the conservatives will storm out of the assembly
and bluster around to start a 'new' conservative
branch.. and I'm sure the LCMS will be waiting there
with open arms to greet them...

And I say: Buh-bye! Don't let the door hit you in the backside.

(By the way, the conservative LCMS has come out with their
own 'version' of the Bible... where they omit the last
400 years of biblical scholarship.. back to the dark ages!)

This will be interested to see what happens...

:hi:

:hi:

doing good works and service to fellow humans, (and pets and the environment), instead of wasting time trying to agree on everyting 100% at conferences and conventions, this world would be a much better place, and prejudice against a certain group of human beings would subside over time. Debating whether one person is worthy by their race or sexual identity to be clergy,and another is not, the epitome of hypocrisy, in my view.

I give a lot of credit to the gays who stay within an institution they love to fight for change, because this kind of change only happens from the inside.

On the other hand, I don't blame those who leave and seek a more open and accepting faith community. Sometimes, losing tithes has a big impact on a denomination's sense of right and wrong, strangely and unfortunately.