Moving toward a new denomination
© Pretty Good Lutherans
Leaders of a Lutheran group opposed to partnered gay clergy serving in church ministries say they will help draft a proposal for a new denomination.
They said the new denomination intends to serve people breaking ties with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The ELCA is the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination.
The leaders of Lutheran CORE made their announcement Wednesday.
Their frustration with the ELCA escalated in August after voting members to the denomination’s national assembly decided to lift a rule requiring gays in ministry to be celibate.
(CONTINUED)
The historic vote opened the door to partnered gays in monogamous, lifelong relationships to “officially” serving in ELCA ministries.
Five congregations have since left the denomination. Fifty-nine others have passed one vote in favor of leaving, according to ELCA reports.
Two votes taken at least 90 days apart are required for a congregation to leave. The measure is approved only if the vote passes with a tw0-thirds majority, according to ELCA officials.
Wednesday’s Lutheran CORE announcement garnered international attention. Below are links to the coverage:
*Lutheran CORE press release
*Associated Press
*Fargo Forum (N.D.)
*The Lutheran
*United Press International:
*Minneapolis Star Tribune
*Washington Times
*KTTC-TV (Ill.)
*Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Denominational name suggestions, anyone?
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Comments policy: Comments are welcome from all points of view. Pretty Good Lutherans will not post comments that are disrespectful, contain personal attacks, excessive self-righteous pontificating about Scripture, condemnations of others to a miserable afterlife, or any other nasty remarks unbecoming a Lutheran.
© Pretty Good Lutherans / By Susan Hogan
Creative Commons photo licensed with and by Dean Terry.
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Tags: Lutheran CORE
The following individuals are known murder victims with ELCA ties killed since Pretty Good Lutherans was started in September 2009:
November 19th, 2009 at 6:22 am
I’m surprised you didn’t mention that just two months ago Lutheran CORE said that it would wait a year to make any decision about leaving the ELCA (see their Sept 26 press release). Clearly they’ve been moving in this direction, but accelerating their formal plans for creating a new denomination, and abandoning their own calls for a deliberative, slow, cautious move, is a rather swift change in policy. Though surely a lot of trust was already broken between Lutheran CORE and those of us committed to staying in the ELCA, this breach of their own self-imposed commitment to wait one year surely doesn’t give any reason for those who are suspicious of Lutheran CORE to believe a word that they say.
Re: your “Comments policy”
Clearly you haven’t read enough of Luther! He routinely exemplified all of the characteristics you label as “unbecoming of a Lutheran.” All joking aside, I think it is his strong – and at times, nasty – rhetoric that sadly serves as an example for so many of us as we engage in internal debate. We all think that we’re “little Luthers,” when we would be better off to heed his call that we be “little Christs.”
Lord, have mercy.
November 19th, 2009 at 8:06 am
St. Benedict’s counsel is wise: “Listen with the ear of your heart.”
November 19th, 2009 at 10:14 am
What about NIMLC. Not in my Lutheran Church.
November 19th, 2009 at 10:20 am
Clever.
So, will they allow celibate gay clergy?
November 19th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
How about:
CFSP
Church for Straight People
November 19th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
There were comments the other day that closed down the blog about the gay pastors who are going to be reinstated. I don’t find comments that mock CORE or belittle them as nothing more than disgrunteld and grumpy Lutherans.
This is a very difficult time in the ELCA, and it is far worse across this nation in terms of congregations in conflict and pain than many imagine. I have many friends across the ELCA and served on some national efforts and what I am hearing is frightening in terms of congregations laying off staff, closing, having to merge, or just imploding. Not a few, not just one or two in a Synod, but hundreds, and yes, probably thousands.
You see, it doesn’t take much in a congregation of 200 or 300 folks to cause massive budget distress- four or five or 10 families can do that. How many have just walked away? Gone to LCMC? Gone to non-denominationals? Gone to no church at all?
I am sure some of those who favored changes have an attitude of either “good luck and good riddance”, or worse yet, the punitive “they know know how we felt”.
One can argue the theology, and the merits, and I truly see in many ways both sides. What i don’t agree with is either side demonizing the other.
And, quite frankly, if there was a pastor out there who knew 60% of his congregation would leave or quit giving by forcing an issue through at a congregational meeting, and did it anyway, he or she would not be considered having the best interests of the ELCA at heart.
And yet that is exactly what the ELCA did to her congregants.
One last thought. I was a CWA voting member. At the assembly, I met over 10 voting members who were for the changes, but voted no because they knew it would destroy the church.
I applaud them. We need to move beyond what we want to what is best for the whole church.
November 19th, 2009 at 4:33 pm
Sorry, the word “helpful ” should have been added to the first paragraph at the very end. My point was that neither the attacks nor belittling CORE folks is helpful, charitable, or Christian, all are faithful believers. Sorry for the confusion.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
Regardless of where folks are on this issue remember…
Love covers a multitude of sins.
It works both ways
November 19th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
CORE already has several gay pastors as part of their planning team. It is insulting to insinuate otherwise.
November 20th, 2009 at 2:25 am
Brian: This is news to me. I’d be interested in talking to those pastors.
November 20th, 2009 at 7:01 am
Note to readers: Pretty Good Lutherans changed the name of the individual posting this message to “Janice” to protect the identity of the rape victim.
Jim,
I was also a voting member at CWA and I voted what was laid on my heart. I voted only what I felt God was speaking for me to do. And when I laid down my voting machine I prayed, “Your will, your will, your will.”
Three years ago I did not have a dog in this fight. I am a straight, married woman. I’m active in my congregation, but didn’t know much about what CW was or did. Then I got a call that my 20 year old niece had run away. She had run away to marry a man that she’d only met on the internet. This man turned out to be dangerous.
After locating her and her agreeing to come and stay with my family hundreds of miles from her home, this man beat and raped her. She was in an area where the police were not only unhelpful, but screamed at her, “How dare you accuse a soldier of that?!?” Then they left her, alone in a strange city, broken.
In the months before this, she had shared with her youth leader and her pastor that she felt attracted to girls. Her youth leader found her books and counseling in places that believe that they can “cure” being gay. The books told her things like wear make up and date boys and you’ll heal. Her pastor, in the church where she had served for so many ways, simply told her that he would pray for her to have a happy and fulfilling marriage. And then he stopped looking at her or speaking to her in church. Before that she felt called into ministry.
So, she in her very broken state. Believing that God would hate her and the only way to heal was to get married, she ran away to marry the man on from the internet. Her pastor acted in a way that I find repugnant. Had he acted with grace and love and an ounce of awareness, she would not have run away to be straight.
Even after this experience and being elected as voting member, I still was conflicted. Then some verses came to me that I had not read before; the last verse of John – there is so much that Jesus did we cannot know it all, and when Jesus was asked the most important commandment and he replied love me love one another and everything else hangs on these two. There were so many other ways that God spoke to my heart during that time, including through the stories the people shared of their loved ones who had been rejected from their Church.
Now, I know well that her pastor does not represent the thinking of CORE. They are good people feeling left by their Church. But I would also say that the people who understand that experience the most are the gay and lesbian pastors who stayed for all of those years. They didn’t leave, I commend them. I commend those who don’t agree with decisions now that stay. We can find a way through this, if we want to and pray to God to lead us in how to remain joined together.
As many stories of churches leaving as there are out there, there are churches who had prayed for this result for a long, long time. My point in all of this is that we were all called to that place to cast that vote. Why is it that it can’t possibly be a part of God’s will that we remain together and work through this? It’s only God’s will if it’s my will? It makes me sad.
Where we absolutely agree is that condemnation and belittling of either groups beliefs is simply ignorant and small minded. I went into CWA assuming that CORE were bigoted, angry, fearful people and that was wrong. Isn’t it possible that the will of God is greater than our human understanding and that God may want us to work together rather than separate?
Thank you.
P.S. My niece is beginning her discernment process and I have never seen someone so called to serve God. She will be a phenomenal ELCA pastor.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:04 am
I heard from a VRS (VERY Reliable Source) about ELCA church members getting letters from a nearby Lutheran church named after a state urging them to consider that church considering the situation now.
November 20th, 2009 at 9:17 am
Wisconsin or Missouri?
November 20th, 2009 at 10:20 am
I am a parish pastor, I was a voting member to CWA09, I voted against the ministry recommendations. I have been public about how I voted and how I think that as a church body we were unready for these steps.
I have been heavily recruited by the AALC to “jump ship”. Phone calls, visits from denominational representatives, emails, and mailings. I serve in a parish that wants to leave, in an area with many congregations that are very upset – witholding mission support, considering many resolutions for Synod Assembly.
It’s a tough time to be in the parish, especially in a very conservative area of the country. We have lost 9 families who have literally walked across the street to the second largest LCMS congregation in the district – we are large enough we, for now, can absorb the loss – but ended up decreasing our budget by 10% while trying to not lay off staff, yet.
This new body, as much as it pains me is not surprising. The lack of ecclesiology in LCMC precludes many congregations and pastors from affiliating – but the reality I see is that there are a number of congregations that will slowly erode away if staying in the ELCA is the only option they see.
November 21st, 2009 at 8:02 am
Sarah,
I’m surprised you do not know any gay pastors who opposed these changes. At least that’s my interpretation of your comment. I will speak with one who is involved in CORE planning. I cannot promise that he will wish to be in dialog. My sense is that he has, emotionally and spiritually, already moved on from the ELCA and the fruitless conversations.