Lutheran Church Accepts Gay Clergy

The country's largest Lutheran denomination has voted 559-451 to permit gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, making it one of the most eminent Christian churches to do so.  Until now, only celibate gays were allowed to serve in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ECLA).  From Washington Post:  Conservatives tried to derail the vote, losing a ballot that would have required a supermajority of two-thirds to approve the proposal. They lost a similar vote earlier in the week.  (Sounds like they were mimicking Republican senators who have been pushing the "need" for a supermajority to pass health care reform.)  Some critics of the proposal predicted its passage could cause individual congregations to leave the ELCA, which is what occurred to the 2 million-member Episcopal Church when it consecrated an openly gay bishop in 2003.  Last month, Episcopalians voted to make gays eligible for any ordained ministry.   Most mainline Protestant churches are struggling to balance what many view as Biblical injunctions against the practice of homosexuality with the country's burgeoning gay-rights movement. Among the major mainline denominations, leaders of the Presbyterian Church (USA) recently defeated a proposal to ordain openly gay pastors, but with a much narrower margin than in previous votes.  And United Methodist church leaders faced an emotional debate last year when they upheld their ban on openly gay clergy...  Delegate Terri Stagner-Collier wept as she predicted that opponents would be "ripped away" from the church if the measure were approved. "I urge you not to do this -- not to do this at all," she said, "[for] these people in the pews and in my family."  (Stagner-Collier's tears for her congregation seem perfunctory since individual churches will NOT be compelled to take on pastors who are in same-sex relationships.)  From American Chronicle:  Bishop Herman R. Yoos III, elected last year as head of the South Carolina Synod, acknowledged that most South Carolina congregations would oppose the call of a gay pastor and would not "lift up" a homosexual candidate for the ministry.  But he denied opponents' charges that Friday's actions will split the denomination.  "Every congregation would be free to decide what to do," he said. 

The ELCA's decision places gays and lesbians under the same set of rules that govern heterosexual clergy.  They are required to be monogamous if married and to abstain from sexual relations if they are single.  Tim Mumm, a Wisconsin lay delegate and spokesman for the advocacy group Lutherans Concerned, said during the debate:  "We live today with an understanding of homosexuality that did not exist in Jesus' time and culture.  We are responding to something that the writers of Scripture could not have understood."  (Like Twitter.  And Lady Gaga.)

Comments

[Technology]

This is quite a dangerous decision. Allowing homosexuals to serve as clergy will confuse a lot of people.

[Trent]

It's a great decision! Lutherans are finally joining the modern world.

[C+]

This is about power and choice. The bible does not support same sex relationships, and the church is suppose to be about supporting bibical beliefs. I am not against peoples choices in life and who wants to go to church, but the truth is church is about God, and the word of God. If the church members vote in what the bible is against or does not support than the church will be accused as a false church.....