Pray for believers in America to stand against every kind of sexual immorality within the Church and especially among Church leaders.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has welcomed back seven homosexual clergy members who had been barred from the denomination. At a ceremony Sunday, the seven became some of the first actively homosexual clergy to be added or reinstated by the ELCA since the denomination voted last year to rescind its policy requiring homosexual clergy to be celibate.
Since the vote last year, at least 185 congregations have voted to leave the denomination over its position on homosexual clergy, according to an ELCA spokeswoman. The ELCA is the largest denomination in the U.S. to allow homosexual ministers. The U.S. Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ also allow them, and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) is in the process of allowing them. Two smaller Lutheran denominations, the Lutheran Church Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, do not ordain ministers in same-sex relationships.
The New York Times reports that more Lutheran congregations are preparing to leave the denomination.
The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, a coalition of theologically conservative Lutheran churches, said his group expected to form a new denomination, the North American Lutheran Church, in August.
He said of the ceremony on Sunday, “It’s just another steady step taken by the E.L.C.A. to move the denomination further and further away from most Lutheran churches around the world and from the whole Christian church, unfortunately.”
Tags: ELCA, Espiscopal, homosexual clergy, homosexuality, homosexuality in the church, Lutheran, Lutheran Church Missouri Synod, Lutheran CORE, Mark Chavez, United Church of Christ, Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod
This breaks my heart. I am attending a ECLA church with my husband. How can this church hope to accomplish anything in the name of Christ when they blatantly disregard the bible’s teaching? How can they expect to thrive. I would hope that my congregation would “break off” with the ECLA, but I see how the “strings are controlled” — finances, etc. and don’t foresee this happening. The bible warns against this saying, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil.” This sin will now separate the Lutheran Church from receiving from the provision and bounty of Almighty God.
As sad as I am about the ELCA ’s decision to allow sexually active gay pastors to be ordained into leadership, I praise the Lord for the Missouri and Wisconsin Synods’ Biblical stands. I was married in the ELCA church and I taught in a Lutheran College as well. AND, I was confirmed in the Missouri Synod Church. I have gay relatives and friends and have deep affection for them as persons and deep pain for the pain that many of them feel. God loves them so much, too, but still the only way to be free and whole is to learn from, lean on, and be empowered by His Word to live out Biblical sexual purity.