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From NE Ohio December newsletter - Bishop's Article: On December third we held a special meeting of the synod council, deans, committee chairs and synod staff to take a look at the projected $250,000-$400,000 deficit for fiscal year 2010-11. Since a $400,000 deficit is a jaw-dropping number to me, I wanted advice on how to carry out the ministry that we do together as a synod. The short-term solution is to reduce hours and compensation for the entire staff. Developing a long-term solution is going to take a lot more work. I have had many people who are quick to...

CLEAR LAKE — Members of Zion Lutheran Church voted to withdraw from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on Sunday, a reaction to the issue of practicing gay pastors. The vote was 238 to 119, exactly the two-thirds majority vote needed for it to pass. “I’m happy that they decided to go this direction because I think it sets the possibility for a new and stronger future for the congregation,” said Rev. Dean Hess, senior pastor at the Clear Lake church. Carole Roth, church council president, said she was pleased with the results, too. “Certainly God has spoken today,” she...

The election of a second openly-homosexual bishop in the Episcopal Church hardly came as a surprise. Given the actions of the church in its General Convention this past summer, the question was clearly not if there would be more openly-gay bishops, but when. The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles answered that question on Saturday, electing the Reverend Mary D. Glasspool of Baltimore as an assistant bishop. She is expected to be consecrated as bishop on May 15 in Los Angeles.Ms. Glasspool was elected on the seventh ballot, winning 153 clergy votes and 203 lay votes. Her election followed the election...

MELBOURNE, December 11, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - In an address to a gathering sponsored by the World Parliament of Religions (PWR) last Friday, former US President Jimmy Carter has once again blamed traditional religion, particularly Southern Baptists and Roman Catholics, for "creating an environment where violations against women are justified."It is a theme that Carter has successfully used to garner media attention for several years.  Although in a July column in The Observer Carter admits to "not having training in religion or theology," in his address to the PWR Carter appeals to his authority as someone who has "taught Bible lessons...

Evangelical Left in Denial Cliff Kincaid, December 11, 2009 What is the real agenda behind the fraudulent “science? With the ClimateGate revelations of flimsy “science” behind the man-made global warming theory, the role of the religious left in promoting this fraudulent scheme now deserves serious media scrutiny. Walter Grazer, who served as the Director of the Environmental Justice Program for the United States Catholic Conference of Bishops from 1993 to 2007 and is now interim executive director of the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE), was asked for a comment on ClimateGate and replied, “I am really not up...

With the ClimateGate revelations of flimsy “science” behind the man-made global warming theory, the role of the religious left in promoting this fraudulent scheme now deserves serious media scrutiny. Because that is unlikely, consider the following: Dr. James Wanliss, Associate Professor of Physics at Presbyterian College, has written The Green Dragon, a book about how environmentalism is actually committed to “the reconstruction of a pagan world order” and “rejection of Christian spirituality.” Wanliss argues that the environmental movement “is a religion with a vision of sin and repentance, heaven and hell. It even has a special vocabulary, with words like...

Politics and policy are not the only things that separate conservatives and liberals, Republicans and Democrats. There's a partisan divide when it comes to the proverbial Great Beyond as well. Twenty-one percent of Republicans and 36 percent of Democrats have been in touch with the dearly departed. Nine percent of the Grand Old Party have consulted a fortuneteller, compared to 22 percent of the Democrats. And 15 percent of Republicans say that yoga is a "spiritual" practice, compared to 31 percent of Democrats. "Conservatives and Republicans report fewer experiences than liberals or Democrats communicating with the dead, seeing ghosts and...

Last month on the Jesuit-run America magazine blog, Associate Editor Fr. James Martin, S.J, wrote a column headlined, "What Should a Gay Catholic Do?" In that post Fr. Martin painted a picture of a life of misery for faithful Catholics who are also same-sex attracted, backing up his statements with official Church teaching. But the perplexing and heart-wrenching question posed by Fr. Marin has now been convincingly answered by a man who is the very subject of Fr. Martin's discourse -- a 'gay' faithful Catholic. "Imagine you are a devout Catholic who is also gay," began Fr. Martin. "Here is...

The high court of the Presbyterian Church (USA) announced decisions in favor of a lesbian woman and a gay man on Tuesday, Nov. 3. Meeting in Indianapolis, Friday, Oct. 30, the court heard arguments related to Lisa Larges, a lesbian woman who has been a candidate for ordination for more than two decades and Paul Capetz, a gay man whose January 2008 reinstatement by his home Presbytery was challenged. The Larges and Capetz cases are the first cases to use a 2008 compromise voted by the denomination so that, despite a ban on partnered gay and lesbian ministers, Presbyteries could...

CHICAGO (AP) — The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America says that in a town hall meeting Sunday, its presiding bishop was presenting the views of some within his denomination rather than his own views on the Bible and homosexuality.

Mainline Protestant churches seem to have weathered the past decade better than many people have assumed, but the future is raising serious challenges to continued stability, said a Christian pollster. George Barna analyzed data for The Barna Group's latest report examining mainline denominations. Weekend attendance at mainline churches has remained relatively stable, ranging from 89 to 100, over the past decade but the report suggests that they may be "on the precipice of a period of decline." Mainline bodies – which the research group identifies as American Baptist Churches in the USA; The Episcopal Church; the Evangelical Lutheran Church in...

Evangelical Alliance Ireland has controversially suggested that Christians should support a Bill that would extend the rights and privileges of marriage to homosexual couples who register their partnerships. The suggestion has drawn fire from other evangelical groups. The Irish Government’s Civil Partnership Bill would grant welfare and tax benefits on a par with marriage to homosexual and heterosexual cohabiting couples who enter a civil partnership. Evangelical Alliance Ireland’s General Director, Sean Mullan, claimed in a statement: “The Government is seeking to legislate for greater justice and fairness for co-habiting couples, both same-sex and opposite-sex couples. As Christians we should support...

Thousands of people logged on to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's first-ever online town hall forum to hear the denomination's head tackle some tough questions. Many of the questions on Sunday addressed the pro-gay actions of the churchwide assembly in August. "Can you give a good, solid reason why we, the dissident traditionalists, should remain in the ELCA as a decreasing minority instead of moving our memberships to other Lutheran bodies?" George Erdner of Lawrenceville, Ga., asked through an online submission. ELCA Presiding Bishop Mark S. Hanson first made plain, "Don't call yourselves dissident minorities." Hanson stressed that the...

St. Paul, Minn. — A group of Twin Cities Quakers has decided to stop signing marriage certificates for opposite-sex couples until the state legalizes gay marriage. "We're simply trying to be consistent with the will of God as we perceive it," said Paul Landskroener, clerk of the Twin Cities Friends Meeting, in an interview with MPR's All Things Considered on Monday. The congregation will continue to hold both opposite-sex and same-sex weddings at its meeting house, but will no longer sign the legal marriage certificate for opposite-sex couples. Instead, couples will need to have the certificate signed by a justice...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A collection of pro-abortion religious groups authored a letter today to members of the Senate that essentially places them on record supporting taxpayer funding of abortions. The letter expresses their opposition to the Nelson amendment, released today, to remove abortion funding from the Senate government-run health care bill. The Episcopal Church, Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), United Church of Christ, and United Methodist Church are the four mainline protestant denominations to sign the letter asking lawmakers to oppose the Nelson amendment.They are joined by the Disciples Justice Action Center, NA'AMAT USA, the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, a...

Six area churches in the Wolf River Region have voted in recent weeks to sever ties with the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, Two other churches have votes coming up, said the Rev. John Justman, bishop of the East-Central Synod of the ELCA in Appleton. All eight of the churches are in either Waupaca or Oconto counties. Justman said he thinks several of the churches will eventually leave the ELCA. “It makes me sad — they’re all special, and they’ve been good partners,” he said. “And if they do leave, we will wish them well. There’ll be sad feelings, not...

I don't envy Archbishop Rowan Williams. The leader of the global Anglican communion has had a busy couple of months -- on one hand, dealing with the news of the Vatican's offer of a personal ordinariate within the Catholic Church for Anglicans looking to convert... and now, on the other, with the Episcopal Church in the United States electing an openly lesbian bishop to the Los Angeles diocese. If confirmed, the Rev. Canon Mary D. Glasspool would be the first lesbian bishop in the Anglican communion.But the global communion is still struggling with the question of whether practicing homosexuals should...

The future of the worldwide Anglican Communion was in jeopardy last night after the Archbishop of Canterbury said that the election of a lesbian bishop in the United States raised “very serious questions”. Dr Rowan Williams added that the choice of Canon Mary Glasspool to be a suffragan bishop in Los Angeles had “important implications”. The election of Canon Glasspool, who has lived with the same female partner since 1988, is the second appointment of an openly homosexual bishop in the US Episcopal Church

The worldwide Anglican Church has been plunged into a fresh crisis after a lesbian was chosen as its second gay bishop. In a move that will dismay the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, Canon Mary Glasspool was elected as an assistant bishop for the diocese of Los Angeles. The Rev Rod Thomas, the leader of the conservative evangelical group Reform and a member of the General Synod, said: ‘I feel deeply ashamed that this is happening in the Anglican Church. ‘I think a schism is absolutely inevitable.’

A northeast Iowa synod council is the first in the nation to defy the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s decision to allow clergy to be in committed same-gender relationships. A resolution passed last month by the council of the Northeastern Iowa Synod, based in Waverly, seeks to circumvent the controversial August decision by the ELCA’s churchwide assembly. The denomination currently requires that homosexual clergy remain celibate, and the council wants to maintain the existing regulations. If successful, the move could ultimately restrict how churches call pastors in the future because it sets a policy where none existed. The resolution was...

The US Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has elected the first female bishop in its 114-year history but ended voting for the day with one of two openly gay candidates still vying for the second bishop's position. Reverend Diane M. Jardine Bruce, rector of St Clement's-By-The-Sea Episcopal Church in San Clemente, was elected at the diocese's annual convention to replace one of two retiring assistant bishops. Rev Bruce, who was elected in the convention's third ballot, is a former bank executive who has spent the past 12 years working as a priest in Orange County. Voting for the second spot...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles elected the first female bishop in its 114-year history Friday but ended voting for the day with one of two openly gay candidates still vying for the second bishop's position.Rev. Diane M. Jardine Bruce, rector of St. Clement's-By-The-Sea Episcopal Church in San Clemente, was elected Friday at the diocese's annual convention to replace one of two retiring assistant bishops.Bruce, who was elected in the convention's third ballot, is a former bank executive who has spent the past 12 years working as a priest in Orange County.Voting for the second spot did...

BREAKING: Diocese of Los Angeles Elects Non-Celibate Lesbian As Suffragan Bishop

Gay, Catholic and fed up with his church's efforts to quash the same-sex marriage movement, Phil Attey has come up with a controversial strategy: outing gay priests who speak out against homosexuality. (snip) He said he will out only gay priests and bishops who speak out against homosexuality. In the case of priests not publicly opposed to gay marriage but still in the closet, he said his goal is not to threaten them but to encourage them to "come out for the next generation and stand up against the anti-gay stance of the church." Francis DeBernardo of New Ways Ministry,...

CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), said he will share priorities and hopes for the ELCA, and wants to hear stories from members about the church's work in their own contexts, when he hosts an online "Town Hall Forum" Sunday, Dec. 6. The hour-long forum begins at 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time (4:30 p.m. Central Time). The program will be webcast live from Chicago, where Hanson will be joined by an audience of ELCA members. The audience will ask questions of the presiding bishop. Web viewers can watch the...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- During the rally yesterday sponsored by the Planned Parenthood abortion business and other leading pro-abortion groups, Rev. Carlton Veazy told the small gathering of hardcore activists that abortion is a "God-given right." Veazy is the head of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.The rally was a time for abortion advocates to rally together to press for taxpayer funding of abortions and saw a small crowd of just a few hundred people -- compared to the 100,000 or more who attend the March for Life.Veazy was the closing speaker for the Stop Stupak rally and he told...

Those in the Northeastern Iowa Synod are providing significant leadership in trying to keep their synod together in spite of the biblical and theological crisis in the ELCA. Call to Faithfulness, one of the reform groups that comprise Lutheran CORE, has provided leadership in the efforts in the Northeastern Iowa Synod. The Northeastern Iowa Synod Council has passed two resolutions in response to the Churchwide Assembly’s votes. The first resolution calls upon the ELCA Church Council to reject and work to overturn the Sexuality Statement and the Recommendations on Ministry because they are contrary to the Confession of Faith in...

Contact: Jeff Walton, Institute on Religion and Democracy, 202-682-4131, 202-413-5639 cell, jwalton@TheIRD.orgWASHINGTON, Dec. 1 /Christian Newswire/ -- The lobbying offices of the mainline churches have joined with abortion rights advocacy groups in opposing the Stupak-Pitts restriction against government health insurance funded abortions. Unlike the evangelical left, which has sought to consolidate liberal evangelical support behind Obamacare by promising protections against government funded abortion, the old religious left is urging constituents to tell the U.S. Senate to drop the abortion restriction. "It is now up to the Senate to keep health care reform free of religious doctrine and restrictions that will...

More than a dozen Lutheran congregations in Minnesota have vowed to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) after a vote in Minneapolis this summer to allow gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships to serve as clergy. The fifteen churches will join a new denomination called Lutheran CORE and leave the ELCA, the largest Lutheran denomination in the world. The leaders of Lutheran CORE say the ELCA has moved too far away from the Bible. "Many ELCA members and congregations have said that they want to sever ties with the ELCA because of the ELCA's continued movement away...

As of Nov. 29, clergy of the diocese may solemnize marriages for all eligible couples, Bishop M. Thomas Shaw, SSJE has announced.  The decision comes after a long discernment process leading up to and continuing after the action of General Convention this past July allowing that “bishops, particularly in dioceses within civil jurisdictions where same-gender marriage is legal, may provide generous pastoral response to meet the needs of members of this church.” The full text of Bishop Shaw’s statement follows. Advent I, November 29, 2009 Christian marriage is a sacramental rite that has evolved in the church, along with confirmation,...

RICHMOND | The governors of Virginia and Maryland, both Catholics, said Tuesday that it would be wrong for the church to suspend or reduce social services in the nation's capital if the District approves gay marriage. Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine and Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley criticized the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington's response to the District's gay marriage proposal during a joint appearance on Washington radio station WTOP. The D.C. Council is expected to approve gay marriage next month. The archdiocese says that unless the proposal is amended to add a religious exemption, its Catholic Charities won't be able to continue...

A pro-abortion Catholic congressman from Pennsylvania has come to the defense of Rep. Patrick Kennedy in his dispute with Bishop Thomas Tobin of Providence. “We don't legislate at the orders of the Vatican, we legislate what is in our conscience and what we think is good for our country,” said Rep. Patrick Murphy as he received an award at Harvard University from Caroline Kennedy, who is Rep. Kennedy’s cousin. “I'm reaching out to Patrick Kennedy and also to my local priests and bishops to make sure they know that we agree on 99 percent of the issues.” More harsh were...

There is a charge among some left-leaning professed Christians that conservative social policies neglect Christ's commission to minister to the poor. Does the parable of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25 imply Christians should petition their government to enforce "redistributive justice?" Jack Clark thinks so. We excerpt Clark's podcast, Blast the Right, and consider his "equivalent alternative solutions challenge;" it is fine to oppose government programs which provide for the poor, Clark says, but only if you can present an equivalent alternative solution which will help just as many people, in the just the same way, just as...

PROVIDENCE, R.I. - Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas Tobin has banned Rep. Patrick Kennedy from receiving Communion, the central sacrament of the church, in Rhode Island because of the congressman's support for abortion rights, Kennedy said in a newspaper interview published Sunday.The decision by the outspoken prelate, reported on The Providence Journal's Web site, significantly escalates a bitter dispute between Tobin, an ultra orthodox bishop, and Kennedy, a son of the nation's most famous Roman Catholic family."The bishop instructed me not to take Communion and said that he has instructed the diocesan priests not to give me Communion," Kennedy told the...

Some pro-life Catholics reacted with shock to the news that the Vatican warmly greeted the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama, who is pro-abortion. They don't seem to understand that the Vatican and Obama agree on most major international issues. This is the untold story-how Obama and the Vatican accept major ingredients of what has been called a New World Order. Another untold story is how, despite a disagreement over abortion, the U.S. Catholic Bishops and the Obama Administration agree on major aspects of so-called health care reform. These topics are mostly taboo in the liberal and...

Minneapolis, Minn., Nov 20, 2009 / 03:54 am (CNA).- Following the decision of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) to allow sexually active homosexual clergy, an objecting Lutheran group has begun to form a new church body for those Lutherans who want to “remain faithful to the Orthodox Christianity of the last 2,000 years.”Lutheran CORE leaders on Wednesday said their working group would immediately begin drafting a constitution and taking other steps to form the new denomination. They hope to launch the denomination by next August.Rev. Paull Spring, a retired Pennsylvania ELCA bishop and chairman of Lutheran CORE said...

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. "There are many people within the ELCA who are very unhappy with what has happened," said the Rev. Paull Spring, chairman of Lutheran CORE and a retired ELCA bishop...

ELCA Churchwide Budget Reduced, Staff Positions Eliminated 09-258-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- The Church Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) acted Nov. 15 to reduce the 2010 churchwide current fund spending authorization by nearly $7.7 million, 10 percent less than the budget authorized by the 2009 Churchwide Assembly. The council's action eliminated 40.75 full-time equivalent positions, of which six were vacant. The Church Council is the ELCA's board of directors and serves as the legislative authority of the church between churchwide assemblies. It met here Nov. 13-15. The action reduced the current fund spending authorization for 2010 to...

Out of the Closet; Into the Church Homo McGreevey Finds Higher Calling thelastcrusade.org What does a gay governor do after he resigns from political office in disgrace? He becomes an Episcopalian and enters the priesthood. Jim McGreevey, the former New Jersey love gov, has gone from Turnpike truck stops to All Saints Church in Hoboken, where he is known as “Father Jim.” Last Sunday, the ex governor administered the sacrament of baptism to a bevy of babies, blessed the Eucharist, and carried the cross during the processional. In 2004, Mr. McGreevey resigned as Governor of New Jersey after revealing...

"Gay American" Jim McGreevey is spending his Sunday mornings with a new man -- Jesus. The former New Jersey love gov has gone from Turnpike rest stops to the church rostrum as part of his training to become an Episcopal priest, working each weekend at All Saints Church in Hoboken. McGreevey -- who resigned from office in disgrace in 2004 -- isn't far enough along in his seminary studies to actually give sermons, but he assists the Rev. Geoffrey Curtiss at three Masses on Sunday and participates in parish programs, donation drives and activities.

The head of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America reported that 40 positions may be cut as the denomination struggles financially. "These have been very painful days in this organization," ELCA Presiding Bishop the Rev. Mark S. Hanson told the Church Council Friday, according to the ELCA News Service. Lutherans are looking to reduce their 2010 budget by 10 percent due to decreased giving over the past 30 years, the economic downturn, and the decision by some congregations to withhold funding. Several congregations have decided to cut all funding to the ELCA following the controversial vote in August by the...

Conservative Anglo-Catholics, your time is up. As my colleague Jonathan Wynne-Jones reports, the General Synod committee charged with looking after opponents of women bishops has ruled out the idea of dedicated male bishops to safeguard traditionalists.The logic of the decision makes perfect sense to me. The C of E has the legal authority to decide whether to ordain women priests and bishops. Having acquired that authority, it voted to ordain women priests in 1992 and will now take the obvious step of raising women to the episcopate. Anglo-Catholics lost the battle to stop this happening 18 years ago; for a...

Planned Parenthood Director Who Quit Now Rejected by Episcopalian Church Bryan, TX -- The religious denominations that embrace abortion do so supposedly because they are tolerant and welcoming of people who disagree on issues like abortion. Yet, that is not proving to be the case for Abby Johnson, the former Planned parenthood director who quit after converting to the pro-life perspective. http://www.LifeNews.com/state4578.html

The World Council of Churches on Thursday called on churches around the world to ring their bells 350 times during the Copenhagen climate change summit on December 13 as a call to action on global warming. The leading council of Christian and Orthodox churches also invited places of worship for other faiths to join a symbolic "chain of chimes and prayers" stretching around the world from the international date line in the South Pacific. "On that Sunday, midway through the UN summit, the WCC invites churches around the world to use their bells, drums, gongs or whatever their tradition offers...

  Current 2002 2001 2000 1990s     November   2000THE GREATEST CONSPIRACY THE EDITOR A few months back, during social chit-chat which turned with predictable concern to the modern plague of clerical apostasy, a venerable member of the Society of Jesus recounted various word of mouth histories of Communist infiltration of the Jesuits. These included two men sent to join the Society in Italy and Spain by their respective national Communist Parties - the former having left to return to the Party in the early 1950s after more than a dozen years of study and actual ordination; the...

The second-largest Lutheran congregation in Minnesota has decided that it is not going to wait any longer to withdraw from the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) over the denomination's August vote to permit gay preachers. In his November newsletter to the members of Hosanna Lutheran Church in Lakeville, the Rev. Bill Bohline said that the church is going to scrap its original plan to wait six to eight months . . .

Same-sex relationships go against Scripture and morality, according to a letter mailed Monday by members of Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bessemer City. The congregation recently drafted the letter stating its disdain for a resolution passed by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. “We are writing to express our disappointment with the recent Churchwide Assembly’s approval of the resolution to allow gay and lesbian pastors,” the letter states. “We also disapprove of the resolution to find ways for congregations to recognize same-gender relationships.” The 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted in August to open the...

"My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” – Mary worshipping God in Luke 1:46–47 Mary was simply a very godly young woman who loved the Lord and trusted in Him despite great risk to her own reputation. She repeatedly appears as a devout woman who loved God and was a loving mother to Jesus. Contrary to some aberrant teaching, she did not remain a virgin, but mothered other sons such as James and Jude, who visited Jesus with Mary during His ministry (Matthew 12:46; Mark 3:31–35; Luke 8:19–21) and later became pastors who penned...

<p>Climate change belief given same legal status as religion An executive has won the right to sue his employer on the basis that he was unfairly dismissed for his green views after a judge ruled that environmentalism had the same weight in law as religious and philosophical beliefs.</p>

ELCA synods will not have the option of upholding traditional Christian teaching on marriage and homosexuality in their standards for pastors and other rostered leaders according to a draft of candidacy rules released Oct. 10 by the ELCA churchwide organization. No synod or bishop may make decisions on ministry standards that differ from the new policies of the ELCA churchwide organization as defined by the 2009 Churchwide Assembly, the policy draft explains. The ELCA now allows pastors and other rostered leaders to be in committed same-sex relationships. “By the governing documents, all candidacy and call decisions are made on an...