Posted on 06/06/2005 1:06:41 PM PDT by Diana in Wisconsin
Bishop: We're united amid differences
MILWAUKEE, WI (AP) - The Greater Milwaukee Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has passed a resolution recommending the Churchwide Assembly permit gays and lesbians in committed relationships to be ordained.
Bishop Paul Stumme-Diers said it was important to maintain unity within the church.
"We are committed to remaining united even amid our differences, recognizing our center is not on our opinions but rather it is in Christ," he said.
The recommendation was passed at its annual meeting Saturday.
It is one of up to 65 that are expected to be delivered to the Churchwide Assembly, which in August will consider whether to bless same-sex unions and whether to allow homosexuals to serve as pastors, associates in ministry, deaconesses and diaconal ministers.
(In Madison, a representative of the South Central Synod of Wisconsin said that the group did not take up the issue during its annual meeting last month.)
The issue of homosexual unions and pastors has been discussed by the Greater Milwaukee Synod since the late 1990s. Homosexual issues have also been intensely debated by other denominations and were controversial in the recent presidential election.
Nearly 20 synods held regional meetings this weekend, and it was unclear how many other synods have passed similar resolutions, said John Brooks, a national spokesman for the ELCA, whose headquarters are in Chicago.
The resolution components that will be recommended to the Churchwide Assembly are:
• That individual congregations be allowed to disagree about whether to accept homosexual members and pastors.
• That homosexuals in committed relationships be allowed to serve as leaders.
• That individual congregations be allowed to decide whether to bless committed same-sex unions.
Pastor Jennifer Thomas, 32, of Lake Park Lutheran Church in Milwaukee, said she was pleased with the results.
"I believe the Gospel of Christ calls us to fully include everyone in the church. Homosexuality is not a sin," Thomas said.
But Pastor Jay Thorson, 45, of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Hubertus, disagreed with the vote and said homosexuality is a sin.
"I see the entire Bible as the inspired word of God. (Ordination of homosexuals) violates our understanding of the use of Scripture," he said.
For the Churchwide Assembly to revise national ELCA policies, two-thirds of the 1,100 voting delegates would have to approve a change.
The ELCA has 96,000 baptized members and 141 congregations in the Greater Milwaukee Synod, making it one of the largest Christian denominations in the area, second to the Catholic Church.
Nationwide and in the Caribbean, the ELCA has 5 million baptized members and 11,000 congregations.
These churches are supported largely by estates that were willed to them back when they stood for Christ.
I think often of the good Methodists, et al, who left money in their wills to keep supporting the evangelical work of these churches. How they would be horrified to find that their gift had been turned against God's work!
The perverted have taken over the governing boards of our churches.
Oh, I'm sure she feels that God had a lapse in judgment on that day, it certainly couldn't have been anything the people were doing.
BTW, my husband was born in WI and your name would fit for him also.
Well, I'm done. The National Council of Churches, to which the ELCA belong, really piss me off, but this is the final straw.
There's Wisconsin Evangelical and Missouri Synod churches near here, so I'll have to check them out.
She's at a "Reconciling in Christ" church.
You are right about the hymns! Couldn't agree more!
Leni
bookmarked!
Actually, I think it means they are, like their Episcopalian brethern, becoming neo-pagans.
I attend an ELCA church (very blue state church) in the heart of one of the reddest of states (OK). My wife and I have really been struggling with whether to stay or find another church. There are Baptist churches (love you guys!) on nearly every corner.
But I was raised Southern Baptist and found the "by grace alone" message of the Lutherans both comforting and reassuring and since communing at this church I feel I've grown spiritually and have developed a mature and deeper love of Christ's sacrifice. I greatly respect our Baptist brethren's devotion to the great commission and their scripture-first stances against all that is PC. My wife, however, was raised Lutheran and I think the loss of the liturgy would be too much.
Also, kids (12, 10 and 6) have known no other church.
My mother recently left her Episcopal church and is communing at an Anglican splinter church. Good for her.
Missouri Synod (or Wisconsin) makes all the sense in the world, but her family might disown us. So it's either ELCA or some other liturgy-based communion.
This is the generic answer from these individuals.
I carry a pocket New Testament on me at all times. I'd show anyone who makes that statement Jude 7.
Jude 1:7 [The wicked are sentenced to suffer] just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the adjacent towns--which likewise gave themselves over to impurity and indulged in unnatural vice and sensual perversity--are laid out [in plain sight] as an exhibit of perpetual punishment [to warn] of everlasting fire. (Amplified)
This pompous liberal twit was installed as bishop of the ELCA's Greater Milwaukee Synod in 2002. And at my congregation! I should know, having sat through all 3-4 smug, self-congratulatory hours of it. I was only there because my daughter was singing in one of the choirs. Never again!
But Pastor Jay Thorson, 45, of Shepherd of the Hills Lutheran Church in Hubertus, disagreed with the vote and said homosexuality is a sin.
My brother is a conservative pastor of a very conservative ELCA congregation in Pennsylvania, and would concur with Pastor Jay Thorson. Most of us are just playing the waiting game until the vote at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in August. Many lifelong Lutherans do not fully realize the extent to which the liberal ELCA hierarchy (like Paul Stumme-Diers) have hijacked this denomination and turned it into another religion altogether. It makes me sick to see the havoc their ideology is wreaking on once healthy congregations. The morale at ours is terrible and the congregation is hemorrhaging members.
Our kids were all raised in this congregation. Our son had his Eagle Scout ceremony there. It will hurt to leave the people who supported us and prayed for us when he was critically ill with cancer last year. But I know we will be leaving, as will many of those same people. We haven't yet decided where. Mark Hanson and his ilk think they are leading, but will turn around to find nobody left following behind them.
The children could tell you a lot about that.
I encourage you to check out the website of the Society of the Holy Trinity http://www.societyholytrinity.org Read the page on "The Rule" http://www.societyholytrinity.org/rule.htm, paying particular attention to the section entitled "Parish Practices". Then look at the membership directory http://www.societyholytrinity.org/stswebdirectory.htm to see if there are any STS members serving a congregation within a reasonable driving distance. Although not every parish is practicing every aspect of the Rule at this time, most subscriber clergy are committed to working toward those goals and have a deliberate plan to achieve them incrementally. These clergy would be delighted to receive visitors and/or new members who share those commitments.
Like you, they are somewhat embattled within their own denomination. They would welcome your support and you would benefit from their ministry.
Some of the best Theologians in the R.C. Church today seem to be former Lutherans according to what I have read in the past 20 years.
This is getting to be a broken record Tony.
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