Lutherans take up debate on gays

Chicago Tribune ^ | August 12, 2003 | Manya A. Brachear

[Monitor]

MILWAUKEE -- Just a week after the Episcopal Church approved an openly gay bishop and let individual churches decide whether to bless same-sex unions, the nation's largest Lutheran denomination convened Monday to pick up a similar debate.

For the 5.1 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the discussion of homosexual marriage and openly gay pastors has its own unique twists and timeline. Homosexuals already may become pastors if they agree to remain celibate. And individual churches may bless same-sex unions despite a non-binding statement made a decade ago by the church's 66 bishops condemning such ceremonies.

The Evangelical Lutherans' discussion began two years ago when the church commissioned a task force to study homosexuality from scriptural, theological and scientific points of view. Although the study is due in 2005, an interim report is to be presented Friday. Hearings on the matter begin Tuesday.

[Terriergal]

Man, it's just like a virus ain't it! Just as they hoped.

[Prof Engineer]

PING

[Terriergal]

ping!

[AD from SpringBay]

What debate? Why is there a debate on this? It's almost as if God Himself as sent an ability for people to believe a lie because they have for so long rejected Him and His Word. Anyone who takes longer than 10 minutes to debate this needs to be on their faces in prayer.

The only reconciliation between Christianity and homosexuality is repentance and change on the part of the homosexual.

[utahagen]

Orthodox Christians within the ELCA should switch to the Missouri Synod ASAP. What sense does it make that United Church if Christ ministers can be pastor's of ECLA churches? UCC doctrine is so watered down that it's just a couple notches to the right of the conservative wing of the Unitarian Church. How can a UCC minister oversee an ECLA parish if he doesn't subscribe to Luthteran theology.

Again: ECLA Lutherans should head to the Missouri Synod without wasting more time.

[StarCMC]

If this debate comes up in the SBC I'm starting my own home church...an extension of my home school.

[CJ Wolf]

How about we just take bak the church.

[biblewonk]

This is a done deal. ELCA ditched the bible a long time ago.

[Charles Henrickson]

Lutherans take up debate on gays

As always, when the media report on "Lutherans," and they're referring to the ELCA (Extremely Liberal Church in America), do not confuse this with real Lutheranism.

[Monitor]

What debate? Why is there a debate on this?

I don't understand it either. Did some modern-day HoMoses ascend mount Erectus, to receive a new law from God himself, "Thou shalt ride thy neighbor's ass, thy neighbor's son's ass, and any ass that is thy neighbor's" while I wasn't looking?

If God ever changes his/her/it's mind on the homo matter, I have no doubt God will make sure we're unquestionably aware of it.

[CJ Wolf]

can someone post the whole article? I don't feel like registering with the Tribune for this.

[MinuteGal]

Born, bred, baptized and confirmed in the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, thank God.

It's never immune to infiltration and attack by the left, but so far has been a solid rock on which I can stand. Too many other denominations are shifting sand.

Leni

[Charles Henrickson]

ECLA Lutherans should head to the Missouri Synod without wasting more time.

Thanks for the plug, but even here in the LCMS you've got to know which congregation and pastor you're talking about. Oh, not on the homosexuality issue. There's about zero who would take the liberal view on that. But on other issues--confessionalism, fellowship, communion practice, worship practice, women in the church--some of our congos and pastors have gone a little wobbly.

[ClearCase_guy]

And why is every church in the world (seemingly) so eager to throw out 2000 years of theology -- just in order to curry favor with 2% of the population?

[utahagen]

I sincerely think it's too late for the ECLA as a denomination ever to be "taken back". I agree with the Lutheran pastor who left when ECLA started paying for its employees' abortions: "Real churches don't kill babies."

I know there are orthodox Christians in the ECLA and I sympathize with them. But if real Lutheranism is important to them, they should join the Missouri Synod. I think Mainline Protestant denominations are packed with ultraliberal clergy who use orthodox Christians within their ranks and then betray them at every turn when these churches make decisions about, for example, abortion. The idea that Martin Luther EVER would have sanctioned abortion is ludicrous, and the fact that the ECLA sanctions it means it has abandoned real Lutheranism, not to mention real Christianity.

(By the way, I'm not a Lutheran of any stripe. I just really admire the Missouri Synod.)

[twntaipan]

Won't happen in the SBC. Far too conservative for that. Now the CBF (liberal Former SBC splinter group)? It will hit them within 24 months.

[azhenfud]

The cancer continues to devour and destroy. Leviticus was right.

[Monitor]

can someone post the whole article? I don't feel like registering with the Tribune for this.

I originally did try to post the whole article, but FR insisted that it be exerpted.

Try Username: annoying, Password: annoying

[TheGeezer]

What teaching authority exists in any church if it cannot trace its origins back to St. Peter and the Apostles?

If a church was founded last week (there are an estimated 30,000 Christian church sects worldwide), how can it claim to have any teaching authority? Where is the link to the original bishops of the church, the Apostles, who received their authority from Christ Himself, who passed their authority on to successors with sacramentally binding ordination?

That church is the one Christ founded, not the one Calvin founded, not the one Luther founded, not the one John Wesley founded, not the one Henry VIII and Elizabeth I founded. It is the Roman Catholic Church. In time, when all others have fallen away, one will remain teaching what Christ taught, and that is because even the gates of hell will not prevail against it.