Posted on 09/08/2007 10:18:04 AM PDT by SmithL
Vicki Curtis has been a member of St. Benjamin's Evangelical Lutheran Church in Westminster since 1981, but when her denomination appeared to be softening its stance on homosexuality, she didn't hesitate to act.
She left her church.
Now she's doing what she calls "search the church Sundays" by visiting congregations with convictions closer to her own."The Bible says in Leviticus 18:22 that homosexuality is a sin and its penalty is death. My faith is built on what the Bible teaches, and I will not go where it isn't being followed," she wrote in an e-mail.
She was responding to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's adoption of a resolution at its 10th Biennial Churchwide Assembly in Chicago on Aug. 11 recommending that bishops and synods not discipline clergy or lay professionals in committed same-sex relationships.
This decision left the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, a conservative Lutheran denomination of 2.6 million members, equally perplexed about the actions of its larger relative, according to its president, Gerald Kieschnick.
"News of this action troubles me greatly," he wrote in a statement last month. "We are deeply disappointed that the ELCA, by its decision, has failed to act in keeping with the historic and universal understanding of the Christian church regarding what the Holy Scripture teaches about homosexual behavior as contrary to God's will and about the biblical qualifications for holding the pastoral office."
In passing this resolution, ELCA seems to be following a path already forged by The Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ, both of which affirm openly homosexual clergy.
But people are overreacting, said ELCA spokesman John Brooks.
"We haven't changed any policy," he said.
Brooks stressed that the resolution only recommended leniency and that bishops who felt moved to do so are not prohibited from disciplining gay clergy.
Brooks characterized the resolution as a cease-fire, a way of maintaining peace between factions who either support full acceptance of gay clergy now and those who oppose acceptance.
The denomination will further consider the subject in 2009.
At that time, a task force working on a social statement on human sexuality will present what it has prepared at the next church-wide assembly in Minneapolis.
The task force has been specifically charged with addressing current denomination policy that precludes lesbians or gays from working in clerical or professional lay positions in the church.
The recommendation is a way to keep people in same-sex relationships in the church, Brooks said.
He said the denomination is trying hard to stay together despite differences.
"Every 20 minutes during the discussion, all the voting members stopped, held hands and prayed together," he said.
The assembly passed the resolution by a vote of 538-431.
As for people like Curtis who are leaving the church, Brooks said he is not surprised but he also noted that most people thus far are staying with the denomination. Curtis, however, questioned how a few hundred people could make such a decision for a church with 4.8 million members.
"Nobody sent me a ballot and said, 'What do you think?'" she said. "I don't need a sexuality statement. I read the Bible."
Thats what happens when you make it up as you go along and there is no central authority.
Protestantism its pretty similiar to muhammedism in that respect.
Say whay you will about the Pope but the Catholics were the first and only ones to worship Christ going back 2000 years.
500 years ago a bunch of Germans decided that they knew better than the Pope and started this mess.
Now you have gay communist lesbian "Bishops" running around.
Ouch. I will turn my other cheek.
I have left the ELCA. I went to a Missouri Synod church for a bit, but I have a couple of issues with them too. I finally found a home in a AFLC parish. My understanding is that at least two area churches are negotiating to switch affiliation to the AFLC, also.
Thanks Brother.
If I stated anything well, it was only by the wisdom and through the grace of the Holy Spirit. May we glorify Him and praise Him with our lives daily.
"We haven't changed any policy," he said.
I believe that John Brooks is sincere, and is trying to put his finger in the dike to stop all the leaks that have started to develop.
However, the mis-leaders who are his bosses, and who instruct him to say that there is no change in policy, are guilty of gross hypocrisy!!!!
Of course there is a de facto change in policy. And in liberal ELCA synods such as ours, where the Missouri Synod is weak and the ELCA will now be free to go totally "gay" and feminazi, Lutheranism is a dead letter, unfortunately.
However, as even some LCMS pastors have found by an in-depth study of the Lutheran confessions, we really should go home to Orthodoxy anyway!!!! I hope that Vicki Curtis will experience Orthodox worship and community for herself so that she may "taste and see".
That is NOT the (evangelical-catholic LCA) Lutheranism that I have always known, until the ELCA mis-leaders, including "gay"-feminazi underminers like Barbara Lundblad, took over!!!!
And you can add that the ELCA mis-leaders support stealing Kosovo from the Serbian people and giving it to the muslims. In fact, they are just plain dhimmis and New World Order hangers-on in every way. For shame!!!!
I came home 4 years ago. I could not stay with a church that condoned abortion.
You already are....sexuality is just the tip of the iceberg with the ELCA. Two years ago the Assembly voted on three measures; sexuality, the new gender neutral hymnal and a public condemnation of Israel......nothing about bringing souls to the true word. The ELCA is a group of left wing activists hiding under the veil of religion. When Hanson petitions Congress on behalf of the 4.8 million people in the ELCA, he is using your money and counting you as one his supporters.
You are cutting your own throat.
But people are overreacting, said ELCA spokesman John Brooks.
“We haven’t changed any policy,” he said.
Brooks stressed that the resolution only recommended leniency and that bishops who felt moved to do so are not prohibited from disciplining gay clergy.
OH, GIVE ME A BREAK!!!!!!!!
This is the worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) example of doublespeak I’ve ever seen.
How is not enforcing policy different than changing the policy! The results are the same!
One of the most egregious things I’m finding about the ELCA is how they continue to insult my intelligence and the WORD of God!
Look no farther than the Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod. Until a few days ago its Bishop was Donald McCoid; who, sadly volutarily retired. During the final days of August his successor-Bishop announced that beginning September 1 there would be "no discipline" against partnered gaysbian clergy. I saw good Bishop McCoid at a liturgy on his last day in office and he looked more glum than that unfortunate fellow under the cloud in Li'l Abner. With good reason. The liturgy was a retirement celebration but it felt like a wake for the orthodox of the ELCA.
Welcome home.
That’s one thing that many people like about the Catholic Church....standing firm against abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, stem cell research, contraception, women priests, and the list can go on and on.
That’s why so many Catholics - such as Conrgessional Representatives Rosa L. DeLauro (CT-3), Joe Baca (CA-43), Tim Bishop (NY-1), Joe Courtney (CT-2), Anna Eshoo (CA-14), Maurice Hinchey, (NY-22), Patrick Kennedy (RI-1), James Langevin (RI-2), John Larson (CT-1), Carolyn McCarthy (NY-4), Betty McCollum (MN-4), Jim Moran (VA-8), Bill Pascrell (NJ-8), Tim Ryan (OH-17), Linda Sanchez (CA-39), José Serrano (NY -16), Hilda Solis (CA-32), and Mike Thompson (CA-1)— are the leaders in favor of abortion, euthanasia, homosexuality, stem cell research, contraception, women priests, and the list can go on and on. They are all welcomed by the Catholic Church and its institutions.
At 'home', there's room for everybody...
Hah!!
The ELCA is a "Bible believing church". At least that's what they say and who are you to contradict them? They differ from you simply on the way certain texts should be understood.
Private interpretation of Scripture is a two-edged sword, my friend. Yes, it frees you from the great Roman papist ogre that wants to control your mind and damn you to hell. On the other hand, it also means that your protestations about the way other "private-interpreters" understand Scripture are just so much chin music.
The world is full of "bible believing churches". It's just that they can't agree on what it is they should actually believe.
I had a conversation with my pastor in 2001 about my objections to the ELCA becoming an abortion church. He got rather huffy and defensive and said (in what seemed at the time to be a nonsequitur,)Well, he was proud of what he did in the sixties and wouldn't change a bit of it. I thought, How sad--thirty years go by and you haven't learned a damn thing. I don't think he missed me after that either.
Yep. If she's looking for the Truth, that's the only option.
As a friend once told me, the ELCA is due for a Reformation.
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