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Lutheran Bishop David Zellmer said that his attendance at a meeting of the Lutheran Coalition for Renewal, or Lutheran CORE, in Watertown earlier this week should not be interpreted as a lack of support for the South Dakota Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America that he leads. “Since there may have been some confusion, it’s important that I make clear that my attendance …was strictly for my own education. It should not be viewed as anything other than my wanting to know firsthand what was and was not being said,” Zellmer wrote on his synod blog Friday. Lutheran...

It was standing room only Monday night at St. Paul's Lutheran Church at a meeting of Lutherans unhappy with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's recent vote to allow gays and lesbians to serve as clergy. Those assembled — about 450, organizers estimated — voted unanimously to approve a resolution to form a Lutheran Coalition for Renewal (CORE) group in North Carolina. CORE is a conservative network of clergy and lay Lutherans who believe the church has fallen into heresy and whose goal is a "reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism." At issue mainly is the ELCA's adoption on Aug. 19...

Many of the North Carolina Synod's 86,000 members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America feel betrayed and frustrated due to action taken at the ELCA's recent biennial Churchwide Assembly - specifically, decisions to allow recognition of same-sex unions and allow persons in such relationships to serve as ordained clergy. Clearly these decisions are moves away from the authority and importance that Lutherans have historically and traditionally ascribed to scripture since Martin Luther started the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s.Many read the news in disbelief; some were unaware the church was considering such extreme action even though millions of dollars...

Some area Lutheran congregations are withholding financial support to the national Evangelical Lutheran Church in America while they explore their future in the ELCA. Christ the King Lutheran Church in Newcastle, Wyo., quit sending money to ELCA headquarters in Chicago in September. Earlier this year, the small eastern Wyoming congregation voted to financially support the reform group, Lutheran Coalition for Renewal, which plans to reconfigure Lutheranism in North America because of the ELCA's recent vote to approve of homosexual clergy in committed same-sex relationships. "In some ways we're a little bit ahead of the curve on this," said the Rev....

It looks like the ELCA will remain in tact at least through the rest of the year. Today, hundreds of members from the Evangelical Lutheran church in America gathered in Indianapolis. They're part of a Lutheran group called "core” and are upset of a vote last month, which allowed gays and lesbians in committed same-sex relationships to serve as clergy. The group decided within the next year they’d decide whether or not to split from the church.

CORE meeting at Fishers, IN Sorry this is a bit late; no wireless at the church, so it had to wait until I got home and I got sidetracked drinking a beer. The sanctuary of Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Fishers, IN, was pretty well full (1200 capacity) thirty minutes before the official starting time of the CORE meeting. Pr. Mark Chavez opened the meeting by leading a rousing rendition, first of “A Mighty Fortress” and then “Holy, Holy, Holy” (both sung out of the hymnal in the pew). He reported that when the first call was made about the...

New rules about gay clergy have boosted interest in Lutheran CORE group's national meeting: They'll discuss leaving the ELCA. If the largest Lutheran church body in North America splits over a recent controversial vote on gay clergy, the foundation likely will be laid this weekend.Opponents of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America's recent vote to permit gay ministers are meeting in Indianapolis, where the No. 1 item on the agenda is: "A possible reconfiguration of North American Lutheranism."Organizers of the annual Lutheran CORE meeting were unprepared for the huge response, finally capping attendance after 1,200 people signed up -- far...

The presiding bishop of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination warned Wednesday that withholding financial support to protest a recent gay clergy vote would be "devastating" to the church. Bishop Mark Hanson laid out his concerns in a letter to leaders of the 4.7 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, which is based in Chicago. The ELCA churchwide assembly voted last month to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, dropping a requirement that gay clergy remain celibate. The Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, said the gay clergy vote was the devastating event — "a...

Lutheran CORE Plans Next Steps, Intends to be 'Free-Standing' Synod 09-198-JB CHICAGO (ELCA) -- Saying the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) has "fallen into heresy," because of actions taken at last month's churchwide assembly, the chair of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Reform) said the organization intends to be a "free-standing synod" which will carry out ministries apart from the ELCA. In addition CORE is expected to consider initiating conversations with member Lutheran congregations and reform movements in the United States and Canada toward a possible reconfiguration "of North American Lutheranism," said the Rev. Paull E. Spring, State College, Pa.,...

Aug. 13 /Christian Newswire/ -- Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Reform) will be gathering Lutherans from throughout the United States to defend traditional marriage and to defeat proposed changes in church teaching about sexuality. Lutheran CORE will be working to defeat proposals that would change the teaching and policy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The proposals to be considered Aug. 17-23 by the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis would affirm homosexual relationships and would allow pastors to be in same-sex relationships. "The Churchwide Assembly has no authority to be voting on these matters," said the Rev. Paull Spring of State...

A radical new idea may revolutionise our understanding of one of the most vital forces on Earth Earth's magnetic field, long thought to be generated by molten metals swirling around its core, may instead be produced by ocean currents, according to controversial new research published this week. It suggests that the movements of such volumes of salt water around the world have been seriously underestimated by scientists as a source of magnetism. If proven, the research would revolutionise geophysics, the study of the Earth’s physical properties and behaviour, in which the idea that magnetism originates in a molten core is...

Colorado’s Ken Salazar is facing his first major backlash as Secretary of the Interior. A national civil rights group says Salazar is “going Hollywood on us” and caving into actor Robert Redford’s demands that American oil and gas leases in Utah be cancelled. He is also being accused of going counter to the spirit of economic stimulus by cancelling the leases. Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) says higher energy prices will result from the decision to scrap the leases of 77 parcels of land for oil and gas drilling in Utah’s Redrock country. The group believes low-income families feel the...

It's really awesome when one of the liberal elites gets a taste of their own medicine. I wonder how Robert Redford felt the other day in Utah when he was faced with a mob of African-Americans protesting him...

It's a classic image from every youngster's science textbook: a cutaway image of Earth's interior. The brown crust is paper-thin; the warm mantle orange, the seething liquid of the outer core yellow, and at the center the core, a ball of solid, red-hot iron. Now a new theory aims to rewrite it all by proposing the seemingly impossible: Earth has not one but two inner cores. The idea stems from an ancient, cataclysmic collision that scientists believe occurred when a Mars-sized object hit Earth about 4.45 billion years ago. The young Earth was still so hot that it was mostly...

A civil rights group says it is organizing protests against actor Robert Redford for what it says is his political role as the Grinch who is hurting low-income families by fighting oil and gas drilling in Utah. "If Robert Redford succeeds in blocking natural gas production in Utah, it's going to hurt a lot of people on the other end of the pipeline — especially low-income families who are struggling to pay their heating bills," said Niger Innis, national chairman of the Congress of Racial Equality. Innis said CORE and the High Impact Leadership Coalition are launching a "Don't Freeze...

As reported by Ed Morrissey (2008), two years ago when the large nuclear utility Commonwealth Edison (ComEd) wanted Illinois state lawmakers to back a large rate hike two years ago, it took a creative lobbying approach. Its parent company, Exelon Corporation, contracted with ASK Public Strategies, a consulting firm, to a build a fake "front company" that appeared to be devoted to the public interest called Consumers Organized for Reliable Electricity (CORE). Then the "front company" (CORE) ran TV ads warning of a “California-style energy crisis” if the rate increase wasn’t approved. The CORE ads, however, failed to disclose in...

Aug 25, 2008 Several Politicians Named as Punishers of the Poor at Press Conference Denver, CO—A coalition of leaders from the African American, civil rights, faith-based and veteran communities this week blasted several Members of Congress as “Punishers of the Poor,” saying that they all scored a perfect zero on an affordable energy voting scorecard. The six politicians who earned top honors as the “worst of the worst” among those supporting higher energy prices—and who were memoralized in a Punishers of the Poor deck of playing cards—are these: Joker: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Joker: Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Ace...

CALGARY -- Support for Canada's oil sands is coming from an unexpected American group--an anti-poverty coalition led by African-American civil rights and faith leaders. The group is waging a national campaign targeting 50 "extreme" environmental organizations and 100 U. S. politicians it says are restricting energy supplies through climate-change legislation, causing oil prices to spike to levels that are "strangling" the poor. Niger Innis, co-chairman of the "Stop The War On The Poor" campaign and national spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), one of the oldest civil rights groups in the United States, said the alliance wants more...

The newest analysis of trace gases trapped in Antarctic ice cores now provide a reasonable view of greenhouse gas concentrations as much as 800,000 years into the past, and are further confirming the link between greenhouse gas levels and global warming, scientists reported in the journal Nature. They also show that during that entire period of time, there have never been concentrations of carbon dioxide and methane as high as the current levels, said Edward Brook, an associate professor of geosciences at Oregon State University, and author of a Nature commentary on the new studies. "The fundamental conclusion that today's...

(IsraelNN.com) Education Ministry officials have decided to keep Arabic in the core curriculum for middle and high school students until further notice. Arabic was removed from the core curriculum earlier in the year as part of an attempt to streamline the curriculum and make it acceptable to the hareidi-religious community. Most hareidi-religious schools have rejected the core curriculum and prefer to operate as private schools with some government funding. However, the Supreme Court recently ruled that the government cannot fund high schools that do not teach the core curriculum, a decision that would leave many hareidi-religious schools facing a budget...