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GOLDEN VALLEY, Minn. - The ELCA vote of 2009 divided Lutherans forever. The decision to allow gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships to be ordained into ministry caused a ripple effect of defections. On Tuesday many of those ripples gathered for a Lutheran conference at Calvary Lutheran Church in Golden Valley. Some of them reflecting on who they have become as a faith community since then. "The positive part about it is its helped people to I think discern who they are and what they believe and what is important in life and ministry," Pastor Steve Dornbusch of Calvary...

I promised that I would review Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson’s Reconciling Works Keynote Address that he gave on July 7. The text was made available by the Bishop’s Office to Pastor Daniel Ostercamp of Webster, SD, who made it available to me. You can read it for yourself here. I will leave to others the critical analysis of Hanson’s remarkably rosy picture of the ELCA. I will also ignore the several self-justifications of his own partisan (or insufficiently partisan!) leadership that pepper the address. The theological question I posed in my previous post was whether the bishop would nurture God’s...

Some years ago the Luther scholar Scott Hendrix published Luther and the Papacy: Stages in a Reformation Conflict, an important study which demonstrated how Luther’s quarrel was never with the catholic faith as such but with “the papists,” modern innovators who had betrayed that faith universally held. Nevertheless, Luther respected the papacy as a pastoral office, according to Hendrix. Indeed, the primary source of his anger was the betrayal of the pope’s universal pastoral duty by Leo X and his successors. Hendrix showed that Luther’s underlying and consistent criterion in judging the papacy is that by divine right the papacy...

The Rev. John F. Bradosky of Centerville, Ohio, was elected Bishop of the North American Lutheran Church (NALC) Thursday, Aug. 11. Bishop Bradosky, who has served as the General Secretary of the NALC since January, was elected by the NALC Convocation, the church body’s annual meeting, which met Aug. 11-12 in suburban Columbus, Ohio. Eight hundred Lutherans from throughout North America gathered at Upper Arlington Lutheran Church at Mill Run in Hilliard, Ohio, to elect leaders and to set direction for the newly-formed church body. Bishop Bradosky, 59, was formally installed as bishop at the closing worship service of the...

The Core of Lutheran CORE: American Civil Religion and White Male Backlash * Jon Pahl , Ph.D. See A Response to "The Core of Lutheran CORE" by Robert Benne You have no excuse, whoever you are, when you judge others; for in passing judgment on another you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, are doing the very same things.... Do you despise the riches of God's kindness and forbearance and patience? Do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? But by your hard and impenitent heart you are storing up wrath for yourself on...

A young woman wrote to me after the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted that it would allow persons in publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous same-sex relationships to serve in some cases as pastors. She asked why we in the Lutheran Coalition for Renewal were so exercised about a few prohibitions from the Old Testament, while we ignored others from the same passage. She had a point. I enjoy shrimp, which is also forbidden in Leviticus. Of course, I also believe that loving your neighbor as yourself is binding on Christians, and that, too, comes originally from Leviticus. Certain principles from...

The Oromo Evangelical Lutheran Churches have unanimously voted to join Lutheran CORE. Lutheran CORE is honored to have these faithful Christians standing with us. We are humbled by their faithful witness both during the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly and since then. These faithful Christians faced persecution in their homeland of Ethiopia. They know what it means to stand firm in faith even in the face of intense opposition. Their witness is a source of encouragement to all who bear the name of Christ and to all who stand on the witness of Scripture and thus in opposition to the ELCA...

IRON MOUNTAIN - A regional chapter of Lutheran CORE (Coalition for Renewal) will be formed when Lutherans from across Upper Peninsula, northern Wisconsin, and northern Lower Michigan gather on Saturday. The Rev. Corinne Johnson, interim pastor of Bethany Lutheran Church in Escanaba, and a member of the Lutheran CORE Advisory Council, said the meeting will begin at 9 a.m. and conclude at 4 p.m. at Our Saviour's Lutheran Church in Iron Mountain. The chapter will be formed in the afternoon. There will be about 150 people at the event, 15 of them pastors, and two keynote speakers. "After the events...

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...

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...

“Jesus would be passing out condoms.” That provocative thought was offered by an ELCA pastor on the floor of the Minneapolis churchwide assembly. Amazingly enough, he was quoting his former synodical bishop. When I heard that, I felt strangely relieved. We have clarity. If that is where the ELCA’s leadership is headed, as for me and my house, we are not going with them. I. In the midst of our sorrow, in the midst of our shock, in the midst of our grief, we are living in a period of historic opportunity for the church in North America. I believe...

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...

ELCA Presiding Bishop Comments on Assembly Responses, Finances CHICAGO (ELCA) -- It's a "rocky time" in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) largely because of responses to decisions of the 2009 ELCA Churchwide Assembly and economic stresses, said the Rev. Mark S. Hanson, ELCA presiding bishop. Hanson made his comments to the ELCA Conference of Bishops, an advisory body of the church. The conference includes the ELCA's 65 synod bishops, the presiding bishop and secretary. The conference is meeting here Oct. 1-6. Much of Hanson's report focused on the assembly's actions on human sexuality and varied responses to those...

Local conservative Lutherans preparing for change 'Reformers' will consider a future separate from ELCA. By MELISSA NANN BURKE Daily Record/Sunday News Updated: 09/28/2009 07:12:40 AM EDT Conservatives in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted during the weekend to spend a year laying a course that could lead their group to split with the denomination. With 4.7 million members, the ELCA is the country's largest Lutheran denomination, representing more than 70 congregations in York County. Some members have already left the ELCA since the church decided last month to allow gay people in committed relationships to serve in the pulpit....

Lutheran Core Leaders, Members Map Organization's Future 09-212-JB FISHERS, Ind. (ELCA) -- Leaders and members of the Lutheran Coalition for Renewal (CORE) began planning for the organization's future by adopting a constitution, including plans for a "free-standing synod" not directly related to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). They also suggested ways for constituents to communicate concerns. With the adoption of its constitution, CORE's name was formally changed from "Coalition for Reform" to "Coalition for Renewal." Biblical teaching, the creeds and the Lutheran Confessions are key values of CORE, according to its constitution. Some 1,200 Lutherans from more than...

Lutheran CORE Attendees Express Variety of Viewpoints 09-213-JB FISHERS, Ind. (ELCA) -- Some 1,200 Lutherans attended the Lutheran Coalition for Renewal (CORE) convocation here Sept. 25-26, united in their concern about the actions of the 2009 Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) on human sexuality. But individual responses to the assembly actions varied considerably. The assembly adopted the social statement, "Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust," by a two-thirds vote. The statement addresses several topics related to human sexuality from a Lutheran perspective. The assembly also adopted a series of proposals to change ministry policies, including a...

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.

FISHERS, IND. — Conservative members of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination voted Saturday to spend the next 12 months deciding whether to split from the church after it liberalized its stance on gay clergy. About 1,200 people meeting in suburban Indianapolis approved a constitution for the conservative umbrella group Lutheran CORE and a resolution directing its steering committee to report back in a year on whether to stay within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, form their own denomination or join another. Some members urged the assembly to more quickly sever ties with the 4.7-million member ELCA after the vote...

INDIANAPOLIS -- More than 1,200 Lutherans from throughout the United States and Canada took actions Saturday, Sept. 26, that they hope will lead to a reconfiguration of Lutheranism in North America. The Lutherans were in Indianapolis for a Convocation formally organizing the Lutheran Coalition for Renewal (Lutheran CORE). The event became even more significant when the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted in August to change its teaching to affirm same-sex relationships and to allow pastors to be in those relationships in spite of the Bible's teaching on marriage and homosexual behavior. "I believe it is...