Fourteen Minnesota churches leaving ELCA over vote to allow clergy in same-sex unions

Posted by Kendall Harmon

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.

One from the long list of I-have-not-yet-had-a-chance-to-post-yet.

Filed under: * Religion News & Commentary • Other Churches • Lutheran • Sexuality Debate (Other denominations and faiths)

7 Comments
Posted December 11, 2009 at 7:00 am [Printer Friendly] [Print w/ comments]



1. Br_er Rabbit wrote:

The headline says fourteen and the text says fifteen.

December 11, 7:34 am | [comment link]
2. Kendall Harmon wrote:

If you read the whole article you will see they got one name on the list incorrect. 14 is therefore the correct number.

December 11, 7:39 am | [comment link]
3. Stefano wrote:

What is interesting is not the article but the published responses below especially the boilerplate “seminar” posters with the same old misinterpretation of the Old testament story. The denominations and names change but nothing else.

December 11, 8:27 am | [comment link]
4. Br_er Rabbit wrote:

Yes, Stefano, and it is also instructive that this ‘newspaper’ has its own GLBT section titled—wait for it—GLBT.

December 11, 8:42 am | [comment link]
5. A Senior Priest wrote:

But will there be lawsuits?

December 11, 10:29 am | [comment link]
6. dwstroudmd wrote:

Only when they can figure out how to make their “canons” say what they do not say when they exist and say whatever they want when they do not exist.  It is the Episcopal playbook, page 3, for those looking for the reference.  I’d give it another week, tops!

December 11, 2:03 pm | [comment link]
7. The Rev. Steven P. Tibbetts, STS wrote:

Lawsuits?  Unlikely.  The ELCA’s Constitutions include provisions for a congregation’s disaffiliation from the ELCA (as did our predecessor church bodies’), and the procedure for how to do that while the congregation keeps its property is spelled out in pretty good detail. 

Yes, there will be issues if the congregation is indebted to an ELCA agency, and there could be issues if there is a strong minority in the congregation that wants to remain.  But there has been a trickle of congregations leaving the ELCA every year of its existence and, while there can be considerable nastiness and rancor in that, I believe that we’ve been able to keep it out of the courts.  Steven+

December 11, 2:22 pm | [comment link]
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