Adele Ferguson - ELCA decision on gay pastors

CONGREGATIONS fleeing the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, now that ELCA has put out the welcome mat for gay pastors, are on the increase.

Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ, their new home, is now the fourth largest Lutheran body in the USA, according to The Lutheran Hedgehog, with 192 congregations in this country and about 50 more abroad.

Thirty seven have joined LCMC in the past year, twelve of those since August when the vote was taken in the annual national ELCA meeting that generated their flight. Most LCMC congregations are from ELCA although some are from the Missouri Synod. The Hedgehog is the publication of “centrist” Lutherans affiliated with LCMC.

Even though the new rules allow current ELCA pastors to remain in their positions until they retire or die, they are aware, says the Hedgehog, that their successors will be named by their bishop, not the congregation the way it has been.

It’s the bishops who have pushed for years for gay pastors (and allowing gay weddings in the church, which has happened but is not authorized). Even before the new rule was adopted making homosexuals eligible for any ordained ministry, there were over 100 gay or lesbian pastors in ELCA with the open or tacit approval of their bishops.

“When I retire,” one unnamed pastor told the Hedgehog, “this congregation will be at the mercy of the bishop, and he will make sure that my successor is a company man. We are going to get out now.”

SPLITTING THE SHEETS with the diocese is, however, not easy, either for the Lutherans or Episcopalians who are partners in sharing buildings and pastors. Questions that cause the most problems are who owns the church, the congregation or the diocese, and who gets the money from offerings and endowments?

In 2006, members of St. Luke’s of the Mountains Church in La Crescenta, Calif., voted to leave the Episcopal church but expected to physically remain where they were. After a long court battle, they were evicted from their building when a court ruled that the national Episcopal Church and the local diocese were the rightful owners, not the breakaway congregation.

The Hedgehog advises breakaway Lutherans to gather up their documents because most churches identify the individual congregation , not ELCA, on the title as the owners.

LCMC congregations deal directly with pastoral candidates for calls and ordain women but not practicing homosexuals, bisexual and transgendered persons. One bishop, the Hedgehog reports, told those in his diocese that neither he nor his successor would force them to take a gay pastor, an assurance intended to keep them in ELCA. The new norm in the ELCA, however, is the moral equivalence between heterosexual and homosexual marriage and family.

If a congregation is part of the ELCA, it is obliged to accept noncelibate gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered clergy and blessings. No bishop, says the Hedgehog, can guarantee what his successor will or will not do. And for those remaining in ELCA, Sunday school materials, hymnals, confirmation material, youth programs, Bible studies and seminary training are all vehicles through which ELCA promotes its social agenda.

WHAT’S THE BEEF? Three things, says the Hedgehog. Noncelibate clergy is a lifestyle that hinders the teaching of the gospel and homosexuality is banned in the Bible. A noncelibate gay pastor misleads kids about the danger of his behavior, and a mom-dad family is the time tested norm best for church and society.

(Adele Ferguson can be reached at P.O. Box 69, Hansville, Wa., 98340).