Daniel_Cheung
08-28-2010, 12:04 PM
US: Lutherans split over gay pastors, Bible beliefs
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_religion_today
Critics of the country's largest Lutheran denomination and its more open stance toward gay clergy formed a new Lutheran church Friday at a meeting of a conservative activist group.
The overwhelming voice vote by members of the Lutheran Coalition of Renewal created the North American Lutheran Church, a tiny denomination of churches formerly affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, headquartered in Chicago.
As of early August, 199 congregations had cleared the hurdles to leave the ELCA for good, while 136 awaited the second vote needed to make it official. In all, there are 10,239 ELCA churches with about 4.5 million members, making it by far the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.
The vote followed the ELCA's decision to move gay pastors into its fold, becoming the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. to allow noncelibate gays into its ranks.
The move came during Lutheran CORE's annual meeting, held this year in a Church of the Nazarene megachurch in Grove City, just south of Columbus....
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_religion_today
Critics of the country's largest Lutheran denomination and its more open stance toward gay clergy formed a new Lutheran church Friday at a meeting of a conservative activist group.
The overwhelming voice vote by members of the Lutheran Coalition of Renewal created the North American Lutheran Church, a tiny denomination of churches formerly affiliated with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, headquartered in Chicago.
As of early August, 199 congregations had cleared the hurdles to leave the ELCA for good, while 136 awaited the second vote needed to make it official. In all, there are 10,239 ELCA churches with about 4.5 million members, making it by far the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.
The vote followed the ELCA's decision to move gay pastors into its fold, becoming the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. to allow noncelibate gays into its ranks.
The move came during Lutheran CORE's annual meeting, held this year in a Church of the Nazarene megachurch in Grove City, just south of Columbus....