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The fallout from the denominational split over homosexuality continues. From New Lutheran Group Likely to Rise from Gay Discord (emphasis mine):
… As of early August, 199 congregations had cleared the hurdles to leave the ELCA for good, while another 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 still by far the largest Lutheran denomination in the U.S.
And the breakaway members gathering in Ohio will face their own challenges if they vote to start another denomination at a time when attendance at mainline Protestant churches is falling and denominational distinctions appear irrelevant to a growing number of churchgoers.
But pastors in a few churches that plan to join the North American Lutheran Church say there are still good reasons to be part of a larger church body.
“For a lot of congregations and a lot of churchgoers, there is value in a larger Lutheran fellowship,” said the Rev. Mark Braaten, pastor at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church in Tyler, Texas, another charter member of the new denomination.
About 75 percent of the churches that already left the ELCA have affiliated with Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ—another, smaller denomination. But the Rev. Mark Chavez, Lutheran CORE’s director, said some Lutherans found that denomination too loosely structured and wanted a choice that retained aspects of the ELCA identity.
Some ELCA refugees have a more bottom-line reason to join a new denomination. Under many church constitutions, congregations that leave the ELCA and try to strike out as a wholly independent church could actually see their ELCA synod council assert legal ownership of their property and church buildings. “People don’t see it as too likely, but it’s not a discussion too many want to have,” Braaten said.
So why go through the hassles—especially when even critics of the ELCA’s more liberalized policy admit that no congregations are likely to be compelled to install a gay pastor?
“I don’t think it’s the issue of whether someone is going to have a gay pastor forced upon their church, as much a question of what a straight pastor is going to be teaching,” said the Rev. David Baer, pastor of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Whitewood, S.D., another charter member of the new denomination. “What’s God’s intention for marriage, for sexuality? The concern is the ELCA is trading in its teaching and losing its grounding in scripture and no longer having a moral center.”
Organizers of the new denomination will reveal on Friday its 18 charter churches—a number they hope will grow to 200 or more within a year.
I’ve said it a million times, homosexuality is just the manifestation of much deeper theological and moral disagreements. While separation is viewed as a last resort and only approached slowly and with wisdom … sometimes separation is inevitable and must be done. My prayers are with all of these churches and denominations in conflict.
MORE:
ELCA Embraces “Non-Celibate” Gay Clergy
Please also visit the Exodus Church Association Website.
About Randy Thomas
As I understand it, some churches that wish to leave the ELCA could be subject to the synod council stating that they can’t take their building with them, so to speak, if it is in the CONSTITUTION of the church in question. Some of the old constitutions apparently have words to that effect, and if the church never did the work of updating their constitution, then they are stuck with what they have in writing.