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Pastors oppose denomination's move away from roots

Lutherans breaking with church over gay clergy

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By Tom Beyerlein , Staff Writer Updated 2:01 AM Sunday, August 22, 2010

Pastors who oppose the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s decision to allow gays with partners into the ministry say they’re not homophobic. But they say the move is the last straw in their relationship with a denomination that has increasingly placed political correctness ahead of Bible teachings.

“The ELCA is slowly drifting away from its orthodox and confessional roots,” said the Rev. Keith Falk of Trinity Lutheran Church of Versailles, an ELCA pastor who is critical of the change. He said the decision on gay ministers was “the tipping point for many congregations, but (the controversy) goes far beyond human sexuality.”

ELCA supporters dispute the notion that the organization is ignoring scriptural teachings. “Who is to say this (change) isn’t the work of God?” said the Rev. Gary Eichhorn of the Lutheran Church of Our Savior in Oakwood. “I think that’s what God did in 1971 when we ordained the first woman.”

The Lutherans aren’t the only mainline Protestant denomination to struggle over the ordination of gays. Gay ministers are permitted in the Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ. Last month, the general assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to allow gay ministers, a measure still awaiting final ratification.

An ELCA assembly of clergy and lay leaders voted 559-451 in August 2009 to allow gays in “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships” to serve as ministers. Previously, the ELCA allowed only celibate gay ministers. The vote came after years of periodic debate on the issue.

The Rev. Paull Spring of State College, Pa., said the vote is “tearing the church apart.” Spring is the nominee to be the first bishop of the new North American Lutheran Church, to be established in Columbus Friday, Aug. 27. The NALC is to be an alternative national order for congregations that chose to leave the ELCA. Spring said the NALC hopes to have 100 congregations by year’s end and another 100 in 2011.

The ELCA was formed in 1988 by the merger of three Lutheran groups, including the Lutheran Church in America, which had a top-down leadership structure, and the more bottom-up American Lutheran Church. The cultural differences between the groups weren’t adequately addressed from the beginning, said the Rev. Alan Knoke of Greenville’s St. John Lutheran Church, a former ALC church which has taken the first of two votes needed to secede from the ELCA.

ELCA critics say they’ve had numerous concerns over the years. Some felt the ELCA’s stand against abortion didn’t go far enough. There have been disagreements over the ELCA’s ecumenical relationship with the Episcopal Church. Some members were angered in 2005 when the ELCA adopted a gender-neutral hymnal that eliminated masculine references to God such as “Father” and “Son.”

In August 2009, the ELCA assembly approved a social statement on human sexuality which reached no conclusion on whether homosexuality is sinful. Then the group lifted the celibacy requirement for gay ministers.

“(The ELCA is) basically skirting the issue of, is this a sin,” Knoke said. “As a consequence of that, you’ve got this elephant in the room. If you consider it a sin, the fact that you won’t call it a sin is a sin. If you say it’s not a sin, go ahead and say it’s not a sin and go on from there. It (the indecision) creates a tension in the church.”

Knoke said it’s not a matter of hating gay people or even keeping celibate gays out of the ministry. Practicing homosexuality, he said, “is not an unforgiveable sin. It’s the same level of sin as if you covet your neighbor’s car. It isn’t a matter of whose sin is better or worse. It is an issue of forgiveness and salvation, ultimately.”

The ruling led the Rev. Robert Forsberg of Fairborn to retire from the ELCA. About 40 adults, roughly half the active members of his former congregation at St. Mark Lutheran Church, have joined him at the new Light of Christ Lutheran Church, which also attracts former members of other ELCA congregations.

“It’s been a very difficult thing for people on both sides,” he said.

Whether or not homosexuality is a sin is much debated among Christians, and there’s scant biblical evidence to support either position. Gay Christians refer to the four to seven passages most often cited to attack homosexuality as “the clobber passages.” Eichhorn of Oakwood said none of them are from the gospels and none are quotations attributed to Jesus.

“I’d rather talk about the things Jesus talked about rather than the things he never talked about,” Eichhorn said.

The impact of the decision on the ELCA, which has been in membership decline in recent years but claims 4.5 million members, isn’t yet clear. In a report released two weeks ago, the ELCA reported it lost nearly 91,000 members and 48 congregations in 2009. That’s almost 15,000 more members than the order lost in 2008, but ELCA spokesman John Brooks cautioned against attributing that solely to the policy on gay ministers.

The change has clearly been divisive in the ELCA’s Southern Ohio Synod, which includes Dayton, Columbus and Cincinnati and claims 94,000 members. On May 21, synod leaders tied on a vote to ask the national ELCA to repeal the decision.

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