megimoo
08-24-2009, 11:08 PM
Lutheran schism feared after votes on gays,
Traditionalist members threaten to defect
"A small minority of people are changing 2,000 years of church teaching."
"What did they expect, Did they really think they could do this without a revolution ?"
MINNEAPOLIS | Last Friday, as members of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination were casting four historic votes recasting the role of homosexuals in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a mop-up operation had begun a few blocks away.In a hospitality suite on the 12th floor of the Doubletree Hotel, Bill Sullivan's cell phone was ringing and ringing.
Mr. Sullivan, a former ELCA pastor, is national coordinator for the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), a collection of 226 congregations founded in March 2001 with 25 charter member churches dissatisfied with the denomination's liberal drift.
Now the trickle has turned into a flood."It's been going nonstop," he said of his phone.
On Friday alone, he scheduled three visits to ELCA churches in Buffalo, N.Y. Sioux City, Iowa and Jacksonville, Fla., for later this fall. They are thinking of leaving, as were the 15 people who had stopped by the hotel suite that day. Twenty-five inquiries had come in that week alone, and that was before all the vote tallies were in down the street at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
He glanced at his e-mail."The train wreck is just about over," he said, reading from a post sent by a delegate on the convention floor. "The first responders need to be ready."He looked up.
"People have been calling all morning," he said. "They want this to be over. It's been going on for days. A small minority of people are changing 2,000 years of church teaching."
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/24/lutheran-schism-feared-after-votes-on-gays/
Traditionalist members threaten to defect
"A small minority of people are changing 2,000 years of church teaching."
"What did they expect, Did they really think they could do this without a revolution ?"
MINNEAPOLIS | Last Friday, as members of the nation's largest Lutheran denomination were casting four historic votes recasting the role of homosexuals in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, a mop-up operation had begun a few blocks away.In a hospitality suite on the 12th floor of the Doubletree Hotel, Bill Sullivan's cell phone was ringing and ringing.
Mr. Sullivan, a former ELCA pastor, is national coordinator for the Lutheran Congregations in Mission for Christ (LCMC), a collection of 226 congregations founded in March 2001 with 25 charter member churches dissatisfied with the denomination's liberal drift.
Now the trickle has turned into a flood."It's been going nonstop," he said of his phone.
On Friday alone, he scheduled three visits to ELCA churches in Buffalo, N.Y. Sioux City, Iowa and Jacksonville, Fla., for later this fall. They are thinking of leaving, as were the 15 people who had stopped by the hotel suite that day. Twenty-five inquiries had come in that week alone, and that was before all the vote tallies were in down the street at the Minneapolis Convention Center.
He glanced at his e-mail."The train wreck is just about over," he said, reading from a post sent by a delegate on the convention floor. "The first responders need to be ready."He looked up.
"People have been calling all morning," he said. "They want this to be over. It's been going on for days. A small minority of people are changing 2,000 years of church teaching."
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2009/aug/24/lutheran-schism-feared-after-votes-on-gays/