Nothing to see here, move along
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By Mollie, Get Religion
Last year, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to change its doctrine to allow gay clergy in committed sexual relationships. The Associated Press ran a story about one of the consequences of that vote:
Seven pastors who work in the San Francisco Bay area and were barred from serving in the nation’s largest Lutheran group because of a policy that required gay clergy to be celibate are being welcomed into the denomination.The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will add six of the pastors to its clergy roster at a service at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco on Sunday. Another pastor who was expelled from the church, but was later reinstated, will participate in the service.The group is among the first gay, bisexual or transgender Lutheran pastors to be reinstated or added to the rolls of the ELCA since the organization voted last year to lift the policy requiring celibacy.
Although I’m not a member of the ELCA, I am Lutheran and I keep a Google News alert out for the term “Lutheran.” This means I get tons of news about the ELCA. And far and away the biggest story I’ve seen over the last ten months has been case after case of Lutheran congregations leaving the ELCA following this vote.
It’s only been 10-plus months since the vote was taken but I’d estimate that I’ve seen reports of hundreds of churches voting to leave the ELCA since then.
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