Lutheran Church Welcomes Gay Pastors

Weekly summary of world news

Norm Olson July 28, 2010

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Evangelical Lutheran Church, in a laying on of hands ceremony at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in San Francisco, welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had formerly been barred from the church’s ministry, reports the New York Times. It was one of the first in a series planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its convention in Minneapolis last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed relationships to serve the church. Jeff Johnson, one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said, “All people are welcomed here, all people are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved unconditionally by God.” Since last summer’s decision, however, almost 200 churches have taken action to leave the denomination for several conservative Lutheran groups. Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, a coalition of theologically conservative Lutheran churches, said his group expected to form yet another denomination, the North American Lutheran Church, in August. He commented of the recent ceremony, “It’s just another steady step taken by the ELCA to move the denomination further and further away from most Lutheran churches around the world and from the whole Christian church, unfortunately.”

Other news

  • Attorneys for the Alliance Defense Fund have filed suit against Augusta State University, Augusta, Ga., on behalf of a counseling student who was told that her Christian beliefs are unethical and incompatible with the prevailing views of the counseling profession, reports WorldNetDaily. The student was told to stop sharing her beliefs with others and that she must change her beliefs in order to graduate from the counseling program. The professors found out about her Biblical beliefs, including what the Bible teaches about homosexual conduct. The school ordered Jennifer Keeton to undergo a re-education plan, in which she would have to attend diversity sensitivity training, complete additional remedial reading, and write papers to describe their impact on her beliefs. If she did not change her beliefs or agree to the plan, the university said it would expel her. ADF Senior Counsel David French responded, “A public university student shouldn’t be threatened with expulsion for being a Christian and refusing to publicly renounce her faith, but that’s exactly what’s happening here. Simply put, the university is imposing thought reform. Abandoning one’s own religious beliefs should not be a precondition at a public university for obtaining a degree. This type of leftist zero-tolerance policy is in place at far too many universities, and it must stop.” The ADF is currently litigating a similar case involving a counseling student at Eastern Michigan University and successfully resolved a case at Missouri State University. Also in litigation is a case involving a Georgia counselor fired by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because she would not agree to affirm homosexual behavior as morally acceptable.
  • Just as the Tea Party movement is successfully fending off charges of racism, a group of “progressive” Christians tied to the Obama administration is attacking the movement as lacking Christlike charity, reports WorldNetDaily. Observers note that Obama favors and implements policies of government expansion over private-sector industries and individuals. These have given rise to the Tea Party groups, who believe that federal welfare programs are “coercively taking money from people and redistributing to other people, which at the end of the day, is legalized stealing.” Jim Wallis, who calls himself a Christian and is founder of a liberal group known as Sojourners, is a key member of Obama’s faith council. He stated, “Emphasizing individuals rights at the expense of others violates the common good, a central Christian teaching and tradition.” But WND pointed out that critics responded by asking how “Christian virtue” and the “common good” jive with Wallis’s own documented radical associations and stances, including support of violent extremists, oppressive regimes, and anti-American sentiment. Wallis reportedly served as Michigan leader of the Students for a Democratic Society, out of which Bill Ayers’s domestic-terrorist group, the Weather Underground, sprouted. Wallis’s magazine Sojourners “actively lobbied for communist regimes that seized power in Latin America in the late 1970s. His 1976 book Agenda of Biblical People called America “the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.” Wallis also tried to foment opposition to the Tea Party movement by painting it racist since it, he charged, “is almost all white.”
  • The Boy Scouts is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year. A report in the latest issue of World paid tribute to the organization, noting that “atheists have sued the Scouts so they can be members without having to pledge duty to God, but the Scouts have defended themselves vigorously—and successfully—in the courts.” But it hasn’t been without costs, which over several decades have amount to millions of dollars in legal fees. Nevertheless, “the controversies have earned the Boy Scouts the admiration of social conservatives and many others because,” as Eagle Scout Robert Knight said, “the Boy Scouts make it clear where moral authority comes from. From God. That’s controversial today, but most Americans still believe it’s true.” The Scouts recently acquired a 10,000-acre tract of land in West Virginia, which will provide a location for the National Scout Jamboree in future years. The 100th anniversary jamboree will be held at Ft. A.P. Hill in Virginia this year, as it has since 1981, but the ACLU has protested over the Scouts’ use of a military base. Now the Scouts will have their own permanent home.
  • On Aug. 24, residents of Kissimmee, Fla., will have a chance to make “In God We Trust” their city’s motto, reports zionica.com. Mayor Jim Swan told News 13′s Stephanie Coueignoux, “This is a Christian community, and we all have strong Christian beliefs in this community.” One respondent to the news said, “I think it is about time Christians stood up for their beliefs. For too long, we have remained silent and let things go, such as Madelyn Murray O’Hair getting prayer taken out of schools. . . . I am offended that my rights are being taken away with this [Obama] administration.”
  • USA Today recently reported on house churches, a growing movement, noting that they generally “consist of 12 to 15 people who share what’s going on in their lives, often turning to Scriptures for guidance. They rely on the Holy Spirit or spontaneity to lead the direction of their weekly gatherings.” “I think part of the appeal for some in the house church movement is the desire to return to a simpler expression of church,” said Ed Stetzer, seminary professor and president of Lifeway Research, affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention. “For many, church has become too much (like a) business while they just want to live like the Bible.” House church proponents claim their small groups are sort of a throwback to the early Christian church, noted the report.
  • A new study says white Christian Britons are being unfairly targeted for committing hate crimes, reports zionica.com. The study from think-tank Civitas argues that the new hate crime legislation restricts freedom of speech and has effectively introduced a new blasphemy law into Britain by the back door. Prosecutors and police are said to be unfairly singling out alleged crimes by white Christians, while ignoring other similar offenses by minority groups.
  • A federal bill that seeks to restore voting rights in national elections to felons released from prison has been a pet project of one of the most dangerous members of Bill Ayers’s Weather Underground domestic-terror group, WorldNetDaily has reported. Linda Evans, who served 15 years of a 40-year federal sentence, pushed the plan of registering convicted felons along with the radical Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. She is a recipient of the Soros Justice Fellowship, bestowed by philanthropist George Soros. Evans was arrested in 1985 after transporting 740 pounds of explosives, which she acknowledged was slated for use by the Weather Underground in bombings of U.S. government buildings. Targets of her terrorist group’s activities included the U.S. Capitol. President Clinton pardoned Evans in 2001, and President Obama’s attorney general, Eric Holder, reportedly was instrumental in securing Evans’s pardon.
  • Hawaii Gov. Linda Lingle (R.) staved off same-sex civil unions when she vetoed last-minute legislation that would have legalized them, reports World. She objected the legislation because a civil union “is essentially marriage by another name.” The ACLU promised to take her veto to court. World also reports that NBC will change its application process to allow same-sex couples to participate in the Today show’s “Modern Day Wedding Contest.”
  • The Presbyterian Church USA announced the denomination’s new moderator, Cynthia Bolbach. She was the only one of six candidates for the job who expressed complete support for same-sex marriage.
  • A Wisconsin fundamental pastor and several of his members traveled the 140 miles from Monroe to Oshkosh  to witness for Christ at the main gate of a supposedly Christian—evangelical—event called Lifest, reports Pastor Ralph Ovadal of Pilgrims Covenant Church. They were shocked at “a couple of thoroughly corrupted ‘evangelical’ keynote speakers, the ungodly bands, and their anything but Christian music.” Among the speakers were Luis Paul and socialist-emergent Jim Wallis. What particularly shocked Pastor Ovadal was the involvement of the Roman Catholic Church in Lifest. Mixed in among the many “evangelical sponsors” of Lifest was the Roman Catholic Green Bay Diocese; among the speakers were several Roman Catholics, including a priest; among the “worship,” a number of Roman Catholic masses; among the activities, daily rosary recitations; among the services, daily confessions to priests on site and “free spiritual walks with a certified Catholic spiritual director.” Lifest drew an average of 17,000 fans per day. Event officials estimated that approximately 25 percent of those fans were Roman Catholics.
  • A former illegal alien has confessed that Arizona’s immigration law would be very effective and should be adopted, even as Arizona Gov. has called on a federal judge to reject the Obama administration’s challenge to the state’s law, reports Personal Liberty Digest. Gov. Jan Brewer said that President Obama is trying to prevent Arizona from protecting its citizens and blames the feds for “crushing personal environmental, criminal, and financial burdens on Arizona.”
  • House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner is throwing his support behind a “read the bill” reform that would prohibit the House from considering new legislation until it has been posted on the Internet for at least three days, reports newsmax.com. Boehner said Democrats posted the revised wording of the $787 billion stimulus plan online after midnight and then called for a vote less than 12 hours later. And the 1,200-page cap-and-trade bill was unveiled at 3 a.m. the day it was to be voted on. “With government growing, and spending out of control, Americans should be able to see exactly what each vote means for them and their families,” said Boehner.
  • Sixty-three members of the House and four senators have weighed in on the legal case to defend the constitutionality of the National Day of Prayer, according to CNSNews.com. ParentalRights.org announced that it needs only five more senators to kill the ratification of the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child. The group said it would launch ads making known the inability of the rest of the senators to decide in favor of American families over international law. It also reported that the Helena, Mont., school board is facing the ire of parents over a recent proposal to provide sex education to students starting in kindergarten. A vote by the board is scheduled for Aug. 10.
  • A Texas ride-share driver was fired from his job after he refused to transport a woman to a Planned Parenthood clinic, reports CitizenLink.com.
  • Bethany Christian Services, the nation’s largest adoption agency, says international and domestic adoptions have increased by 26 percent over last year, reports CitizenLink.com.
  • The Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan, N.Y., has thrown out a Federal Communications Commission policy that would have led to broadcasters’ being fined for filthy language on live television, reports OneNewsNow.com.
  • Well-known gospel singer Doug Oldham died at the age of 79, according to Liberty University. Oldham was a good friend of Jerry Falwell.
  • New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie won the praise of pro-life advocates by vetoing a bill that would restore the family planning funds his administration cut from the state budget because of deep economic woes, reports Lifenews.com. Christie believes there is little reason to send the abortion centers $7.5 million when the state currently has an $11 billion deficit.