MINNEAPOLIS --- Richard Mahan and Anita Hill are Lutheran pastors who were inside a Minneapolis convention hall last summer when delegates for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America voted to allow noncelibate gay and lesbian pastors.
Afterward, each cried for different reasons.
Mahan, lead pastor at St. Timothy in Charleston, W.Va., said he cried because he realized he would likely leave the denomination in which he had invested 42 years. For Hill, the openly gay lead pastor at St. Paul-Reformation in St. Paul, they were tears of "joy and relief."
A year later, the ELCA is moving gay pastors into its fold -- it's now the largest Protestant denomination in the U.S. to allow noncelibate gays into its ranks -- even as the most visible dissidents strike out on their own.
Mahan and other critics of the decision gathered this week in Columbus, Ohio, for another Lutheran convention. Leaders of 18 former ELCA churches were among more than 1,000 Lutherans who voted overwhelmingly Friday to create a new Lutheran denomination -- the North American Lutheran Church -- that they claim will follow the Scriptures more faithfully.
"The issue is departure from the Word of God," Mahan said. His church has already voted twice to end its longtime identity as an ELCA church, also ending an annual $36,000 in tithing to the denomination.
Hill will finally join the official roster of ELCA pastors. She was ordained in 2001 but had been kept off the roster because she lived openly with her lesbian partner, with whom she shared a commitment ceremony in 1996.
Hill and two other lesbian pastors will gather in September to receive the ELCA's newly designed Rite of Reception and officially join the roster of the St. Paul Synod. The St. Paul bishop will "lay on hands," Hill said, in a ceremony that is becoming more frequent around the country. Seven gay and transgender pastors were received last month in San Francisco. Similar ceremonies are planned soon in Minneapolis and Chicago.
"At my church there is a sense of great celebration, of people being very happy that our work to make the ELCA a more inclusive place has come to fruition," Hill said.
Her denomination will be slightly smaller: 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.
The breakaway members who gathered in Ohio will face their own challenges in starting another denomination. 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, the pastor of Our Savior's Lutheran Church in Tyler, Texas, another charter member of the new denomination.
About 75 percent of the churches that have 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.
Some ELCA refugees have another reason to join a new denomination. Under many church constitutions, an ELCA synod council could assert legal ownership of the property of congregations that leave the ELCA and try to strike out as an independent church.
"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 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, the 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."
Comments
Mahan's running away from a church he's been "committed" to for 42 years shows a shallow commitment and cowardice. Just like those "running" to the Anglican Church of North America. If his theology is so rock solid he should have been able to convey that to his colleagues with patience, humility and wisdom.
Here come the insults from the homosexuals. Thanks Mr. Clemens. You are a model of consistency.
Mr. Mahan is doing nothing but standing upon principle. It's not what he wants. He has not left Lutheranism; Lutheranism has left him because these liberals have left the word of God. His tears are an honest reaction to what happens when people turn their back on God and follow some political / social agenda instead of Christianity. Sad.
I applaud Mr. Mahan for taking a stand for truth and righteousness. If more people followed his example, we'd not have all these denominations and splits.
darl'n Howcan, you don't know me or what I do in bed. My comment was kinder than saying good riddance, and less ignorant and hateful than yours.
And BTW, Howcan, you don't even know what gender I am, do you?
Howcanweknow, you are right on target, on all counts. Some among us would do well to review how the Church is supposed to deal with people who decide to live in sin, regardless of what the sin is. It's a pretty clear stepwise process, the culmination of which is either repentence and restoration of the sinner, or putting him/her out of the church.
Since denominations are abandoning that practice, up to and now including any solid definitions of what actually constitutes sin, the only alternative for people who remain true to the Faith is to leave their denominations and build new denominations with similarly faithful people.
We have heard for years how this change was coming, and that if we didn't like it, it was up to us to leave our churches and denominations. And now, the same sorry rabble whose predictions have come to fruition are griping and mocking because we finally are leaving. After years of speaking out, and taking all kinds of harrassment and personal attacks for standing up for what we believe and what our faith always has taught about such simple matters as chastity and purity, some of you have the boorishness and arrogance to suggest that somehow a man like Richard Mahan has had a shallow commitment.
Truth is not something decided by popular vote or consensus, even in a church or denomination. It is what it is, and if you think that it changes with the times, whatever could make you believe there is the slightest reason for having a church in the first place?
JIClemons, you are correct in that I do not know what gender you are. But, you have admitted to being a homosexual on these forums a number of times. So, you seem to be as confident about knowing your own gender as I am in knowing your gender.
I'm sorry you found my comments to be "ignorant" and "hateful". In what way? You are the one who used words like "shallow" and "coward", not me. All I said was that you are a homosexual bearing insults (as you have done before). Is that not the truth? If you find the truth hateful, I'm sorry, but there's little I can do about that.
Thanks F_L. I agree with you totally. Jesus Christ established His church, and prayed that we'd all be united. Man has come along and messed many things up -- mostly because we have refused to obey the simple truth of God's word (see the example of Mr./Ms./?? Clemens above).
The Episcopal Church is suffering through these same issues. It is interesting how a small group can force these issues on a Church knowing the damage it will do. And they call it being inclusive, but when someone questions the principles on which these decisions are founded, they are being divisive. Funny, I don't remember being "included" on deciding these issues. At least the Lutheran church is giving folks an option. I've yet to see a biblical defense for this - I must concur with "howcanweknow" that the Church is letting a political and social agenda drive it beliefs. Sad, but true. It is supposed to be the other way.
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