Gay Lutheran Minister Faces Church Trial

Marcia · Jan 20, 2007

http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/gay-lutheran-minister-faces-church-trial/n20070118143609990009?cid=211

Gay Lutheran Minister Faces Church Trial
By GIOVANNA DELL'ORTO
AP
ATLANTA (AP) - A minister who disclosed that he was gay before Atlanta's oldest Lutheran church hired him as its pastor could now be defrocked for announcing he has a partner.

The Rev. Bradley Schmeling was chosen in 2000 to lead St. John's, though some worried his sexuality could threaten its standing with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. But last year, the 350-member congregation threw a party for him and his partner, when Schmeling announced he had found a lifelong companion.

Bishop Ronald Warren of the ELCA's Southeastern Synod, however, asked the 44-year-old pastor to resign. When Schmeling refused, Warren started disciplinary proceedings against him for violating church rules barring sex outside of marriage.

On Friday, Schmeling will face a hearing - structured much like a trial - where a committee of 12 ELCA members will decide whether he can remain an ordained minister in the church that sits among mansion-lined hills just east of downtown.

. . . . The denomination believes that sex is reserved for marriage and marriage for heterosexual couples. Still, many Lutheran churches support ordaining partnered gays and perform same-sex blessing ceremonies despite the policy.

Schmeling and his supporters say they hope his case will make the church more accepting of pastors in same-sex relationships.

"We've always been a church that emphasizes the unconditional love of God, so this policy runs counter to that," Schmeling said in an interview with The Associated Press last weekend.

. . . . ELCA spokesman John Brooks said that if a heterosexual pastor was in a relationship outside of marriage and he refused to repent, he would face similar disciplinary proceedings. . . .
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JFox1 · Jan 20, 2007

The congregation threw a party for him and his gay partner??? That's giving approval of what he did. I'm surprised action isn't being taken against the whole congregation, such as kicking them out of ELCA.

Marcia · Jan 20, 2007

In the article I read on this today in the Washington Post (not the article posted above) it stated that two of the congregants changed their minds and decided to support the minister after discovering how nice he was and how he was there for him.

I am sure this is true, but I think that's exactly the reason we are going to see gay marriage made legal across in the U.S. maybe within 5 years. It's because people will get to know gay people and see they are nice.

I don't think most people decide things on moral grounds but rather on personal ones. And they can't stand to hurt people's feelings or make people feel left out, or feel they are being unfair to people. I think we are already seeing the attitude in the evangelical church lean more in favor of accepting homosexuality because of this and because people in the evangelical churches are getting so subjective about theology. One influence is in the emergent church, but it's other things, too.

So we shouldn't dismiss this as something from a "liberal" church or a church that's departing from the ordinary. We'll be seeing it in supposedly conservative churches, too, imo.

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