The new policy “is not to punish anybody,” says ELCA spokesman John Brooks. The policy – which gives two years’ “breathing room” to gay clergy – will be re-evaluated in 2009 in conjunction with a sexuality task force report.
Poland was one of 82 former Lutheran clergy who are gay who signed a letter distributed at the convention protesting their lack of an official role in the church.
For the ELCA, as for many mainline denominations, the gay issue is the most potentially divisive issue in centuries.
The 2.3 million member Episcopal Church USA – half ELCA’s size – has played out its noisy schism, complete with property lawsuits and parish breakaways, on a public stage.
The Lutheran approach has been quieter. But as the single largest Lutheran denomination in the United States, some say there could be more potential for seismic change.
Not every Lutheran thinks change is a good idea.
“This will hit the fan in the same way as it did in the Episcopal Church – that’s guaranteed,” says the Rev. Jaynan Clark Egland, a Spokane, Wash., pastor and president of the WordAlone Network, a national organization of conservative Lutherans.
“Unless we make an effort to stop this trend, we will go the way of many other mainline denominations – or maybe now we should call them the sideline denominations,” she says. “We’re all on a slide and we can’t quite figure out why. This doesn’t help.”
The speed limit here is 50 mph. You could look it up, it’s still on the books. But we took down the signs and told the police to turn in their ticket books.