The 85,000-member Synod of Southwestern Pennsylvania is theologically conservative, and had asked the Churchwide Assembly to keep a requirement for gay clergy to remain celibate.
“At this point, what I’ve heard is a lot of deep sadness, and it comes from different places,” said Bishop Kurt Kusserow of the Southwestern Pennsylvania synod. “It comes from people who feel that the church they know and love has become different from what they know and love. But we are also hearing deep sadness from those who for decades have been waiting for change, because it is so evident that many others in the church that they know and love are feeling sad.”
At the meeting in Minneapolis, Bishop Kusserow pressed successfully for language that spelled out the obligation to respect those who believe that the Bible forbids sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage. No congregation can be forced to accept a partnered gay pastor.
“No congregation can be forced to accept a partnered gay pastor.”
Yet
In the future a congregation will be very hard pressed to find a pastor who successfully negotiated their way through the PC candidacy process while remaining orthodox. The pressure will also be on students from the seminary faculty.
“At this point, what I’ve heard is a lot of deep sadness, and it comes from different places,” said Bishop Kurt Kusserow of the Southwestern Pennsylvania synod. “It comes from people who feel that the church they know and love has become different from what they know and love. But we are also hearing deep sadness from those who for decades have been waiting for change, because it is so evident that many others in the church that they know and love are feeling sad.”
At the meeting in Minneapolis, Bishop Kusserow pressed successfully for language that spelled out the obligation to respect those who believe that the Bible forbids sexual relations outside of heterosexual marriage. No congregation can be forced to accept a partnered gay pastor.
It’s unclear how local option will work in practice, because the council that will write the policies to implement the decision won’t meet until November, Bishop Kusserow said. In the meantime, he said, he will meet with local Lutherans, urging patience and unity.”
Kusserow, it seems, has borrowed extensively from scripts prepared for the 2000, 2003, 2006, and 2009 General Conventions of the Episcopal “Church”. The great “sadness” of liberals for the “sadness” of conservatives in the “church” was there transformed into depositions, lawsuits, and increasing invective against conservatives. Lutherans hoping for peace and tolerance can expect the same. Reading these stories is like having the same nightmare over and over again. Unfortunately, some conservative Lutherans, like their Episcopal counterparts, will discover that the soothing words are narcotics meant to prepare the way for even more outrages.
I still cannot understand how reasserters remain in a church which, in effect, would raise homosexual relationships to the equivilancy, to the theological level of married hetrosexual ones. That monogomy, faithfulness and commitment are suddenly dreamed up in order to take away same-sex sin is a religious scam. In the Bible, those criteria, as far as I know, only exist when dealing with man and woman. What a denegration of the institution of marriage, of life’s training imparted by church to children. Dan Crawford is right: this is no longer an ocassion for “sadness.” IMHO it’s for taking one of two courses of action– either withdrawal or girding up for total battle within, to take back the church and its teachings as they were given.
I am waiting and watching to see how +Kusserow and the clergy of SWPA Synod handle all of this. I have a personal stake in this as my mother, and one of my sisters, who had left TEC a number of years ago for the ELCA, are in this Synod. I know that mom stands firmly among the conservatives, as does much of the congregation of which she is a member.
When she came to visit us, last week, we discussed this upcoming vote and what it might mean. Now only time will tell.
My question is this: If ELCA allows a seperate stream within it’s walls (so to speak) or if the conservative side does break off to a new organization, will that conservative branch seek full communion with the ACNA as ELCA did with TEC? Just a thought.
My mom, bless her heart, is deeply concerned that she is now out of communion with two of her daughters, my sister (who lives down home within the DioPitt Anglican) and me living elsewhere, but in a newly organized ACNA faith community.