While many churches have talked about leaving the ELCA, St. Paul’s is one of only three in the country that has followed through on it. “The phone has been ringing off the hook,” [the Rev. Roland] Wells said.
He has spent a lot of those conversations trying to convince people that his modest 130-year-old church on the corner of Portland Avenue and 19th Street is not a rebel looking for a fight.
“That’s not us at all,” Wells said. “We’re a very loving, very kind congregation. Fussing or fighting is not our nature.”
He said that his congregation, which he describes as “orthodox in theology and evangelical in practice,” had a moral objection to the ELCA’s recent vote to roster [noncelibate] gay and lesbian ministers. Along with churches in Arizona and Virginia, it voted Sunday to split from the parent denomination.
It’s highly instructive to read the comments section for articles like this one. It anyone doubts the level of hatred in the gay community for orthodox believers, page through the list … you hate-filled, bigoted breeders. Udfa, it’s like reading something from the Gospels; like listening to raging demons. Really.
#1: After reading your comment, I was curious to see the STRIB comments. I read through all 60 of them. Only a couple of pro-gay ones were objectionable, as were a couple of orthodox Christian ones. Mostly, in my judgment, it was just people saying what they think, sometimes in a pointed manner.
#2 I guess “objectionable” comments are subjective in nature.
[i]”..they’re choosing to not be ecumenical, but to be close minded..”[/i]
[i]”Why can’t he just admit that he and his congregation hate gays?[/i]
[i]”Bigot’s are everywhere and it’s truly unfortunate that they use a church as a place to further their hate.”[/i]
[i]”They’re certainly entitled to their beliefs, huddled together in the comfort of their bigotry.[/i]
[i]”So if homosexuals aren’t fit to lead a church, none of us are.[/i]
In response to a previous commentor we get;
[i]”No, your church is becomming irrelevant because it alienates everyone who doesn’t fit into its narrow ideology, and it can’t adapt to the truths that exist outside its walls.”[/i]
[i]”Do they really read the Bible and understand love and compassion? Don’t think so…..just hate and predjudice.”[/i]
From the first 11. The comments then drift off the “narrow, close-minded, gay-hating bigots” stripe and start into the history, validity, accuracy and application of the Bible.