A Lutheran church in Auburn this week joined a growing number of congregations in voting to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America over its recently broadened stance allowing homosexual ministers.
Members of St. Mark’s Lutheran Church, 211 E. Ninth St., voted 161-25 Sunday to withdraw from the ELCA, the Rev. Stephen Kummernuss, church pastor, said Friday.
A second vote must be taken in 90 days to confirm the action, he said.
“In August 2009, the ELCA changed its policy to allow same-gender persons in a committed relationship to be ordained, and we don’t agree with that,” Kummernuss said, adding the congregation is not against gays.
“No, absolutely not,” he said. “We believe that God made male and female for relationship with one another and not otherwise. We accept (homosexual) people but are not going to accept the act as part of God’s creation, and … not (among people) in ministry.”
In August 2009, the ELCA’s church-wide assembly voted that individual congregations could, if they so desired, call otherwise qualified homosexuals in committed relationships as ministers.
The denomination previously allowed gays and lesbians in the clergy if they remained celibate. The policy change does not force any particular congregation to accept a non-celibate homosexual pastor.
But the move sparked an outcry in many ELCA churches, and many members of St. Mark’s felt it went too far, Kummernuss said.
Some began not attending church in protest, and giving dropped 50 percent, he said.
On May 2, the congregation voted 97-54 to leave the ELCA, but that vote failed to achieve a required two-thirds majority, Kummernuss said.
After a parish program to dispel misconceptions – including that the church, established in 1874, would lose its property if it left the ELCA – the vote was retaken, and the measure to leave passed, he said.
If the next vote succeeds, St. Mark’s, which has about 400 baptized members, would likely affiliate with Lutheran CORE, the North American Lutheran Church or another dissident group, Kummernuss said.
Kummernuss said several other Fort Wayne-area congregations might take withdrawal votes in upcoming weeks. Identities and status of the congregations could not be confirmed Friday.
The NALC is expected to be formed during a gathering outside Columbus, Ohio, Aug. 26 and 27, said the Rev. Mark Chavez, director of Lutheran CORE, one of several affiliating groups. The more than 160 congregations in the United States and Canada that are CORE members, plus others will reconfigure under the NALC banner.
Two other area congregations are members of Lutheran CORE according to the group’s website (www.lutherancore.org) Antioch Lutheran Church, Hoagland, and Trinity Lutheran Church, Wabash.
