Gay ELCA Defrocked Pastor Returns to Pulpit

We mentioned yesterday the ECLA’s decision to permit their pastors to be in same-sex sexual relationships so long as they are faithful to their partner. This news resulted in the official sanction of Bradley Schmeling, the gay defrocked pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church in Atlanta, to continue as pastor.

The Atlanta pastor at the heart of the homosexual clergy debate in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America has returned to the pulpit. And the Atlanta congregation is ecstatic.

A day after the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination voted to encourage its bishops to practice “restraint” in disciplining gay ministers who are in “faithful” same-sex relationships, St. John’s Lutheran Church—Atlanta’s oldest Lutheran church—celebrated Sunday the continuing pastorship of the Rev. Bradley Schmeling.

Earlier this year, Schmeling, who announced that he found a lifelong gay companion, was ordered to be removed immediately from the clergy roster. The order by the Committee on Appeals overruled an earlier decision by a disciplinary committee which said Schmeling should be allowed to remain on the clergy roster until after ELCA’s biennial churchwide assembly, Aug. 6-12. The committee also suggested that ELCA reinstate gay clergy who were removed or resigned because they were in a same-sex “lifelong partnership.”

The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (Wikipedia) expressed strong disapproval of the ELCA’s decision. Dr. Gerald B. Kieschnick (Wikipedia), the president of the LCMS, issued this statement:

News of this action troubles me greatly and is causing serious concern and consternation among the members and leaders of The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod (LCMS). We in the LCMS hold firmly to the conviction that, according to the Holy Bible, homosexual behavior is ‘intrinsically sinful.’ We are deeply disappointed that the ELCA, by its decision, has failed to act in keeping with the historic and universal understanding of the Christian church regarding what Holy Scripture teaches about homosexual behavior as contrary to God’s will and about the biblical qualifications for holding the pastoral office.

The LCMS firmly believes that the sin of homosexual behavior, like every sin that fallen human beings commit, has been paid for in full by the life, suffering, death and resurrection of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The LCMS also believes that we must continue to reach out in love to all people on the basis of what God’s Word alone teaches about human sinfulness, God’s grace in Christ, and the new life empowered by God’s Holy Spirit.

Read the rest of the response.

Read more:

• Christian Post: Defrocked Gay Pastor Returns to Pulpit
• LCMS: Statement regarding 2007 ELCA Churchwide Assembly Action

See also our previous post: ELCA Approves of Gay Pastors.

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