{"id":101,"date":"2010-04-28T12:30:00","date_gmt":"2010-04-28T12:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html"},"modified":"2010-04-28T12:30:00","modified_gmt":"2010-04-28T12:30:00","slug":"gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html","title":{"rendered":"Gay Clergy Decision Causing Rifts Among Evangelical Lutherans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last August,&nbsp;the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),&nbsp;a body of about&nbsp;10,000 churches with more than 4 million members,&nbsp;became the latest denomination to allow openly gay clergy. (This category includes the Episcopal Church and Judaism&#8217;s Conservative and Reform branches.) In&nbsp;her<a href=\"http:\/\/www.huffingtonpost.com\/rev-dr-cindi-love\/the-lutheran-church-embra_b_543142.html\"> recent piece for the Huffington Post,<\/a> the Rev. Dr. Cindi Love explained&nbsp;the decision,&nbsp;made official this month by the Church Council,&nbsp;has allowed same-sex partners and families to fully participate in the ELCA Pension Plan, and the reinstatement of clergy who had been removed either for coming out of the closet or for blessing same-sex unions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>As expected, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usatoday.com\/news\/religion\/2010-02-25-lutherans-gay_N.htm?csp=34&amp;utm_source=feedburner&amp;utm_medium=feed&amp;utm_campaign=Feed:+Religion-TopStories+(News+-+Religion+-+Top+Stories)&amp;utm_content=Google+Reader\">the decision has been causing some rifts<\/a>, although congregations can still decide&nbsp;locally whether to allow an openly gay minister. David Yonke, the <a href=\"http:\/\/toledoblade.com\/article\/20100426\/NEWS10\/4260333\/0\/COLUMNIST41\">Toledo Blade&#8217;s religion&nbsp;editor,&nbsp;reports <\/a>that an Ohio church is the newest addition to the list of several hundred congregations that have decided to leave the ELCA.<\/p>\n<p>What do you think? Share your thoughts in the Comments section below.<\/p>\n<p><span class=\"Apple-style-span\"><span class=\"Apple-style-span\">*<a href=\"http:\/\/feedburner.google.com\/fb\/a\/mailverify?uri=beliefnet\/beliefbeat\">Click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>subscribe to Belief Beat<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/strong><\/a>and<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/beliefbeat\">click here to<span class=\"Apple-converted-space\">&nbsp;<\/span><strong>follow Belief Beat on Twitter<\/strong><\/a>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last August,&nbsp;the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),&nbsp;a body of about&nbsp;10,000 churches with more than 4 million members,&nbsp;became the latest denomination to allow openly gay clergy. (This category includes the Episcopal Church and Judaism&#8217;s Conservative and Reform branches.) In&nbsp;her recent piece for the Huffington Post, the Rev. Dr. Cindi Love explained&nbsp;the decision,&nbsp;made official this month&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gay Clergy Decision Causing Rifts Among Evangelical Lutherans - Belief Beat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Gay Clergy Decision Causing Rifts Among Evangelical Lutherans - Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last August,&nbsp;the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),&nbsp;a body of about&nbsp;10,000 churches with more than 4 million members,&nbsp;became the latest denomination to allow openly gay clergy. (This category includes the Episcopal Church and Judaism&#8217;s Conservative and Reform branches.) In&nbsp;her recent piece for the Huffington Post, the Rev. Dr. Cindi Love explained&nbsp;the decision,&nbsp;made official this month&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Belief Beat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-04-28T12:30:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Nicole Neroulias\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Gay Clergy Decision Causing Rifts Among Evangelical Lutherans - Belief Beat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Gay Clergy Decision Causing Rifts Among Evangelical Lutherans - Belief Beat","og_description":"Last August,&nbsp;the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA),&nbsp;a body of about&nbsp;10,000 churches with more than 4 million members,&nbsp;became the latest denomination to allow openly gay clergy. (This category includes the Episcopal Church and Judaism&#8217;s Conservative and Reform branches.) In&nbsp;her recent piece for the Huffington Post, the Rev. Dr. Cindi Love explained&nbsp;the decision,&nbsp;made official this month&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html","og_site_name":"Belief Beat","article_published_time":"2010-04-28T12:30:00+00:00","author":"Nicole Neroulias","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html","name":"Gay Clergy Decision Causing Rifts Among Evangelical Lutherans - Belief Beat","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-04-28T12:30:00+00:00","dateModified":"2010-04-28T12:30:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/2010\/04\/gay-clergy-decision-causing-some-rifts-among-lutherans.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Gay Clergy Decision Causing Rifts Among Evangelical Lutherans"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/","name":"Belief Beat","description":"BeliefBeat - Nicole Neroulias","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/42dac2ebd149a02dfe91f0f93e36761b","name":"Nicole Neroulias","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/caf\/caf1ad99f5fc2a063b8e935cf82f65fdx96.jpg","caption":"Nicole Neroulias"},"description":"Nicole Neroulias is a correspondent for Religion News Service, a secular news and photo service devoted to unbiased coverage of religion and ethics. A graduate of Cornell University and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, she has previously written for The New York Times and other media outlets. She and her family live in Seattle.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/author\/nneroulias"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/101\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beliefbeat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}