LINDA WERTHEIMER, host:
The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America begins its annual meeting in Orlando today. Representatives of the five-million-member church will debate a proposal that would lift a ban on people in same-sex relationships serving as pastors. They'll also consider whether to officially bless same-sex unions. NPR's Jason DeRose traveled to Minnesota to meet with Lutherans on both sides of the issue.
JASON DeROSE reporting:
Salem English Lutheran Church in Minneapolis' uptown neighborhood attracts an assorted lot. In fact, the congregation's motto is `Jesus attracted an assorted lot, too.'
(Soundbite of song)
Ms. JAN NAGLE (Worship Leader): (Singing) Oh, river of God, let there be an ending. Oh, river of God, fills our hearts with cheer. Oh, river of God...
DeROSE: This Sunday morning, about 50 people are gathering for the late worship service. It starts around 10:30, but timing is loose. People wear shorts and sandals. Dreadlocks, facial piercings and tattoos are not uncommon.
(Soundbite of church service)
Ms. NAGLE: This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice. Let us be glad in it.
DeROSE: Thirty-three-year-old Jan Nagle is leading worship today. She's dressed casually, no official-looking robes or pastoral stoles. Though she's welcoming people to worship, seems to know everyone by name and delivers the sermon, Nagle is not a pastor because of her denomination's ban on clergy in same-sex relationships.
Ms. NAGLE: I happen to be a gay person. I happen to be a person who loves another woman and is committed in a lifelong relationsh--and I happen to be a baptized person. And I also happen to be somebody who hears a call from God to ordained ministry, to the ministry of word and sacrament.
DeROSE: Nagle says she first experienced that call to ministry way back in the eighth grade. She didn't come out as lesbian until seven years ago when she met her partner in divinity school. She says the rule banning her from ordination is unjust and based on a number of misconceptions about gays and lesbians.
Ms. NAGLE: We do have sexual ethics. We do have a way of understanding what we feel is appropriate and what we feel is not, and what God has--says is healthy and what is good stewardship of our bodies and of our sexuality. And I would say that this relationship is what's been given to me by a God. And in that relationship we find grace.
(Soundbite of guitar music)
DeROSE: West of Minneapolis, in suburban Plymouth, Minnesota, Sharon and Phil Lindau(ph) have just returned home from picking up their sons from Bible camp. Thirteen-year-old Ben is showing off a song he learned there. The Lindaus don't think people in same-sex relations should be ordained. Sharon Lindau says, for her, it comes down to the Bible.
Ms. SHARON LINDAU (Lutheran): You know, there are a number of places in both the Old and the New Testament where the Bible specifically does say that homosexual behavior is not acceptable.
DeROSE: She's concerned lifting the ban on clergy in same-sex relationships would change the church into something different than the one she's gone to her entire life. She says this isn't about prejudice. In fact, says her husband, Phil, they welcome gays and lesbians at their congregation.
Mr. PHIL LINDAU (Lutheran): God loves those people just as much as he loves me and my wife and my kids. He has a great compassion for them and he wants to change their life to conform to what he has planned for them.
DeROSE: The whole debate comes down to a theological issue within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, or ELCA, says Reverend Dr. Roy Harrisville III. He's the executive director of Solid Rock Lutherans, a group organized two years ago to oppose changes to the church's current policies.
Reverend Dr. ROY HARRISVILLE III (Executive Director, Solid Rock Lutherans): What is going on, in my opinion, is we have two competing gospels at work in the ELCA.
DeROSE: Harrisville says one gospel, the correct one, is a gospel of transformation, basically, what Phil Lindau was talking about when he said God could change people's lives.
Rev. Dr. HARRISVILLE: Now this other gospel, however, is being formulated by folks who the idea of what I call a gospel of affirmation, that instead of changing people, God simply affirms them as he finds them.
DeROSE: Common ground might be found by shifting the discussion away from gay ordination and gay marriage to the issue of marriage itself. David Fredrickson is an ordained pastor who teachers at Luther Seminary in St. Paul.
Pastor DAVID FREDRICKSON (Luther Seminary): Because there we would discover that marriage is an institution in which people can build relations of trust and they can count on mutual support. And that is precisely what gay and lesbian people have been asking for.
DeROSE: Fredrickson, who clearly favors changes in church policy, says he hopes today's floor debate in Orlando will include deep discussion of how the church can foster such relationships for all people, gay or straight.
Jason DeRose, NPR News.
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