Monday Morning Insights

Photo of Todd
    .

    Verdict Expected Soon in Lutheran Gay Pastor Trial

    Bookmark and Share

    Schmeling’s trial, which took place behind closed doors inside a conference room in the Sheraton Midtown Colony Square hotel, began Friday, Jan. 19, and wrapped up on Tuesday, Jan. 23. 

    The trial sparked massive attention from national news media, although Schmeling and other trial participants are prohibited from speaking to reporters until a decision has been rendered.

    “The denomination is standing in the way of an effective ministry that is clearly ordained by God. The people are growing spiritually and they love their pastor. The ELCA policy is the problem here,” said Harry Knox, director of the Religion & Faith Program for the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign.

    “It’s very true that the people in the pew are very much behind the work of their gay and lesbian pastors,” said Harry Knox of the Human Rights Campaign. “It’s certainly true here at St. John’s Church. They love Pastor Bradley, and now it’s time for the policies of the denomination to follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit through the people in the pew.”

    A decision is expected by Feb 7.

    (Just for the record… I noticed this news report offered no commentary from any official (ELCA or not) who opposed homosexual clergy.)

    SOURCE:  The Southern Voice

    TAGS:  , ,

    Members of an Atlanta Lutheran congregation who rallied behind their pastor during a five-day church trial now await word of a decision from the clerical panel selected to determine the gay pastor’s professional fate. Bradley Schmeling, pastor of St. John’s Lutheran Church, stands to be removed from the clergy rosters of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America if he is found to be in violation of pastoral conduct guidelines.

    Comments

    if you want a Globally Recognized Avatar (the images next to your profile) get them here. Once you sign up, they will displayed on any website that supports them.

    1. Brian La Croix on Thu, January 25, 2007

      I have a feeling that people will forget what the trial is really all about - violating pastoral conduct guidelines.


      If it’s against the policy to be a practicing gay pastor, he needs to abstain.  If not, he needs to be disciplined in accordance with the guidelines he supposedly pledged to uphold in receiving his ordination credentials.


      Unfortunately, he is being painted as yet another “martyr” for the cause of legitimizing homosexuality in the church.


      Sad…


      Brian

    2. DanielR (a different Daniel) on Fri, January 26, 2007

      What exactly are the applicable guidelines of ELCA?  Is he violating them or are they so vague that they have to be analyzed and interpreted to see if he is violating them?  My understanding is thay he is openly, actively gay; if it can’t be easily determined if that is a violation then the guidelines need to be clarified and rewritten.

    3. Scott on Mon, January 29, 2007

      Forget guidelines. What does the Word of God say regarding this situation?

    4. Seth N on Thu, February 08, 2007

      Pr. Schmeling has not been violating any sort of pastoral conduct guidelines, and that is why his congregation stands with him. He has done nothing that a heterosexual person would be disciplned for in the same situation.


      The guidelines of the ELCA are unclear, and that is why a trial was held. One document says that homosexual pastors are “expected” (not required) to remain abstinent, but the document dealing with discipline says that homosexuals are “procluded.” Therein lies the discrepancy.


      And what does the Bible say about all this? That *all* of us have sinned and fallen short, and that nobody is righteous, except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Every “Bible bullet” that people try to pull out in attack of homosexuality falls absolutely flat when faced with a little reason and thought. The Bible doens’t tell us to discriminate against homosexuals: it tells us to love one another as we love our selves and to live together as the body of Christ.


      You can proof text all you want to say that homosexuality is a sin and an abomination before God, but the fact remains: Christ came to change the way we see the world and each other, and in Christ we are all made one. We are no longer bound to Levitical laws because of the gift of God’s grace, and we have no right nor any excuse to discriminate against a person because of the way God has created them.

    5. scott on Thu, February 08, 2007

      Love? Absolutely! Witness the truth of God’s Word? Without a doubt! The qualifications of the pastoral ministry are clear and so is God’s word considering sodomy and fornication!


      Christ came not to destroy the law but to fulfill it! He reaches out to All in love and truth!


            I pray for this segment in our society as well as all others but the Word of God should never be ignored / watered down. If you beleive it to be God’s Word then it should be the final authority in all matters of faith and practice. We should reach out to all (gays included ) in love and truth!


      Why is it that when we stand up for what God says regarding a social issue we are accused of not being loving / intolerant /  homophobic? etc. etc. ect.


          When you leave the authority of the Bible you enter into the un-stable and slippery world of man’s guidelines which can be easily changed with a vote or two.


      Yesterday,Today, Forever….Jesus is the same!                       And so is His Word.

    6. David S. on Thu, February 08, 2007

      Just a couple thoughts about the above post by Seth N.


      “You can proof text all you want to say that homosexuality is a sin and an abomination before God… We are no longer bound to Levitical laws because of the gift of God’s grace….”


      That logic does not work. That’s because if we used that logic, the 10 commandments (which everyone likes to throw around) all become moot as well. If we followed the logic that we are no longer bound to the Levitical Laws (not to be sarcastic), then that would mean we’re now free to worship other gods, use God’s name in vain, curse our parents, murder someone, sleep around on our spouse, embezzle church funds and lie about it because we want a car like our neighbor. So, that logic of “we are no longer bound to the Levitical Laws…” falls apart. God’s moral Law is unchanging, because *He* is unchanging. If morally, God said something is a sin in the Old Testament, it is still a sin in the New Testament.


      “...we have no right nor any excuse to discriminate against a person because of the way God has created them.”


      Again, not to be sarcastic, but using that logic…  If it can be said that God created a person to be sexually attracted to the same gender (homosexual), then it must have also been God who created people sexually attracted to young children (pedophiles). Some might think that I’m nuts to equate the two. However, I counseled a pedophile (who has served his time in jail for his crime) who wondered why God made him the way that he was. None of us (I hope) would condone his actions and say “every ‘Bible bullet’ that people try to pull out in attack of pediophelia falls absolutely flat when faced with a little reason and thought.”


      I also think that none of us would “buy” his statement that God made him that way. However, the “God made them that way” card is played all the time in the homosexual debate! Why is it any different?


      The truth be told (by scripture), homosexuality is an abomination to the Lord (Lev 18:22). It’s hard to see how any less clear that can be. If God Himself instructed Moses to write this, then why would He create someone with those desires?

      “And what does the Bible say about all this? That *all* of us have sinned and fallen short, and that nobody is righteous, except by the grace of God through Jesus Christ.”


      That’s exactly right. But the same Bible also calls us to leave our sin behind and die to sin (Romans 6:1-11). The same Bible tells us to not let sin reign in our mortal body so that we should obey it’s lusts (Ro 6:12ff). We are called to turn from sin, and lay aside the sin that entangles us (Heb 12:1). This instruction is not in regards to our salvation, rather, it’s in regards to our walk with Christ. Grace works to grant us unmerited forgiveness of our sin, it does not work to condone our sin.


      “The Bible doens’t tell us to discriminate against homosexuals: it tells us to love one another as we love our selves and to live together as the body of Christ.””


      That’s exactly correct, the Bible tells us to love one another, etc… However, this very same Bible tells us in 2 Timothy 4:2 to “preach the word… reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction.” The context of 2 Tim 4:2 is Paul instructing Timothy how to pastor the Church in Ephesus. This means that if someone is sinning, they are to be reproved - in love - but reproved and if necessary, rebuked.


      It’s interesting to see how far people will go to defend a sin. I wonder if the same arguments of defense are made for fornicators, adulterers, theives, the covetous, drunkards, revilers and swindlers as well (the list in 1 Cor 6:9 that homosexuality is listed in). Is anyone willing to apply the same arguments of defense to these sins - i.e. that God made them that way and we shouldn’t discriminate against them? Just wondering….


      Yes, the “by-laws” of the ELCA may be unclear, but the Word of God is very clear in regards to this subject.

       

    7. Seth N. on Wed, February 14, 2007

      Scott—You are right, of course, Jesus did come to fulfill the law. Perhaps I was going too far when I said that we are no longer bound to Levitical laws. However, if one is going to obey one Levitical law to the letter, then we must obey them all. After all, we cannot pick and choose which parts of the Bible we will obey and which we will ignore. As such, this means that anybody who wears shirts that are cotton-poly blend, anybody who does any work between sundown on Friday and sundown on Saturday (the Sabbath), anybody who eats shellfish, or meat and dairy together in the same meal (or any pork at all), among a myriad of other offenses, has committed just as great an abomination. This is what I meant when I said we are no longer bound to Levitical laws: our society does not place the same taboo on wearing clothing of mixed fabric or working on the Sabbath that it does on homosexuality.


      David S.—Others have tried to draw the parallel between homosexuality and pedophelia. It doesn’t work. In one case, you have an older adult taking sexual advantage of a child, which, whether they realize it or not, is as much about power as it is about sex. In another case, you have two mature adults who enter into a mutually loving relationship with one another. This is exactly what a marriage is: two mature adults (hence age restrictions on marriage) who enter into a covenant relationship with one another. Next you will say this is unnatural. This is also incorrect. There are documented cases of homosexuality in nature. This doesn’t necessarily make it right, but it means that it is not by necessity “wrong.”


      If one is to argue that a person cannot be made a pastor because of continuing to live in sin, then NOBODY may serve as a pastor, as we all sin against God and one another on a daily basis. We cannot escape from it, and that is why we need the grace of God given to us through Christ. There are, of course, sins that preclude people from public ministry, like murder or sex crimes. The major difference here is that apart from sinning against God, these are sins committed against other people as well. A homosexual relationship sins against no one; there is no victim in a ‘sin’ like this because a loving relationship is mutually beneficial to both parties.


      Jesus himself showed us that Leviticus is not the last word when it comes to righteousness: he healed on the Sabbath and his disciples did not wash their hands before eating (among other things). When the Pharisees criticized him about this, he accused them (rightly) of being hypocrites because though they obeyed the letter of the law (i.e. Leviticus and Deuteronomy), they did not obey the spirit of the law, that God gave the Jews as a gift to set them apart as holy among peoples, and that this was a sign of God’s love that they were called to share with one another, as expressed in the laws about how to treat the poor and support the destitute.


      As Paul argues in Romans, the Law can only condemn and point out fault. It is Christ who justifies. When a person, gay or straight, is justified in Christ, we have no right to call them sinners. We are no longer bound to the law because we have been set free in Christ and in his death and resurrection. Yes, we are to “reprove, rebuke, exhort” our brothers and sisters who sin, but there has been no sin committed against another person here, and any sins committed against God are for God and God alone to redress. We are certainly expected to let our brothers and sisters know when they are committing sin, but beyond that we have no duty to punish, only to “reprove, rebuke, exhort with great patience and instruction.” Removing Pastor Schmeling (or any other homosexual person) from his position is not rebuking, it is discrimination as it is based on an aspect of himself which he is powerless to change, just like his skin color or gender. 


      Finally, it is ineffectual to point out individual passages to see what the Bible is saying. The Bible speaks with many voices, each of which has a unique perspective to give. It is only within the harmony and unity of these Biblical voices that one can find the Word of God, the message the Christ came to bring. The overarching theme of the Gospel is that the Kingdom of God is open to any who believe in God and in Christ, regardless of where they come from or what they have done or continue to do. We are saved by grace through faith, not by anything we have done or not done, because our own works can lead only to damnation. The error of the Pharisees was that they prooftexted: they pointed out what Jesus was doing wrong (that is, against the Law) without seeing the greater purpose to which he was working. For us to point out prooftexts (of which there are between 5 and 15 in the entire Bible against homosexuality specifically) is to fall into the same legalistic trap, to be blinded by the log in our own eye, to borrow from Jesus.


      You or I may think that what Pr. Schmeling did or how he lives is wrong, but the fact remains that he was and is faithfully serving a congregation who supports him, and is successfully preaching and spreading the Word of God. For any of us to claim that he is not fit to do this because of his sexual orientation (which is a very small part of who a person is) is to violate the will of the One who called him to do his work in the first place. This is why when the committee decided they had to remove him, they spoke out against the policy: because it is interfering with the work of the Gospel and the will of God.

    8. Scott on Wed, February 14, 2007

      19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious:   sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, 21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar, about which I tell you in advance—as I told you before—that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.       Gal.5


      17 Therefore, I say this and testify in the Lord: You should no longer walk as the Gentiles walk, in the futility of their thoughts. 18 They are darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them and because of the hardness of their hearts. 19 They became callous and gave themselves over to promiscuity for the practice of every kind of impurity with a desire for more and more.   Eph. 4


      Qualifications of Church Leaders


      1 This saying is trustworthy: “If anyone aspires to be an overseer, he desires a noble work.” 2 An overseer, therefore, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, self-controlled, sensible, respectable, hospitable, an able teacher, 3 not addicted to wine, not a bully but gentle, not quarrelsome, not greedy— 4 one who manages his own household competently, having his children under control with all dignity. 5 (If anyone does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of God’s church?) 6 He must not be a new convert, or he might become conceited and fall into the condemnation of the Devil. 7 Furthermore, he must have a good reputation among outsiders, so that he does not fall into disgrace and the Devil’s trap.   1Timothy 3


      I’m am sure that Fr. Bradley is a very nice guy who has done many good works and is loved by his congregation but that does not nullify what the Word of God says nor what the qualifications or dis-qualifications are for leadership in the church.   We will pray for him.

    9. Page 1 of 1 pages

      Post a Comment

    10. (will not be published)

      Remember my personal information

      Notify me of follow-up comments?

    Sponsors