A Letter to the Blade:
In regard to the dispute at St. Paul’s Church over gay clergy: Though he had many major theological differences with the medieval church, Luther did not withdraw from it, but was forced out by the hierarchy.
It therefore seems strange that a Lutheran congregation would divorce itself from its parent body over one rather minor social issue.
Fred Shuman
Whitehouse
Fred and his wife both taught my children at AW Schools. Fred is a retired minister in the Evangelical Lutheran church--same as St. Paul's Lutheran in Maumee which recently voted to secede from the parent denomination.
Fred should remember that Luther was kicked out of the Catholic Church after disagreeing with it on a list of 99 issues. So what would happen if the St. Paul's congregation would refuse to receive a gay minister or perform gay marriages? The split is inevitable. And the issue is BIBLICAL, not socially minor. It is the church divider of our day.
Luther hoped to reform Catholicism instead of being excommunicated. St. Paul's Church probably knows that their denomination has been left-leaning on theological and social issues for decades. Better to secede than put up with their unbiblical stand on marriage --no small social issue.
Any church that wants to be truly Biblical cannot condone gay marriage or ordination for practicing homosexuals --same as for unrepentant, sexually active adulterers, rapists, pedophiles, incestors, fornicators, porn users.The Bible blesses one proper arrangement for sexual intimacy--marriage between a man and wife --and warns against the rest as sins.
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
