As I've been saying since I first wrote my four-part series "Homosexuality
And Lesbianism: To The Point!" in October of 1998 . . .

[go to www.endtimeprophecy.net/Articles/homosex1.html]

. . . followed by "When Sin Is No Longer A Sin" in June of 2001 . . .

[go to www.endtimeprophecy.net/Articles/whensin1.html]

. . . the level of deception of these people just astounds me. They are in
absolute defiance of God's Laws concerning acceptable human sexual conduct.
These gay and lesbian pastors, priests and ministers are an abomination in
God's sight; and when they open these abominable gay and lesbian churches,
it is like spitting in God's Face.

How can they possibly ignore the fact that God destroyed two entire cities
due to their heavy involvement in these sexual aberrations? This is not
simply a matter of being ignorant of what God's Word says. They know full
well what the Bible teaches us about these things; therefore, their actions
of accepting these people into their flocks and denominations amounts to
willful spiritual blindness, and some day they will have to pay for their
defiance and sins, because our God is a pure, just, righteous God.

The way that gays and lesbians -- and particularly openly gay and lesbian
pastors, priests and ministers -- are increasingly being accepted and
embraced by so many American denominations is like a loathsome disease. It
is like a spiritual epidemic. Clearly, the city of San Francisco is like the
modern-day Sodom and Gomorrah. When will God decide to put a stop to this
madness? His patience will not endure forever!


Lutherans Offer Warm Welcome to Gay Pastors

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN - NYT

July 25, 2010


With a laying on of hands, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on
Sunday welcomed into its fold seven openly gay pastors who had until
recently been barred from the church's ministry.

The ceremony at St. Mark's Lutheran Church in San Francisco was the first of
several planned since the denomination took a watershed vote at its
convention last year to allow noncelibate gay ministers in committed
relationships to serve the church.

"Today the church is speaking with a clear voice," the Rev. Jeff
R. Johnson,
one of the seven gay pastors participating in the ceremony, said at a news
conference just before it began. "All people are welcome here, all people
are invited to help lead this church, and all people are loved
unconditionally by God."

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, known as the E.L.C.A., with 4.6
million members, is now the largest Protestant church in the United States
to permit noncelibate gay ministers to serve in the ranks of its clergy --
an issue that has caused wrenching divisions for it as well as for many
other denominations.

Since the church voted last summer to allow noncelibate gay clergy members
to serve, 185 congregations have taken the two consecutive votes required to
leave the denomination, said Melissa Ramirez Cooper, a spokeswoman for the
church, citing a tally that she said was updated monthly. There are 10,396
congregations nationwide.

The Episcopal Church and the United Church of Christ also allow gay
ministers. And the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)'s general assembly voted at
its convention earlier this month to do so, though the vote will become
church law only if is ratified by a majority of the church's 173 regional
presbyteries. Two smaller Lutheran denominations, the Lutheran Church
Missouri Synod and the Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod, do not ordain
ministers in same-sex relationships.

The seven ministers welcomed at the ceremony on Sunday had already been
ordained and have been serving at churches or outreach ministries in the San
Francisco Bay Area, but they had not been officially recognized on the
clergy roster.

"The effect of them being brought onto our roster is they will now be part
of our national database of pastors who are available for service in any of
our 10,500 churches," said Bishop Mark W. Holmerud, who leads the Sierra
Pacific Synod, which includes San Francisco. He noted that while some
congregations were open to consider hiring openly gay ministers, others were
not -- and each congregation is free to choose.

The Evangelical Lutherans designed Sunday's special "rite of
reconciliation"
to mark the formal inclusion of gay ministers who were ordained in
"extraordinary rites" that were not recognized by the church but were
conducted by a group called Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries. Three more
gay pastors will be welcomed at ceremonies in September and October, two in
the St. Paul-Minneapolis area and one in Chicago, Ms. Cooper said.

Amalia Vagts, executive director of Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries, said,
"It's been a long and hard journey for a lot of people, and it feels like
this is a new beginning in the history of the E.L.C.A."

She said that all together, there were 46 openly gay ministers who had
previously been excluded from the church's clergy roster and would now be
accepted.

The change was made possible after the Churchwide Assembly, the Evangelical
Lutherans' chief legislative body, voted at its meeting in 2009 to allow the
ordination of noncelibate gay pastors who are in monogamous relationships.
The denomination appointed a task force to study the issue in 2001, and
spent the next eight years in debate. In the end, the proposal to permit
openly gay clergy members won just two-thirds of the votes, the minimum
required for passage.

Some who opposed it are now poised to leave. The Rev. Mark Chavez, director
of Lutheran CORE, a coalition of theologically conservative Lutheran
churches, said his group expected to form a new denomination, the North
American Lutheran Church, in August.

He said of the ceremony on Sunday, "It's just another steady step taken by
the E.L.C.A. to move the denomination further and further away from most
Lutheran churches around the world and from the whole Christian church,
unfortunately."

Before the ceremony, one of the gay pastors, the Rev. Megan M. Rohrer, said
it had been a long journey from her home in South Dakota -- where fellow
Lutherans regarded her sexuality as a demon to be exorcised -- to being
finally welcomed as a minister in the Lutheran church.

"It's an invitation," she said of the ceremony, "to join us
in the pews
every single Sunday, where not a single one of these pastors will care if
you agree with us or if you think our families are appropriate. We'll serve
you communion, we'll pray with you and we'll visit you in the hospital."



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