Clergy

The nation's largest Lutheran denomination opened debate Monday over a proposal to allow noncelibate gays and lesbians to serve in the clergy. Leaders of the 4.7-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are expected to decide during their weeklong Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis whether to alter existing policy, which requires gays and lesbians in ministry to remain celibate. The new policy would permit local congregations, if they wanted, to choose ministers or lay leaders who were in "lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships."

The nation's largest Lutheran denomination Friday reversed a long-standing ban on the appointment of non-celibate gays to the clergy, becoming the second major Christian group in a month to liberalize policies governing who may minister the faith. Leaders of the 4.6-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, meeting in Minneapolis, gave local congregations the authority to choose ministers or lay leaders who may be in "lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships."

For weeks, President Obama has tried to combat claims that his healthcare overhaul would mean tax dollars going toward abortions, calling the assertion a "myth." Today, his argument may gain some strength: A group of black church leaders who oppose abortion is set to endorse the president's health plan. The clergy -- led by Bishop Charles E. Blake Sr., a Los Angeles minister who heads the massive Church of God in Christ -- are scheduled to announce their support for the legislation at a news conference this morning.

Southern California pastors representing 1,200 Latino Protestant congregations unveiled plans Monday to marshal their collective forces to urge full participation in the 2010 census and reject calls to boycott the decennial count. The pastors, who represent evangelical, Pentecostal and mainline Protestant churches, said they were worried that widespread media coverage of the boycott call might inhibit participation in the census, particularly by undocumented immigrants. The boycott call was launched earlier this year by a national Latino evangelical clergy group to protest the lack of progress on immigration reform.

The radical cleric contacted by accused Ft. Hood gunman Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan has such unmistakable connections to past terrorist plots that his e-mail exchanges with the American should have triggered an all-out investigation, a number of officials and experts now believe. Anwar al Awlaki is an extremist whose sermons have helped radicalize terrorists from Atlanta to New Jersey to London, including cases in which the U.S. military was targeted. A well-spoken Yemeni American, Awlaki has emerged as the leading ideologue for a homegrown generation of young militants who conspire over the Internet.

The man charged with gunning down a Maryville pastor and stabbing two churchgoers had marked Sunday as "death day" in a planner and carried enough ammunition to kill 30 people, a prosecutor said. Madison County State's Atty. William A. Mudge said he had no details on the reference in alleged gunman Terry J. Sedlacek's day planner, which was found in his home -- only that it singled out Sunday as "death day." Sedlacek, 27, of Troy, Ill., was charged with first-degree murder and aggravated battery in the attack at First Baptist Church that killed the Rev. Fred Winters and left Sedlacek and two congregants who tackled him with stab wounds.

Re "Gay bishop 'a walking, talking Rorschach,' " April 20 Bishop V. Gene Robinson brings up an interesting take on marriage in the United States when he says that, "in this country, it has become very confusing about where the civil action begins and ends and where the religious action begins and ends, because we have asked clergy to be agents of the state." Why don't we simplify the problem by having the government license civil unions to allow any two consenting adults to share their lives, property, insurance and anything else we now attach to the word "marriage"?

United Methodist clergy cannot perform same-sex marriages or gay civil unions, even if their regional church district supports the idea, the denomination's high court ruled in Denver. The Judicial Council said that a church district, or annual conference, cannot "negate, ignore or violate" churchwide discipline, even if it disagrees with the policy. The council's decision was released Monday. Last year, the top church legislative body, or General Conference, voted to retain its ban on same-sex marriages and bar clergy from performing the ceremonies or consecrating same-sex unions in the church.

National leaders of the Episcopal Church have ousted 61 clergy who aligned with a former bishop in California when he broke with the national church in a dispute over the Bible and homosexuality. Former Bishop John-David Schofield led the Diocese of San Joaquin to become the first full diocese to secede from the U.S. denomination in 2007. Four years earlier, Episcopalians consecrated their first openly gay bishop, setting off a wide-ranging debate within the church and upsetting conservative congregations.

For nearly 23 years, Lisa Larges has sought to become a Presbyterian minister, but she has twice been formally rejected because of a long-standing ban on gay ordination by the Presbyterian Church USA. But in what appears to be the first national test of a 2006 policy change by the church, Larges, of San Francisco, has moved a step closer to joining the clergy.