Yesterday when I arrived at church, I was going about my normal Sunday morning business of getting things ready for services.  One of the early service ushers told me about an article that appeared in Sunday’s paper.  He told me that Lutherans had said that it’s ok to be clergy and to be homosexual.  Not having read the paper yet, he told me that it just refers to “Lutherans” and doesn’t make any distinctions between the major Lutheran denominations.

Once I got home, I had to read that article, of course.  Fortunately, it was an AP story and not a News-Record story.  Otherwise, I would have been writing an editorial about getting their facts straight.  As it is, here is the story in its entirety:

Lutherans to release a draft statement on human sexuality next month

CHICAGO – The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will soon release a draft of its social statement on human sexuality, including proposed teaching on gay relationships.

The document “Free in Christ to Serve the Neighbor: Lutherans Talk about Human Sexuality” is scheduled to be made public on March 13 by the Task Force for ELCA Studies on Sexuality.

Like many other Protestant groups, the ELCA has been struggling for decades to reconcile different views of what the Bible says about same-gender relationships.

Current church standards require clergy to “abstain from homosexual sexual relationships.”  But last year the Churchwide Assembly adopted a resolution that “urges and encourages” bishops to refrain from disciplining clergy in “faithful, committed” same-sex relationships.

Now here’s my question: what are the “different views of what the Bible says about same-gender relationships?”  God clearly speaks against homosexual relationships.  Ever heard of Sodom and Gomorrah?  This is clearly a violation of the Sixth Commandment.  This shows, yet again, the importance of holding the viewpoint that Scripture IS the Word of God and simply does not CONTAIN the Word of God.