Only Trinity Lutheran has taken the first of two votes required to leave the ELCA. By year’s end, Grace Lutheran and its 1,400 members likely will make a decision on whether to leave also.
Powell, its pastor, said there has been “a steady and identifiable shift in the teachings of the church” since the ELCA formed in 1988.
“Once the denomination officially decided that homosexual erotic behavior is no longer among the behaviors that God abhors,” he said, “that’s the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
His position is detailed on the church’s website grace-elca.org under the tab About Us and the heading Grace and the ELCA. But Powell’s position is not universally shared.
Springfielder Tom Taylor, who attended the 2009 ELCA gathering as vice president of its Southern Ohio Synod, said when the vote was taken in Minneapolis, “I heard some people crying for joy.”
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