“As far as I know we’re staying with the ELCA,” said the Rev. Carol Gessalmen, pastor of Springfield’s Fifth Lutheran Church. “I have no desire to do anything otherwise.”
In response to conservatives who cite Old Testament text as prohibitions on homosexuality as proof of God’s disapproval of it, she says “there’s hundred of (Old Testament) laws we totally ignore and have no desire to follow.”
Along with abortion, homosexuality is an issue “we cannot as a society come to any kind of agreement on.”
“The best we can do,” she said, “is live together as a church and focus on what is important.”
“I can’t really get my people to discuss it,” said the Rev. Leslie Fox, pastor of Springfield’s Good Shepherd Lutheran Church. “They’re exhausted by it,” the topic having been on the church agenda for years.
Although she said “there are a few folks who feel very strongly about (the ELCA actions) and are aggrieved,” Fox added that the ELCA’s advice that Lutherans should recognize those on the other side of the issue as being “bound by conscience” has been helpful in promoting unity.
“We ache for our brother and sister congregations” that have been split by the issue, she said. But she said the Good Shepherd group is largely a “live and let live” congregation and the same progressive lot she found when she arrived a year ago.
The Rev. Jim Christian of Springfield’s First Lutheran Church said that while “certainly individuals are wrestling with discernment over it,” said “but there’s no groundswell or emotion to impetus either way.”
The Rev. Peter Kruse, pastor to First Lutheran Church of Donnelsville and St. Mark Lutheran Church in New Carlisle, said the controversy has been demoralizing to some smaller congregations in which people “have lived together quite peacefully.”
Liberal members initially pleased by the 2009 announcements found themselves feeling demoralized when some of the conservative members — “some of the best evangelists” — left the church, he said.
The conservative members from the outset thought it was an “unfortunate event,” he added. For members who aren’t lifelong Lutherans and may have been wary of organized religion, he added, “suddenly organized religion has dropped a bomb on the congregation.”
“It saps energy,” Kruse said. Not only does that lessen involvement but makes it difficult for the congregation “to be spirited and joyous witnesses to eternal life” the “enthusiastic witnesses” members are called to be.
Kruse is critical of one aspect of the ELCA approach: To leave it up to congregations whether to bring on gay clergy or offer blessings to same-sex unions is “theologically and practically troubling” and further complicates the always complex process of finding a new pastor.
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