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German Lutherans Poised to Elect Active Homosexual Bishop

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Veronica Diego

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German Lutherans may elect their first openly homosexual bishop. Horst Gorski is a senior cleric from Hamburg and is standing for the post of bishop of Schleswig in northern Germany.The possibility of Gorski’s being elected a bishop is dividing German Lutherans. Die Welt newspaper quoted Ulrich Ruess, a pastor in the northern city of Hamburg, who warned, “Many members of the community would have little understanding for a bishop with this kind of lifestyle.”

Reuters reports that Gorski is a homosexual activist theologian who has set up “centres” for homosexual clergy. Lutheran officials refuse to take Gorski out of the running, saying that the church has no official stand on homosexuality. The Lutheran World Federation has said it does not intend to get involved in a controversy.

LWF General Secretary Reverend Ishmael Noko told Reuters, “We have no position on this issue at the moment.” He added that the LWF has commissioned a study on marriage, family and sexuality.

Lutheranism in general is besieged with demands from the homosexual movement for acceptance of their “lifestyle”.  In 2007, the national assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America passed a resolution urging bishops to “refrain from or demonstrate restraint” in disciplining homosexual clergy in “faithful committed same-gender relationships.”

Since at least 2007, Swedish Lutherans have offered “blessings” for homosexual partnerings. While Sweden’s Lutheran Church has not made any official decision on performing “gay marriages”, the church has “blessed” gay civil partnerships and welcomed actively homosexual clergy.

Earlier this year, the leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, Bishop Michael Pryse, refused to condemn on moral grounds the determination of a Newmarket Lutheran church to endorse homosexuality and ordain to the ministry an active homosexual who is “married” to another man.

In a lengthy letter to her church, parishioner Astrid Neumann, a member of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Surrey, British Columbia, wrote that she was leaving the congregation because of the church’s slide away from the traditional doctrines of Christianity.

Neumann wrote of the Lutheran church’s questioning of core Christian beliefs. “Everything has become iffy. We are left with the end result that the Bible can’t be trusted, there is no Truth, and everything is relative.”

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Largest US Lutheran Church Votes to Uphold but Not Enforce Gay Clergy Ban
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/aug/07081304.html

Comments

5 responses to “German Lutherans Poised to Elect Active Homosexual Bishop”

  1. Hirotomi Takemitsu Avatar
    Hirotomi Takemitsu

    The immorality of these Protestant Lutherans, as well as the Anglicans/Episcopals should be proof for the Vatican to end all ecumenical contacts with all Protestant groups.
    Believe it or not, no matter how much Catholics try being friendly or dialog with Protestants, they still hate and revile what Catholics believe all the same.
    Protestants mock Catholics for their incessant ecumenical gestures, dialog, and outreach while at the same time not upholding our own traditions. They hate accomodation, and compromise, dialog and inter-religious contacts. They claim to stand for Jesus, and Him alone, and their own traditions.
    Catholics should do the same.
    And end to this ecumenical relations with Protestant groups. Increasingly, we have nothing in common….as these decisions in Anglican group and Lutherans proves.

  2. troymartz Avatar
    troymartz

    While we are sure to have greater difficulty reaching agreements with the leadership of these sects while they run faster and faster to Sodom, we need to also redouble our outreach to the laity and clergy of these groups that are fighting this trend.

    There are multitudes of good Christian men and women who are scandalized by the takeover of their leadership by the Homosexual gestapo that stifles any debate with cries of “diversity” and “sensitivity”. The real faithful feel trapped with nowhere to go to get away from the blatant sinfulness (1 Cor. 6:9-11).

    We need to reach out to these Christians and invite them to come home with us to the Fullness of the Truth.

  3. Arkanabar Ilarsadin Avatar
    Arkanabar Ilarsadin

    It is impossible to go through the powerful to reach the powerless. Far too many people are powerless with regards to the federal government, or these national Lutheran churches (sic), or the Lutheran World Federation.

    But just because our attempts to reason with their leaders are likely to be fruitless is no reason to abandon them, or the laity. In omnibus caritas. However, it looks like the time has come to focus our outreach, ecumenical, and evangelical efforts on Lutheran laity instead of leadership.

  4. noelfitz Avatar
    noelfitz

    I really do not like to hear negative articles. There is much positive developments and plenty of reasons for us to thank God.

    I read: “The immorality of these Protestant Lutherans, as well as the Anglicans/Episcopals should be proof for the Vatican to end all ecumenical contacts with all Protestant groups.”

    In the Holy Catholic Church there are sinners. I have sinned, mea maxima culpa. But the Church, I hope, will not cut off contact with me.

    I have just returned from a conference in Nottingham University on “The Pope and Jesus of Nazareth” (http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/theology/programme.doc). It was mainly organized by and for Protestants. But it was wonderful to hear the appreciation, with some criticism, shown for the Pope’s wonderful book.

    After a talk by Fr Fergus Kerr OP, who is perhaps the foremost Catholic theologinn in the UK, the Catholic Archbishop of Grenada, who was the keynote speaker at the conference, asked “did Jesus know who he was?” The archbishop prefaced his question with a humble acknowledgement that it might be a naive and silly question, noting that, of course, Jesus did not know the results of councils, held hundreds of years after his birth, that he had two natures and one person. Fr Kerr said the question is not the correct one to asak. One should ask “who did the Son of God think he was”. This question cannot be answered.

    So neither the Archbishop nor the leading theologian knew the answer to the question “Who did Jesus think he was?”

    Perhaps someone here might know.

    I recount this because it showed how Protestand and Catholics can discuss together questions about Jesus in an open and supportive way.

    Also Catholics do not know everything. Only God does.

    Please reply and let me know what you think,

    God bless,
    Noelfitz.
    ______________________________________________________________
    IN NECESSARIIS UNITAS, IN DUBIIS LIBERTAS, IN OMNIBUS CARITAS.
    ______________________________________________________________

  5. Cooky642 Avatar
    Cooky642

    Dear Noelfitz, I think you’re “tilting at windmills”, my friend. I do not believe that Hirotomi Takemitsu was advocating the abandonment by the Church of all sinners. That would leave the Church with a couple of handfuls of Saints, and the rest of us out in the cold. I believe that, when he wrote that the Church should cut off dialog with the Lutherans and Anglicans/Episcopals, he was thinking in terms of “group-think”. If they have so little interest/concern for the Truths of Scripture, it’s a waste of time and breath to engage in “official” dialog. And, I agree. Their “leadership” has, it would seem, “stopped their ears” (not to mention their minds) to the Holy Spirit. Having been teaching, evangelizing, and “apologizing” for the last 23 years, I find greater access to individual laity than to groups of “leaders” who can tag-team me.

    As for your question, you have only to look at John 8: 58 (referring to Exodus 3: 14). I don’t think this leaves much doubt that He knew exactly Who He is, and always did.

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