The Christian Century

How will the ELCA hold gay pastors who aren't married accountable to the standard of monogamy and lifelong commitment? Do same-sex couples have to prove what is taken for granted with married heterosexual couples?

Callers to the California headquarters of an odds-defying denomination—one that worldwide has 300 churches made up largely of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons—are greeted by the recorded voice of the founder and chief executive: “This is Reverend Troy Perry.

Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori has forcefully defended her church’s embrace of gays and lesbians and firmly rejected efforts to centralize power or police uniformity in the Anglican Communion.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams has called the confirmation of a second openly gay bishop in the Episcopal Church “regrettable” and said it will have “important implications” for the U.S. church’s role in the wider Anglican Communion.

A Missouri bishop has lifted the public censure of a Lutheran church that hired a lesbian minister in 2000. The action is seen as the first of its kind since the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination removed a ban on gay clergy last summer.

A majority of dioceses in the Episcopal Church have confirmed the election of an open lesbian as a bishop in Los Angeles, bringing her one step closer to consecration. The Diocese of Los Angeles, where Mary Glasspool was elected as an assistant bishop three months earlier, announced confirmations from 61 of the denomination’s 110 dioceses on March 10.

A former Presbyterian pastor and nationally known ecumenical leader has been approved for ordained ministry in Wisconsin by a presbytery which noted his declared conscientious objection to denominational standards that rule out ordaining an openly gay candidate.

Since becoming the first lesbian to be elected a bishop in the Epis copal Church, Mary Glasspool has been hailed as a gay rights pioneer and maligned as the straw that will finally break the back of the Anglican Com munion.

Lutheran dissidents said in late September they would hunker down for a year and study whether to leave the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Amer ica and create a new church body. But in mid-November, Lutheran CORE (Co alition for Renewal) announced that such a body will likely be necessary sooner.