The Christian Century

For years, the largest U.S. Lutheran denomination has avoided some of the rancor over the issue of same-sex relationships that has divided the Episcopal Church and, to a lesser extent, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the United Methodist Church.

In a clear rebuff to conservatives in the global Anglican Communion, Episcopal Church leaders have rejected a September 30 deadline set by overseas Anglicans to roll back their church’s pro-gay policies, arguing that such decisions can be made only at the U.S. church’s triennial conventions—the next one being in 2009.

Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams said that he will visit the United States this September after U.S. Episcopal bishops declared an “urgent need” for a meeting with the spiritual leader of world Anglicanism.

Episcopal bishops have brushed off an attempt to give overseas Anglicans a role in governing the Episcopal Church, saying such a move would be “injurious” and could lead to a permanent division of the U.S. church.

Openly gay students who want to serve as rabbis or cantors in Conservative Judaism are now welcome at the Jewish Theological Seminary, school officials said in New York.

The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America may be asked to change a ban on practicing gay and lesbian clergy after a disciplinary committee voted to remove an openly gay pastor but suggested that the church find a way to reinstate him.

Anglican leaders from around the world have told the Episcopal Church’s bishops they must declare unequivocally that they will not authorize same-sex blessings and that no one living in a same-sex union will be made a bishop.

In his first full response to a high-level proposal to divide the worldwide Anglican Communion into voting and nonvoting camps, the top leader of the Episcopal Church has said it “raises serious questions about how we understand ourselves as being the church.”

Signs of a full-blown split between the Episcopal Church and most of the worldwide Anglican Communion appeared only days after the U.S. church’s General Convention refused to renounce the election of gay bishops.

At the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly in June, delegates agreed to a delicate compromise on the ordination of gay and lesbian clergy, an issue that has torn the denomination for nearly three decades.>Episcopalians seek compromise to avoid schism.>Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice exhorts Southern Baptists to support the United States in spreading freedom.>Christian Reformed urge churches to raise moral questions about preemptive military actions.For detailed coverage on these denominational conventions, visit our news page.