AUSTIN — Grace Lutheran Church this Sunday will let the congregation decide a momentous question: Do we stay or go?
At a special meeting after its 10:30 a.m. service, the entire congregation will vote on whether the church should leave its presiding body since 1988, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. The vote will be the first of two steps required for the church to separate from the ELCA.
“It was decided after much deliberation to have the vote,” said the Rev. Jeff Forbes of Grace Lutheran.
Part of the reason supporters of the split have for leaving surrounds concerns that the ELCA believes itself to hold a higher authority than the Bible.
“In our nearly 500 years of the Lutheran church we have held the Bible — the word of God — to be the sole authority for what we believe,” said former church council members Gene and Jean White in a letter to members of the church. “In good conscience we cannot support or be part of a church which denies the Bible.”
Lavona Johnson, a member of the church for the last 51 years, agreed. She said there is a trend among churches across the nation leaving the ELCA, as part of a “tremendous movement to get back to the Bible.”
Read more: http://www.albertleatribune.com/2012/04/20/church-considers-breaking-from-elca/
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