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LCMS leadership says Valpo broke church law with "syncretistic" service
The Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod's internal conflict over interfaith prayer in the wake of 9/11 continued this week as its presiding body, the Praesidium, issued a report on a September 11, 2002 service at Valparaiso University.

The Praesidium, which includes LCMS President Gerald Kieschnick and five of the synod's vice presidents, said the chapel service, which included prayers from Jews and Muslims, "was indeed worship of a unionistic and syncretistic nature," and thus a violation of church law.

"The Praesidium considers this matter to be concluded and can now report that those, who provided a setting within which blasphemy was uttered and syncretistic worship occurred have repented of their wrong," said a letter to several LCMS pastors who brought charges against the school. The letter said university president Alan Harre and four LCMS pastors involved in the service had "expressed sincere repentance" verbally and in writing, according to The Times of northwest Indiana.

Harre and the pastors had been cleared by a church investigation earlier this year, but the Praesidium stepped in and ordered further inquiry.

Disciples of Christ leader busted for "borrowing liberally" from Lew Smedes, Baltimore Sun
Speaking of 9/11 rememberances, The Washington Post reports that Chalice Press has withdrawn its book on the tragedy: Shaken Foundations: Sermons From America's Pulpits After the Terrorist Attacks. Disciples World, a magazine of the Disciples of Christ denomination, found that more than half of one of its chapters was lifted without attribution from How Can It Be All Right When Everything Is All Wrong?, a 1982 book from the late Lew Smedes. The rest of it, it turns out, was largely culled from a Baltimore Sun article. (The sermon was online, but is now only available through Google's cache.)

The culprit is Alvin Jackson, pastor of National City Christian Church, the denomination's most prominent congregation. He's also the Disciples of Christ's moderator: the church's top elected position. Last month, The Washington Postrevealed that Jackson had "borrowed" without attribution in many of his sermons. Jackson apologized to his congregation, but told the Post that such preaching others' sermons without attribution "was legitimate as long the person using the old material was not publishing it in book form under his own name." Oops.

Head of Episcopal Church USA: Bible doesn't oppose same-sex relationships
In an interview with the Associated Press, Episcopal Church USA Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold doesn't say anything he hasn't said several times before, but they bear noting in light of the church's implosion.

Griswold said he voted to confirm V. Gene Robinson as bishop because he believes New Hampshire Episcopalians have the right to call as bishop whomever they choose. "I wasn't settling the question of sexuality," Griswold said. "I was affirming the choice of a diocese."

But it's not just a church government issue. Griswold truly doesn't have any problem with Robinson's 13-year homosexual relationship.

"'Discreet acts of homosexuality' were condemned in the Bible because they were acts of lust instead of the 'love, forgiveness, grace' of committed same-sex relationships," the AP quotes him saying. Got any Scripture to back that up, bishop?

"Homosexuality, as we understand it as an orientation, is not mentioned in the Bible," he said. "I think the confirmation of the bishop of New Hampshire is acknowledging what is already a reality in the life of the church and the larger society of which we are a part."

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September (Web-only) 2003, Vol. 47