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Newmarket Lutheran Church to Ordain Active Homosexual to Ministry

 By Hilary White

NEWMARKET, Ontario, May 7, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Christian doctrine pertaining to sexual morality held by the Evangelical Lutheran Church In Canada (ELCIC) is "discriminatory" and "unjust", according to Holy Cross Lutheran church in Newmarket, Ontario. The small church congregation is issuing a direct challenge to the ELCIC and is breaking with the doctrines of the Christian religion by announcing it will ordain to the ministry an active homosexual who is "married" to another man.

Lionel Ketola, will be ordained to the Lutheran ministry on May 16th. Their ceremony, Holy Cross admits, is an act in defiance of the policy of the ELCIC that says those who are "self-declared and practicing homosexuals" may not serve as ordained ministers.

The willingness of Holy Cross to ordain Ketola can be seen as a direct challenge to the ELCIC, which refused to accept him as a candidate in 1988 because of his refusal to give up his sexually active lifestyle. In a grant application to cover the cost of Ketola's internship, the Holy Cross council wrote that they saw their efforts as a corrective "witness to the ELCIC as well as to the communities in which we serve".

The church has affiliated itself with a group, Lutherans Concerned In Canada, that is pursuing the goals of the homosexual movement's agenda within the Lutheran Church.

The ELCIC responded in a letter, saying that the action of Holy Cross "marks a serious breach" of the church's obligations to abide by the ELCIC constitution.

Bishop Michael J. Pryse wrote to the Holy Cross Council "with a heavy heart," but made no direct objection on moral grounds to the church's determination to endorse homosexuality. He wrote, "With you, I am committed to work toward ending practices that preclude the full participation of all God's people in the life of the church, regardless of sexual orientation".

Pryse said, however, that the process should go more slowly and with greater consultation, objecting only that the action may "do irreparable damage to the already fragile connecting fabric of our church".

In 2006 Holy Cross announced that the "openly queer-identified" Ketola would be allowed to serve a year long internship as vicar. The church secured financial assistance to fund the internship from a group called Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries (ELM) that promotes the ordination to the Lutheran ministry of persons "of all sexual
orientations and gender identities in Lutheran life and ministry".

Ketola is supported by the Extraordinary Candidacy Project (ECP), a homosexual activist organization which certifies the credentials of openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender candidates for ordained ministry in Lutheran Churches. Holy Cross calls the ECP "a hopeful alternative for openly queer people who wish to serve in public ministry and refuse to comply with the ELCIC's unjust policy" that requires that pastors conform to traditional Christian sexual morality.

Holy Cross proudly announced that "Lionel and his husband Steve Loweth, a 42-year-old music publisher, were married on New Years Eve 2003. Steve is active in leadership in a downtown Toronto congregation of the Anglican Church of Canada."

The willingness of Holy Cross to embrace the homosexual doctrine will not surprise some who have watched as the ELCIC has "progressed" into greater liberalism.

In a letter dated May 1st, Astrid Neumann, a member of Mount Olive Lutheran Church in Surrey, British Columbia, wrote that she was leaving the congregation and that the church's slide away from the traditional doctrines of Christianity was "the most horrific experience of my life, bar none".

Neumann wrote of the Lutheran church's questioning of core Christian beliefs. "I can't fathom that there are debates about whether or not Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus, if Jesus is or isn't the only way to the Father, that hell may or may not exist, that everyone will go to heaven regardless of their beliefs or unbelief, etc., and many other debates about what I mistakenly thought were core 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."

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