George Tiller was a long-time member of Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita, Kan., where he was shot and killed Sunday. The congregation is part of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, whose bishop issued this statement Monday. The church pastors have posted a statement, also.
Many anti-abortion groups have also reacted, condemning the shooting.
The Wichita Eagle is reporting that abortion doctor George Tiller was shot and killed at his church this morning. Police are looking for the gunman, according to the paper:
After quite a buildup, everyone was eager to hear what Obama would say at Notre Dame's commencement today (watch the webcast). I've only quickly read over the text of his speech, but it seems he dedicated time to the tension in American culture over the abortion issue.
"Those who speak out against stem cell research may be rooted in admirable conviction about the sacredness of life, but so are the parents of a child with juvenile diabetes who are convinced that their son's or daughter's hardships can be relieved."
Retired Lutheran Bishop Carol S. Hendrix of Carroll Township is among three dissenters who refused to sign onto documents recommended by a churchwide task force on human sexuality. The three issued a statement March 28 explaining why.
Under the task force's proposal, individual congregations in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America would choose whether to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as pastors. The dissenting pastors said that this step, among other changes to current church policy, would sever the ELCA from the "ecumenical church and the Christian consensus down through the ages."
They contend that the task force's report and recommendation, which "advocate same-gender unions and the ordination of non-celibate homosexual persons, have little biblical, historical and traditional support."
At the jump, read more from the ELCA News Service.
The latest from religion scholar Martin Marty. An excerpt:
Culture wars, like other wars, can get heated up after cooling, but they are not likely to take the forms they did, nor keep media over-awed again.
Read the full Sightings column at the jump.
In today's Sightings column, Jon Pahl talks about what he considers a "troubling" growth of DOMA Laws, or "Defense of Marriage Acts."
"These laws are forms of religious violence," he writes.
Pahl is a professor of Christian history in North America at the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Philadelphia. Read his whole column at the jump.
Sarah Pulliam at Christianity Today has an interesting piece about resistance to the ever-present catchphrase Religious Right. Some think it creates a negative impression.
Several politically conservative evangelicals said in interviews that they do not want to be identified with the "Religious Right," "Christian Right," "Moral Majority," or other phrases thrown around in journalism and academia.
"There is an ongoing battle for the vocabulary of our debate," said Gary Bauer, president of American Values. "It amazes me how often in public discourse really pejorative phrases are used, like the 'American Taliban,' 'fundamentalists,' 'Christian fascists,' and 'extreme Religious Right.' "
