n UNITED METHODIST CHURCH: The most conservative of the largest mainline denominations on gay clergy. An effort to repeal a ban on non-celibate gay clergy failed at the church's last General Conference, in 2008.
n EVANGELICAL LUTHERAN CHURCH IN AMERICA: The church voted Friday to strike down a policy that required celibacy of gay clergy, becoming the largest U.S. denomination to take that stance. The change allows those in committed same-gender relationships to be on official ELCA church rosters and serve as pastors at congregations that want them.
n PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (USA): Ministers must live in "fidelity within the covenant of marriage between and a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness." The church's General Assembly voted last year to drop that requirement, but the move did not receive required approval from presbyteries.
n EPISCOPAL CHURCH: The splintering global Anglican fellowship has moved to the brink of a full schism since the 2003 consecration of the first openly gay Episcopal bishop. Last month, the Episcopal General Convention approved a resolution saying "God has called and may call" gays in committed relationships to any ordained ministry in the church.
n AMERICAN BAPTIST CHURCHES IN THE USA: Holds that "the practice of homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching." The Baptist tradition emphasizes local autonomy, and some churches have appointed openly gay ministers, creating tensions.
n UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST: Boasts a long track record of welcoming gay clergy. Allowed ordination of an openly gay man and openly lesbian woman in the 1970s. Ordination of practicing homosexuals was officially accepted in 1980.
Sources: AP research; 2009 Yearbook of American Canadian Churches; Religion Newswriters Association
By ERIC GORSKI
Associated Press
In breaking down barriers restricting gays and lesbians from the pulpit, the nation's largest Lutheran denomination has laid down a new marker in a debate over the direction of mainline Protestant Christianity, a tradition that once dominated American religious life.
By voting Friday to allow gays and lesbians in committed relationships to serve as clergy, the 4.7-million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will either show how a church can stand together amid differences, or become another casualty of division over sexual morality and the Bible, observers say.
"We're going to be living in tension and ambiguity for a longer time, partly because the culture has shifted," said David Steinmetz, a Duke Divinity School professor of Christian history.
The question is whether the mainline church will shift alongside, or if it will decide that the more welcoming attitude toward homosexuality is wrong, he said.
The ELCA -- the nation's seventh largest Christian church -- reached its conclusion after eight years of study and deliberation. That culminated Friday when the church's national assembly in Minneapolis struck down a policy that required any gay and lesbian clergy to remain celibate.
The assembly also signed off on finding ways for willing congregations to "recognize, support and hold publicly accountable lifelong, monogamous, same gender relationships." The church fell short of calling that gay marriage, but conservatives see that as the next step.
While congregations will not be forced to hire gay clergy, conservative ELCA members decried the decisions as straying from clear Scriptural direction and warned that defections are likely.
Presiding Bishop Mark Hanson pleaded for unity, appealing to both those who long felt marginalized and thought the changes were overdue and those "who feel they were once more central but now feel more peripheral."
"It would be tragic if we walked away from one another," Hanson said minutes after the vote.
The ELCA hopes to avoid the kind of fissures that have strained the Episcopal Church and the broader Anglican Communion, of which the 2.1 million-member Episcopal Church is the U.S. branch.
Just weeks ago, Episcopalians approved a resolution saying that "God has called and may call" gays in committed relationships to ordained ministry in the church.
