Tour de Revs: On May 13, at ELCA headquarters on Higgins Road in Chicago, three ELCA pastors (The Rev. Dr. Fred A. Soltow, Jr.of Shepherdstown Lutheran Parish, Rev. David A. Twedt of Capon North River Lutheran Parish, Wardensville, WV, and Rev. Ron Schlak of Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church, Charleston, WV) will mount a bamboo-framed bicycle-built-for-three and set off on Tour de Revs, 2009, a 100-day, 65 city, 13,000 mile bicycle tour to benefit the ELCA World Hunger Appeal.
The tour will visit all of the ELCA's 65 synods, stop briefly at the ELCA Youth Gathering Jesus, Justice, Jazz in New Orleans in late July and finally cross the finish line on August 20 at the ELCA Churchwide Assembly in Minneapolis.
The three riders hope to encourage individuals, congregations, and synods to contribute funds to support ELCA World Hunger activites and also to encourage folks to set personal health and wellness. goals.
The bamboo triplet bike is built by Craig Calfee of in La Selva, CA. Bamboo is also a readily available, self-generating, renewable resource that leaves no carbon foot-print. It also has excellent tensional rigidity with the dampening quality of carbon fiber and the durability of steel. The bamboo is first smoked and treated to prevent splitting and then sealed with tung-oil. The drive-train uses Shimano-Ultegra components and the wheels are custom built to carry the 600 lb. payload over the 13,000 miles of the tour.

More Than Half: Now I'm going to read you a few pairs of statements. For each pair, tell mewhether the FIRST statement or the SECOND statement comes closer to your own views, evenif neither is exactly right. 1 - Homosexuality is a way of life that should be accepted by society,OR 2 - Homosexuality is a way of life that should be discouraged by society.
That question appeared on the Pew Research Center's U.S. Religious Landscape Survey administered in 2007.
On March 19, the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life announced that overall, 56% of mainline Protestants surveyed responded that homosexuality should be accepted. Breaking down responses by denomination, 70% of the Episcopal respondents indicated acceptance of homosexuality, 69% of United Church of Christ (UCC) respondents, 63% of Anglicans, 56% of ELCA respondents, 52% of Presbyterians, 51% of United Methodists, 43% of Disciples of Christ, and 40% of American Baptists. Across the total U.S. population, 50% would indicate acceptance.

Presbyterians Blame Process:

In a decision dated March 20, 2009, the The Permanent Judicial Commission of the Synod of the Pacific of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) rescinded the San Francisco Presbytery's certification of Lisa Larges as "ready for examination", an important step toward ordination in Presbyterian polity.
On January 15, 2008, the San Francisco Presbytery certified Ms. Larges after hearing her "Statement of Departure". Departures are permissible exceptions. Ms. Larges' departure was a conscientious objection to the church's ban on non-celibate gay clergy. Subsequently a complain was filed that brought the matter before the PJC.
In its decision, the PJC did not contest the statement of departure, but ruled that the presbytery's process was flawed:
The Presbytery erred when it voted to certify the Candidate as "ready for examination … with a departure" because the examination for ordination is the proper time for Presbytery to determine whether or not a candidate's departure constitutes a failure to adhere to the essentials of Reformed faith and polity (Theological Task Force on Peace, Unity and Purity of the Church, Recommendation 5, c. 1-2,(Minutes 2006, p. 514). The debate and vote on January 15, 2008 was not an examination for ordination. The language of the motion on the floor was to certify the candidate as "ready for examination … with departure", thus an examination could not yet properly take place in advance of such certification. Moreover, discussion of the motion could not properly constitute an examination for ordination because it did not conform to G-14.0482, including the requirement that "the candidate shall appear before the presbytery and shall make a brief statement of personal faith and of commitment to the ministry of the Word and Sacrament." Neither the candidate nor the candidate's Statement of Faith was presented or made available to the Presbyters at their meeting of January 15, 2008.
The San Francisco Presbytery will meet on April 21.

West Bend Saga Continues: The on-going dispute over gay-themed books in the West Bend Community Memorial Library remains unresolved. On Feb. 12 Ginny and Jim Maziarka filed a complaint objecting to the "out of the closet" books in the library's young adult section. The complaint would ordinarily have been heard at the regular meeting of the library board, but publicity in advance of the meeting prompted a turnout larger than the meeting hall's capacity. Local police cancelled the meeting and it has not been rescheduled.
The West Bend Daily News reports that after consulting with City Attorney Mary Schanning, LIbrary Director Michael Tyree asked the Maziarkas to restate their complaint. The original complaint addressed the entire "out of the closet" category. Subsequent public statements by the Maziarkas indicated that they objected only to certain books, but not the entire category.
According to the Daily News the Maziarkas are re-iterating their original complaint. Ginny Maziarka is reported to have said:
They know what is in these books and they know they will be shamed by any pubic airing of it.

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