THE US: For participating in a "pagan" ecumenical service to honour the victims of September 11th, a senior Missouri Lutheran pastor has been suspended from office and may yet lose his job.
The Rev David Benke, Missouri district president - the Lutheran equivalent of a bishop - of the nation's 10th largest denomination, has been warned that if he does not apologise or appeal by July 10th, he will automatically be removed from the Missouri Synod's clergy.
Twenty-one Missouri Synod pastors and congregations filed charges against Rev Benke because of his participation in a huge televised ceremony in New York's Yankee stadium on September 23rd that was attended by representatives of all the major Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu and other faiths.
"By President Benke's joining with other pagan clerics in an interfaith service [no matter what the intent might have been] a crystal clear signal was given to others at the event and to thousands more watching by C-Span \. The signal was: While there may be differences as to how people worship or pray, in the end, all religions pray to the same God," the Rev Wallace Schulz, the Missouri Synod's national second vice-president, wrote in the suspension letter.
"To participate with pagans in an interfaith service and, additionally, to give the impression that there might be more than one God, is an extremely serious offence against the God of the Bible," he added.
The conflict in the 2.6 million- member church reflects a tension that exists across all the US Protestant churches in varying strengths between the ecumenism and tolerance preached by President Bush after September 11th and the back-to-tradition "renewal" movements which have taken hold among Presbyterians, Episcopalians and Methodists as well as Lutherans.
The charges against Rev Benke include "unionism" - mixing the beliefs of various Christian denominations; as well as "syncretism" - mixing Christian and non-Christian views. Both are forbidden by the 1847 constitution of the Missouri Synod based in St Louis. It is the country's second-largest Lutheran group, after the 5.1-million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
In February, after a bout of negative publicity over the charges, the synod's board of directors barred Rev Benke, the complainants and all other parties to the dispute from talking about it. But Missouri Synod members, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the charges are viewed within the denomination as an attack not only on Rev Benke but also on the synod's national president, the Rev Gerald M Kieschnick, a moderate who was elected last year, and who has said he gave Rev Benke permission to attend the service.