EDGE Los Angeles

On Oct. 29, Dr. Caitlin Ryan, director and founder of the Family Acceptance Project, will speak to Evangelical Christians about ways to accept their LGBT child within the context of their religious beliefs.

The auditorium lights turned low, the service begins with the familiar rhythms of church: children singing, hugs and handshakes of greeting, a plea for donations to fix the boiler. Then the 55-year-old pastor with spiked gray hair and blue jeans launches into his weekly welcome, a poem-like litany that includes the line "queer or straight here, there’s no hate here."

Conservative members of the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination voted Saturday to spend the next 12 months deciding whether to split from the church after it liberalized its stance on gay clergy.

The presiding bishop of the nation’s largest Lutheran denomination warned Wednesday that withholding financial support to protest a recent gay clergy vote would be "devastating" to the church.

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.

Leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination are set to decide today whether gay and lesbian pastors in committed relationships should be allowed to lead individual congregations.

Leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination have agreed to disagree on homosexuality, endorsing an official statement on human sexuality that says there’s room in the church for differing views on an issue that’s divided other religious groups.

Leaders of the country’s largest Lutheran denomination prayed for unity Monday as they waded into a weeklong debate over homosexuality and the clergy, while a rule change that would allow people in same-sex relationships to serve cleared its first hurdle.

Christians must show love to all people, even if they don’t support their values, evangelical megachurch pastor Rick Warren on Tuesday told breakaway Episcopalians and other Anglicans splitting from their national church over gay clergy and other issues.