When I was going to college in Duluth, MN I went to the on-campus Lutheran service. It was run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (ELCA), who I joshingly call LINO, Lutheran In Name Only. I asked myself, "How different could it me?" The only memorable difference was no mention of God in any of the hymns. We were singing about trees and wind blowing, but no God. I thought I was at a service run by Greenpeace. From then on I stuck with the occasional Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod service. And don't get me started on the blue vs. red hymnal business.

That's funny!

I used to publish a newsletter for a couple of Lutheran nonprofit organizations here in L.A., and there was always this balancing act between the ELCA and the LCMS. I think a lot of the people I worked with leaned toward the LCMS, but they couldn't say it. At the time, women who wanted to become ministers had to be ELCA, since it was still a no-no in the LCMS (I don't know if that's still the case).

My mother's new church is so vague it makes the Unitarians she used to hang out with look downright conservative.

Oned of the funniest cartoons i ever saw, New Yorkedr magazine style, was of a New York liberal, Riverside church type, raising his eyes and beginning to pray:

"O God, if there is a God, . . ."

Still no female pastors in the LC-MS, and that won't change anytime soon.

When the ELCA was created many conservative congregations got swept into it. There are tensions still in places like Minnesota.

I'm not sure how Thrivent, the financial services company, manages to market to all those different Lutherans.

I should check in at my local Methodist church: that's the denomination that's in my DNA. I may officially be a Catholic, but I have Protestant-level guilt.

"Somewhere In The General Vicinity My God To Thee"

Them's some funny hymn titles!

I can't relate to religion-inspired guilt. I never experienced it. There's that whole ecumenicalism that gives me the willies.

I would laugh, but some of those might be in the next United Methodist hymnal revision.