2000+ people left the Finnish EL Church in 24 hrs

[Trolldor]

It really should be international news, considering how much the views that caused so many to leave are held by so many other churches.

[Sælir]

It´s in the news in Iceland!!! They said 18.000 people left it!

[Ronja]

It´s in the news in Iceland!!! They said 18.000 people left it!

They are a bit after, though, it was over 27,000 just a moment ago - this is a real-time counter since that stupid TV program began on Tuesday evening 12th October: http://eroakirkosta.fi/static/ek-tilastot/ylea2.html

Even this article only states "more than 22,000", although it has been updated today (!) http://yle.fi/uutiset/news/2010/10/bish ... 69059.html

[Ronja]

Updating the thus far, per day stats:

Tuesday 21:00 - 24:00 - 222
Wednesday - 2,633
Thursday - 2,032
Friday - 3,473
Saturday - 4,545
Sunday - 5,738
Monday - 6,773
Tuesday - 3,915

29,331 is now the total, since the evening of Oct 12th until last midnight (if I can count). It might hit 30,000 already during today, as we already have 157 resigners since midnight. Things seem to be calming down now though, after the initial rush.

The total number of people who have resigned from the ELCoF during this year is now over 55,000 (source: http://www.eroakirkosta.fi/static/ek-tilastot/ )

[Ronja]

OY! Can some admin/mod please insert the following in the beginning of the OP?

Edit 20-Oct-2010: If you are new to this story, and want to read only one news article / summary about this brouhaha, please read: http://www.news24.com/World/News/Gay-de ... s-20101019

If said admin/mod could also change the thread topic to "30,000+ people left the Finnish EL Church in 9 days" I would be greatly obliged.

Thanks!

[JimC]

OY! Can some admin/mod please insert the following in the beginning of the OP?

Edit 20-Oct-2010: If you are new to this story, and want to read only one news article / summary about this brouhaha, please read: http://www.news24.com/World/News/Gay-de ... s-20101019

If said admin/mod could also change the thread topic to "30,000+ people left the Finnish EL Church in 9 days" I would be greatly obliged.

Thanks!

Added the edit, but not sure about the title change, it might muck-up searches etc...

[Ronja]

This xian "lady", Päivi Räsänen (you may have seen her name spelled Paeivi Raesaenen somewhere), who together with the sissy bishop was the possibly most unpleasant participant in the Gay Debate on TV, is starting to give me really chilling deja-vues:

-she is a bigoted xian who leads a splinter political group that insists their interpretation of one religion should define how the whole society lives http://www.paivirasanen.fi/fin/in_english/?id=31
-she has uttered and published claims that are demonstratively false, yet she continues to push them http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Christ ... 5261035020
-she enjoys shooting animals http://www.ekokonservatiivi.net/index.p ... metsaellae



Does this remind you of anyone? Or is this just my paranoia kicking in?

[Feck]

Is she a hockey mum ?

[Ronja]

Is she a hockey mum ?

Eldest son trains Ju-Jitsu... and eldest daughter plays - HOCKEY!

I am suddenly very, very afraid...

[Robert_S]

Is she a hockey mum ?

Eldest son trains Ju-Jitsu... and eldest daughter plays - HOCKEY!

I am suddenly very, very afraid...

There will be piles of dead moose in Iceland before it's over.

[Svartalf]

This xian "lady", Päivi Räsänen (you may have seen her name spelled Paeivi Raesaenen somewhere), who together with the sissy bishop was the possibly most unpleasant participant in the Gay Debate on TV, is starting to give me really chilling deja-vues:

-she is a bigoted xian who leads a splinter political group that insists their interpretation of one religion should define how the whole society lives http://www.paivirasanen.fi/fin/in_english/?id=31
-she has uttered and published claims that are demonstratively false, yet she continues to push them http://www.hs.fi/english/article/Christ ... 5261035020
-she enjoys shooting animals http://www.ekokonservatiivi.net/index.p ... metsaellae



Does this remind you of anyone? Or is this just my paranoia kicking in?

ok... she looks a lot like Sarah Palin.. or a lot of chretin nuts in the US.

What bother me is that with a head like that, I'm starting to wonder where is the "democrat" in her party... good thing they got so few people in parliament

[Ronja]

In the midst of this resignations brouhaha, the national parish elections are generating more interest than ever before (within my memory's reach). The information-about-candidates web server went down yesterday, the first day it was opened (remember what it was like here on RatZ in the end of February?) - when it finally had been strengthened with more hardware, it became clear that a majority of candidates are not homophobic http://www.yle.fi/uutiset/news/2010/10/ ... 88529.html

The latest statistics of the resigners show that the number of people resigning daily (the red histogram) came down pretty fast, but now it shows signs of stabilizing on a level about 4-6 times higher than before the infamous TV debate (it used to be 100-150 per day, for the last 4 days it has been 700-800 per day, and today appears to follow the same trend (we are up at 170 now, at 12:40 PM). The yearly resignations (the blue-green-yellow-brown histogram/bar chart) are by now so far ahead of anything seen before, that IMO all bets are off. We'll just have to wait and see.

[Ronja]

To me, the best news is that now the topic of separation of church and state is definitely on the table, and the next parliamentary election is coming up in April 2011. As we have two "official" churches, the lutheran and the orthodox, and I would very much like to get rid of their "official" status, the timing could hardly be better - the web questionnaires for the candidates have not been made yet, as the candidate lists are still in the making, and after all that has happened recently, the questionnaires are very likely to inquire about candidates' attitudes to the state and church relation. I am hopeful (though not holding my breath).

[Svartalf]

Uh? what? the job of parish pastor is an elective one that the common people vote on in your country?

[Ronja]

Uh? what? the job of parish pastor is an elective one that the common people vote on in your country?

Well, that's not what this election is about, although vicars are also voted on. By common people who a members of the church and at least 16 years old.

Parish elections are local elections, organised every four years. Members of the parish board (kirkkovaltuusto in Finnish) are elected in these elections. In parishes belonging to a parish union (seurakuntayhtymä), the elected become members of a parish council (seurakuntaneuvosto) or a joint parish board (yhteinen kirkkovaltuusto).

More at: http://evl.fi/EVLen.nsf/Documents/1FBEE ... nt&lang=EN
and: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelica ... ganization

So they are electing the people who decide about how things a run in the local parish / group of parishes. A parish-level "parliament" if you will. These elected ones decide on the budget, how much (in %) the church tax will be in their own parish, decide whether new positions will be created, etc. If memory serves, each parish board also chooses their representative(s) to the highest decision-making organ of the church, the Synod. A majority of Synod members are lay people.

So, for a church (important caveat) it is fairly democratic, AFAIK.