ELCA LEADER SCOLDS ISRAELI ARMY
The Presiding Bishop of the largest Lutheran denomination in North America has spoken out against the use of Israeli troops at a Lutheran hospital on the Mount of Olives during the current strife in Israel.
Dr. H. George Anderson, leader of the 5.2 million member Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), said in a statement released October 3, “We protest the disproportionate and excessive use of lethal force by Israeli forces, their increasing use of live ammunition, their firing of rubber-coated bullets into the faces and heads of Palestinian youth, and their disregard for humanitarian institutions, such as [Lutheran operated] Augusta Victoria Hospital.”
Said Anderson, “We wish to express the ELCA’s strongest objection to the use of the Augusta Victoria Hospital premises by Israeli forces September 29 and 30.”
Augusta Victoria is a ministry of Lutheran World Federation, an agency supported by most of the world’s Lutherans.
