Lutherans Defrock Defiant Pennsylvania Pastor

The Lutheran Church on Friday defrocked a defiant minister who went to jail in his campaign blaming “corporate evil” for unemployment, and police later arrested him for refusing to leave the stage at the denomination’s regional convention.

“Out! Out!” the delegates chanted as D. Douglas Roth, 33, of Clairton, demanded a repeat of disciplinary hearings that led to his expulsion from the ministry of the 3-million-member Lutheran Church in America.

Roth, part of a confrontational alliance of labor activists and about 10 Pittsburgh-area clergy, is the second minister in the 23-year history of the Luthern Church in America to be defrocked. The first, the Rev. John E. Bergstresser of Royersford, Pa., was defrocked in 1977 for leading a faction that broke away from the church.

Spent 112 Days in Jail

A 15-member disciplinary panel had recommended in March that Roth be defrocked.

Roth spent 112 days in the Allegheny County Jail last winter for defying his court-backed firing as pastor of Trinity Lutheran Church in Clairton, a depressed steelmaking community 20 miles south of Pittsburgh.

As Roth challenged delegates from a stage at Thiel College in northwestern Pennsylvania, cries of, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” were heard from the direction of the visitors’ section, where Roth’s supporters sat.

“It’s inconceivable to me that that would have come from the delegates,” said the Rev. Charles Austin, a church spokesman.

‘An Emotional Reaction’

“What we’re getting is an emotional reaction,” Bishop James R. Crumley Jr., national head of the denomination, said later at a news conference. “We are at the place where it is practically impossible to settle this situation on rational, intelligent grounds.”

Roth is a member of the Denominational Ministry Strategy, which was formed by the church in 1980 to train ministers to attract new members. The group broke with its founders as its focus turned to confrontation on behalf of the unemployed.

Union activists associated with DMS have thrown skunk-scented liquid at bank offices and churches attended by corporate executives. Roth’s congregation split over his involvement, and about half the 145 members demanded his removal.

After delegates voted 499 to 33 to defrock him, Roth and the Rev. William Rex, who was dismissed May 31 from his congregations in Monroeville and Trafford over his DMS involvement, strode onto the stage and grabbed a microphone.

‘A Railroad Situation’

“Here’s the truth. We have had a railroad situation long enough,” Roth shouted. “This is now the third year that the convention has met in order to deal with the problems of DMS. And each year, they think this will be the last.”

With Roth and Rex on the stage, the delegates adjourned for lunch.

The pair were arrested during the break by about 10 police officers. Greenville Magistrate Francis W. Brown arraigned them on charges of defiant trespass, disrupting a meeting and criminal mischief.

They were released on their own recognizance.