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Dr. Lazareth leading

in Lutheran balloting

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CHICAGO (AP) – A noted theologian and social action advocate, the Rev. Dr. William H. Lazareth, yesterday pulled further in front in the contest for the presidency of the Lutheran Church in America.

But it still was an unpredictable race with no clear pattern as the governing convention of the 3.1 million member denomination went through the third day of balloting for a new top officer.

On the fourth ballot, pared down from an initally big field of 70 candidates to the four top runners, Lazareth polled 214 of the 671 votes .with a majority of 336 needed to elect.

Not far behind were the Rev. Drs. Herbert W. Chilstrom of Minneapolis with 160 votes; James R. Crumley, the church's secretary, of New York, with 158; and Reuben T. Swanson of Omaha, Neb., with 139.

Another and perhaps decisive ballot comes today, half way through the eight-day convention. The church's current president, the Rev. Robert J. Marshall, is stepping out after holding office 10 years.

Lazareth, 50, was for 20 years a professor and dean at the Philadelphia Lutheran Seminary before becoming head of the denomination's social action agency two years ago.

Swanson, 55, has headed the church's Nebraska Synod for the last 14 years, while Crumley, 53, was a parish pastor in Savannah, Ga., and Oak RidgeGreenville, Tenn., before being elected the church's secretary four years ago.

Chilstrom is 46.

Earlier, during the convention, delegates authorized a study to develop a more definitive church stance on homosexuality and called on city and state governments to "protect the human rights of all persons."

The action came at the urging of the church's Minnesota Synod, which criticized recent referendums in Dade County, Fla., St. Paul, Minn., Wichita, Kan., and Eugene, Ore., repealing homosexual rights laws.

A past denominational statement called homosexuality a "departure from heterosexual structure of God's creation."

Meanwhile, the number of delegates recording themselves as "seated in protest" at the convention because it is meeting in a state that has declined to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment rose to 139.

Some began doing so at the opening of the eight-day convention and the list has lengthened since.