Church conservatives angered by their leader's decision to allow a pastor to pray at an interfaith service after the Sept. 11 attacks failed to block his re-election to the presidency of the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.
Conservative delegates at the convention for the roughly 2.6 million member church had sought to oust the Rev. Gerald Kieschnick as president, in part for allowing a pastor to offer a prayer at a 2001 service at Yankee Stadium that also included Catholic, Jewish, Muslim and Hindu clergy.
Kieschnick, who needed a majority of 1,237 voting church delegates to be re-elected, received 52.8 percent or 653 votes Sunday. Four other pastors had been nominated for the post.
Kieschnick, 61, had given his approval for the Rev. David Benke, the church's Atlantic district president, to offer a prayer at the Sept. 23, 2001, interfaith service.
Some pastors objected, saying Benke violated denominational rules against syncretism, or the mingling of Christian and non-Christian beliefs, and unionism, or people of different faiths worshipping together.
Kieschnick stood by his decision, despite a campaign by some church members to remove him as a synod member. Benke was suspended for a time; the decision was later overturned.
Kieschnick on Sunday called on the church to put an end to infighting.
"I believe it is time to put this matter behind us and get on with the mission our Lord has given," he said.
Also Sunday, delegates voted out the church's first vice president, the Rev. Daniel Preus, 55, who had disagreed with Kieschnick's stance in 2001. They elected the Rev. William Diekelman, 57, president of the synod's Oklahoma district, to take his place.
The church, based in the St. Louis suburb of Kirkwood, holds its convention every three years.