PCUSA opens door to gay clergy

sermonindex Jun 22, 2006

[image][img]https://www.sermonindex.net/images/forum/2004/may/featured_news.gif[/img]

BIRMINGHAM, Alabama (Reuters) - The largest U.S. Presbyterian Church body approved a measure on Tuesday that would open the way for the ordination of gays and lesbians under certain circumstances.

The new policy was approved on a vote of 57-43 percent among 500 church representatives at the biennial meeting of the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. It gives local church organizations more leeway in deciding if gays can be ordained as lay deacons and elders as well as clergy, provided they are faithful to the church's core values.

"It permits local governing bodies to examine candidates on a wider criterion than sexual orientation ... it allows these bodies to look at the whole person and not categorize them," said Jon Walton, pastor of First Presbyterian Church in New York's Greenwich Village and a member of the "Covenant Network of Presbyterians" which backed the change.

W

W_D_J_D Jun 23, 2006

oh well according to them it was predestined.....

oooooh ok, but seriously that is a very sad result.....my head shakes, my heart trembles i am very saddened.

W

W_D_J_D Jun 23, 2006

New US church leader says homosexuality is not sin

Newly elected leader of the U.S. Episcopal Church Bishop Katharine
Jefferts Schori said on Monday she believed homosexuality was no sin
and homosexuals were created by God to love people of the same gender.

Jefferts Schori, bishop of the Diocese of Nevada, was elected on
Sunday as the first woman leader of the 2.3 million-member Episcopal
Church. the U.S. branch of the worldwide Anglican Communion. She
will formally take office later this year.

Interviewed on CNN, Jefferts Schori was asked if it was a sin to be
homosexual.

"I don't believe so. I believe that God creates us with different
gifts. Each one of us comes into this world with a different
collection of things that challenge us and things that give us joy
and allow us to bless the world around us," she said.

"Some people come into this world with affections ordered toward
other people of the same gender and some people come into this world
with affections directed at people of the other gender."

Jefferts Schori's election seemed certain to exacerbate splits
within a Episcopal Church that is already deeply divided over
homosexuality with several dioceses and parishes threatening to
break away.

It could also widen divisions with other Anglican communities,
including the Church of England, which do not allow women bishops.

In the worldwide Anglican church women are bishops only in Canada,
the United States and New Zealand. The Robinson issue has been
particularly criticized in Africa where the church has a growing
membership and where homosexuality is often taboo.

Jefferts Schori, who was raised a Roman Catholic and graduated in
marine biology with a doctorate specialization in squids and
oysters, supported the consecration of Gene Robinson of New
Hampshire, the first openly gay bishop in more than 450 years of
Anglican history.

Asked how she reconciled her position on homosexuality with specific
passages in the Bible declaring sexual relations between men an
abomination, Jefferts Schori said the Bible was written in a very
different historical context by people asking different questions.

H

habakkuk3 Jun 23, 2006

Isn't this simply rationalizing the sin which is the act, process, or result of rationalizing; especially : ~~[b]~~the provision of plausible reasons to explain to oneself or others behavior for which one's real motives are different and unknown or unconscious[/b].

I'm praying that the Holy Spirit will bring light to expose the darkness, which seems to be increasing in America every day.