Posted on 03/17/2015 6:09:07 PM PDT by Citizen Zed
After three decades of debate over its stance on homosexuality, members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) voted on Tuesday to change the definition of marriage in the churchs constitution to include same-sex marriage.
The final approval by a majority of the churchs 171 regional bodies, known as presbyteries, enshrines a change recommended last year by the churchs General Assembly. The vote amends the churchs constitution to broaden marriage from being between a man and a woman to two people, traditionally a man and a woman.
The Presbytery of the Palisades, meeting in Fair Lawn, N.J., put the ratification count over the top on Tuesday on a voice vote. With many presbyteries still left to vote, the tally early Tuesday evening stood at 86 presbyteries in favor and 41 against and one tied.
Finally, the church in its constitutional documents fully recognizes that the love of gays and lesbian couples is worth celebrating in the faith community, said the Rev. Brian D. Ellison, executive director of the Covenant Network of Presbyterians, which advocates gay inclusion in the church. There is still disagreement, and I dont mean to minimize that, but I think we are learning that we can disagree and still be church together.
The church, with about 1.8 million members, is the largest of the nations Presbyterian denominations, but it has been losing congregations and individual members as it has moved to the left theologically over the past several years. There was a wave of departures in and after 2011, when the presbyteries ratified a decision to ordain gays and lesbians as pastors, elders and deacons, and that may have cleared the way for Tuesdays vote.
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
Dilb.... I believe the ELCA is very close to it if not already condoning it.
This Church is DEAD and they don’t know it yet.
Yeah, they sound like buffoons.
If it was all about money, you would see faith groups that accept it growing. Instead, at least so far, they all seem to be the ones that are shrinking. That’s probably a big reason why they do end up accepting it, it’s easier to vote in at this point. And if there were stories out there about some group that started to thrive after they accepted it, wouldn’t that story be plastered all over?
Freegards
The Mainline's suicide by attrition continues unabated.
I see dead churches, and some of them don’t know they are dead.
God even warms specifically against this exact corruption... Romans explains the “progressive left” perfectly.
Romans 1:21-32 (NIV)
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. 25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creatorwho is forever praised. Amen.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
28 Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done. 29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they have no understanding, no fidelity, no love, no mercy. 32 Although they know Gods righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.
Line many of the mainline denominations, they went far left and watched as 30-50% of their members disappeared. Now many are left with a aging congregation and no young members joining.
I know of one church in my area that is barley able to pay their utility bills, they are in a huge building that used to see 200-300 each week but now gets about 70 each week.
And the sound you hear is of the wings of the great speckled bird flying away. It is a reverse Pentecost.
That is the end of this PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH in this country.
Its also happening because the PCUSA seminaries have been ruled by homosexuals for a couple decades.
fixed it...
Yes, I am familiar with this. Churches have to pay PCUSA to switch to PCA. It's about funding too.
A simple fix is to simply let these Presbyterian seminarians marry. It would drive the gays out.
FReegards
Jude 1:4...
Exactly the reason that in my area four previous PC(USA) churches have left that denomination for more traditional Presbyterian bodies. Three changed affiliation to the EPC and one joined the PCA..
There are other PC(USA) churches in the area but I only have knowledge of these four.
Let them be anathema.
1600 years after the establishment of Christianity, the Protestants decided to go their own way, rewrite the Bible, make up their own rules, dismiss the Sacraments, etc....how’s that working out for you???
This will do more damage to the sanctity of traditional marriage than anything the Supreme Court will ever have to say.....
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