Posted on 10/09/2011 5:55:23 AM PDT by NYer
MILWAUKEE – A man who left his Presbyterian ministry in California more than 20 years ago after telling his congregation that he is gay was welcomed back into the church leadership on Saturday as its first openly gay ordained minister.
In a quavering voice ripe with emotion, 56-year-old Scott Anderson told the hundreds of friends and backers who packed Covenant Presbyterian Church in Madison, Wisconsin for his ordination ceremony that he never thought the day would come.
"To the thousands of Presbyterians who have worked and prayed for almost 40 years for this day, I give thanks," Anderson said. "And I give thanks for those who disagree with what we're doing today yet who know that we are one in Jesus Christ."
When he was presented to the crowd, audience members gave him a thunderous standing ovation and began roaring with cheers.
"That was very atypical of Presbyterians," Doug Poland, an elder at Covenant Presbyterian Church, told the Wisconsin State Journal. "Usually our hands are in our laps."
Anderson was closeted when he served as a minister in Sacramento, Calif., from 1983 until 1990. When a couple threatened to reveal his sexual orientation, he came out to his congregation and resigned because the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) barred homosexuals from serving as ministers.
But things changed last year when the church's national assembly voted to remove the ban, clearing the way for Anderson's ordination.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Ping!
er umm, he may be the FIRST advertisedly gay minister ordained, but I guarantee he is not ‘the first”
LOL! Our small town presby minister was busted for soliciting gay sex over 50 years ago
Just another play in the communist handbook.
Destroy everything.
Replace it with the State.
Boycott them, folks.
Money is all they respect, not God’s Word.
Another faux “church”. Caving in to the sodomites and their gross perversion. I think someday this “church” is going to regret this.
Exactly. Whatever they can’t destroy, they will infiltrate. Whatever they can’t infiltrate, they will destroy.
Sad. This person’s selfish ambition in opposition to God’s word. Where God builds a church, Satan builds a chapel.
“To the thousands of Presbyterians who have worked and prayed for almost 40 years for this day, I give thanks,”
I dunno - I thought if they actually prayed about this then they might have heard something contrary to their thinking or got stoney silence as you do when you know you are asking for the wrong thing. I would be surprised if anybody actually really prayed about this at all - they just force it through and then call it God’s Will.
Mel
IMHO, God is not pleased.
Consider the Presbyterian Church of America because it has gone the exact opposite of that way (and followed the Lord and His word)>
The PCA, says Marriage is between one man and one woman and that sexuality is only ordained under that covenant.
Consider the PCA
Like many other churches, this church has decided to join the ranks of harlots. Who would think that members of a church would stand and give a thunderous standing O to a supposed minister of God who professes, embraces and is unrepentant of sin?
This is why many people are not attending the Presbyterian Church anymore.
They are no longer a Christian church
Isn’t this so called ‘church’ involved in divesting from Israel?
I tried that and found the church I went to pretty liberal as well. I was doubly surprised because I went expecting to find what you described. Instead, I found a bunch of Obama supporters who even had the ex-(disgraced) Mayor of Philadelphia, Wilson Good take the altar to beg for money for one of his pet organizations. And spending way too much time trying to guilt the congregation to hand over their earnings, even going so far as to equate them with stupid, greedy monkeys if they didn’t.
I assume it was the particular church I tried. But membership in any organization does not guarantee adherence to the rules of that organization. That’s why I tend to avoid those churches that identify with a big parent organization and prefer those that focus on the locality and the needs-at-hand, both universal and local.
Was the PCA Church of which you speak in Philly? I’m surprised....I thought the PCA Church was a REALLY, really conservative one.
I think the Episcopalian Church is already feeling the effect from their descision for gay clergy. Strife, splits, and loosing membership. The Prsybyterians USA will soon follow. In fact it has already started. Prysbyterian Church America, a split, is already one of the fastest growing chuches in the country. http://www.prysbyterianamerica.org
Revelations 3:15-22
Congratulations to your Presbys, Alex!
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