Posted on 10/25/2011 11:40:16 PM PDT by Cronos
A California minister says another Presbyterian church has withdrawn from the national group because the mainline denomination is departing from the Bible and biblical standards.
Sacramento-based Fremont Presbyterian Church recently voted 427-164 to secede from the Presbyterian Church USA due to the group's stance on "gay" clergy. The church is now part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, a small denominational offshoot that is more conservative. It believes in the infallibility of the Bible, that homosexuals should not serve in the ministry, and that those who are divorced should meet with congregational leaders before joining the church.
The church's pastor assures that Fremont has not departed from the mainline group; instead, he says the denomination has departed from the church and from biblical teachings.
"When the denomination began to make decisions that we felt were counter to the biblical witness, that caused concern," shares Mark Eshoff, executive minister of Fremont Presbyterian Church. "And then ultimately, this past spring, several things changed in the denomination -- particularly the ordination standard and the constitution changed. Then there was a decision that they weren't willing to say that the Bible should be a guide for those who are going to be ordained in the church. So, things like that."
According to The Sacramento Bee, this is the seventh church in the region to depart from Presbyterian Church (USA_ over the years.
"We aren't leaving the PC(USA); we felt that they've left us," Eshoff notes. "If we can impress upon our members that if you're here for a reason, that reason is probably still valid."
Fremont Presbyterian Church hosts roughly 1,400 worshipers each Sunday.
(Excerpt) Read more at onenewsnow.com ...
The Presbyterian church my wife belonged to had a Marxist for a minister and members that openly claimed they did not believe in heaven. So this is the road that will be hoed or this is the road to perdition. What was amazing was the older members utter disbelief that their church was changing under their feet.
Wow -- were they even Christians? The Presbyterian church seems to sink lower
Oh that's right... in Catholicism there isn't "mainline" and "Evangelical" factions, the ENTIRE Church upholds traditional marriage.
Something for Lutherans, Episcopalians, Methodists, and Presbyterians to think about.
Luther, Zwingli and Calvin wouldn’t recognize protestantism today.
Oh that’s right... in Catholicism there isn’t “mainline” and “Evangelical” factions, the ENTIRE Church upholds traditional marriage.
...........
Don’t get too self congratulatory. From time to time freepers post articles about catholic seminaries that are hotbeds of homosexuality.
The disease of homosexuality is culture wide.
Yes and new membership is dwindling too.
They should’ve left the PCUSA years ago when it allowed ministers to deny the inerrancy of the Bible.
true
Number 1 I see that we must defend marriage in every way -- divorced and remarried pastors are one step to the final acceptance of gay married pastors
Number 2 - there IS a reason why +Paul spoke about women not teaching. If I put my secular hat on, it seems very sexist, with my Christian hat it seems like an equal segregation of duties, but with my engineer's logic hat on I see that it makes sense with empirical proof -- pastoresses are the first step to degeneration.
As a Catholic I also must append the point on defending life -- abortion is an abomination and contraception leads to it -- some of my conservative friends may disagree with the latter, but I'm sure we all agree that baby killing is horrendous.
All of these 3 things taken together led us Christians (and lets be blunt, to the Moslem/secular world, they don't care that this was the PCUSA who allow this -- they say "Christians" meaning all of us) to this mess.
I have stated I think an open schism will happen in the Catholic church within the next 10 to 20 years. If not sooner.
But in the Lutheran/Episcopalian/Methodist/Presbyterian denominations, they DO have the power to force everything their way. Big difference. The largest denominations in those churches have made pro-gay policies the official church doctrine.
>> I have stated I think an open schism will happen in the Catholic church within the next 10 to 20 years. If not sooner. <<
Open schisms happen in the Catholic Church all the time. That's how we ended up with Protestants in the first place. We've already had "pro-gay" Catholic factions split from the Church and ordain clergy, for example the "Old Catholic Church" movement that split with the Roman Catholic Church after Vatican I and is pro-gay agenda. Right now there are about 600,000 "Old Catholics" vs. 1.2 billion Catholics under the Pope.
The question is whether the pro-gay forces will take over Rome like they have with the seat of power of all the major protestant denominations. The answer is no. They'll be ex-communicated and start their own "Catholic" church.
That's the difference between Catholicism and Protestantism.
I have heard that the source of the randiness in Catholicism is apostasy —and that apostasy is Arianism. But that’s only hearsay.
If so then Arianism is the same apostasy as that which unglues mainline protestant churches:
Arianism is the low view of Jesus: that he is not fully God. But rather just a man. Arianism became dominant in Europe in the protestant seminaries in the 1850’s by way of the “higher criticism” school and went on the kill off the protestant churches in Europe over the course of about 5 generations. Arianism byo “higher criticism” jumped the pond a half century later and became dominant in the American mainline protestant seminaries by 1930 or so—leading to the steady decline of all American mainline protestant denominations. (After all, why worship a dead guy and a human sacrifice at that.)
I don’t know if or how Arianism worked its way into the catholic church.
Which is why my Grandfather left Germany for Nebraska. He did not like the church union, and had no desire to fight for the Kaiser.
But I see a great many claim that the Pope isn’t as in control as the some of the old claims. Look at the recent document calling for a world bank as an example.
I see the same things in the American Catholic church today that I saw in what became the ELCA 20 years ago. There are more checks in the Catholic church, but if that is enough only time will tell.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.