Posted on 11/15/2014 5:01:00 AM PST by massmike
A gay couple at Green Street United Methodist Church has filed a complaint with their bishop charging that their pastor violated church discipline by refusing to preside at a marriage ceremony for them — despite the denomination’s rules that forbid same-sex marriages.
The church made headlines in 2013 when it announced that it would not conduct marriages for heterosexual couples until the denomination allows pastors to conduct same-sex marriages.
According to the church, Green Street members Kenny Barner and Scott Chappell, describing themselves as a gay couple who have been together for nine years, filed the complaint against their pastor, the Rev. Kelly P. Carpenter.
The complaint was filed with Bishop Larry Goodpaster, who leads the Western North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church, of which Green Street is a member.
The two men are charging Carpenter with violating a church discipline that calls on pastors to “be in ministry with all people,” and also are complaining against what they are calling “gender discrimination.”
Carpenter said recently that he believes gay couples should be able to get married in the United Methodist Church, but went on to say that Goodpaster had “made it clear he will enforce the discipline” against same-sex marriage in the church.
(Excerpt) Read more at myfox8.com ...
“I only perform marriages, not abominations”
Would be my response.
It’ll be ‘game over’ when the IRS says ANY church that refuses to perform ‘gay marriage’ (an oxymoron) will lose their tax exempt status.
Look for this in the next couple of years.
Churches can choose God’s word or destruction.
Tough. Time for churches to stand up to these pervs.
Where is that vaunted “wall of separation between church and state” now? Homosexuals can marry at the court house in any of the states that have approved this abomination. They do not have the right to be married in any church that adheres to the Bible’s teaching on marriage and family.
The church CAN provide “ministry to them” by teaching them what scripture says and offering them a way out of their sin, as is done for all.
When the government tells churches to go against Holy Scripture, that’s when we’ll see the real Christian churches.
The complaint "against" their pastor is purely procedural, being aimed actually against church teaching. The "pastor" is just necessarily in the line of fire.
What, exactly, is “gay marriage”? How can a church perform a ceremony for something that does not and cannot exist?
We really should be challenging the “gay marriage” advocates to answer what “gay marriage” is, instead of allowing judges to make this non-thing “legal” by fiat.
It’s øbamaism.
If I force someone to let me walk at graduation for nuclear physicists, it doesn’t;t make me one.
Honestly, that's probably the best thing that can happen for churches. The church needs a time of purification.
Don’t think churches losing their their tax-exempt status will appease the sodomite barbarians, it will only enrage them if churches give this up in order to practice real Chrisitianity. Sodomites want COMPLIANCE above all, not just the paying of a penalty.
I agree. We have a time coming when the wheat and the chafe will be sifted. Its coming.
The Left has really perverted America.
I hope the target preachers can see clear to hold their ground and refuse to pay the horrendous fines that will be levied. The rest of us have to try to ensure that they get the lawyers to fight it if they are small churches. I am not so sure there is safety in the courts anymore. The Left with Republican collaboration has packed the federal courts with communists who rely on Marx rather than the Constitution, but this battle has t be fought out until the churches are taken over and the preachers jailed or the government gets off it. I don’t expect the second alternative to ensue, even with a Republican President. It is time for the states to assert their sovereignty. It is time for that Article 5 Convention. I don’t see the feds permitting that to happen, actually. There would probably be a Federal occupation of state legislatures before that is allowed to come to pass.
We (LCMS) have several parishes that no longer perform marriages (in the State sense).
The pastor tells both betrothed to “get ye to the JOP” and we will celebrate a confirmation of marriage at your convenience.
I believe that is the best resolution, at this time.
Even that won’t be a solution for long.
As I posted, sodomites want COMPLIANCE to their agenda above all. FULL COMPLIANCE.
Agreed...as long as the “church” continues to dance with the State regarding marriage.
If the State thusly redefines marriage to be at odds with the church, then the church MUST necessarily ignore such redefinition...they should no longer request-and-maintain the political license to “marry”; rather the church IS REQUIRED to cease-and-desist from codifying any type of “marriage” that might satisfy and be in accord with the State requirements.
In the same manner, a church that confirms a 13-year-old child such that they may receive alcoholic beverages (communion wine), MUST assert their religious protection under 1-AM and...simply...move on.
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