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It’s official. As of July 10, after a 15-year struggle, qualified gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people can be ordained as clergy and officers in the Presbyterian Church (USA). After 24 presbyteries flipped from previous “no” votes, a total of 97 approved amendment 10A; well over the 87 required for the change. This victory finally removed exclusionary language from the Book of Order, which required “fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.” The old language also required prospective ministers and officers to repent of “any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call...

Presbyterians who support gay rights are prepping sanctuaries this Sunday (July 10) to celebrate the passage of a new church policy that allows gay pastors to serve openly for the first time in the denomination's history. As the new policy for the Presbyterian Church (USA) becomes official that day, several left-leaning churches "will mark the moment with prayer and rejoicing" in their Sunday services, according to a press release from More Light Presbyterians, which advocates for gay rights in the church. "The Presbyterian Church enters a new era of equality on Sunday," said Michael Adee, the group's executive director. "It...

When Jeannine Oakes answered God's call to become a pastor, it was a moment of both clarity and confusion. Though her heart belonged to the Presbyterian Church, she also hoped one day to give her heart to a woman with whom she would share her life. The Presbyterian Church's ban on openly gay clergy did not allow for both. Eventually, she asked the leadership at Fourth Presbyterian Church to endorse her mission and enrolled at McCormick Theological Seminary to complete the necessary coursework."I need to be fully who I am, and the church needs to accept that," said Oakes, 32....

The mood Sunday morning at Fair Oaks Presbyterian Church Sunday was upbeat – the pews were packed and many nodded as the pastor preached his message of forgiveness...Next month, the Presbyterian Church begins allowing those who are openly gay to be ordained as ministers, elders and deacons. The new rules, which were approved in May and take effect July 10, have provoked a wide range of responses from local church leaders.They are holding town hall meetings with concerned members, sending letters explaining the rules and posting their opinions of the new ordination standards on their church websites. "It is the...

Henderson police are looking for a Las Vegas pastor wanted in connection with the sexual assault of underage girls. Otis Holland, 54, is wanted on 11 counts of sexual assault of a victim under age 16, a count of child abuse and a count of conspiracy to commit a crime, police said. Police issued the warrant last week, but said Holland may have fled to California. In December, Holland was arrested on three counts of sexual assault of a victim under age 16. During the investigation, police said they discovered allegations that Holland may have had inappropriate conduct with other...

The number of female pastors in Baptist churches has grown by a third in the past five years, according to a recent report covered in the Associated Baptist Press. Baptist Women in Ministry found that women’s involvement in ordained ministry is slowly growing among organizations like the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The Southern Baptist Convention’s position is that Scripture forbids women from serving as pastors.

Rev. Eric Elnes, pastor of Countryside Community Church, said the proclamation was created because, “we were just fed up with the popular notion that the Christian point of view is anti-gay.” Elnes, who leads an Omaha church of 1,500 members at 87th Street and Pacific Street, said more than 100 ordained Christian ministers have signed the proclamation, including leaders from Lutheran, Episcopalian, United Church of Christ, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. The ministers will join together on Wednesday at 6 p.m. at the Bob Kerrey Pedestrian Bridge to publicly unveil the proclamation and show full acceptance of gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and...

Jimmy Creech spent his career as an ordained United Methodist pastor until the church took his credentials away as punishment for conducting same sex commitment ceremonies in Omaha and Chapel Hill. He was not convicted at a trial in Nebraska in 1998, but he lost his church assignment and the stage was set for a second trial in 1999 after he officiated a ceremony at United Church of Chapel Hill. Since then he has been a leader of LGBT justice issues, retired to Raleigh and travels the country speaking. He also has written an account of the upheaval, "Adam's Gift:...

Same-sex marriage continues to be held up on the hitch of the rights of churches and institutions who want the freedom to refrain from performing such ceremonies. We talked with a local minister and got his take on the issue of protecting churches from facing descrimination lawsuits. Reverand J. Barrett Lee, of the First Presbyterian Church in Boonville says he'd be willing to perform same sex marriages.

A former pastor in Chester held a demonstration outside the Presbytery of Philadelphia office Monday afternoon, alleging the Presbytery discriminated against him on racial bounds. Standing beside an empty coffin and a sign reading “Bury Discrimination,” the Rev. Richard Dalton met with reporters and spoke briefly to two curious drivers who passed along the quiet, Germantown road. A former interim pastor at Thomas M. Thomas Presbyterian Church from 2007 to 2009, Dalton has filed a retribution claim with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission alleging the Presbytery of Philadelphia blocked his hire at a North Philadelphia church because he previously...

......While Presbyterians have voted on many issues over the years, never have they been so brazen as to vote Scriptural standards out of vogue. Never have Presbyterians been so presumptuous as to "vote" that biblical standards do not apply to their denomination...... At issue is that this denomination has hit the mute button on 2,000 years of Christian belief and morality. Standards that have been honored for centuries have now been deleted, leaving Presbyterians with the following moral mandate: "whatever." Whatever a local church, or a presbytery, or some other bureaucratic subset chooses to do is now permitted. The group...

Unprecedented turmoil in recent months in local and regional Presbyterian circles — including five lay leaders in a Grand Forks congregation quitting the church after being charged with violating church rules as well as a top administrator being dismissed suddenly — was the main business at a meeting here Monday. About 50 clergy and ordained lay elders of the Presbytery of the Northern Plains gathered for the one-day “stated meeting,” one of about three held each year. Besides the leavings, the conflict also included a gag order put in place by a higher church panel that had been lifted, it...

Authorities say a former north Georgia youth minister has been sentenced in Oconee County Superior Court to 15 years in prison after pleading guilty to charges of child molestation, statutory rape and enticing a child for indecent purposes.The Athens Banner-Herald reports that former Winder youth pastor Brian Gray was given the prison term after pleading guilty to the charges Thursday. Thursday's sentence in Oconee County is in addition to a 15-year prison term he was given earlier this month in Barrow County. .. Authorities said he had sex with a 15-year-old girl in 2010, and they say the crimes involving...

Hallelujahs are sounding loudly from at least two local churches as members celebrate a long-sought change in the Presbyterian Church to fully include everyone regardless of their sexual or gender orientation.St. Mark's Presbyterian Church has worked to remove obstacles for openly lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender ordination for more than two decades..Newquist, 37, said she feels a "huge debt of gratitude" to the Presbyterians who changed their minds and made the change possible. "It's a hard thing for anyone, but particularly when you have had a strong conviction to say, 'I was wrong and I'm ready to make a different...

Gay Presbyterians throughout the suburbs now have the opportunity to rise from the pews and into the ranks of the ordained. After decades of debate, Blackhawk Presbytery — which oversees many of the congregations in the Fox Valley and northwestern Illinois — recently became one of 21 presbyteries so far to reverse course on gay ordination. But even with a movement toward acceptance of homosexuality in popular culture, the Rev. John Rickard of Blackhawk Presbytery said he was surprised, but not necessarily dismayed, by the outcome of the vote among his congregations. “Do I think it's going to destroy our...

The Presbyterian Church in Ireland has expressed concern at the Church of Scotland's handling of the issue of homosexual clergy. Last month the Scottish Church voted to allow its ministers who were ordained before May 20, 2009 and who are now openly gay to be appointed by congregations. The Church has also created a commission to consider the justification of the future ordination of gay ministers. This report is not due for two years, but earlier this year the Irish Presbyterian Church wrote to the Scottish Church outlining its views on the sanctity of traditional marriage and its objection to...

A Toronto preacher has been charged with sexual assault after an incident that police say happened during a church prayer session. Toronto police said a female churchgoer called in to report the assault Wednesday, the day it is alleged to have happened. Details of what the victim said happened were not disclosed by authorities. Emmanuel Animodi, 45, the pastor at the Faithful Pentecostal Miracle Church, has been charged.

The change in ordination standards will go into effect July 10....The move makes the Presbyterian Church the latest of several mainline Protestant denominations to allow for the ordination or open acceptance of gay and lesbian pastors. In 2009, leaders with the Episcopal Church voted to affirm gay and lesbian clergy despite pressure from Anglicans around the world to create a moratorium on consecrating another openly gay bishop. That year, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America also voted to allow sexually active gay and lesbian candidates to serve as clergy; before that, they were allowed to serve only if they were...

The problem I had was that what I had been told about Catholicism was simply not true; it was distorted teaching from Protestants who did not bother to discover the truth. .... Over the last several years, I have known deep down that the Catholic Church must be more than I thought it was. I fought myself and denied all the signs I was seeing. I was afraid; even though I knew deep down there can only be one truth, I would always find something to dismiss Catholicism At this time I had been a member of the Orthodox Presbyterian...

The former Director of Chapel at Princeton Theological Seminary, the Rev Dr Arlo D Duba, a conservative evangelical, has changed his mind on the matter of gay Christians. “I am a life-long conservative Presbyterian,” he said. “I never got very excited