Posted on 04/30/2005 1:01:34 PM PDT by Mo1
A Philadelphia preacher who told her congregation that she is in a lesbian relationship has gotten back her credentials as a United Methodist minister.
A regional appeals panel of the church court voted 8-1 on Friday to reinstate Beth Stroud's credentials. She is associate minister at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown.
In December, a lower church court had upheld a church law saying that gay men and lesbians must be celibate to be United Methodist ministers. But an appeals panel has ruled there were technical errors in the previous ruling -- that the church’s General Conference never dealt with the issue of homosexuals as ministers.
Philadelphia Bishop Marcus Matthews must now decide whether to take the appeal further. The General Conference could also, at some point, deal with the issue of gay ministers.
Stroud (getting a congratulatory hug from her attorney, Alan Symonette, above) has said she won’t resume her full ministry at the First United Methodist Church of Germantown until the matter is finally settled. She still serves at that church in a lay capacity.
"Therefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, says the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."
(2 Cor. 2:17-18)
I don't understand why a lesbian would want to be a minister. If I found myself in that situation, unless I was determined to remain celibate, I would consider myself unworthy to be a minister, not that I have what it takes to be a minister anyway.
But do you have what it takes to be a lesbian?
No, but by the grace of God it could have been me. Who knows why people drift in that direction? It was hard enough being heterosexual in our times. I don't hate lesbians. I would just feel uncomfortable seeking moral guidance from one.
They say christ won't come again unless there comes first a great falling away. For any called Christian to claim they
have "discovered " they have a "sexual Orientation" accepted by the World-but not by Scripture they have rejected God.For we have NO greater authority than Scripture.The enemy declared back in 1987 that they would
use our own churches to preach their abomnible lifestyle choice.We have plantd the wind and are reaping the whirlwind.
[Lev 20:13] If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.
I can't find it right now, but the are passages in the bible against women pastors.
I thank God daily for leading me out of the Apostate Methodist Church.
Paul listed the requirements for church leadership, icluding being "the husband of one wife" in I Timothy 3:2 and Titus 1:6.
The congregation has dwindled to a handful of mostly senior citizens. I don't see how they keep the doors open. It doesn't resemble, in the least, the vibrant church with the large membership that grew up in during the nineteen fifties.
Just had a talk with my dad, who's an IL UM Pastor and a member of the Confessing UM Churches. He told me that this could be the end, if the Pennsylvania conference doesn’t defrock her immediately or the Council of Bishops doesn’t act soon this will split the church.
We also talked about the great possibility that we would probably take the conservative member churches of the Apostolic Church with us and form a new UM Apostolic Church, this would include the vast majority of UM Churches and some Apostolic churches in the U.S. (think Texas) and their churches in Korea, Africa, and England.
The Apostolic Church of England is a special case, unlike the UM Church, their hierarchy is quite conservative and their churches in the U.S. tend to be more liberal.
Bavarian Cream
IMO .. that is what some want to happen
Also IMO .. it is very sad that they may achieve their goal
That's sort of the point. The liberal churches are not growing and the conservative churches like my dads are, also the conservative churches have started reducing their conference claims, severely limiting the hierarchy's monetary supply and their ability to fund their favorite liberal programs.
If you were to accomplish the formation of a new denomination I would hope you would scrutinize each applicant, on a church by church basis before admitting them.
I don't think you have got it right here. Sin is a choice, yes we all sin and yes we can all be forgiven, but you still have the choice.
"There but for the grace of God go I" has been misinterpreted for a while now, this phrase specifically talks to God's ability to work through us and change us to be more like him and closer to him, but God can't work through us if we are not listening or chose to ignore his word.
How convenient. A technicality.
Well see here's the thing, each applicant church would have to agree to the church covenant in order to join.
A case has happened in California where a UM church wanted to break off (didn't like the recent acquittal of an avowed homosexual minister) and the conference didn't want to let them. The case went before the California court and it was decided that the conference had broken the UM Church covenant and therefore the church wasn't splitting off at all, but was keeping the original covenant of the church.
That's the general tenor, but I can't think of any specific passages. I once had much more faith than I do now and more than one person told me I ought to start a church. The last thing we need are more churches. Occasional spiritual advice is about all I feel led to do if asked, and there is no guarantee that it is the correct advice.
I get a little touchy about the woman part, never felt called to be any kind of spiritual leader, tried to lead a bible study class once, and had to honestly admit to myself there was much I didn't know. Maybe God used some of the good in that effort anyway. Who knows?
I thank God daily for leading me out of the Apostate Methodist Church.
I officially left in 1990 and converted to catholicism. I have many pleasant memories of the Methodist church of my youth, the church suppers, Sunday school, my friends, was married there, all of it. Something never really took spiritually though which I blame more on myself and not the church. There is no going back except I would like to get permission to photograph a lovely stained glass window.
I've told more than one person that for me, it was out of the frying pan, into the fire. Please don't suggest any alternatives. I'm too old and in poor health to make any more changes. Had a nice Baptist couple at the door this morning.
There were a lot of very good things in that Methodist Church and could still be. A female pastor baptized my granddaughter who claims to be atheist now. It's little wonder with all the spiritual confusion and chaos afoot in the land.
I wonder what John Wesley would have to say to those church boards who are approving all these behaviors.
What church did you turn to?
I don't think it is necessarily a bad thing at all, as one of the more conservative bishops has stated, right now we are hurting each other and we will continue to hurt each other unless we split.
The conservative churches are the larger portion of the UM Church and if we split we will take most of it with us. More importantly they will no longer be able to promote their policies in the name of all of us.
I think there is also a very good chance that once the split happens they will ultimately fail as a religion. They simply do not have the funds to operate as a separate body.
Finally, a California court decision I agree with. All things are possible again.
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