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Ann Gordon/Drew Phoenix
Posted on 05/28/2007 11:43:56 AM PDT by Zakeet
A United Methodist minister in Baltimore informed the Baltimore-Washington Conference of the United Methodist Church of a name change, along with a change of gender. The former Rev. Ann Gordon now reportedly adopted a male identity as Rev. Drew Phoenix.
The issue will be discussed Thursday at a closed session during the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church in Washington, D.C. The minister's name change is already reflected on her church's website, www.stjohnsbaltimore.org, Christian Newswire reported Tuesday.
In 2002, the Baltimore-Washington Conference had a similar controversy, when Rev. Richard Zimostny had a sex change operation and became Rebecca Steen. That minister's request to return to the active pastorate was ultimately sidetracked and Zimostny/Steen left the ministry.
The United Methodist Church has no explicitly stated, official policies regarding sexual identity changes or sex change operations, but does officially disapprove of homosexual behavior. Rev. Phoenix' congregation supports the "Reconciling" movement within United Methodism, which campaigns to overturn the church's official teachings on marriage and sexual ethics.
Institute for Religion and Democracy Director of UMAction Mark Tooley commented, "Christianity, in contrast to gnosticism and much of current popular culture in America, rejects the suggestion that sexual identity is merely a state of mind or a preference. Gender and physicality, in Christian and Jewish teaching, are intrinsically linked to God's order of creation, as first described in Genesis. The God whom we worship knew us as male or female before He created us. Gender is not a choice but a reality.
"Someone struggling with sexual identity issues needs the ministry and guidance of the church. But the church would be wrong to bless a so-called sexual identity change, with or without surgery."
Mine would be Smoky Elm. Hey, I kinda like that!
Peter Warpath.
ok. I cheated. Peter is current pet's name. But, I grew up on Warpath Drive.
Ann Gordon/Drew Phoenix
Ewww, s/he looks a little like Andy Dick (no pun intended).
Mine would be ‘Brown Utah’ ... but then I wouldn’t be in porn anyway.
Rev. Drew Phoenix.Flag Number Two.
Okay, a United Methodist Transsexual walks into the afterlife, and St. Pete says..."No, I'm sorry, but there's no 'Drew Phoenix' written here in the Book of Life, sir. But you can catch the subway right here in about two minutes. Careful, it's very hot."
Seriously, changing a last name say "I despise the family I came from and renounce it." My former (now ex, thankfully) sister-in-law, the militant Liberal feminist that ran out on my brother by sleeping with the top lawyer at a law firm where she was studying divorce law while my brother paid her tab like he paid for everything else in her self-worshiping, nonproductive existence, so despised her father that she changed her last name from Davis to "Lavoisier", a famous French woman chemist. If she was changing her entire name, I suspect a LOT more issues under the surface. (Probably legions of ones, if you know what I mean.)
Once again, in footsteps of the Serpant, we are SO much smarter than the God who made us all. Hubris! Bah!
Mine is Phoebe Fulton; wow, I really like mine!
These stories get stranger and stranger!
What is true is that this minister does not have a true calling to be a minister. Therefore, they must be removed. That won’t take place, because their denomination (my own) is in chaos.
It is also true that any priest who begins abusing boys or girls should never have become a priest in the first place, and additionally, without a true calling from God, they NEVER would have kept any celibacy vow that they mouthed with their lips.
In that sense, the life of laity would have been better for them. That life would have provided for a legal sexual outlet, although for paedophiles, marriage is no hindrance.
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