Posted on 09/10/2007 7:32:00 AM PDT by NYer
BALTIMORE — The Rev. Ann Gordon stood in front of her United Methodist congregation last fall and announced that she was now he.
Surgery and testosterone had transformed Ann into the Rev. Drew Phoenix -- still as liberal and laid-back as always, but now legally male. Most in the small congregation accepted their pastor's transition; they even threw him a renaming party, complete with birthday cake.
But when Phoenix, 48, was reappointed to another year of ministry this spring by his bishop, it sparked a protest in the United Methodist Church.
The denomination's highest authority, the Judicial Council, will take up the case next month, deciding whether the church should accept transgender pastors. The decision will determine Phoenix's future; it could also have political implications. Presiding over the Judicial Council is Dr. James W. Holsinger Jr., President Bush's nominee for surgeon general and a longtime lay leader of the United Methodist church. Democrats have objected to Holsinger in large part because of work he has done for his church over the years.
In 1991, Holsinger wrote a paper for the church describing gay sex as abnormal and unhealthy. On the Judicial Council last year, he supported a pastor who would not permit a gay man to join his congregation. Holsinger has also affirmed the church's stance against openly gay and lesbian clergy.
The Senate has not yet scheduled a vote on Holsinger, though his confirmation hearing was two months ago. He has been asked to answer further questions in writing. In the meantime, Holsinger will handle several Judicial Council cases dealing with sexuality. Most prominent is the question of Phoenix's right to remain in ministry.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
I would have set a world record for exiting that church!
Who would listen to such a person preach on anything?
On the Judicial Council last year, he supported a pastor who would not permit a gay man to join his congregation. Holsinger has also affirmed the church's stance against openly gay and lesbian clergy.
That is not true about Dr. Holsinger.
Dr Holsinger is a member of our highest court and has to rule according to the actual words of our constitutiona and discipline. The discipline says that the pastor is the chief administrative officer of the local church.
Despite what the pastor's bishop wanted to do, the majority agreed that it was the local pastor's call and not the bishop's.
Additionally, our rules say that a homosexual canNOT be ordained in our church. If Holsinger is interpreting our church law, he isn't affirming anything...he's just reporting the words that are actually on the page.
I am fairly certain that Holsinger is a medical person who considers the homosexual act to be detrimental to the actual health of a person. That's his medical opinion.
The death statistics would seem to support him on that one.
I walked by an Episcopal church in my town recently and they had a sign outside saying something like "a welcoming and inclusive congregation".
Aren't they codewords for "perverts welcome"?
Wasn’t this guy in Napoleon Dynamite?
Basically, that is it.
1Co 5:1 On the whole it is reported that there is fornication among you, and such fornication as is not even named among the nations, so as one to have his father’s wife.
1Co 5:2 And you are puffed up, and have not rather mourned, so that he who has done this deed may be taken from your midst.
1Co 5:3 For as being absent in body but present in spirit, I indeed have judged already as though I were present concerning him who worked out this thing;
1Co 5:4 in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, with my spirit; also, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ;
1Co 5:5 to deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, so that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus.
1Co 5:6 Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?
1Co 5:7 Therefore purge out the old leaven so that you may be a new lump, as you are unleavened. For also Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.
1Co 5:8 Therefore let us keep the feast; not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
1Co 5:9 I wrote to you in the letter not to associate intimately with fornicators;
1Co 5:10 yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then you must go out of the world.
1Co 5:11 But now I have written to you not to associate intimately, if any man called a brother and is either a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such a one not to eat.
1Co 5:12 For what is it to me to also judge those who are outside? Do you not judge those who are inside?
1Co 5:13 But God judges those who are outside. Therefore put out from you the evil one.
What a country!
I'm sure that Biff Steele was a close second to Drew Phoenix, followed by Dash Riprock in third, and Major Damage in 4th.
See my post #22.
Our denomination firmly opposes the ordination of homosexuals and is on record saying that “homosexuality is incompatible with Christian teaching.”
For the past 3 decades at our denomination gathering, the historic position of Christianity in these matters has been upheld.
What would you think if I said that all baptists accept homosexual pastors because Jimmy Carter’s church does, and it is baptist? Should all baptists then leave their baptist churches?
We are not a hierarchy. Each geographic region (I’m in the West Ohio) region is pretty much on its own. Every 4 years we gather as a denomination to revise/extend our rules.
Any trial that takes place is within that region, with the juries from that region. After due process, an offender can be kicked out.
We have done that nearly every other year for the past decade. In this case, the “transgender” word does not appear in our rules. That will be corrected at the next denominational meeting in 2008. In the meantime, liberal bishops can say, “we don’t have a rule against it.”
Finally, to answer your question:
I will leave the UMC when the Lord releases me. He will do that, I’m sure at some point when He’s prepared to remove their candlestick.
vaudine
wow this is just the epitomy of how a church that has no belief in the bible, will fall for anything. how do you find your way without a true north?
its amazing. they “celebrate” such insanity with this feel good sentimentality — yet if you were to come against them and oppose it, you would get to see the fangs bared and their true selves emerge.
i think many women can be around people like this but how do real men? what happens in a man’s mind when he encounters the he/she and are you going to leave the rest room when he/she shows up? stunning
Pardon me but was there an organ transplant to complete this...
See #28.
You seem to know little about the United Methodist Church.
As you say, it’s a decision any Church member has to make, with prayers for divine guidance.
I’m a Catholic, and I’m free to admit that there is plenty that has gone wrong in the Catholic Church over the centuries, and that since Vatican II plenty has gone wrong in America. But these departures from orthodoxy and good conduct are individual breaches or seditious movements, and do not represent the position of the Church herself.
As it happens, I was born and bred an Episcopalian. I left that Church a long time ago, because it appeared to me that the Catholic Church was the true Church, but still I was grateful for all that the Episcopal Church had given me during my childhood and youth. If I were an Episcopalian still, however, which thankfully I am not, I don’t see how I could live in such a Church, where the problems are too widespread and come from too high in the hierarchy to be considered mere aberrations by individuals or groups.
When these kinds of problems arise, we all have a duty to decide, with prayer and God’s grace, where our paths should lie. A few bad apples, like this transgendered woman and her misled parishioners, are not definitive; the question is whether the whole Church has gone irrevocably astray and no longer is really Christian.
Gender should be defined by DNA, not modified parts.
Precisely.
The lady has either XX or XY chromosomes....surgery can’t change that.
It’s official: the world’s gone crazy.
Actually the UM is a hierarchy. The individual church reports to the local 'government' which reports to the national 'government.' "Reporting to" includes financial support which flows to the national leadership.
That national leadership doesn't issue a lot of orders to the local 'governments', but they do use money that flows from your church to them for some things I'm quite sure you wouldn't approve of. That was one reason we left the UM church some time ago.
Having said that, it is getting harder and harder to find a mainline denomination that actually sticks with biblical teaching.
I generally agree...but what about this:
http://www.aissg.org/21_OVERVIEW.HTM
AIS is a legit condition where someone is born with XY chromosomes but is outwardly female, feels female, looks female, etc...
Understatement of the New mellenium!
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.