Posted on 06/03/2022 7:37:43 PM PDT by Ennis85
The governing body of the largest Mennonite denomination in the United States passed a resolution on Sunday (May 29) confessing to “committing violence against LGBTQ people” and committing to LGBTQ inclusion.
In a separate vote, Mennonite Church USA also repealed instructions to pastors not to officiate at marriages between people of the same sex. The denomination’s official confession, which views marriage as between a man and a woman, remains unchanged.
Nearly 83% of the delegates meeting at a special assembly in Kansas City, Missouri, voted in favor of repealing the guidelines barring marriage for same-sex couples, while the resolution for LGBTQ inclusion passed by a narrower margin, with 55.7% in favor.
“Excluding LGBTQIA people from the church is a rejection of God’s joyous delight in the diversity of creation and a denial of the Divine image and breath animating all humankind,” the Resolution for Repentance and Transformation reads.
The resolution commits the denomination to forming an LGBTQ constituency group, creating denominational resources on repentance and reconciliation for local congregations and honoring LGBTQ people in future theological statements.
The Mennonite Church USA traces its roots to 16th century Anabaptists and, like other Anabaptist groups, is known for its beliefs in adult baptism and pacifism. Today, the group has approximately 62,000 members and 530 congregations organized into 16 conferences. Formed in 2002 as a merger between two older denominations, the Mennonite Church USA initially adopted the now-repealed membership guidelines prohibiting pastors from officiating same-sex weddings. This was done as a compromise in a dispute about whether to exclude LGBTQ individuals from congregational membership, according to ordained Mennonite pastor and Ph.D. student Isaac Villegas.
“That compromise decision began this pattern of harm against LGBTQ people, because they became bargaining chips for the unity of the denomination,” said Villegas, a Mennonite pastor who resigned from the church’s executive board in 2016 after he conducted same-sex weddings.
In November 2015, the denomination’s largest and most traditional conference, the Lancaster Mennonite Conference, voted to remove its 179 churches from the Mennonite Church USA over concerns the denomination was weakening its stance on traditional marriage. Individual conferences have supported the ordination of LGBTQ ministers and supported same-sex weddings in recent years.
The Mennonite Church USA’s horizontal structure means that in practice the denomination holds little more than symbolic authority over individual conferences. So while the membership guidelines prevented pastors from performing same-sex weddings in theory, conferences implemented (or ignored) those guidelines however they saw fit.
The denomination’s structure also allows it to hold policies that are apparently contradictory. Officially, the confession of faith affirms marriage as being a covenant between a man and a woman, though the new resolution implicitly expands that definition.
“Mennonites have a tendency to stack confessions,” said Glen Guyton, the denomination’s executive director. “So we don’t necessarily get rid of one or revise them. We create new ones that reflect who we are at a certain period of time.”
Guyton added that some of the actions included in the latest resolution had already been addressed by the denomination’s executive board in 2020, and he said that like other policies adopted at the national level, it won’t be enforceable at the congregational or conference level.
“This action, and I say this carefully, is more symbolic in some ways than it is indicative of actual changes that are going to happen at the congregational or conference level,” said Guyton. “But it is a big symbol, I think, for many.”
At the weekend assembly, a number of delegates expressed concern that the resolution would stoke division, rather than healing. “We need both the traditional and the progressive. We cannot do this work if we don’t have both,” said Dwight McFadden of Millersburg Mennonite Church in Ohio, according to Anabaptist World. “I don’t feel like this is the third way that we are known for.”
But according to Villegas, while the implications of the resolution will still need to be worked out on the local level, the message it sends is loud and clear. “As a national denomination, we now say that we are a pro-LGBTQ denomination. That is our position.”
(and committing to LGBTQ inclusion)
The emerging church(es) turning to Laodicean are indicating that the rest of the Book of Revelation is coming too.
🛐🙏✝️
Maybe they can build them bath houses.
🔝🔝🔝
This Mennonite group has been moving this way for decades. I doubt that they even vaguely resemble the Mennonites of two generations ago.
Truth is not determined by majority vote
(Remember: The "majority" said "Give us Barabbas!")
(Nearly 83% of the delegates meeting at a special assembly in Kansas City, Missouri, voted in favor of repealing the guidelines barring marriage for same-sex couples, while the resolution for LGBTQ inclusion passed by a narrower margin, with 55.7% in favor.)
I hired you people to get a little track laid.
NOT to jump around like a bunch of ...
In all seriousness, this is yet another bad omen.
Pun ABSOLUTELY intended.
Keep praying 🙏 and keep looking up.
Well at least they make things a lot easier by declaring themselves. No ambiguity for the choice to stay or go.
NOT “all”.
The Orthodox Church has stood firm against abortion, willy-nilly divorce, and the gaysbian agenda.
(Hard to believe)
Another sign of the times.
Luke 17:28-32
King James Version
28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
32 Remember Lot’s wife.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2017%3A28-32&version=KJV
Would Piss Trans be art?
Ah! That’s the quote I was trying to remember!
As has the perennial teaching of the Catholic Church, although in our day many individual priests, bishops and even the current Pope have lost their way.
In southern Indiana Mennonites are referred to as Amish trailer trash.
Another Church who is creating God in their own image- that doesn’t fly with God-
Time for all good Mennonites to give up driving and go full Amish.
“committing violence against LGBTQ people”
We must had missed reports of those beatings of gays at the hands of Mennonites. Did they toss them off buildings?
Oh dang, I’m showing my bigotry again...those were followers of the “Religion of Peace”. We must be tolerant, mustn’t we? Wait, tolerant to whom? I’m all confused.
My Mennonite ancestors are probably revolving in their graves.
Even the Black Bumper Mennonites?
I saw a great quote on Gab:
Some people excuse their sin by claiming they were born ‘that way.’ This is why Jesus said, “You must be born again.”
O Jebediah
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