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In a separate vote, Mennonite Church USA also repealed instructions to pastors not to officiate at marriages between people of the same sex.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 Formed in 2002 as a merger between two older denominations, the Mennonite Church USA initially adopted the now-repealed membership guidelines prohibiting pastors from officiating same-sex weddings.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.”
What? How retarded is this?
The Mennonites used to take marriage so seriously that they did not accept divorce-remarried people in fellowship.
The only way a person who was divorced and remarried could join the Mennonite church would be to renounce their remarriage and separate from their new spouse. They could never remarry, until the original spouse died.
It seems they’re not so solemn about marriage anymore.
that means will commit violence against LGBTQ people
We will never hear this from the Amish because everything they do is in old high German and there is no such thing as LGBTQ in old high German.
“Repent and be baptized” these PC idiots need to learn what repent means. They are hanging millstones around each other’s necks.
You see this too? Appears almost everyone on this thread sees it. The Lord is coming and He isn’t a thief for those who watch and have their wicks trimmed. Some of us are ready.
The alarm bells are ringing like crazy
It’s the 11th hour.
🕚🕚🕚🕚🕚🕚🕚
I need to be passing out more tracts here and there.
Hope to buy some more this month Lord willing
They’re half price at Chick during the month of June but you have to buy 1,000.
9 cents each. So $90 plus shipping.
They’re not always perfect but they’re a lot better than the nonsense like this.
(I never thought I would ever see this.)
Same here.
False prophet Barry got many on board with this repeat of the errors of Genesis 19.
“Truth is not determined by majority vote”
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
. . .”I’m nobody special...just a follower of the siren song of the Ison. (Feb 28, A.D. 2016 - Nov 16, A.D. 2016 )
For those not familiar with Byzantine chant, the Ison is a steady, drone-like note, “the floor on which the melody dances”. “
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Q: Contains the song at this link an example of “Ison”?
Песня Николая Бузикевича - Группа Альфа
Благодать Господа нашего Иисуса Христа, и любовь Бога Отца, и общение Святого Духа со всеми вами. Аминь
2 Коринфянам 13:14
English translation:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen
2 Corinthians 13:14
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xV2ea-_ddU&list=PL1NMQ1lHuiRWwkVNj06CVZR4DUH6dW6qo&index=98
The DemonRATS have infested everything in Amerika. We’re just another turd world sewer now.
Those plain straw hats and pretty bonnets....
Who’d a think a thing like that.
Yes I agree. These news articles are worse than anything the Nazis or Stalin Russia ever published.
No one cares about this non issue.
Only those who only care for abortion on demand and de arming us citizens.
.000000001% of the population.
Any religion advocating this is a false organization being bribed with tax funding for their “official support”
Drive around Washington DC and you will see the most left wing pro gay churches. All backed by the democrat establishment and being funded with tax dollars.
Desselbigen gleichen auch die Man haben verlassen den naturlichen brauch des Weibes, vnd sind an einander erhitzet in jren Lüsten, vnd haben Man mit Man schande gewircket, vnd den Lohn jres jrthumbs (wie es denn sein solte) an jnen selbs empfangen.
-Römer 1:27
Regards,
It’s becoming more and more understandable why the Bible calls this an abomination.
Indeed and we know how it ends!! 🙏🙏
They are no longer condemning the act of Sodomy, they are embracing it.
Will they also embrace adultery? This is where the church is at now.
The wheat and chaff are being separated.
Yep. When 37% of PASTORS have a biblical worldview, you know there is a dearth on truth in the pulpits.
There is only one network of real churches standing:
https://www.9marks.org/church-search/
Of the ilk of John MacArthur, Alister Begg, Voddie Baucham, Paul Washer, Mark Devers, Mike McKinley.
And my pastor.
When the Mennonites cave, you know things are REALLY REALLY bad..........
There’s Mennonites and then there are Mennonites. Old order Mennonites are one of the very few groups that still reject birth control within marriage and remarriage after divorce. Old order Mennonites are growing.
Freegards
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