Posted on 02/28/2005 2:35:59 PM PST by siunevada
As a Pentecostal pastor and gay, the Rev. Douglas Clanton doesn’t blink when he says, "We absolutely believe the Bible is inerrant."
He sees no conflict with that statement and being gay. "They say it like saying you are Republican and gay, which I happen to be also," said Clanton, who is pastor of the Reconciling Pentecostal Assembly in Scottsdale and the co-founder of Reconciling Pentecostals International (www.rpifellowship.com), which recently held its fourth annual conference in Scottsdale.
Some suggest to the 41-yearold minister that it’s an oxymoron to declare oneself a "Pentecostal homosexual" given the 100-year-old conservative "Holiness" movement’s uncompromising teachings against homosexuality as sin. But Clanton said when he came to terms with being gay, he wasn’t about to dump his deeply held Pentecostal faith. He believes he and the 500 associated with member congregations are living in the spirit of Christ’s teachings and love. He argues that a "misinterpretation of Scripture" has led to the condemnation of homosexuality.
"We are all from Pentecostal background, and we say we happen to be gay — we are not a gay organization," said Clanton, who earned a degree in theology from Christian Life College in Stockton, Calif., a prime training center for United Pentecostal ministers. The third-generation Pentecostal pastor became a church evangelist at 25 and has been a music director. He and four others began meeting in 1999 and founded Reconciling Pentecostal International the next year. It has 23 licensed pastors. One of them is his mother, the Rev. Gloria Morgan, who is also one of five presbyters on the board and the associate pastor of his Scottsdale church.
"I certainly preached against homosexuality throughout my ministry because it was what we are spoon-fed, especially in the Pentecostal faith," said Clanton, president and chief presiding presbyter. "But once you back away from thinking that you know everything, you’ve taken the first step."
"We are not like a lot of organizations that want to force what we believe down anyone’s throat," he said. "We respect other Christians, even the ones who condemn us. We are not ones who get up in the pulpit and harp on the Christian right." Fellowships also include straight Pentecostals who choose to be part of what Reconciling Pentecostal International is doing, Clanton said.
Pentecostalism is known for its emphasis on the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" and "gifts of the spirit," like speaking in tongues, faith healing and prophesying. It’s also known for its charismatic and ecstatic worship services. United Pentecostals are part of about 24 million American Pentecostals who also include the Assemblies of God, Full Gospel Baptist Fellowships, Vineyard churches and the Church of God in Christ.
"RPI constituents believe in the absolute deity of Jesus Christ and consider the Bible as the final authority for faith and practice," Clanton said. "We are unique because we believe that when Jesus said to preach the gospel to every creature, it means we have no right to discriminate against anyone, according to race, gender, nationality, political persuasion, economic standing or sexual orientation."
The Rev. David Abbott, who has been pastor of Landmark Pentecostal Church in Scottsdale for 24 years and is a graduate of the same college as Clanton, said he was unaware of Clanton’s congregation, which was founded in 2001 and meets 2 p.m. Sundays at Scottsdale Congregational (United Church of Christ), 4425 N. Granite Reef Road. "We believe that homosexuality is a moral sin and an abomination unto the Lord as taught all the way back to Leviticus (18:22) and retaught in Romans Chapter 1 (18-32)," Abbott said.
Abbott said that in his 34 years of ministry in the United Pentecostal Church, "there has never been a discussion in the church at large" about homosexuality. "It is, by and large, a wellaccepted doctrine that we do not tolerate it. We don’t hate homosexuals, and we certainly wouldn’t try to do harm to homosexuals, but we do not believe that homosexuality and Christianity mix."
That hard-line stance, Clanton said, has kept many Pentecostal gays in the closet. "I was one for so many years," he said. The commonly quoted Scriptures that some say are proof positive that homosexuality is wrong are what Clanton calls the "clobber passages."
"We believe there is not one word in the Bible, when interpreted correctly, within the context of Scripture, that condemns homosexuals and that the Bible simply does not reject people based on sexuality," Clanton said. As for Leviticus 18:22: "Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: It is an abomination," Clanton said. "If you get into the Hebrew, there are arguments that can be made that it is not speaking about homosexuals, that it is speaking about people who were involved in idolatry and those who were involved in sexual activities that were an offering to other gods. . . . That is what is being condemned."
The Rev. Debbie Cummins is pastor of a Reconciling Pentecostal International congregation in Odessa, Texas, with about 15 people.
"A lot of our churches are like home mission work, so most are founded from the ground up," she said. "We do a lot of advertising, and we try to make ourselves as visible as we can. It is more difficult in areas like where I am where the gay community, as a whole, is real closeted.
"We want to embrace other Pentecostal people if they want to embrace us," she said. "They are so oppressed to start with that they are gay. . . . We want our people to come to a place not only that they can be saved and live for God, but that they can actually celebrate the fact that we are gay and Christian both and that that is OK with God."
Clanton added: "It is not my main concern to change the United Pentecostal Church. I respect them, I love my brothers and sisters who are still in that faith, and we will spend eternity together. They will be surprised by that."
Contact Lawn Griffiths by email, or phone (480) 898-6522
Okay. This must be news to several thousand years' worth of Hebrew scholars.
I would dare say it is one of the manifestions of post-modern extestialist apostasy in the church today.
Being a biblically orthodox Christian and supporting welfare state provisions and guilt-ridden pacifist ethnic, foreign and defence policies? Yes, although I would say they have misguided. But supporting homosexuality? A big no no.
Say what?
"We are not like a lot of organizations that want to force what we believe down anyone’s throat," he said.Poor choice of words ...
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