Posted on 03/23/2015 5:09:53 AM PDT by Gamecock
Click the pic to the full-text Free Republic thread.
Is there a direct correlation between denominations that ordain women and ones that ultimately embrace homosexuality?
Love the sinner. Hate the sin.
Pray for both the sinner and the enabler.
They ask the question "Did God really say...
These groups look at the Scriptural mandates as cultural, of a less enlightened time. They accuse Paul of being a misogynist. "We live in a more enlightened time!" they will tell you. Once they chip away at the foundation of Scripture the whole of Scripture is suspect.
They ask the question "Did God really say...
These groups look at the Scriptural mandates as cultural, of a less enlightened time. They accuse Paul of being a misogynist. "We live in a more enlightened time!" they will tell you. Once they chip away at the foundation of Scripture the whole of Scripture is suspect.
“The congregations leaving the PCUSA today are not joining the PCA. They are joining the newly-formed Evangelical Covenant Order (a name that must have been invented by Tom Cruise and John Travolta) or the Evangelical Presbyterian Church both of which are to the left of the PCA.”
A lot of PCUSA congregations, even those that can’t stand the leftward lurch, are mostly run by women. Women are not leaders in the PCA. If a congregation leaves the PCUSA for the PCA, their female elders and deacons could no longer hold those positions, unless there is some sort of exception for entire congregations moving over.
And then He arose from the dead. I'd say that is culturally powerful.
Happy Easter!
You aren't reading the papers much, are you? ;-)
False prophets have been a problem since the beginning of time.
One thing that I find interesting and perhaps important is that the Presbyterians and nearly all other protestant churches consider only baptism and communion to be Sacraments. So from a Catholic, Orthodox, and maybe even Episcopal perspective, I see the importance of strictly defining marriage. But if marriage is not a sacrament, then it seems to me that perhaps it is part of a more flexible cultural tradition for Presbyterians, Methodists, Baptists, and others who adhere to the two Sacrament view.
Obviously, the question of sin is separate and apart from the question of whether marriage is a sacrament. But, I am firmly in need of as much reconciliation and grace as God will provide to someone as unworthy as myself. So, I’m pretty cautious about casting stones.
If you have a good handle on the big picture of protestant theological thought, I would really appreciate an explanation of whether the sacrament designation matters. And, how one is to compare one sinner as against another (for I am certainly a sinner).
THY KINGDOM COME!
Through high school in KS, I had several friends and neighbors who attended the local Presbyterian Church and it was a fairly large congregation. I still stay in touch with one via Facebook and her postings show her to be very active in her congregation. This news just makes me feel sad for her as her mom was a very staunch member, even living in a Presbyterian old-age home until her passing. My friend lives in KS and doesn’t even have a PCA option as there are none of those in KS.
There a few in Wichita and Manhattan.
There a more than a few Evangelical Presbyterian churches, not as conservative as I prefer, but certainly better than the PC(USA).
What killed PCUSA wasn’t ordaining women per se because congregations could just ignore it. Making women’s ordination mandatory was the death knell. My MIL left the church over it.
There are ways around sanctioning same sex marriage. You have to tell them the truth
What we need to be concerned about is how much longer the Bible may have any kind of relevance whatsoever over the policies of our mainstay denominations.
I don't know whether this will help answer your question, but consider that the Catholic Church teaches that Sacramental Marriage builds on natural marriage. So it didn't acquire it's "definition" when it was elevated to sacramental dignity (in the sense of a specific ritual content); it has always had its basic definition, which is knowable to natural reason.
Cardinal Carlo Caffara, one of the 5 traditionalist or "anti-Kasper" cardinals who wrote that famous book, makes this essential point:
Link to SOURCE, about 2/5 of he way down the page.
"The first dimension of the anthropological question is the following: it is well known that according to Catholic teaching the sacrament of marriage coincides with natural marriage. I think that there can no longer be any theological doubt about the coinciding of the two... "Now what the Church meant and means by “natural marriage” has been demolished in contemporary culture. If I may put it this way, the “matter” has been removed from the sacrament of marriage. "Theologians, canonists, and pastors are rightly asking about the faith-sacrament relationship of marriage. But there is a more radical problem. Those who are asking for sacramental marriage, are they capable of natural marriage? Has there been such devastation, not of their faith but of their humanity, that they are no longer capable of marriage?" |
This is stunning. Caffara says that we are not only losing our marital "sacramentality," we are losing our humanity. The human, natural aspect of marriage has been eroded right out of the culture.
I checked the PCA website and they didn’t show anything in the state of KS. I doubt my friend would move since females in the pulpit haven’t been an issue for her that I’m aware of so I’d say she has a strong tolerance for liberality. I’m sure her being a music teacher is a factor, too. I just know she would have to admit the difference from when we were growing up to now.
I grew up in the PC(USA). In 1995 I went to a PCA church and was shocked that the pastor was preaching straight from Scripture. “What is this strange talk?” I asked myself.
We came to realize that the PC(USA) had jumped the shark decades earlier and have been hanging in conservative Reformed circles ever since.
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