Posted on 06/28/2019 3:37:27 PM PDT by lightman
(RNS) — For the first time in its 134-year history, the Evangelical Covenant Church has voted to remove a congregation from its roster over its position on LGBTQ inclusion.
The vote to expel the First Covenant Church, a prominent and historic Minneapolis congregation, for being “out of harmony on human sexuality,” took place at the denomination’s annual meeting in Omaha on Friday (June 27).
The Minneapolis church has never performed a gay marriage, though a lesbian couple had an off-site wedding performed by its music director in 2014, which produced a series of conversations about its future over the past few years.
Then last year, the denomination suspended its pastor, the Rev. Dan Collison, after First Covenant said it would treat LGBTQ members as equals, allow married gay clergy and would be open to hosting same-sex marriages.
Both Collison and the church decided to defy the suspension, and he refused to accept the “care and discipline” of the denomination’s board of ministry. Instead the church kept his as pastor.
For the denomination, this was a step too far.
Three-quarters of the more than 1,000 delegates to the meeting voted to remove the church from the denomination, which includes 875 U.S. churches with about 300,000 members. A vote on whether to expel its pastor was pending; a retired pastor was expelled yesterday.
“I’m deeply saddened this ecclesial body doesn’t make room for openly LGBT individuals, other than to say you’re welcome but we won’t treat you equally,” said Collison. “Ultimately, it becomes a question of what is love about and what is inclusion about. It breaks my heart.”
Though far smaller than the United Methodist Church, which this year doubled-down on its ban on LGBTQ ordination and marriage, the ECC vote signals just how divisive the issue of sexuality remains in some Protestant circles. While many denominations, including the Episcopal Church, the Presbyterian Church USA and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America have opened their ranks to LGBTQ clergy and marriage, many others have not.
First Covenant Church Minneapolis, a 145-year-old congregation whose church building occupies nearly an entire city block, is known for its outreach to the community. Its ministries include a shelter for homeless people and a childcare center. The church is now building a $42 million affordable housing project.
Collison, who has been pastor for 10 years, said the church has about six members who identify as LGBTQ and another dozen who attend but haven’t formally joined. Most of its members might be considered LGBTQ allies.
The ECC’s position on human sexuality states that heterosexual marriage, faithfulness within marriage and abstinence outside of marriage constitute the Christian standard.
“There is now a movement seeking to subvert the historic trust we have placed in the discernment of the Annual Meeting by refusing to live in harmony with our communally discerned position,” ECC President John Wenrich wrote Friday in a letter to denomination members.
“If these groups are successful in such efforts, we will continue to devote time, energy, and resources to conversations we have held now for more than 20 years, diverting our focus away from topics such as immigration, mass incarceration, justice and evangelism—matters that have never needed the presence of the faithful more than they do now.”
In addition to Collison, the denomination voted on Thursday (June 27) to suspend the credentials of the Rev. Steve Armfield, a retired pastor who officiated at the wedding of his son to another man, and later officiated at a lesbian wedding. Armfield is now serving as an interim pastor in another denomination.
Founded in 1885 by Swedish immigrants, the denomination defines itself as “evangelical, but not exclusive; biblical, but not doctrinaire; traditional, but not rigid.”
But on the issue of gay rights, the denomination drew a line. “They’re building a wall around it that they’re trying to make impenetrable,” Collison said.
The Minneapolis church has begun a new association to support churches experiencing denominational hostility and assist them in becoming more inclusive. It calls the group the Covenant Collective.
Might take a while.
Ok, that’s valid. I’ll rephrase to teaching children heh.
BTW; my wife is a SS teacher.
K - 1st grade
‘Tis like herding cats.
According to Paul; Timothy’s mom and gramma seemed to do a good job.
It's putting words in another's mouth.
this shows how stupid religious people are,
Collison makes the usual error of confusing a welcoming attitude with acceptance of sin. Any church can be 100% welcoming to homosexuals, adulterers, drunkards, etc. WITHOUT accepting their sins or giving them prominent positions within the church.
How hard can it be for people to get that?
Gay as a goose
************
Never in my life heard that expression. Had to go look it up.
Then found a lot more......
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=as%20a%20goose
The ceremony was the second same-sex wedding at West Point. Last weekend, two of Fulton's friends, a young lieutenant and her partner, were married in another campus landmark, the small Old Cadet Chapel in West Point's cemetery.
Fulton has campaigned against the ban on gays in the military as a member of two groups representing gay and lesbian servicemen and servicewomen. She graduated from West Point in 1980, a member of the first class to include women.
She served with the Army Signal Corps in Germany and rose to the rank of captain, but left the service in 1986 partly because she wanted to be open about her sexual orientation. Obama appointed her last year to the U.S. Military Academy's Board of Visitors.
Fulton said the only hassle involved in arranging her ceremony came when she was initially told that none of West Point's chaplains was authorized by his or her denomination to perform same-sex weddings.
Luckily, Fulton said, they were able to call on a friend, Army Chaplain Col. J. Wesley Smith. He is the senior Army chaplain at Dover Air Force Base, where he presides over the solemn ceremonies held when the bodies of soldiers killed in action overseas return to U.S. soil.
If we aren’t concerned with accuracy; then anything can slip by as fact.
I don’t know what you are talking about, I guess you are not too busy to explain
I do not even know how to make a quote mark so maybe you need to clue me in.
Timothy’s mom and gramma taught kids?
But I do understand that you don’t know or don’t care enough about
God’s word to defend sodomy in the churches so you are turning to
remarks that I can not possibly understand.
Also since my comment was not to you it also makes you a bushwacker,
you are welcome to disagree with me but do not make it personal and
since it appears you are much smarter than I am then you should be
able to come up with one scripture that would welcome sodomites
into the church if you really believe they should be there.
really?
It appears that way..
2 Timothy 1:5
When I call to remembrance the unfeigned faith that is in thee, which dwelt first in thy grandmother Lois, and thy mother Eunice; and I am persuaded that in thee also.
Yes really, I made no quotation marks.
Am I crazy or have you been at the grape juice too long?.
So many folks claiming what the bible says about the subject; without ever POSTING what the bible says about the subject.
.......................................
Well and truly said, and every word of it!
My church’s elders studied the practical results of female pastors in other churches: men either fell in love with them or hated them.
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