Posted on 02/12/2006 7:14:29 AM PST by Dane
Same-sex marriage endorsement splits UCC churches
TOLEDO, Ohio
Among the largest Christian denominations, the United Church of Christ is the lone supporter of same-sex marriage. It's a move that's dividing its congregations.
The Reverend Stephen Camp is the administrator of the church's Southern Conference, which includes North Carolina and eastern Virginia. He says the endorsement has caused people to really think hard about their faith
And some U-C-C churches have stopped sending money to the national office since its endorsement of same-sex marriage.
The Pilgrim U-C-C in Cleveland has ended its 45-year affiliation with the denomination.
The Cleveland church has long supported gays and lesbians and became the first major Christian church to ordain an openly gay minister in 1972.
But some congregations were angered by a U-C-C ad campaign reaching out to gays. Pastor Lawrence Cameron in Cleveland says the support for same-sex marriage isn't what the church should be preaching.
Of course there is no "media bias' according to the DUmmies and the democrat party.
Also notice how the AP stated that the UCC, is one of the "largest" Christian denominations, when it isn't.
It's not actually Christian, if you get my drift.
"He says the endorsement has caused people to really think hard about their faith..."
Really?
It wouldn't make me think real hard about my faith if my church endorsed homosexuality.
I think real hard about my faith anyway, but such an event would make me think real hard about my *church* and its policies.
Since the Bible says homosexuality, like any other form of sexual perversion, is wrong, and the church is endorsing it, I would have to believe that the church has ulterior motives for accepting it.
You can say something is wrong, and still embrace the people who practice it. But you should embrace them and call upon them to stop. Not endorse their behavior.
From the looks of things, it isn't even a Christian denomination (though I am sure there are Christians in it).
It is not transferrable to the synod.
It used to be. But like all liberal denomiations, it is withering away. In the case of UCC, particularly fast.
It almost seems like a strategy. the Gays infiltrate a church, take over leadership positions, and then destroy it from within.
I think the UCC, like the ECUSA, think approval of the gay lifestyle pseudomorally, in contradiction to 4,000 years of Judeo-Christian teaching, will revive their declining congregations. It may, but only for a short time. Moral fashionability wears out quickly, replaced soon with laziness; members attracted by such support soon drift off into venues stil more fashionable and easier, until they are back where they were: churchless, and their own moral authority, having no reference and no true teaching authority.
Some churches would apparently endorse cannibalism if it brought them any money or power.
It is a nasty mess now. Those whose theology is about where the Congregational Church was 50 years ago have no place to go if they can't stand the steady theological and political march to the left.
I agree.
> It is a nasty mess now. Those whose theology is about where the Congregational Church was 50 years ago have no place to go if they can't stand the steady theological and political march to the left.
Make mine about 80 years ago.
The wonderful thing about Congregationalism is that in a church of 200, there are 200 different opinions about a matter, and it's up to the deacons to find a consensus. However, when a pastor arrives with a politically and socially radical agenda, it takes about two or three years before it's like it or leave it. So, half the church leaves, and the pinkos who are left are scratching their heads wondering why they can't get anyone to come to their "welcoming" church.
Once people stop teaching the word of God and Christ, they cease to be Christian. They have become tools of the devil. We have all sinned and fallen short, but out and out disobedience is reprehensible.
One for the list?
These are sure some scary times we live in today.
You've got it about right. The problem is that there isn't any place to go: most of the other even mainline churches have too much dogma for a Congo (even if he or she agrees personally) to stomach and most of them are almost as far left politically. The evangelical/fundamentalist churches are not an option (I don't think I've ever met a Congo who thought every jot and title of the Authorized Version was literally true) and Rome is as unacceptable now as it was in the 16th century....
"Since the Bible says homosexuality, like any other form of sexual perversion, is wrong, and the church is endorsing it"
But... but... I thought the Bible was a living breathing document. sarc/
> Funny, your use of the term "Congo" actually conjures up tribal African bushmen...but I know what you really mean anyway ;)
Actually, we do a Congo line during the "Passing of the Peace." ;-)
> What strikes me as most bizarre about the whole UCC/Congregationalist apostasy is...are these churches not the direct successors of those founded by our stalwart, Bible-believing Puritan ancestors?
Yes, and the Puritan fathers are surely rolling over in their graves.
> How in the heck does an association of Christian disciples go from Cotton Mather and Jonathan Edwards to the ilk of the "Reverend" Barry Lynn?!
It may have started with such seemingly innocuous advice from the national/state conference as, "How to attract more worshippers by making church more relevant." But it was all over when the churches started following orders from the UCC hierarchy rather than from debate and guidance originating from within the congregation.
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